different realities and reactions except for very serious political crimes, were to be reprieved to forced labour for life.643 In the Finnish village of Karhusuo, now very close to the border to Russia, Elias Nygren, his wife Maria Johansdotter, and four of their children lived. Nygren, drunk and furiously angry, in the night between December 17th and18th 1852 murdered the four children living at home. In the morning he went to a neighbouring farm, confessed to the murders and requested to be tied and taken to the police.644 In the two lower courts he was sentenced for the four murders to undergo losing his right hand, decapitation, and ”stegling”, being the general punishment for murder in the Swedish Code of 1734. He was satisfied with the sentence. When the senate, the supreme court of the country, received the case the sentence was changed into a severe corporal punishment, forced – and generally seen as humiliating – presence at a service in a church, and forced labour for life in the mines of Siberia. Nygren then asked instead to be executed according to his original sentence. His request was denied. He had motivated it with the heavy burden of his crimes on him. Robert Lagus commented on the request that Nygren probably found it hard to live with himself and his crime and therefore through death wanted to be united with his children.645 Lagus does not mention heaven in his interpretation of the request, but otherwise it would be a longing for hell or possibly, if Nygren was more modern, nothing. One can also to the 643 Lagus 1861–62 pIII:1 sq. One, almost, exception from this policy exists, but no actual executions were to be fulfilled in Finland until the civil war of 1918. Johan Adamsson was the object for the ’almost’ execution. He had during six weeks in the autumn of 1849 committed twelve murders. The situation was so extreme that also the senate sentenced Adamsson to death and waited for the decision of the emperor. When it came it was quite unique. A public execution was to be organised. Few knew that it would not be real. The executioner stopped the axe near the neck of Adamson and the decision of the emperor was read. ”The crowd was disappointed and furious.” Adamson was brought to the fortress Sveaborg on two islands in the sea outside Helsingfors. He was whipped and then put behind bricks. Visitors could see him, but he could hardly move. This punishment was ”considered cruel torment”. The next year Adamsson died. Keskisarja 2014 p 75 sqq (quotations p 77). 644 Lagus 1862 p 35 sqq. 645 Lagus 1862 p 42 sqq. 183
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=