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I went back through my pictures from a photo shoot I did a while ago at a medieval castle in Beersel that’s only a stone’s throw away from home (don’t know why I waited 46 years to get pictures of that AMAZING place)…

 

There’s a torture chamber that’s not easy to find in the myriad of stairways and turret rooms that looked like it would suit, so I asked my skeleton buddy (bought him at Costco in Montreal for $40 and took him back to Belgium on the plane !!) what he thought of the idea and he just dropped his jaw and said “far-fukkin’-OUT!!”

 

So we did some shots outside on the patio and in the bedroom in different positions so I’d have options for positioning him in the montage. He was pretty cooperative but got a bit pissy when I told him he wouldn’t get paid. I just told him there was no budget and that seemed to shut him up…

 

At first I didn’t have a clear idea of what the finished image would be, though the scenario started to evolved as I tried different set ups. Fact is, when I visited that eerie chamber, it was hard not to imagine and actually feel the anguish of torture and executions that happened there in ages past. So I went with that and added some extra elements (like the sword and bondage rings on the walls) to reinforce the story line.

 

But there was something missing… maybe bats flying round overhead? Of course they needed to be skeletal too, so I searched Google for royalty free bat skeleton images and was totally blown away to find so many to choose from !!

It took absolute ages to isolate all the bones (and that goes for the big guy as well) from the background images and to position everything and balance the lighting of all the elements. But in the end, and in my own distorted and characteristically bent way, I felt it was worth it.

I don’t know how many it’s ultimately gonna appeal to, but it’s my heart felt tribute to my favorite event of the year… Halloween :-)

FAMOUS HEADS THAT ROLLED AT THE TOWER

 

Execution inside the Tower was a privilege reserved for those of high rank, or for those who had dangerously strong popular support, to keep them away from the gawping crowds. Ten people were beheaded on Tower Green which stretches to the west of the White Tower.

 

THE BEHEADED QUEENS

 

The most well known among those executed on or near Tower Green were three former queens of England. Two of those queens were wives of Henry VIII.

 

Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, was in her early 30s and Catherine Howard, Henry's fifth wife, was barely in her 20s. Both were accused of adultery, but neither may have been guilty.

 

The third queen to meet her end within the Tower was 16-year-old Lady Jane Grey. She was on the throne for just nine days, and was the innocent pawn in a failed military coup by her father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland.

 

EXPERT AND BLUNDERING EXECUTIONS

 

Anne Boleyn was executed by the clean stroke of an expert swordsman shipped in from France especially for the occasion. On the day of her execution, she enquired, 'I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck.'

 

By contrast, Margaret Pole who was another victim of the axe was said to be much less lucky in her final moments. A blundering executioner was said to have ‘hacked her head and shoulders to pieces’.

 

THE EXECUTION SITE MEMORIAL

 

Today, at the very site of these executions on Tower Green you can see a memorial sculpture and quote dedicated to those who were condemned to death by order of the state.

The blue door on the right marks the old execution shed where prisoners were hanged

Landscape Composition; New Rochelle, New York; (c) Diana Lee Photo Designs

WARNING - SOME PEOPLE MAY FIND THE FOLLOWING TEXT UPSETTING.

 

This is a real (although, happily, now disused) execution chamber. It is in the Crumlin Road prison in Northern Ireland. The whole prison is now superseded and instead is a tourist attraction. The procedures for an execution brought to condemned man to a holding cell for a few days, where he could do the best he could to prepare himself. He was told that the execution chamber was in another part of the prison and he expected to eventually walk to it. But in reality it was behind a dummy cupboard which, at the appointed time, was crashed to one side to reveal the sight you see here. He was then marched forward and dealt with. The practised team took less then half a minute to complete the task. 17 criminals died here.

 

I expected to see a central noose (the loop of rope above it was tied to pull apart as the man fell, part of the "long drop" technique that Britain developed, designed to kill "instantly" instead of strangle). The length of rope was dependent on the prisoner's weight; the lighter the man, the longer the rope. What I didn't expect were the two side nooses. These are straps to hold on to (much as you get of trains and trams). Two officers stood either side of the condemned man and stopped him hopping about or collapsing. When the trapdoor crashed open (and the release of the safety lock and trapdoor is terrifyingly sudden and noisy) they obviously didn't want the officers to also fall into the hole.

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a museum chronicling the Cambodian genocide. Located in Phnom Penh, the site is a former secondary school which was used as Security Prison 21 (S-21; Khmer: មន្ទីរស-២១) by the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 until its fall in 1979. From 1976 to 1979, an estimated 20,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng and it was one of between 150 and 196 torture and execution centers established by the Khmer Rouge. On 26 July 2010, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia convicted the prison's chief, Kang Kek Iew, for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. He died on 2 September 2020 while serving a life sentence.

 

To accommodate the victims of purges that were important enough for the attention of the Khmer Rouge, a new detention center was planned in the building that was formerly known as Tuol Svay Prey High School, named after a royal ancestor of King Norodom Sihanouk, the five buildings of the complex were converted in March or April 1976 into a prison and an interrogation center. Before, other buildings in town were used already as prison S-21. The Khmer Rouge renamed the complex "Security Prison 21" (S-21) and construction began to adapt the prison for the inmates: the buildings were enclosed in electrified barbed wire, the classrooms converted into tiny prison and torture chambers, and all windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent escapes and suicides.

 

From 1976 to 1979, an estimated 20,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng (the real number is unknown). At any one time, the prison held between 1,000 and 1,500 prisoners. They were repeatedly tortured and coerced into naming family members and close associates, who were in turn arrested, tortured and killed. In the early months of S-21's existence, most of the victims were from the previous Lon Nol regime and included soldiers, government officials, as well as academics, doctors, teachers, students, factory workers, monks, engineers, etc. Later, the party leadership's paranoia turned on its own ranks and purges throughout the country saw thousands of party activists and their families brought to Tuol Sleng and murdered. Those arrested included some of the highest ranking politicians such as Khoy Thoun, Vorn Vet and Hu Nim. Although the official reason for their arrest was "espionage", these men may have been viewed by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot as potential leaders of a coup against him. Prisoners' families were sometimes brought en masse to be interrogated and later executed at the Choeung Ek extermination center.

 

In 1979, the prison was uncovered by the invading Vietnamese army. At some point between 1979 and 1980 the prison was reopened by the government of the People's Republic of Kampuchea as a historical museum memorializing the actions of the Khmer Rouge regime.

 

Upon arrival at the prison, prisoners were photographed and required to give detailed autobiographies, beginning with their childhood and ending with their arrest. After that, they were forced to strip to their underwear, and their possessions were confiscated. The prisoners were then taken to their cells. Those taken to the smaller cells were shackled to the walls or the concrete floor. Those who were held in the large mass cells were collectively shackled to long pieces of iron bar. The shackles were fixed to alternating bars; the prisoners slept with their heads in opposite directions. They slept on the floor without mats, mosquito nets, or blankets. They were forbidden to talk to each other.

 

The day began in the prison at 4:30 a.m. when prisoners were ordered to strip for inspection. The guards checked to see if the shackles were loose or if the prisoners had hidden objects they could use to commit suicide. Over the years, several prisoners managed to kill themselves, so the guards were very careful in checking the shackles and cells. The prisoners received four small spoonfuls of rice porridge and a watery soup of leaves twice a day. Drinking water without asking the guards for permission resulted in serious beatings. The inmates were hosed down every four days.

 

The prison had very strict regulations, and severe beatings were inflicted upon any prisoner who disobeyed. Almost every action had to be approved by one of the prison's guards. The prisoners were sometimes forced to eat human feces and drink human urine. The unhygienic living conditions in the prison caused skin diseases, lice, rashes, ringworm and other ailments. The prison's medical staff were untrained and offered treatment only to sustain prisoners' lives after they had been injured during interrogation. When prisoners were taken from one place to another for interrogation, they were blindfolded. Guards and prisoners were not allowed to converse. Moreover, within the prison, people who were in different groups were not allowed to have contact with one another.[5]

 

Most prisoners at S-21 were held there for two to three months. However, several high-ranking Khmer Rouge cadres were held longer. Within two or three days after they were brought to S-21, all prisoners were taken for interrogation. The torture system at Tuol Sleng was designed to make prisoners confess to whatever crimes they were charged with by their captors. Prisoners were routinely beaten and tortured with electric shocks, searing hot metal instruments and hanging, as well as through the use of various other devices. Some prisoners were cut with knives or suffocated with plastic bags. Other methods for generating confessions included pulling out fingernails while pouring alcohol on the wounds, holding prisoners' heads under water, and the use of the waterboarding technique. Women were sometimes raped by the interrogators, even though sexual abuse was against Democratic Kampuchea (DK) policy. The perpetrators who were found out were executed. Although many prisoners died from this kind of abuse, killing them outright was discouraged, since the Khmer Rouge needed their confessions. The "Medical Unit" at Tuol Sleng, however, did kill at least 100 prisoners by bleeding them to death. It is proven that medical experiments were performed on certain prisoners. There is clear evidence that patients in Cambodia were sliced open and had organs removed with no anesthetic. The camp's director, Kang Kek Iew, has acknowledged that "live prisoners were used for surgical study and training. Draining blood was also done."

 

In their confessions, the prisoners were asked to describe their personal background. If they were party members, they had to say when they joined the revolution and describe their work assignments in DK. Then the prisoners would relate their supposed treasonous activities in chronological order. The third section of the confession text described prisoners' thwarted conspiracies and supposed treasonous conversations. At the end, the confessions would list a string of traitors who were the prisoners' friends, colleagues, or acquaintances. Some lists contained over a hundred names. People whose names were in the confession list were often called in for interrogation.

 

Typical confessions ran into thousands of words in which the prisoner would interweave true events in their lives with imaginary accounts of their espionage activities for the CIA, the KGB, or Vietnam. Physical torture was combined with sleep deprivation and deliberate neglect of the prisoners. The torture implements are on display in the museum. It is believed that the vast majority of prisoners were innocent of the charges against them and that the torture produced false confessions.

 

For the first year of S-21's existence, corpses were buried near the prison. However, by the end of 1976, cadres ran out of burial spaces, the prisoner and family members were taken to the Boeung Choeung Ek ("Crow's Feet Pond") extermination centre, fifteen kilometers from Phnom Penh. There, they were killed by a group of teenagers led by a Comrade Teng, being battered to death with iron bars, pickaxes, machetes and many other makeshift weapons owing to the scarcity and cost of ammunition. After the prisoners were executed, the soldiers who had accompanied them from S-21 buried them in graves that held as few as 6 and as many as 100 bodies.

 

Almost all non-Cambodians had left the country by early May 1975, following an overland evacuation of the French Embassy in trucks. The few who remained were seen as a security risk. Though most of the foreign victims were either Vietnamese or Thai, a number of Western prisoners, many picked up at sea by Khmer Rouge patrol boats, also passed through S-21 between April 1976 and December 1978. No foreign prisoners survived captivity in S-21.

 

Even though the vast majority of the victims were Cambodian, some were foreigners, including 488 Vietnamese, 31 Thai, four French, two Americans, two Australians, one Laotian, one Arab, one Briton, one Canadian, one New Zealander, and one Indonesian. Khmers of Indian and Pakistani descent were also victims.

 

Two Franco-Vietnamese brothers named Rovin and Harad Bernard were detained in April 1976 after they were transferred from Siem Reap, where they had worked tending cattle. Another Frenchman named Andre Gaston Courtigne, a 30-year-old clerk and typist at the French embassy, was arrested the same month along with his Khmer wife in Siem Reap.

 

It is possible that a handful of French nationals who went missing after the 1975 evacuation of Phnom Penh also passed through S-21. Two Americans were captured under similar circumstances. James Clark and Lance McNamara in April 1978 were sailing when their boat drifted off course and sailed into Cambodian waters. They were arrested by Khmer patrol boats, taken ashore, where they were blindfolded, placed on trucks, and taken to the then-deserted Phnom Penh.

 

Twenty-six-year-old John D. Dewhirst, a British tourist, was one of the youngest foreigners to die in the prison. He was sailing with his New Zealand companion, Kerry Hamill, and their Canadian friend Stuart Glass when their boat drifted into Cambodian territory and was intercepted by Khmer patrol boats on August 13, 1978. Glass was killed during the arrest, while Dewhirst and Hamill were captured, blindfolded, and taken to shore. Both were executed after having been tortured for several months at Tuol Sleng. Witnesses reported that a foreigner was burned alive; initially, it was suggested that this might have been John Dewhirst, but a survivor would later identify Kerry Hamill as the victim of this particular act of brutality. Robert Hamill, his brother and a champion Atlantic rower, would years later make a documentary, Brother Number One, about his brother's incarceration.

 

One of the last foreign prisoners to die was twenty-nine-year-old American Michael S. Deeds, who was captured with his friend Christopher E. DeLance on November 24, 1978, while sailing from Singapore to Hawaii. His confession was signed a week before the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia and ousted the Khmer Rouge. In 1989, Deeds' brother, Karl Deeds, traveled to Cambodia in attempts to find his brother's remains, but was unsuccessful. On September 3, 2012, DeLance's photograph was identified among the caches of inmate portraits.

 

As of 1999, there were a total of 79 foreign victims on record, but former Tuol Sleng Khmer Rouge photographer Nim Im claims that the records are not complete. On top of that, there is also an eyewitness account of a Filipino, a Cuban and a Swiss who passed through the prison, though no official records of either are shown.

 

Out of an estimated 20,000 people imprisoned at Tuol Sleng, there were only twelve known survivors: seven adults and five children. One child died shortly after the liberation.[5] As of mid-September 2011, only three of the adults and four children are thought to still be alive: Chum Mey, Bou Meng, and Chim Meth. All three said they were kept alive because they had skills their captors judged to be useful. Bou Meng, whose wife was killed in the prison, is an artist. Chum Mey was kept alive because of his skills in repairing machinery. Chim Meth was held in S-21 for 2 weeks and transferred to the nearby Prey Sar prison. She may have been spared because she was from Stoeung district in Kampong Thom where Comrade Duch was born. She intentionally distinguished herself by emphasising her provincial accent during her interrogations. Vann Nath, who was spared because of his ability to paint, died on September 5, 2011. Norng Chan Phal, one of the surviving children, published his story in 2018.

 

The Documentation Center of Cambodia has recently estimated that, in fact, at least 179 prisoners were freed from S-21 between 1975 and 1979 and approximately 23 prisoners (including 5 children, two of them siblings Norng Chanphal and Norng Chanly) survived when the prison was liberated in January 1979. One child died shortly thereafter. Of the 179 prisoners who were released, most disappeared and only a few are known to have survived after 1979. It was found that at least 60 persons (out of the DC Cam list) who are listed as having survived were first released but later rearrested and executed.

 

The prison had a staff of 1,720 people throughout the whole period. Of those, approximately 300 were office staff, internal workforce and interrogators. The other 1,400 were general workers, including people who grew food for the prison. Several of these workers were children taken from the prisoner families. The chief of the prison was Khang Khek Ieu (also known as Comrade Duch), a former mathematics teacher who worked closely with Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. Other leading figures of S-21 were Kim Vat aka Ho (deputy chief of S-21), Peng (chief of guards), Mam Nai aka Chan (chief of the Interrogation Unit), and Tang Sin Hean aka Pon (interrogator). Pon was the person who interrogated important people such as Keo Meas, Nay Sarann, Ho Nim, Tiv Ol, and Phok Chhay.

 

The documentation unit was responsible for transcribing tape recorded confessions, typing the handwritten notes from prisoners' confessions, preparing summaries of confessions, and maintaining files. In the photography sub-unit, workers took mug shots of prisoners when they arrived, pictures of prisoners who had died while in detention, and pictures of important prisoners after they were executed. Thousands of photographs have survived, but thousands are still missing.

 

The defense unit was the largest unit in S-21. The guards in this unit were mostly teenagers. Many guards found the unit's strict rules hard to obey. Guards were not allowed to talk to prisoners, to learn their names, or to beat them. They were also forbidden to observe or eavesdrop on interrogations, and they were expected to obey 30 regulations, which barred them from such things as taking naps, sitting down or leaning against a wall while on duty. They had to walk, guard, and examine everything carefully. Guards who made serious mistakes were arrested, interrogated, jailed and put to death. Most of the people employed at S-21 were terrified of making mistakes and feared being tortured and killed.

 

The interrogation unit was split into three separate groups: Krom Noyobai or the political unit, Krom Kdao or the hot unit and Krom Angkiem, or the chewing unit. The hot unit (sometimes called the cruel unit) was allowed to use torture. In contrast, the cold unit (sometimes called the gentle unit) was prohibited from using torture to obtain confessions. If they could not make prisoners confess, they would transfer them to the hot unit. The chewing unit dealt with tough and important cases. Those who worked as interrogators were literate and usually in their 20s.

 

Some of the staff who worked in Tuol Sleng also ended up as prisoners. They confessed to being lazy in preparing documents, to having damaged machines and various equipment, and to having beaten prisoners to death without permission when assisting with interrogations.

 

When prisoners were first brought to Tuol Sleng, they were made aware of ten rules that they were to follow during their incarceration. What follows is what is posted today at the Tuol Sleng Museum; the imperfect grammar is a result of faulty translation from the original Khmer:

 

You must answer accordingly to my question. Don't turn them away.

Don't try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me.

Don't be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.

You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.

Don't tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.

While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.

Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.

Don't make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor.

If you don't follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.

If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

During testimony at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal on April 27, 2009, Duch claimed the 10 security regulations were a fabrication of the Vietnamese officials that first set up the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

 

In 1979, Hồ Văn Tây, a Vietnamese combat photographer, was the first journalist to document Tuol Sleng to the world. Hồ and his colleagues followed the stench of rotting corpses to the gates of Tuol Sleng. The photos of Hồ documenting what he saw when he entered the site are exhibited in Tuol Sleng today.

 

The Khmer Rouge required that the prison staff make a detailed dossier for each prisoner. Included in the documentation was a photograph. Since the original negatives and photographs were separated from the dossiers in the 1979–1980 period, most of the photographs remain anonymous to this day.

 

The buildings at Tuol Sleng are preserved, with some rooms still appearing just as they were when the Khmer Rouge were driven out in 1979. The regime kept extensive records, including thousands of photographs. Several rooms of the museum are now lined, floor to ceiling, with black and white photographs of some of the estimated 20,000 prisoners who passed through the prison.

 

The site has four main buildings, known as Building A, B, C, and D. Building A holds the large cells in which the bodies of the last victims were discovered. Building B holds galleries of photographs. Building C holds the rooms subdivided into small cells for prisoners. Building D holds other memorabilia including instruments of torture.

 

Other rooms contain only a rusting iron bedframe, beneath a black and white photograph showing the room as it was found by the Vietnamese. In each photograph, the mutilated body of a prisoner is chained to the bed, killed by his fleeing captors only hours before the prison was captured. Other rooms preserve leg-irons and instruments of torture. They are accompanied by paintings by former inmate Vann Nath showing people being tortured, which were added by the post-Khmer Rouge regime installed by the Vietnamese in 1979.

 

The museum is open to the public from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. On weekdays, visitors have the opportunity of viewing a 'survivor testimony' from 2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Along with the Choeung Ek Memorial (the Killing Fields), the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is included as a point of interest for those visiting Cambodia. Tuol Sleng also remains an important educational site as well as memorial for Cambodians. Since 2010, the ECCC brings Cambodians on a 'study tour' consisting of the Tuol Sleng, followed by the Choeung Ek, and finishing at the ECCC complex. The tour drew approximately 27,000 visitors in 2010.

 

S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine is a 2003 film by Rithy Panh, a Cambodian-born, French-trained filmmaker who lost his family when he was 11. The film features two Tuol Sleng survivors, Vann Nath and Chum Mey, confronting their former Khmer Rouge captors, including guards, interrogators, a doctor and a photographer. The focus of the film is the difference between the feelings of the survivors, who want to understand what happened at Tuol Sleng to warn future generations, and the former jailers, who cannot escape the horror of the genocide they helped create.

 

A number of images from Tuol Sleng are featured in the 1992 Ron Fricke film Baraka.

 

The Killing Fields are a number of sites in Cambodia where collectively more than 1,000,000 people were killed and buried by the Communist Party of Kampuchea during Khmer Rouge rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Cambodian Civil War (1970–1975). The mass killings were part of the broad, state-sponsored Cambodian genocide.

 

Analysis of 20,000 mass grave sites by the DC-Cam Mapping Program and Yale University indicates at least 1,386,734 victims of execution. Estimates of the total deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies, including death from disease and starvation, range from 1.7 to 2.5 million out of a 1975 population of roughly 8 million. In 1979, Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime, ending the genocide.

 

The Cambodian journalist Dith Pran coined the term "killing fields" after his escape from the regime.

 

The Khmer Rouge regime arrested and eventually executed almost everyone suspected of connections with the former government or with foreign governments, as well as professionals and intellectuals. Ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Thai, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Cham, Cambodian Christians, and Buddhist monks were the demographic targets of persecution. As a result, Pol Pot has been described as "a genocidal tyrant". Martin Shaw described the Cambodian genocide as "the purest genocide of the Cold War era".

 

Ben Kiernan estimates that about 1.7 million people were killed. Researcher Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of Cambodia suggests that the death toll was between 2 and 2.5 million, with a "most likely" figure of 2.2 million. After five years of researching some 20,000 grave sites, he concludes that "these mass graves contain the remains of 1,386,734 victims of execution". A United Nations investigation reported 2–3 million dead, while UNICEF estimated 3 million had been killed. Demographic analysis by Patrick Heuveline suggests that between 1.17 and 3.42 million Cambodians were killed, while Marek Sliwinski suggests that 1.8 million is a conservative figure. Even the Khmer Rouge acknowledged that 2 million had been killed—though they attributed those deaths to a subsequent Vietnamese invasion. By late 1979, UN and Red Cross officials were warning that another 2.25 million Cambodians faced death by starvation due to "the near destruction of Cambodian society under the regime of ousted Prime Minister Pol Pot", who were saved by international aid after the Vietnamese invasion.

 

Process

The judicial process of the Khmer Rouge regime, for minor or political crimes, began with a warning from the Angkar, the government of Cambodia under the regime. People receiving more than two warnings were sent for "re-education," which meant near-certain death. People were often encouraged to confess to Angkar their "pre-revolutionary lifestyles and crimes" (which usually included some kind of free-market activity; having had contact with a foreign source, such as a U.S. missionary, international relief or government agency; or contact with any foreigner or with the outside world at all), being told that Angkar would forgive them and "wipe the slate clean." They were then taken away to a place such as Tuol Sleng or Choeung Ek for torture and/or execution.[citation needed]

 

The executed were buried in mass graves. In order to save ammunition, the executions were often carried out using poison or improvised weapons such as sharpened bamboo sticks, hammers, machetes and axes. Inside the Buddhist Memorial Stupa at Choeung Ek, there is evidence of bayonets, knives, wooden clubs, hoes for farming and curved scythes being used to kill victims, with images of skulls, damaged by these implements, as evidence. In some cases the children and infants of adult victims were killed by having their heads bashed against the trunks of Chankiri trees, and then were thrown into the pits alongside their parents. The rationale was "to stop them growing up and taking revenge for their parents' deaths."[citation needed]

 

Prosecution for crimes against humanity

In 1997 the Cambodian government asked for the UN's assistance in setting up a genocide tribunal. It took nine years to agree to the shape and structure of the court—a hybrid of Cambodian and international laws—before the judges were sworn in, in 2006. The investigating judges were presented with the names of five possible suspects by the prosecution on 18 July 2007. On 19 September 2007 Nuon Chea, second in command of the Khmer Rouge and its most senior surviving member, was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. He faced Cambodian and foreign judges at the special genocide tribunal and was convicted on 7 August 2014 and received a life sentence. On 26 July 2010 Kang Kek Iew (aka Comrade Duch), director of the S-21 prison camp, was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment. His sentence was reduced to 19 years, as he had already spent 11 years in prison. On 2 February 2012, his sentence was extended to life imprisonment by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. He died on 2 September 2020.

 

Legacy

The best known monument of the Killing Fields is at the village of Choeung Ek. Today, it is the site of a Buddhist memorial to the victims, and Tuol Sleng has a museum commemorating the genocide. The memorial park at Choeung Ek has been built around the mass graves of many thousands of victims, most of whom were executed after interrogation at the S-21 Prison in Phnom Penh. The majority of those buried at Choeung Ek were Khmer Rouge killed during the purges within the regime. Many dozens of mass graves are visible above ground, many which have not been excavated yet. Commonly, bones and clothing surface after heavy rainfalls due to the large number of bodies still buried in shallow mass graves. It is not uncommon to run across the bones or teeth of the victims scattered on the surface as one tours the memorial park. If these are found, visitors are asked to notify a memorial park officer or guide.

 

A survivor of the genocide, Dara Duong, founded The Killing Fields Museum in Seattle, US.

 

The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by then Chief of State Norodom Sihanouk to describe his country's heterogeneous, communist-led dissidents, with whom he allied after his 1970 overthrow.

 

The Khmer Rouge army was slowly built up in the jungles of eastern Cambodia during the late 1960s, supported by the North Vietnamese army, the Viet Cong, the Pathet Lao, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Although it originally fought against Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge changed its position and supported Sihanouk following the CCP's advice after he was overthrown in a 1970 coup by Lon Nol who established the pro-American Khmer Republic. Despite a massive American bombing campaign (Operation Freedom Deal) against them, the Khmer Rouge won the Cambodian Civil War when they captured the Cambodian capital and overthrew the Khmer Republic in 1975. Following their victory, the Khmer Rouge, who were led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, and Khieu Samphan, immediately set about forcibly evacuating the country's major cities. In 1976, they renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea.

 

The Khmer Rouge regime was highly autocratic, totalitarian, and repressive. Many deaths resulted from the regime's social engineering policies and the "Moha Lout Plaoh", an imitation of China's Great Leap Forward which had caused the Great Chinese Famine. The Khmer Rouge's attempts at agricultural reform through collectivization similarly led to widespread famine, while its insistence on absolute self-sufficiency, including the supply of medicine, led to the death of many thousands from treatable diseases such as malaria.

 

The Khmer Rouge regime murdered hundreds of thousands of their perceived political opponents, and its racist emphasis on national purity resulted in the genocide of Cambodian minorities. Summary executions and torture were carried out by its cadres against perceived subversive elements, or during genocidal purges of its own ranks between 1975 and 1978. Ultimately, the Cambodian genocide which took place under the Khmer Rouge regime led to the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people, around 25% of Cambodia's population.

 

In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge were largely supported and funded by the Chinese Communist Party, receiving approval from Mao Zedong; it is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which was provided to the Khmer Rouge came from China. The regime was removed from power in 1979 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and quickly destroyed most of its forces. The Khmer Rouge then fled to Thailand, whose government saw them as a buffer force against the Communist Vietnamese. The Khmer Rouge continued to fight against the Vietnamese and the government of the new People's Republic of Kampuchea until the end of the war in 1989. The Cambodian governments-in-exile (including the Khmer Rouge) held onto Cambodia's United Nations seat (with considerable international support) until 1993, when the monarchy was restored and the name of the Cambodian state was changed to the Kingdom of Cambodia. A year later, thousands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas surrendered themselves in a government amnesty.

 

In 1996, a new political party called the Democratic National Union Movement was formed by Ieng Sary, who was granted amnesty for his role as the deputy leader of the Khmer Rouge. The organisation was largely dissolved by the mid-1990s and finally surrendered completely in 1999. In 2014, two Khmer Rouge leaders, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, were jailed for life by a United Nations-backed court which found them guilty of crimes against humanity for their roles in the Khmer Rouge's genocidal campaign.

 

The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Communist Party of Kampuchea general secretary Pol Pot. It resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population in 1975 (c. 7.8 million).

 

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had long been supported by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its chairman, Mao Zedong; it is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which the Khmer Rouge received came from China, including at least US$1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid in 1975 alone. After it seized power in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge wanted to turn the country into an agrarian socialist republic, founded on the policies of ultra-Maoism and influenced by the Cultural Revolution. Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge officials met with Mao in Beijing in June 1975, receiving approval and advice, while high-ranking CCP officials such as Politburo Standing Committee member Zhang Chunqiao later visited Cambodia to offer help. To fulfill its goals, the Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and forced Cambodians to relocate to labor camps in the countryside, where mass executions, forced labor, physical abuse, malnutrition, and disease were rampant. In 1976, the Khmer Rouge renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea.

 

The massacres ended when the Vietnamese military invaded in 1978 and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime. By January 1979, 1.5 to 2 million people had died due to the Khmer Rouge's policies, including 200,000–300,000 Chinese Cambodians, 90,000–500,000 Cambodian Cham (who are mostly Muslim), and 20,000 Vietnamese Cambodians. 20,000 people passed through the Security Prison 21, one of the 196 prisons the Khmer Rouge operated, and only seven adults survived. The prisoners were taken to the Killing Fields, where they were executed (often with pickaxes, to save bullets) and buried in mass graves. Abduction and indoctrination of children was widespread, and many were persuaded or forced to commit atrocities. As of 2009, the Documentation Center of Cambodia has mapped 23,745 mass graves containing approximately 1.3 million suspected victims of execution. Direct execution is believed to account for up to 60% of the genocide's death toll, with other victims succumbing to starvation, exhaustion, or disease.

 

The genocide triggered a second outflow of refugees, many of whom escaped to neighboring Thailand and, to a lesser extent, Vietnam. In 2003, by agreement between the Cambodian government and the United Nations, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (Khmer Rouge Tribunal) were established to try the members of the Khmer Rouge leadership responsible for the Cambodian genocide. Trials began in 2009. On 26 July 2010, the Trial Chamber convicted Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch) for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The Supreme Court Chamber increased his sentence to life imprisonment. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were tried and convicted in 2014 of crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. On 28 March 2019, the Trial Chamber found Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan guilty of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and genocide of the Vietnamese ethnic, national and racial group. The Chamber additionally convicted Nuon Chea of genocide of the Cham ethnic and religious group under the doctrine of superior responsibility. Both Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were sentenced to terms of life imprisonment.

Walls Unit, Huntsville, TX

Exécution sans jugement sous les rois Maures de Grenade (Execution without judgement under the Moorish Kings of Grenada)

1870

By Henri Regnault (1843 - 1871)

Oil on canvas, H. 3.02 ; L. 1.46 m

musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

 

Regnault’s grand canvas still unsettles many visitors to the Musée d’Orsay. Whereas other nearby paintings in the museum have long since lost their avant-garde capacity to disturb viewers’ expectations, Regnault’s canvas has retained its shock value. One major reason for this response is not so much the bloody scene in the foreground as the viewer’s position vis-à-vis this macabre subject. As Linda Nochlin has pointed out, when the canvas is hung at the correct height, the decapitated corpse rests at the viewer’s own eye level.

barnabynutt.com/2018/09/16/waterford-walls/

Nikon F80

Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 AF-D

Agfa Vista 200 (expired) pushed to 800

Paul Delaroche, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, 1833, oil on canvas, 246 x 297 cm (The National Gallery, London)

Toledo, Spain

Oil on board, 60 x 35 cm, A.D. 2012

Execution site Herzogenbusch concentration camp

Edouard Manet - the execution of emperor Maximilian (last version, Mannheim) [1868-69]

Edouard Manet - Die Erschiessung Kaiser Maximililians von Mexico [1869]

Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim

 

Emperor Maximalian stands between his generals Mejia and Miramon, on June 19th of 1867.

 

Who wants to know more about the historical background, why archduke Maximilian of Habsburg (Hapsburg, Habspurg) entered in the Mexican adventure may read the following article:

 

www.holocaustianity.com/hysteria/maximilian.html

 

More about the history of Manet's paintings:

1) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Execution_of_Emperor_Maximilian

2) www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2006/Manet/

or

www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2006/Manet/detail_f...

"When he was near death, he said, “It is my choice to die at the hands of mortals with the hope that God will restore me to life; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.”' – 2 Maccabees 7:14, which is part of today's first reading at Mass.

 

This sculpture, depicting Jean d'Aire is by Rodin, and it is part of the sculpted tableau called 'The Burghers of Calais'. It stands in the Main Quad of Stanford University.

A view from the execution yard in Auschwitz.

 

The place of execution was the yard between Blocks 10 and 11, which was sealed off by two walls.Here there was a wall, specially painted black, built of wood, sand and insulating board. At the foot of the wall, sand was sprinkled to soak up the blood of the victims. This wall was known as the “Wall of Death” or “Black Wall”.

What she does best!

It`s not to late to become a vegetarian

Archive/Prints: ControlImages

 

Apps: decim8, snapseed, glaze, mextures

A gurney with restraints in San Quentin's remodeled execution chamber. This gurney was used in previous lethal injection executions that took place in the old chamber.

 

Scott Shafer/KQED

The Postcard

 

A postally unused postcard that was published by the New York Public Library of 476, Fifth Avenue, New York City. The card has a divided back.

 

Sir Henry Raeburn

 

Sir Henry Raeburn RA RSA FRSE, who was born on the 4th. March 1756, was a Scottish portrait painter. He served as Portrait Painter to King George IV in Scotland.

 

Raeburn was a prolific artist who painted more than a thousand paintings spanning 50 years.

 

Henry Raeburn - The Early Years

 

Raeburn was born the son of a manufacturer in Stockbridge, on the Water of Leith: a former village now within the city of Edinburgh. His ancestors were believed to have been soldiers, and may have taken the name "Raeburn" from a hill farm in Annandale, held by Sir Walter Scott's family.

 

Orphaned, he was supported by his brother William and placed in Heriot's Hospital, where he received an education.

 

At the age of fifteen Henry was apprenticed to the goldsmith James Gilliland of Edinburgh, and various pieces of jewellery, mourning rings and the like, adorned with minute drawings on ivory by his hand, still exist.

 

When the medical student Charles Darwin (uncle of the famous naturalist Charles Robert Darwin) died at the age of 19 in 1778, his friend and professor Andrew Duncan took a lock of his student's hair to the jeweller whose apprentice, Raeburn, made a memorial locket.

 

Soon Henry took to the production of carefully finished portrait miniatures; meeting with success and patronage, he extended his practice to oil painting, at which he was self-taught.

 

Sir Henry Raeburn's Painting Career

 

Gilliland watched the progress of his pupil with interest, and introduced him to David Martin, who was at the time the leading portrait painter in Edinburgh.

 

Raeburn was especially aided by the loan of portraits to copy. Soon Henry had gained sufficient skill to devote himself exclusively to painting. George Chalmers (1776; Dunfermline Town Hall) is his earliest known portrait.

 

In his early twenties, Raeburn was asked to paint the portrait of a young lady he had noticed when he was sketching from nature in the fields. Ann was the daughter of Peter Edgar of Bridgelands, and widow of Count James Leslie of Deanhaugh.

 

Fascinated by the handsome and intellectual young artist, she became his wife within a month, bringing him an ample fortune. The acquisition of wealth did not affect Henry's enthusiasm or his industry, but spurred him on to acquire a thorough knowledge of his craft.

 

It was usual for artists to visit Italy, and in London he was received by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the president of the Royal Academy, who advised him on what to study in Rome, especially recommending the works of Michelangelo. He gave Raeburn letters of introduction for Italy.

 

Henry set off with his wife, and in Rome he met fellow Scot Gavin Hamilton, as well as Pompeo Girolamo Batoni and Byers, an antique dealer whose advice proved particularly useful, especially the recommendation that:

 

"You should never copy an object from

memory, but, from the principal figure

to the minutest accessory, have it placed

before you."

 

After two years of study in Italy Henry returned to Edinburgh in 1787, and began a successful career as a portrait painter. In that year he executed a seated portrait of the second Lord Dundas.

 

Examples of his earlier portraiture include a bust of Mrs. Johnstone of Baldovie and a three-quarter-length of Dr. James Hutton: works which, if somewhat timid and tentative in handling and not as confident as his later work, nevertheless have delicacy and character.

 

The portraits of John Clerk, Lord Eldin, and of Principal Hill of St. Andrews belong to a later period.

 

Raeburn was fortunate in the time in which he practised portraiture. Sir Walter Scott, Hugh Blair, Henry Mackenzie, Lord Woodhouselee, William Robertson, John Home, Robert Fergusson, and Dugald Stewart were resident in Edinburgh, and were all painted by Raeburn.

 

Mature works include his own portrait, and that of the Rev. Sir Henry Moncrieff Wellwood, a bust of Dr Wardrop of Torbane Hill, two full-lengths of Adam Rolland of Gask, the remarkable paintings of Lord Newton and Dr. Alexander Adam in the National Gallery of Scotland, and that of William Macdonald of St Martin's.

 

Apart from himself, Raeburn painted only two artists, one of whom was Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey, the most important and famous British sculptor of the first half of the 19th. century. It has recently been revealed that Raeburn and Chantrey were close friends, and that Raeburn took exceptional care over the execution of his portrait of the sculptor, one of the painter's mature bust-length masterpieces.

 

It was commonly believed that Raeburn was less successful in painting female portraits, but the exquisite full-length of his wife, the smaller likeness of Mrs R. Scott Moncrieff in the National Gallery of Scotland, and that of Mrs Robert Bell argue against this.

 

Raeburn spent his life in Edinburgh, rarely visiting London, and then only for brief periods, thus preserving his individuality. Although he, personally, may have lost advantages resulting from closer association with the leaders of English art, and from contact with a wider public, Scottish art gained much from his disinclination to leave his native land.

 

He became the acknowledged chief of the school which was growing up in Scotland during the early 19th. century, and his example and influence at a critical period were of major importance. So varied were his other interests that sitters used to say of him:

 

"You would never take him for

a painter till he seizes the brush

and palette."

 

In 1812 Henry was elected president of the Society of Artists in Edinburgh; and in 1814 associate, and in the following year full member, of the Royal Scottish Academy.

 

On the 29th. August 1822 he received a knighthood during the visit of King George IV to Scotland, and appointed His Majesty's limner for Scotland.

 

The Death of Sir Henry Raeburn

 

Sir Henry Raeburn died in St. Bernard's House, Stockbridge, Edinburgh not long after on the 8th. July 1823 at the age of 67.

 

He was laid to rest in St. Cuthbert's churchyard against the east wall (the monument erected by Raeburn in advance), but there is also a secondary memorial in the Church of St. John the Evangelist, Edinburgh.

 

Henry's studio on York Place was taken over by the artist Colvin Smith.

 

Critical Appraisal of Sir Henry Raeburn

 

Raeburn had all the essential qualities of a popular and successful portrait painter. He was able to produce a telling and forcible likeness; his work is distinguished by powerful characterisation, stark realism, dramatic and unusual lighting effects, and swift and broad handling of the most resolute sort.

 

David Wilkie recorded that, while travelling in Spain and studying the works of Diego Velázquez, the brushwork reminded him constantly of the "square touch" of Raeburn.

 

Scottish physician and writer John Brown wrote that:

 

"Raeburn never fails in giving a

likeness at once vivid, unmistakable

and pleasing. He paints the truth,

and he paints it with love".

 

Raeburn has been described as a "famously intuitive" portrait painter. He was unusual amongst many of his contemporaries, such as Reynolds, in the extent of his philosophy of painting directly from life; he made no preliminary sketches.

 

This attitude partly explains the often coarse modelling and clashing colour combinations he employed, in contrast to the more refined style of Thomas Gainsborough and Reynolds. However these qualities and those above anticipate many of the later developments in painting of the 19th. century from romanticism to Impressionism.

An "academical execution". I am no expert in studentic corporations but I think this shot was taken at the instance of a big studentical meeting around 1900.

 

РАВЕННА

 

Всё, что минутно, всё, что бренно,

Похоронила ты в веках.

Ты, как младенец, спишь, Равенна,

У сонной вечности в руках.

 

Рабы сквозь римские ворота

Уже не ввозят мозаик.

И догорает позолота

В стенах прохладных базилик.

 

От медленных лобзаний влаги

Нежнее грубый свод гробниц,

Где зеленеют саркофаги

Святых монахов и цариц.

 

Безмолвны гробовые залы,

Тенист и хладен их порог,

Чтоб черный взор блаженной Галлы,

Проснувшись, камня не прожег.

 

Военной брани и обиды

Забыт и стерт кровавый след,

Чтобы воскресший глас Плакиды

Не пел страстей протекших лет.

 

Далёко отступило море,

И розы оцепили вал,

Чтоб спящий в гробе Теодорих

О буре жизни не мечтал.

 

А виноградные пустыни,

Дома и люди - всё гроба.

Лишь медь торжественной латыни

Поет на плитах, как труба.

 

Лишь в пристальном и тихом взоре

Равеннских девушек, порой,

Печаль о невозвратном море

Проходит робкой чередой.

 

Лишь по ночам, склонясь к долинам,

Ведя векам грядущим счет,

Тень Данта с профилем орлиным

О Новой Жизни мне поет.

  

Галла Плацидия

лат. Galla Placidia

 

Портрет Галлы Плацидии на золотом медальоне

регент

425 — ок. 437

Предшественник: Иоанн

Преемник: Валентиниан III

 

Рождение: ок. 388 года

Константинополь

Смерть: 27 ноября 450

Рим

Похоронена: в Равенне

Династия: Феодосия Великого

Отец: Феодосий Великий

Мать: Галла

Супруг: 1) Атаульф

2) Констанций III

Дети: Феодосий и Валентиниан,

дочь Гонория

Галла Плацидия на

 

Галла Плацидия (лат. Galla Placidia; ок. 388—27 ноября 450 гг.) — дочь римского императора Феодосия Великого. В течение двух лет — королева вестготов, впоследствии управляла Западной Римской империей в малолетство своего сына, императора Валентиниана III.

 

Личная история Галлы Плацидии наложилась на историю гибели Римской империи, её необыкновенная судьба тесно связана с важными событиями 1-й половины V века. Рождённая в последние годы существования единой империи, после её окончательного распада в 395 году Галла осталась в Италии под опекой старшего брата, императора Гонория, и его полководца Стилихона. С 409 года она находится в знатных заложниках у короля вестготов Алариха, а после его смерти Галла в 414 году стала женой нового вестготского короля Атаульфа и даже родила ему сына. Овдовев через год, Галла Плацидия стала предметом торга за хлеб между вестготами и Гонорием.

 

Она смогла вернуться в Рим в 416 году и скоро против воли была выдана братом замуж за его успешного полководца Констанция, которому родила дочь и сына Валентиниана. Валентиниан в 425 году унаследовал трон Западной Римской империи, но по крайней мере первые 12 лет за него правила его мать, Галла Плацидия. Галла скончалась в 450 году, в канун нашествия на Западную Европу гуннов Аттилы.

Содержание

[убрать]

 

1 Детство и юность. 388—408 гг.

2 Королева варваров. 409—416 гг.

3 Жена императора Констанция. 417—423 гг.

4 Августа. 424—450 гг.

5 Дети

6 Примечания

7 Ссылки

 

[править] Детство и юность. 388—408 гг.

 

Галла Плацидия была дочерью римского императора Феодосия Великого от его второй жены Галлы. Год её рождения точно не известен и определяется около 388[1]. В 395 году последний император единой Римской империи Феодосий Великий скончался, разделив империю между сыновьями (родными братьями Галлы по отцу). Аркадию досталась восточная часть империи, получившая у современных историков название Византийской. Западная часть отошла Гонорию.

 

Фактическая власть в Западной Римской империи находилась в руках главнокомандующего всеми войсками империи Стилихона. Полуварвар по происхождению[2], он осознавал непрочность своего положения и старался упрочить его родственными браками с императорской семьей. Сам он был женат на племяннице Феодосия Великого Серене, две его дочери (Мария и Ферманция) последовательно выдавались замуж за императора Гонория. Единственный сын Евхерий был помолвлен на Nobilissima Puella (благороднейшей девушке) Галле, и, по словам поэта Клавдиана, ожидался очередной брачный союз с императорской семьей.[3]

 

Однако планам Стилихона не суждено было сбыться. В августе 408 года, когда Галла Плацидия уже достигла совершеннолетия, всемогущий полководец был казнён Гонорием по подозрению в планах захвата императорского трона в Константинополе[4]. Вскоре был убит и его сын Евхерий.

[править] Королева варваров. 409—416 гг.

 

После казни Стилихона в Италию немедленно вторглись вестготские племена во главе с Аларихом, к ним присоединились другие варвары и рабы империи. Последовательность событий изложена в статье Захват Рима готами (410 год).

 

В 1-ю осаду Рима Аларихом осенью 408 года сенат с одобрения Плацидии принял решение казнить жену Стилихона Серену (двоюродную сестру Плацидии), считая её виновной в нашествии вестготов[5]. При 2-й осаде Рима в конце 409 года сенат вступил в вынужденный союз с Аларихом, в то время как император Гонорий, осаждённый в Равенне, отказывался удовлетворить требования вестготов. Согласно Зосиме, в числе знатных заложников у Алариха оказалась Галла Плацидия[6]. По словам Олимпиодора в изложении Фотия, Плацидия попала в плен после захвата Рима готами в следующем году[7]. Такой версии развития событий придерживаются и остальные историки V века.

 

В августе 410 года Аларих захватил и разграбил Рим; в конце того же года он умер на юге Италии. Его преемник, брат его жены Атаульф, вывел вестготов в Галлию в 412 году. Готский историк Иордан (VI век) заметил, что Атаульф женился на своей пленнице Галле Плацидии ещё в Италии, то есть примерно в 411 году, однако его сообщение довольно путанно[8].

 

Гонорий с помощью переговоров пытается вызволить свою сестру из варварского плена. Современник и очевидец событий Олимпиодор, основной источник сведений об этом этапе биографии Плацидии, так сообщает о ходе переговоров (в изложении Фотия):

 

«Атаульф, у которого требовали Плацидию, ответил требованием хлеба, ему назначенного. У обещавших не было возможности его дать, но они тем не менее соглашались предоставить его, если получат Плацидию. Варвар ответил им примерно так же [...] Атаульф задумал жениться на Плацидии, а так как Констанций требовал её, то он предъявил еще более тяжёлые притязания, рассчитывая при невыполнении этих требований на благовидный предлог для её удержания.»[9]

 

В 413 году Атаульф сражается в Галлии против врагов Гонория. Как заявлял сам Атаульф, он желал создать государство готов и, более того, восстановить величие Римской империи силами готов[10]. Улучшение отношений между вестготами и империей завершилось беспрецедентным браком германского вождя-варвара и благородной римской принцессы.

 

В январе 414 года в Нарбонне (Галлия) состоялась свадьба Атаульфа, уже имевшего 6 детей от прежней жены, и 26-летней Галлы Плацидии. Церемония прошла в римских традициях: «Плацидия сидела в украшенном по-римски атрии, в царском уборе; рядом с ней сидел Атаульф, облаченный в хланиду и другие римские одеяния.»[11]. Вскоре Галла родила сына, названного Феодосием. Само его имя свидетельствовало в пользу планов Атаульфа соединить вестготов с Римской империей, однако ребёнок умер в младенчестве, и был похоронен в испанской Барселоне, ставшей столицей вестготов.[12]

 

В августе 415 года король вестготов Атаульф был убит своим дружинником. Власть на 7 дней захватил Сигерих, который истребил детей Атаульфа от первой жены. Галлу Плацидию он заставил «идти перед [своей] лошадью вместе с прочими пленницами, а расстояние, на которое они должны были его провожать, тянулось до двенадцатой мили от города»[13]. После скорого убийства Сигериха новый король вестготов Валия вступил в переговоры с представителем Гонория неким Евплутием. В 416 году за 600 тысяч мер[14] хлеба Валия освободил Галлу Плацидию[15]. Кроме того, вестготы стали федератами империи, обязавшись сражаться с её врагами.

[править] Жена императора Констанция. 417—423 гг.

Галла Плацидия на монете, отчеканенной ее сыном Валентинианом III. На реверсе крест, типичный для всех монет с Галлой Плацидией, которая была глубоко верующей христианкой.

 

Сразу после освобождения Плацидии император Гонорий выдал сестру замуж за своего успешного полководца Флавия Констанция. По описанию Олимпиодора, Констанций «имел вид угрюмый и мрачный; пучеглазый, с толстым затылком и плоской головой». Плацидия упорно не соглашалась на брак[16], но не смогла противиться воле брата-императора.

 

1 января 417 года состоялась пышная свадьба. В том же или следующем году Плацидия родила дочь Гонорию, а 2 июля 419 года у неё появился сын — Плацид Валентиниан (Placidus Valentinianus), будущий император.

 

8 февраля 421 года Гонорий сделал Констанция своим соправителем. Как жена императора Плацидия удостоилась титула августы («императрицы»). Её сын Валентиниан получил титул нобилиссима, что означало признание его наследником императорского трона (сам Гонорий не имел сыновей). 2 сентября 421 года Констанций умер.

 

Несмотря на вдовство, влияние Плацидии на императора даже усилилось:

 

«Расположение Гонория к собственной сестре после смерти ее мужа Констанция стало таково, что их безмерная любовь и частые поцелуи в уста внушили многим постыдные подозрения.»[17]

 

Однако борьба за власть дворцовых партий, сложившихся вокруг Гонория и его сестры, привела к разрыву. За Плацидию стояли варвары из её окружения (наследие брака с Атаульфом) и варварский элемент в имперской армии. Хронист Кассиодор сообщил о слухах, что Плацидия обратилась за помощью к неназванным врагам империи, в которых можно увидеть вестготов в Галлии. На улицах столицы Равенны случились «побоища», после чего Гонорий, лишив Плацидию титула августы, выслал её в 423 году[18] вместе с детьми в Константинополь, где правил его племянник, император Феодосий Младший.

 

В августе 423 года император Гонорий скончался, освободив трон для сына Галлы Плацидии Валентиниана.

[править] Августа. 424—450 гг.

 

Пока известия о смерти Гонория шли в Константинополь, пока там принимали решение о преемнике, трон Западной Римской империи захватил начальник имперской канцелярии в Равенне Иоанн. Император Феодосий послал в 424 году войска, высвободившиеся после войны с персами, на запад для свержения Иоанна и передачи трона своему двоюродному брату Валентиниану.

 

В том же году Плацидия была восстановлена Феодосием в статусе августы, а её сын провозглашён цезарем[19]. 23 октября 425 года 7-летний сын Плацидии цезарь Валентиниан был провозглашён в Риме императором.

 

С этого года Галла Плацидия единолично правила Западной Римской империей в качестве регента над сыном до достижения им в 437 году совершеннолетия. Да и после совершеннолетия Валентиниан не проявлял особого интереса к государственным делам. Прокопий так отозвался об императоре:

 

«Его мать Плацидия вырастила и воспитала этого василевса в распущенной неге и роскоши, и поэтому он с детства предавался всяким порокам. Он по большей части общался со знахарями и с теми, кто гадает по звёздам; он безумно предавался любовным связям с чужими жёнами, ведя беззаконный образ жизни.»[20]

 

Интерьер мавзолея Галлы Плацидии в Равенне.

 

Плацидия с самого начала была вынуждена делиться властью с полководцем Аэцием (прославившимся позднее, в 451 году, разгромом гуннов Аттилы). Аэций поднялся при узурпаторе Иоанне. Когда византийское войско с Плацидией двинулось на запад, Аэций был послан Иоанном в Паннонию за помощью к гуннам. Он вернулся с 60 тысячами гуннов уже после низвержения Иоанна и, признав Плацидию, сумел добиться от неё поста командующего войсками в Галлии. Главнокомандующим (magister militum) при Плацидии в 425—429 гг. стал некий Феликс, который ничем себя не проявил.

 

В 429 году Аэций заменил Феликса на посту главнокомандующего[21]. Опасаясь чрезмерного усиления Аэция, Галла Плацидия пыталась противопоставить ему Бонифация, наместника в Северной Африке. О борьбе между двумя военачальниками за влияние на Плацидию подробно рассказал Прокопий[22]. В 432 году, потерпев поражение от вандалов, Бонифаций появляется в Италии, где между ним и Аэцием разгорелась настоящая война («ingens bellum»). Видимо, в одном из сражений Бонифаций был смертельно ранен и скончался через 3 месяца[23].

 

В 437 году Валентиниан, достигнув совершеннолетия, женился на дочери императора Феодосия Младшего Лицинии Евдоксии. У них родились дочери Евдокия и Плацидия (сына в браке не было). Влияние Галлы Плацидии на государственные дела неизбежно должно было ослабнуть, по крайней мере её имя в хрониках исчезает.

 

В течение жизни Галла Плацидия покровительствовала церкви, принимала активное участие в утверждении христианской веры в империи, в последние годы пожертвовала большие средства церквям в Равенне. В Равенне ею была построена церковь Сан Джованни Эванджелиста в ознаменование чудесного спасения на море[24].

 

27 ноября 450 года Галла Плацидия скончалась в Риме и, более чем вероятно, была погребена в родовой усыпальнице императора Феодосия Сан-Петронила недалеко от собора святого Петра[25]. В Равенне находится гробница, называемая мавзолей Галлы Плацидии, но ни один античный историк не упоминал о погребении августы в Равенне, молчит об этом и Андрео Агнелло в своей хронике «Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis». Имеющиеся в мавзолее саркофаги, приписываемые самой Галле и её ближайшим родственникам, по мнению ряда исследователей, изначально не находились в нём[26], первый раз о них упоминает в XIV веке епископ Ринальдо да Конкореджио[27]. После XIV века многочисленные источники уже уверенно называют здание мавзолеем Галлы Плацидии. Среди возможных причин этого можно назвать как определённое внешнее сходство мозаик мавзолея с мозаиками римской церкви Санта-Констанца (местом погребения одной из дочерей Константина Великого), так и необычная форма погребения тела в одном из саркофагов (тело было усажено на кипарисовый трон)[27].

[править] Дети

 

Феодосий (414—415 гг.) — сын от короля вестготов Атаульфа, умер младенцем.

 

Юста Грата Гонория (417—после 452 года) — дочь от полководца Констанция. В 449 году забеременела от приближённого чиновника, после чего её насильственно выдали замуж за престарелого сенатора. Чтобы избежать замужества, она призвала на помощь вождя гуннов Аттилу, который воспользовался этим предлогом для разорения Галлии, а затем вторжения в Италию[28]. После 452 года известия о судьбе Гонории отсутствуют, предположительно она могла быть казнена.

 

Флавий Плацид Валентиниан (419—455 гг.) — сын от полководца Констанция. Стал императором в 425 году. Сначала за него правила его мать Галла Плацидия, затем фактическую власть осуществлял полководец Аэций. Убит телохранителем-готом в 455 году.

 

Galla Placidia

Empress-Mother of the Western Roman Empire

 

Galla Placidia on a coin ca. 430

Reign Regent for Emperor Valentinian III: 423 – July 2, 437 (14 years)

Full name Aelia Galla Placidia

Born 392

Birthplace Ravenna

Died November 27, 450

Place of death Rome

Buried [Unknown. She died in Rome and IS NOT buried in "" in Ravenna]

Consort to Ataulf

Consort to Constantius III

Offspring Flavius Placidius Valentinianus, Justa Grata Honoria

Dynasty Theodosian

Father Theodosius I

Mother Galla

 

Aelia Galla Placidia (392 – November 27, 450), daughter of the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, was the Regent for Emperor Valentinian III from 423 until his majority in 437, and a major force in Roman politics for most of her life. She was consort to Ataulf king of the Goths from 414-415 until his death, and Empress consort to Constantius III from 417-422 until his death.

Contents

[hide]

 

1 Family

2 Early life

3 First marriage

4 Second marriage

5 Widow

6 Regent

6.1 Conflict between Bonifacius and Aetius

6.2 Rise of Aetius

7 Depictions in popular culture

8 Public works

9 Notes

10 References

11 External links

 

[edit] Family

 

Placidia was the daughter of Roman Emperor Theodosius I and his second wife Galla,[1], who was herself daughter of Emperor Valentinian I and his second wife Justina.[2] Her older brother Gratian died young. Her mother died in childbirth in 394, giving birth to John, who died with their mother.[3] Placidia was a younger, paternal half-sister of Emperors Arcadius and Honorius. Her older half-sister Pulcheria predeceased her parents as mentioned in the writings of Gregory of Nyssa, placing the death of Pulcheria prior to the death of Aelia Flaccilla, first wife of Theodosius I, in 385.[4]

[edit] Early life

 

Placidia was granted her own household by her father in the early 390s and was thus financially independent while underage. She was summoned to the court of her father in Mediolanum during 394. She was present at Theodosius' death on January 17, 395. She was granted the title of "Nobilissima Puella" ("Most Noble Girl") during her childhood.[5]

 

Placidia spent most of her early years in the household of Stilicho the Vandal and his wife Serena. She is presumed to have learned weaving and embroidery. She might have also been given a classical education though no details are known.[5] Serena was a first cousin of Arcadius, Honorius and Placidia. The poem "In Praise of Serena" by Claudian and the "Historia Nova" by Zosimus clarify that Serena's father was an elder Honorius, a brother to Theodosius I.[6][7] According to "De Consulatu Stilichonis" by Claudian, Placidia was betrothed to Eucherius, only known son of Stilicho and Serena. Her scheduled marriage is mentioned in the text as the third union between Stilicho's family and the Theodosian dynasty, following those of Stilicho to Serena and Maria, their daughter, to Honorius.[8]

 

Stilicho was the magister militum of the Western Roman Empire. He was the only known person to hold the rank of "magister militum in praesenti" from 394 to 408 in both the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire. He was also titled "magister equitum et peditum" ("Master of the Horse and of Foot"), placing him in charge of both the cavalry and infantry forces of the Western Roman Empire.[9] In 408, Arcadius died and was succeeded by his son Theodosius II, only seven years old. Stilicho planned to proceed to Constantinople and "undertake the management of the affairs of Theodosius", convincing Honorius not to travel to the East himself. Shortly after, Olympius, "an officer of rank in the court-guards" attempted to convince Honorius that Stilicho was in fact conspiring to depose Theodosius II, to replace him with Eucherius. Olympius proceeded to lead a military coup d'état which left him in control of Honorius and his court. Stilicho was arrested and executed on August 22, 408. Eucherius sought refuge in Rome but was arrested there by Arsacius and Tarentius, two eunuchs following imperial command. They executed him not long after. Honorius appointed Tarentius imperial chamberlain, and gave the next post under him to Arsacius.[7] Their deaths left Placidia effectively unattached.

[edit] First marriage

 

In the disturbances that followed the fall of Stilicho, throughout the Italian Peninsula the wives and children of the foederati were slain. The foederati were considered loyalists of Stilicho and treated accordingly. The natural consequence of all this was that these men, to the number of 30,000, flocked to the camp of Alaric I, King of the Visigoths, clamouring to be led against their cowardly enemies. Alaric accordingly led them across the Julian Alps and, in September 408, stood before the Aurelian Walls and began a strict blockade.[10] Rome was under siege, with minor interruptions, from 408 to August 24, 410. Zosimus records that Placidia was within the city during the siege. When Serena was accused of conspiring with Alaric, "the whole senate therefore, with Placidia, uterine sister to the emperor, thought it proper that she should suffer death".[7] Her reasons for concurring to the execution of her cousin are not stated in the account.[5]

 

Prior to the fall of Rome, Placidia was captured by Alaric. Her captivity was recorded by both Jordanes and Marcellinus Comes, though the exact circumstances are not mentioned.[1] She followed the Visigoths in their move from the Italian Peninsula to Gaul in 412. Their ruler Ataulf, having succeeded Alaric, entered an alliance with Honorius against Jovinus and Sebastianus, rival Western Roman emperors located in Gaul. He managed to defeat and execute both Gallo-Roman emperors in 413.[11]

 

After the heads of Sebastianus and Jovinus arrived at Honorius' court in Ravenna in late August, to be forwarded for display among other usurpers on the walls of Carthage, relations between Ataulf and Honorius improved sufficiently for Ataulf to cement them by marrying Galla Placidia at Narbonne on January 1, 414. The nuptials were celebrated with high Roman festivities and magnificent gifts from the Gothic booty. Priscus Attalus gave the wedding speech, a classical epithalamium. The marriage was recorded by Hydatius.[1] The historian Jordanes states that they married earlier, in 411 at Forum Livii (Forlì). Jordanes's date may actually be when she and the Gothic king first became more than captor and captive.

 

Placidia and Ataulf had a single known son, Theodosius. He was born in Barcelona by the end of 414. Theodosius died early in the following year, thus eliminating an opportunity for a Romano-Visigothic line.[5][12] Years later the corpse was exhumed and reburied in the imperial mausoleum in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. In Hispania, Ataulf imprudently accepted into his service a man identified as "Dubius" or "Eberwolf", a former follower of Sarus. Sarus was a Germanic chieftain who was killed while fighting under Jovinus and Sebastianus. His follower harbored a secret desire to avenge the death of his beloved patron. And so, in the palace at Barcelona, the man brought Ataulf's reign to a sudden end by killing him while he bathed in August/September, 415.[12]

 

The Amali faction proceeded to proclaim Sigeric, a brother of Sarus, as the next king of the Visigoths. According to The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, the first act of Sigeric's reign "was the inhuman murder" of Ataulf's six children from a former marriage "whom he tore, without pity, from the feeble arms of a venerable bishop." (the latter being Sigesar, Bishop of the Goths[12]). As for Galla Placidia, as Ataulf's widow, she was "treated with cruel and wanton insult" by being forced to walk more than twelve miles on foot among the crowd of captives driven ahead of the mounted Sigeric. Seeing the noble widow's sufferings, however, became one of the factors that roused indignant opponents of the usurper, who quickly assassinated Sigeric and replaced him with Wallia, Ataulf's relative.[13]

[edit] Second marriage

Interior of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna

 

According to the Chronicon Albeldense, included in the Roda Codex, Wallia was desperate for food supplies. He surrendered to Constantius III, at the time magister militum of Honorius, negotiating terms giving foederati status for the Visigoths. Placidia was returned to Honorius as part of the peace treaty.[14] Her brother Honorius forced her into marriage to Constantius III on January 1, 417.[5] Their daughter Justa Grata Honoria was probably born in 417 or 418. The history of Paul the Deacon mentions her first among the children of the marriage, suggesting that she was the eldest. Their son Valentinian III was born July 2, 419.[15]

 

Placidia intervened in the succession crisis following the death of Pope Zosimus on December 26, 418. Two factions of the Roman clergy had proceeded to elect their own popes, the first electing Eulalius (27 December) and the other electing Boniface I (28 December). They acted as rival popes, both in Rome, and their factions plunged the city into tumult. Symmachus, Prefect of Rome, sent his report to the imperial court at Ravenna, requesting an imperial decision on the matter.[16] Placidia and, presumably, Constantius petitioned the emperor in favor of Eulalius.[5] This was arguably the first intervention by an Emperor in the Papal election.

 

Honorius initially confirmed Eulalius as the legitimate pope. As this failed to put an end to the controversy, Honorius called a synod of Italian bishops at Ravenna to decide the matter. The synod met from February to March 419 but failed to reach a conclusion. Honorius called a second synod in May, this time including Gaulish and African bishops. In the meantime, the two rival popes were ordered to leave Rome. As Easter approached, however, Eulalius returned to the city and attempted to seize the Basilica of St. John Lateran in order to "preside at the paschal ceremonies". Imperial troops managed to repel him, and on Easter (March 30, 419) the ceremonies were led by Achilleus, Bishop of Spoleto. The conflict cost Eulalius the imperial favor, and Boniface was proclaimed the legitimate pope as of April 3, 419, returning to Rome a week later.[16] Placidia had personally written to the African bishops, summoning them to the second synod. Three of her letters are known to have survived.[5]

 

On February 8, 421, Constantius was proclaimed an Augustus, becoming co-ruler with the childless Honorius. Placidia was proclaimed an Augusta. She was the only Empress in the West, since Honorius had divorced his second wife Thermantia in 408 and had never remarried. Neither title was recognised by Theodosius II, the Eastern Roman Emperor. Constantius reportedly complained about the loss of personal freedom and privacy that came with the imperial office. He died of an illness on September 2, 421.[17]

[edit] Widow

Medallions of Honorius and Galla Placidia, Ravenna, 425

 

Galla Placidia herself was now forced from the Western Empire. Though the motivation for this remains unclear, the public issue was the increasingly scandalous public caresses she received from her own brother Honorius—this at least was the interpretation of Olympiodorus of Thebes, a historian used as a source by Zosimus, Sozomen and probably Philostorgius, as J.F. Matthews has demonstrated.[18] Gibbon had a different opinion: "The power of Placidia; and the indecent familiarity of her brother, which might be no more than the symptoms of a childish affection, were universally attributed to incestuous love."[19]

 

According to Gibbon, "On a sudden, by some base intrigues of a steward and a nurse, this excessive fondness was converted into an irreconcilable quarrel: the debates of the emperor and his sister were not long confined within the walls of the palace; and as the Gothic soldiers adhered to their queen, the city of Ravenna was agitated with bloody and dangerous tumults, which could only be appeased by the forced or voluntary retreat of Placidia and her children. The royal exiles landed at Constantinople, soon after the marriage of Theodosius, during the festival of the Persian victories. They were treated with kindness and magnificence; but as the statues of the emperor Constantius had been rejected by the Eastern court, the title of Augusta could not decently be allowed to his widow".[20] The passage places the arrival of Placidia and her children after the marriage of Theodosius II to Aelia Eudocia, known to have occurred on June 7, 421.[21] The "Persian victories" mentioned were probably victory celebrations over a brief Roman-Persian War, under the respective leadership of Theodosius II and Bahram V of the Sassanid Empire. This conflict took place from c. 420 to 422. "The general Ardaburius operated in Arzanene and gained a victory, autumn 421, which forced the Persians to retreat to Nisibis, which Ardaburius then besieged. He raised the siege on the arrival of an army under Varahran, who proceeded to attack Resaina. Meanwhile the Saracens of Hira, under Al‑Mundhir, were sent to invade Syria, and were defeated by Vitianus. During the peace negotiations the Persians attacked the Romans and were defeated by Procopius, son-in‑law of Anthemius (Socrates, VII.18, 20). The Empress Eudocia celebrated the war in a poem in heroic metre (ib. 21)."[22] The "Saracens of Hira" were the Lakhmids of Al-Hirah.

 

On August 15, 423, Honorius died of dropsy, perhaps pulmonary edema.[23] With no member of the Theodosian dynasty present at Ravenna to claim the throne, Theodosius II was expected to nominate a Western co-emperor. However, Theodosius hesitated and the decision was delayed. Taking advantage of the power vacuum, Castinus the Patrician proceeded to become a kingmaker. He declared Joannes, the primicerius notariorum ("chief notary", head of the civil service), to be the new Western Roman Emperor. Among their supporters was Flavius Aetius. Aetius was a son of Flavius Gaudentius, magister militum, and Aurelia. Joannes' rule was accepted in the provinces of Italia, Gaul, Hispania, but not in Africa Province.[11]

 

Theodosius II reacted by preparing Valentinian III for eventual promotion to the imperial office. In 423/424, Valentinian was named nobilissimus. In 424, Valentinian was betrothed to Licinia Eudoxia, his first cousin once removed. She was a daughter of Theodosius II and Aelia Eudocia. The year of their betrothal was recorded by Marcellinus Comes. At the time of their betrothal, Valentinian was approximately four years old, Licinia only two.[24][25] Gibbon attributes the betrothal to "the agreement of the three females who governed the Roman world", meaning Placidia and her nieces Eudocia and Pulcheria.[20] In the same year, Valentinian was proclaimed a Caesar in the Eastern court.[24]

 

The campaign against Joannes also started in the same year. Forces of the Eastern Roman army gathered at Thessaloniki, and were placed under the general command of Ardaburus, the victorious general of the Roman-Persian War. The invasion force was to cross the Adriatic Sea by two routes. Aspar, son of Ardaburius, led the cavalry by land, following the coast of the Adriatic from the Western Balkans to Northern Italy. Placidia and Valentinian joined this force. Ardaburius and the infantry boarded ships of the Eastern Roman navy in an attempt to reach Ravenna by sea. Aspar marched his forces to Aquileia, taking the city by surprise and with virtually no resistance. The fleet, on the other hand, was dispersed by a storm. Ardaburius and two of his galleys were captured by forces loyal to Joannes and were held prisoners in Ravenna.[11][20]

 

Ardaburius was treated well by Joannes, who probably intended to negotiate with Theodosius for an end to the hostilities. The prisoner was allowed the "courteous freedom" of walking the court and streets of Ravenna during his captivity. He took advantage of this privilege to come into contact with the forces of Joannes and convinced some of them to defect to Theodosius' side. The conspirators contacted Aspar and beckoned him to Ravenna. A shepherd led Aspar's cavalry force through the marshes of the Po River to the gates of Ravenna; with the besiegers outside the walls and the defectors within, the city was quickly captured. Joannes was taken and his right hand cut off; he was then mounted on a donkey and paraded through the streets, and finally beheaded in the Hippodrome of Aquileia.[11][20]

 

With Joannes dead, Valentinian was officially proclaimed the new Augustus of the Western Roman Empire on October 23, 425, in the presence of the Roman Senate. Three days following Joannes' death, Aetius brought reinforcements for his army, a reported number of sixty thousand Huns from across the Danube. After some skirmishing, Placidia and Aetius came to an agreement that established the political landscape of the Western Roman Empire for the next thirty years. The Huns were paid off and sent home, while Aetius received the position of magister militum per Gallias (commander-in-chief of the Roman army in Gaul).[11][20]

[edit] Regent

 

Galla Placidia was regent of the Western Roman Empire from 425 to 437, her regency ending when Valentinian reached his eighteenth birthday on July 2, 437. Among her early supporters was Bonifacius, governor of the Diocese of Africa.[5][24] Aetius, his rival for influence, managed to secure Arles against Theodoric I of the Visigoths.[26] The Visigoths concluded a treaty and were given Gallic noblemen as hostages. The later Emperor Avitus visited Theodoric, lived at his court and taught his sons.[27]

[edit] Conflict between Bonifacius and Aetius

 

Conflict between Placidia and Bonifacius started in 429. Placidia appointed Bonifacius general of Libya. Procopius records that Aetius played the two against each other, warning Placidia against Bonifacius and advising her to recall him to Rome; simultaneously writing to Bonifacius, warning him that Placidia was about to summon him for no good reason in order to put him away.[28]

 

Bonifacius, trusting the warning from Aetius, refused the summons; and, thinking his position untenable, sought an alliance with the Vandals in Spain. The Vandals subsequently crossed from Spain into Libya to join him. To friends of Bonifacius in Rome, this apparent act of hostility toward the Empire seemed entirely out of character for Bonifacius. They traveled to Carthage at Placidia's behest to intercede with him, and he showed them the letter from Aetius. The plot now revealed, his friends returned to Rome to apprise Placidia of the true situation. She did not move against Aetius, as he wielded great influence, and as the Empire was already in danger; but she urged Bonifacius to return to Rome "and not to permit the empire of the Romans to lie under the hand of barbarians."[28]

 

Bonifacius now regretted his alliance with the Vandals and tried to persuade them to return to Spain. Gaiseric offered battle instead, and Bonifacius was besieged at Hippo Regius in Numidia by the sea. (St. Augustine was Bishop of Hippo and died in this siege.) Unable to take the city, the Vandals eventually raised the siege. The Romans, with reinforcements under Aspar, renewed the struggle but were routed and lost Africa to the Vandals.[28]

 

Bonifacius had meanwhile returned to Rome, where Placidia raised him to the rank of patrician and made him "master-general of the Roman armie". Aetius returned from Gaul with an army of "barbarians", and was met by Bonifacius in the bloody Battle of Ravenna (432). Bonifacius won the battle, but was mortally wounded and died a few days later. Aetius was compelled to retire to Pannonia.[28]

[edit] Rise of Aetius

 

With the generals loyal to her having either died or defected to Aetius, Placidia acknowledged the inevitable: Aetius was recalled from exile in 433 and given the titles "magister militum" and "Patrician". The appointments effectively left Aetius in control of the entire Western Roman Army and gave him considerable influence over imperial policy. Placidia continued to act as regent until 437, though her direct influence over decisions was diminished. She would continue to exercise political influence until her death in 450—no longer, however, the only power at court.[5]

 

Aetius later played a pivotal role in the defense of the Western Empire against Attila the Hun. Attila was diverted from Constantinople towards Italy by a letter from Placidia's own daughter Justa Grata Honoria in the spring of 450, asking him to rescue her from an unwanted marriage to a Roman senator that the Imperial family, including Placidia, was trying to force upon her. Honoria included her engagement ring with the letter. Though Honoria may not have intended a proposal of marriage, Attila chose to interpret her message as such. He accepted, asking for half of the western Empire as dowry. When Valentinian discovered the plan, only the influence of Placidia persuaded him not to kill Honoria. Valentinian wrote to Attila denying the legitimacy of the supposed marriage proposal. Attila, unconvinced, sent an emissary to Ravenna to proclaim that Honoria was innocent, that the proposal had been legitimate, and that he would come to claim what was rightfully his. Honoria was quickly married to Flavius Bassus Herculanus, though this did not prevent Attila from pressing his claim.[29]

 

Placidia died shortly afterwards at Rome in November 450, and did not live to see Attila ravage Italy in 451–453, in a much more brutal campaign than the Goths had waged, using Justa's letter as his sole "legitimate" excuse.

[edit] Depictions in popular culture

 

Galla Placidia is represented in the BBC's Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire by Natasha Berrero

Spanish musician Jaume Pahissa wrote the opera Gal·la Placídia in 1913.

 

[edit] Public works

 

Placidia was a fervent Chalcedonian Christian. She was involved in the building and restoration of various churches throughout her period of influence. She restored and expanded the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. She built San Giovanni Evangelista, Ravenna in thanks for the sparing of her life and those of her children in a storm while crossing the Adriatic Sea. The dedicatory inscription reads "Galla Placidia, along with her son Placidus Valentinian Augustus and her daughter Justa Grata Honoria Augusta, paid off their vow for their liberation from the danger of the sea."[5]

 

Her Mausoleum in Ravenna was one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites inscribed in 1996. However there is some doubt whether the building served as her tomb. The building was initially erected as a chapel dedicated to Lawrence of Rome. It is unknown whether the sarcophagi therein contained the bodies of the members of the Theodosian dynasty, or when they were placed in the building.

Execution of a contract. Negotiation of terms. Legal implication.

Execution Rocks Lighthouse

Pelham Bay Park

The Bronx, NY

December 27, 2022

by Edouard Manet in the National Gallery, London

Flash SB 800 Used.

(for further pictures and information please contact the link at the end of page!)

Maria Theresa monument Maria Theresa monument in Vienna

Maria Theresa Square

The Maria Theresa monument is the most important ruler monument of the Habsburg monarchy in Vienna. It is reminiscent of the Empress Maria Theresa, who ruled from 1740 to 1780, and is since 1888 on the Maria Theresa Square on the Vienna ring road (Castle Square - Burgring) between the then Imperial Museums, in 1891 opened the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History) and in 1889 opened the Natural History Museum (Naturhistorisches Museum), in front of the background of the Museum Quarter, then the imperial stables. This by Tritons and Najad Fountains accompanied Ensemble monument counts to the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Vienna.

Historical Background View from the top (2010)

The Empire of Austria in 1859 and 1866 lost Lombardy and Veneto to the new Kingdom of Italy. It was in 1866 forced to resigne after the defeat of the German war, the Prussians had triggered by violation of the rules of the German Confederation from Germany, which in 1871 was constituted as German Empire under a new empire. In 1867 Emperor Franz Joseph I. in Compromise with Hungary had to agree to the formal division of the empire into a ruled from Vienna cisleithanian and ruled from Budapest transleithanian half of the Empire, with Hungary increasingly presenting itself not as a part of the empire, but as a largely independent state. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitha

During the World Exhibition 1873 in Vienna an economic crisis had occurred, the "founders' crash - Gründerkrach" that devalued liberalism as the leading political movement and new mass parties, for the time being, the Christian Social Party, and later the Social Democrats, putting forth. In addition, more and more national movements were felt in the multiethnic state. Those centrifugal and the imperial power eroding tendencies one would counteract by patriotic appeals to splendor and glory of the empire. At the since 1858 under construction and in 1865 opened new Vienna ring road around the old town was offered the chance. On the Maria Theresa Square the center facing adjoining Heldenplatz outside the Hofburg in 1860 and 1865 monuments of the two most important generals of the monarchy were built. For the Maria Theresa square, which with the Heldenplatz should form an Imperial Forum, it was a good occasion to erect a monument to the historical mother of the nation. She had by her marriage to Francis Stephen of Lorraine and his election as emperor, the Roman-German Empire brought back to Vienna and the continuation of the dynasty, now as House of Habsburg-Lorraine, secured. She referred to a time when the development of the monarchy was not dependent on any political party nor on national political considerations, but by the wisdom of the rulers. Her reputation and popularity should radiate to the current empire.

The monument Gypsum model of a draft of the monument Maria Theresa surrounded by the allegories of the cardinal virtues For the execution of the sculptures in 1874 the three sculptors Johannes Benk, Carl Kundmann and Caspar Zumbusch submitted designs. Emperor Franz Joseph I decided for Zumbusch, with his student Anton Brenek around 13 years working on the bronze sculptures, which have a total weight of 44 tons. Carl von Hasenauer designed the architecture of the monument. With the base, the monument covers an area of ​​632 square meters and is 19.36 m high, on top the seated figure of the Empress with 6 m height. Base and chain pedestal consist of Mauthausen granite from Enghagen in Upper Austria, pedestal and base of brown hornblende granite from Petersburg-Jeschitz at Pilsen in the Czech Republic, the columns of serpentinite from Wiesen near Sterzing in South Tyrol. The program's content for the monument came from Alfred von Arneth, director of the Imperial House, Court and State Archives. The monarch herself sits on her throne at the top, in the left hand a scepter and the Pragmatic Sanction, the State and the Constitutional Treaty, her allowing the rule in the Habsburg lands as woman, saluting with the right hand the people. Around the throne on the cornice are sitting as allegorical personifications of the cardinal virtues of justice, strength, gentleness and wisdom four female figures.

At the four sides of the base each is located a circular field with a relief and before that a freestanding statue in thematic context: The consultants of the Archduchess are represented by Wenzel Anton Kaunitz as a statue and Johann Christoph von Bartenstein, Gundakar Thomas Graf Starhemberg and Florimond Claude of Mercy-Argenteau in relief, the background shows the Gloriette in the garden of Schonbrunn Palace. For the administration stand Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz (statue) and Antal Grassalkovich I, Samuel Brukenthal, Paul Joseph of Riegger, Karl Anton von Martini and Joseph von Sonnenfels in a consulting room in the Imperial Palace. For the military stand Joseph Wenzel I (statue) with Franz Moritz von Lacy, Andreas Hadik of Futak and Franz Leopold of Nádasdy in front of the castle in Wiener Neustadt, in which in 1752 the Theresa Military Academy was established. Science and art are represented by the physician Gerard van Swieten (statue), the numismatist Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, the historian György Pray and the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, Joseph Haydn and the as child represented Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in front of the Old University. Consultants Management Military Science and Art On the diagonal axes surround equestrian statues of four commanders from the era of Maria Theresa the monument: Leopold Joseph von Daun (1705-1766), Ludwig Andreas von Khevenhüller (1683-1744), Gideon Ernst von Laudon (1717-1790) and Otto Ferdinand von Abensperg and Traun (1677-1748). Leopold Joseph von Daun Ludwig Andreas von Khevenhüller Gideon Ernst von Laudon Otto Ferdinand von Abensperg and Traun Open base during the renovation (2008).

The monument is being totally renovated since October 2008. In a first step, the base whose granite cladding and the foundation were restored. Under the monument in the course of the work a 600-square-foot brick vault was discovered as a supporting structure that is similar to already known components underneath the equestrian statues on Heroes' Square. In a second step, the stone and metal surfaces are being rehabilitated until probably October 2013.

Reception The monument in 1888 Maria Theresa Square in 1900

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria-Theresien-Denkmal

Execution on the Old Town Square 21. 6. 1621

23-06-2001 | Olaf Barth, Katrin Bock

Olaf Barth and Katrin Bock now take a look at the events that took place on the Old Town Square 380 years ago.

Execution on the Old Town Square 21. 6. 1621

If you have ever been to Prague, you may have noticed the 27 crosses which have been embedded into the pavement at the foot of the Old Town Town Hall. Perhaps you have wondered about their origin. Well, in the following minutes you will learn more about the context of these crosses. First of all, listen to the Czech writer Alois Jirasek portraying the events at the end of the 19th century in one of his stories:

"In the night of 20 to 21 June 1621, fear and grief prevailed everywhere in Prague, and the roads had become like deserted, for on Prague restrictions had been imposed. Only the clash of the weapons and the heavy steps of foreign soldiers broke through the oppressive silence. On the Old Town Square there was a lot of activity, and boards and beams were unloaded from wagons and carried to the middle of the place, where a scaffold grew by the flickering light of numerous torches. By daybreak a gallows covered with red cloth was towering. At sunrise fulminated a cannon cracker showing that the execution had to begin. On the scaffold dark hooded people were visible, the assistents of the executioner and the gravedigger. Finally, the executioner, Jan Mydláø, also appeared. Immediately the imperial judges took their seats, and the names of the twenty-seven death-condemned noblemen were exclaimed. While foreign soldiers were drumming in the streets of Prague, in the houses people of Prague prayed for their faithful, the 27 men who were either beheaded or hanged at the same time. It is reported that once a year, always in the night from the 20th to the 21st of June, the noblemen and citizens appear on the Old Town Square. Silently they walk over the square to the church, where, kneeling before the altar, they receive the Last Supper in both forms. And as silently as they have come they disappear again."

The Hradschin 1618, in the year of the window-lintel (contemporary engraving)

So far the Czech writer Alois Jirasek about the events of that night 380 years ago, when the leaders of the insurrection of the Estates against the Catholic Habsburgs were judged. 27 nobles, gentlemen and citizens, Czechs and Germans, Protestants and a Catholic then left their lives. They were punished for having joined an uprising against the legal Habsburg emperor which had a religious background, for the Emperor had previously tried to restrict the freedom of religion which had been in force in the Bohemian lands since the middle of the fifteenth century. The revolt had begun on May 23, 1618, with the famous Prague defenestration, and ended with the battle Battle of White Mountain in November 1620, for the Czechs still today a national trauma. In that battle before the gates of Prague the army of the Catholic Habsburgs the Protestant Estates had utterly vanquished. What followed was a relentless persecution of all insurgents, regardless of their social position or nationality. Emperor Ferdinand II used his military victory to strengthen his position in the rebellious Bohemian lands, to suppress the Protestant faith and to break the power of the Estates once and for all.

Procession on the White Mountains (Josef Berka and A. Gustav, around 1800)

All persons who had somehow participated in the uprising of the Estates were punished. The worst punishment experienced three lords, seven knights and 17 citizens, who were executed in the early morning hours of June 21, 1621 on the Old Town Square. The execution took place conforming to the etiquette: first came the lords, then the knights, and finally the citizens. It is said the bloodthirsty torture to have lasted for four hours, while the executioner Jan Mydlar in the proces was to have beaten blunt four swords.

Joachim Andreas Graf Schlick was the first to be beheaded, whose family had grown rich thanks to the silver mines in the west Bohemian Jáchymov valley. Count Schlick had worked for many years at the Saxon court as an educator of the future ruler Johann Georg. During the Bohemian uprising of the Estates, Schlick had been quite active. Among other things, he was one of the participants of the famous 1618 defenestration. Next came Vaclav Budova from Budovec. Since the beginning of the 17th century, he had been strongly committed to the observance of the freedom of belief in the Bohemian lands and had been one of the spokesmen of the insurgents. As the third nobleman, Krystof Harant of Polzice and Bezdruzice lost his head. He had been court musician and companion of Rudolf at the court of Emperor Rudolf II. He was not very interested in politics, but he had been one of the military leaders of the insurgents, which now cost him his head. All three of them, without any doubt, belonged to the intellectual elite of the country, all three of them had been to many places, were well-educated, spoke several languages, and were Protestants.

Among the 7 knights was also the Catholic Divis Cernin of Chudenice. This one had made the fatal mistake of opening the gates of the castle to the representatives of the Estates on the 23rd of May, 1618, who then threw the three representatives of the Habsburg power out of a window in protest against the restriction of the rights of the Protestants.

Jan Jesensky

Jan Jessenius, the rector of the Charles University of Prague, was one of those who got the severest judgement. He was not only beheaded, his tongue had been cut off before, additionally he was also quartered after the execution. Emperor Ferdinand had expressed himself personally for this harsh judgment. The internationally respected scholar, who had carried out the first public autopsy in Prague in 1600, had aroused the wrath of the ruler as he had himself pronounced against the election of Ferdinand for the King of Bohemia as well as published a series of harsh writings against the Habsburgs.

The heads of twelve executed were hanged in iron baskets for deterrence and warning at the Old Town Bridge Tower. From there they were removed only 10 years later, when the Saxons 1631 occupied Prague for a short time.

Ferdinand II.

Emperor Ferdinand II took advantage of the victory over the rebellious Protestant estates, which had dethroned him, the legitimate heir, and elected another one, the "Winter King", Frederick of the Palatinate. 166 nobles Ferdinand had completely dispossessed, another 500 lost a large part of their estates. On the other hand, his faithful were rewarded. Those were given great lands in the Bohemian lands. In addition, monasteries were returned lands that they had lost during the Hussite wars in the 15th century.

The greatest winners were probably Albrecht von Waldstein, Karl von Liechtenstein, and Johann Ulrich von Eggenberg, who were now able to call great domains their own. But also other noble families then settled in the Bohemian lands, like the Trauttmansdorff, Thun, Metternich and Clary families.

Even ordinary citizens and peasants were affected: those who did not convert to the Catholic faith had to leave the country. In 1624 the Catholic faith became the only one recognized in the Bohemian lands - more and more subjects saw themselves forced to emigrate. Some 150,000 people are said to have left the Bohemian lands for religious reasons in the years after the defeat of the Protestant Estates. The probably most famous emigrant of that time is Jan Amos Komensky - Comenius. The pedagogue and bishop of the Unity of the Brotherhood settled down after a few journeys in Holland, where he died in 1670 at the age of 78.

Even in the eyes of most of today's Czechs, the "time of darkness" began with the defeat of the Protestant estates in the Battle of Weissenberg. As such, the almost 300 years of the unrestricted rule of the Habsburgs over the Bohemian countries were designated, which ended only with the independence of Czechoslovakia in 1918. The formerly proud kingdom of Bohemia had been degrated to a Habsburg province according to the new regional order of 1627, and had lost most of its rights, including the freedom of faith for which its inhabitants had fought since the death for heresy of Jan Hus in 1415. Today, not only the 27 crosses embedded on the Old Town Square, but also all the magnificent Baroque buildings in the country, are reminiscent of this historic epoch. With these the Catholic Habsburgs showed their Bohemian and Moravian subjects who is the boss in the country.

And so we are already at the end of our trip into the 17th century.

 

Hinrichtung auf dem Altstädter Ring 21. 6. 1621

23-06-2001 | Olaf Barth, Katrin Bock

Olaf Barth und Katrin Bock werfen heute einen Blick auf die Geschehnisse, die sich vor 380 Jahren auf dem Altstädter Ring ereigneten.

Hinrichtung auf dem Altstädter Ring 21. 6. 1621

Wer von Ihnen schon mal in Prag war, dem sind sie vielleicht aufgefallen, die 27 in das Pflaster eingelassenen Kreuze zu Füssen des Altstädter Rathausturmes. Vielleicht haben Sie sich über deren Ursprung gewundert. Nun in den folgenden Minuten erfahren Sie mehr über die Bewandtnis dieser Kreuze. Hören Sie zunächst einmal, wie der tschechische Schriftsteller Alois Jirasek die entsprechenden Ereignisse Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts in einer seiner Geschichten schilderte:

"In der Nacht vom 20. auf den 21. Juni 1621 herrschte überall in Prag Angst und Trauer. Die Strassen waren wie ausgestorben, denn über Prag war Ausgangsverbot verhängt worden. Nur das Klirren der Waffen und schwere Schritte fremder Soldaten durchbrachen die bedrückende Stille. Auf dem Altstädter Ring herrschte reger Betrieb. Bretter und Balken wurden von Wagen abgeladen und zur Platzmitte getragen, wo beim flackernden Licht zahlreicher Fackeln ein Gerüst wuchs. Als es zu dämmern begann, ragte da ein mit rotem Stoff überzogener Galgen empor. Beim Sonnenaufgang donnerte von der Prager Burg ein Kanonenschlag. Ein Zeichen dafür, dass die Exekution beginne. Auf dem Galgengerüst waren dunkle vermummte Gestalten zu sehen - die Henkershelfer und der Totengräber. Schliesslich erschien auch der Henker Jan Mydláø. Alsbald nahmen die kaiserlichen Richter ihre Sitze ein, und die Namen der 27 zum Tode verurteilten Standesherren wurden ausgerufen. Während in den Strassen Prags fremde Soldaten trommelten, beteten in den Häusern die Prager für ihre Getreuen, die 27 Herren, die zur selben Zeit geköpft oder gehängt wurden. Es wird berichtet, dass die hingerichteten Adeligen und Bürger einmal im Jahr, immer in der Nacht vom 20. auf den 21. Juni, auf dem Altstädter Ring erscheinen. Schweigend gehen sie über den Platz zur Kirche, wo sie, vor dem Altar knieend, das Abendmahl in beiderlei Gestalt empfangen. Und so lautlos wie sie gekommen verschwinden sie wieder."

Der Hradschin 1618, im Jahre des Fenstersturzes (Zeitgenössiger Stich)

Soweit der tschechische Schriftsteller Alois Jirasek über die Ereignisse jener Nacht vor 380 Jahren, als die Anführer des Ständeaufstandes gegen die katholischen Habsburger gerichtet wurden. 27 Adelige, Herren und Bürger, Tschechen und Deutsche, Protestanten und ein Katholik liessen damals ihr Leben. Bestraft wurden sie dafür, dass sie sich einem Aufstand gegen den rechtmässigen Habsburger Kaiser angeschlossen hatten, der einen religiösen Hintergrund hatte, denn der Kaiser hatte zuvor versucht, die seit Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts in den Böhmischen Ländern geltende Religionsfreiheit einzuschränken. Der Aufstand hatte am 23. Mai 1618 mit dem berühmten Prager Fenstersturz begonnen und mit der für Tschechen noch heute ein nationales Trauma darstellenden Schlacht am Weissen Berg im November 1620 geendet. In jener Schlacht vor den Toren Prags hatte das Heer der katholischen Habsburger die protestantischen Stände vernichtend geschlagen. Was folgte war eine unbarmherzige Verfolgung aller Aufständischen, ungeachtet ihrer gesellschaftlichen Stellung oder Nationalität. Kaiser Ferdinand II. nutzte seinen militärischen Sieg, um seine Stellung in den aufständischen Böhmischen Ländern zu stärken, den protestantischen Glauben zurückzudrängen und die Macht der Stände ein für alle mal zu brechen.

Prozession am Weißen Berge (Josef Berka und A. Gustav, um 1800)

Alle Personen, die irgendwie an dem Ständeaufstand beteiligt gewesen waren, wurden bestraft. Am schlimmsten traf es dabei drei Herren, sieben Ritter und 17 Bürger, die in den frühen Morgenstunden des 21. Junis 1621 auf dem Altstädter Ring hingerichtet wurden. Bei der Hinrichtung wurde die Etike gewahrt: zuerst waren die Herren dran, dann die Ritter und schliesslich die Bürger. Vier Stunden lang soll die blutige Tortur gedauert haben, vier Schwerter soll der Henker Jan Mydlar dabei stumpf geschlagen haben.

Als erster wurde Joachim Andreas Graf Schlick geköpft, dessen Familie dank der Silberminen im westböhmischen Joachimsthal reich geworden war. Graf Schlick hatte jahrelang am sächsischen Hof als Erzieher des zukünftigen Herrschers Johann Georg gewirkt. Während des böhmischen Ständeaufstands war Schlick recht aktiv gewesen, unter anderem gehörte er zu den Teilnehmern des berühmten Fenstersturzes von 1618. Als nächstes kam Vaclav Budova von Budovec an die Reihe. Dieser hatte sich seit dem Beginn des 17. Jahrhunderts stark für die Einhaltung der Glaubensfreiheit in den Böhmischen Ländern eingesetzt und war einer der Wortführer der Aufständischen gewesen. Als dritter hochgestellter Adeliger verlor Krystof Harant von Polzice und Bezdruzice seinen Kopf. Dieser war am Hofe Kaiser Rudolfs II. Hofmusikant und Gesellschafter Rudolfs gewesen. Für Politik interessierte er sich nicht sehr, doch war er einer der Heerführer der Aufständischen gewesen, das kostete ihn nun seinen Kopf. Alle drei Herren gehörten ohne Zweifel zur geistigen Elite des Landes, alle drei waren weitgereist, hervorragend gebildet, sprachen mehrere Sprachen - und waren Protestanten.

Unter den 7 Rittern war auch der Katholik Divis Cernin von Chudenice. Dieser hatte den verhängnisvollen Fehler gemacht, am 23. Mai 1618 den Repräsentanten der Stände die Burgtore geöffnet zu haben, die dann die drei Vertreter der Habsburger Macht aus Protest gegen die Einschränkung der Rechte der Protestanten aus einem Fenster warfen.

Jan Jesensky

Eines der härtesten Urteile traf Jan Jessenius, den Rektor der Prager Karlsuniversität, der als 16. an die Reihe kam: er wurde nicht nur geköpft, zuvor wurde ihm die Zunge abgeschnitten, ausserdem wurde er nach der Hinrichtung noch geviertelt. Für dieses harte Urteil hatte sich Kaiser Ferdinand persönlich ausgesprochen. Der international angesehene Gelehrte, der 1600 in Prag die erste öffentliche Obduktion durchgeführt hatte, hatte den Zorn des Herrschers erregt, da er sich auf verschiedenen Landtagen gegen die Wahl Ferdinands zum böhmischen König ausgesprochen sowie eine Reihe von scharfen Schriften gegen die Habsburger veröffentlicht hatte.

Die Köpfe von zwölf Hingerichteten wurden in Eisenkörben zur Abschreckung und Warnung an den Altstädter Brückenturm gehängt. Von dort wurden sie erst 10 Jahre später entfernt, als die Sachsen 1631 Prag für kurze Zeit besetzten.

Ferdinand II.

Kaiser Ferdinand II. nutzte seinen Sieg über die aufständischen protestantischen Stände, die ihn, den rechtmässigen Erben, entthront hatten und einen anderen, den "Winterkönig" Friedrich von der Pfalz, gewählt hatten. 166 Adelige liess Ferdinand vollkommen enteignen, weitere 500 verloren einen Grossteil ihrer Güter. Belohnt wurden dagegen seine Getreuen. Diese erhielten grosse Ländereien in den Böhmischen Ländern. Ausserdem bekamen Klöster Ländereien zurück, die sie zur Zeit der Hussitenkriege im 15. Jahrhundert verloren hatten.

Die grössten Gewinner waren wohl Albrecht von Waldstein, Karl von Liechtenstein sowie Johann Ulrich von Eggenberg, die nun grosse Herrschaften ihr Eigen nennen konnten. Aber auch andere Adelsdfamilien setzten damals in den Böhmischen Ländern ihren Fuss, wie die Familien Trauttmansdorff, Thun, Metternich und Clary.

Auch einfache Bürger und Bauern waren betroffen: wer nicht zum katholischen Glauben übertrat, musste das Land verlassen. 1624 wurde der katholische Glaube der einzig anerkannte in den Böhmischen Ländern - immer mehr Untertanen sahen sich gezwungen, zu emigrieren. Rund 150.000 Menschen sollen in den Jahren nach der Niederlage der protestantischen Stände die Böhmischen Länder aus religiösen Gründen verlassen haben. Der wohl bekannteste Emigrant jener Zeit ist Jan Amos Komensky - Comenius. Der Pädagoge und Bischof der Brüderunität liess sich nach einigen Reisen in Holland nieder, wo er 1670 im Alter von 78 Jahren verstarb.

Auch in den Augen der meisten heutigen Tschechen begann damals mit der Niederlage der protestantischen Stände in der Schlacht am Weissen Berg die "Zeit der Finsternis". Als solche werden die knapp 300 Jahre der uneingeschränkten Herrschaft der Habsburger über die Böhmischen Länder bezeichnet, die erst mit der Unabhängigkeit der Tschechoslowakei 1918 endeten. Das einstmals stolze Königreich Böhmen war nach der neuen Landesordnung von 1627 zu einer Habsburger Provinz degradiert worden und hatte die meisten seiner Rechte verloren - auch das der Glaubensfreiheit, für das seine Bewohner seit dem Ketzertod des Jan Hus 1415 gekämpft hatten. Heute erinnern an diese Geschichtsepoche nicht nur die 27 in das Strassenpflaster eingelassenen Kreuze auf dem Altstädter Ring, sondern auch all die prächtigen Barockbauten im Lande. Mit diesen zeigten die katholischen Habsburger ihren böhmischen und mährischen Untertanen, wer der Herr im Lande ist.

Und damit sind wir bereits am Ende unseres Ausfluges in das 17. Jahrhundert.

www.radio.cz/de/rubrik/geschichte/hinrichtung-auf-dem-alt...