Knut Olivecrona and his ”Om dödsstraffet”. - Figuras

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prohibitions or the lack of admittance when executions were made intramural.1 Other children coped with the situation in other ways, such as transforming the situation of the execution into playing, noticed by the adults mostly when something went wrong and someone died or when the real instruments of executions were used.2 Another way of regarding the experience of executions as shaping the future of an individual is the 19th century idea sometimes put forward in the debate on capital punishment is that attending an execution heightens the risk of being executed. V A Savart in Observations critiques sur le Code Pénal of 1828 refers both to the infamous pickpockets of England, most active around the gallows, and to a group found guilty of a murder in Paris who claimed that they had attended all executions at the place de Grève.3 The, among abolitionistic writers familiar, thought that executions were not deterring here is on its way to be transformed into this related argument. The most frequently spread example, seemingly judged very convincing due to its frequent use and longevity, concerns a prison chaplain Roberts in Bristol who is reported to have prepared a great number of condemned of which an overwhelming majority earlier had attended executions themselves. But how many were they? The British tradition claims that of 167 murderers prepared by Roberts 164 had been present at executions.4 On the Continent, however, the dominating figures are 167 and 161; figures propagated by Carl Joseph Anton Mittermaier, professor of law, finally in Heidelberg, and one of his times leading judicial authorities, not lest through his numerous articles and vast correspondence. Mittermaier published the figures at the latest in 1857 and iterated it in his influential Die Todesstrafe of 1862.5 Other would go on quote the story, or at least the figures, in the tradition of Mittermaier. 6 In 1863 two abolitionists of some standing used the story, with the figures of Mittermaier, to impress audiences of their cause. The secretary of l'association pour l'abolition de la peine de mort of Liège, Auguste Bury quoted Mittermaier as his source speaking at the meeting of l'association internationale pour le progrès des 1 See for instance Bergman 2001a p 96 sqq, cf for the earlier practice where the presence of children at executions were welcomed and encouraged for instance Evans 1997 p 75 sq, Löwenhielm 1923 p 24 sqq. 2 Münchener-Intelligenzblatt no 36 (28/7) 1780 p 348, draft of letter from the mayor Gerhard Jos Antoine Grelle of Antwerp to the Procureur du Roi 26/8 1837 fol 4 MA 460/2 SAA, Boisaymé 1863 p 48 sq. 3 Savart 1828 p 30. Bruno Preisendörfer terms the often related tale of pickpockets working the crowds of their co-workers ”einem Topos strafreformerischer Rethorik”, Preisendörfer 2000 p 254. 4 Report of the society 1866 p 10, Tallack 1905 p 140, Calvert 1930 4 p 18. 5 Mittermaier 1857 p 181, Mittermaier 1858 p 176, Mittermaier 1862 p 109. 6 See for instance Bonnet 1868 p 28 sq note 1 and Bedinghaus 1880 p 17 sq. 4
sciences sociales in Gent, thereby getting the reaction: ”(Sensation.)”1 Without neither explicit reference to Mittermaier nor explicit note of any reaction, Knut Olivecrona told the Swedish Nobles the same story.2 And these were not the only figures mentioned. We may also find 164 of 169 or 160 of 163. 3 Probably this and other assertions was part of the reason for Knut Olivecrona to write to, at least some of, the priests preparing persons in Sweden condemned or expected to be condemned to die and when he asked for information he also regularly raised the question if the condemned had attended any execution.4 Thus to watch an execution became more and more perceived as a life defining experience, possible leading to fervent abolitionism or being executed oneself. It is not surprisingly that an argument not lacking importance in the early 20th century debate in the Swedish parliament was the strain the presence at executions put on the attending civil servants. 5 Not being alone – Knut and Rosalie Any description of the work and influence of Knut Olivecrona would be incomplete if not bringing up the role of his second wife Rosalie. In 1848 he married Malla Schenson who died in 1854.6 At that time Knut Olivecrona had not yet become the public figure we are studying. The relatively few archival sources with regard to Malla also make it difficult to define her role in the later activities of Knut. Less than three years after the death of Malla, in 1857, Olivecrona married Rosalie Roos.7 In 1898 Rosalie died.8 Rosalie was a published writer and had also spent more that three years in the USA, most of the time as teacher in Charleston, and on an extended return voyage visited several places and sights in North America including Cuba and 1 Annales de l'association internationale pour le progrès des sciences sociales 1864 p 148, cf Journal de Gand 17/9 1863. 2 RD 1862-63 R o A V:371. 3 RD 1862-63 Bg V:138 (speech held in the Burghers by Gustaf Carl Witt, the same day as Olivecrona spoke in the Nobles) and Bessler 1997 p 89 (Walter S Judd in the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1893). 4 Letters from Carl Nygren to Knut Olivecrona 9/10 1865, from Oscar Westöö to Knut Olivecrona 19/4 1876, from Nils Anders Björkman to Knut Olivecrona 28/11 1877, and from Malte Banér Hasselquist to Knut Olivecrona 9/8 1890 B 187 m 26 UUB, see also ”angående And. Larsson i Qvallan af Fångpredn“ B 187 m 27 UUB. 5 Bergman 2001a p 106. 6 Jägerskiöld 1992-94 p 199, note for 11/9 1848 in diary of Knut Olivecrona Plåtlåda 1 OFA RA and note for 3/10 1853 in diary of Knut Olivecrona Kartong 17 OFA RA. 7 Note in diary of Knut Olivecrona 2/6 1857 Kartong 17 OFA RA, Fryxell 1898 p 5. 8 Laurell 1969 p 224. 5
Page 1 and 2: The Swede in 19th century European
Page 3: Childhood and executions In 1867 Ol
Page 7 and 8: Knut Olivecrona had in Rosalie a sp
Page 9 and 10: presented at L'Institut Impérial.
Page 11 and 12: inspector of French prisons and fou
Page 13 and 14: ich due to a systematic collection
Page 15 and 16: tendencies are clearly of great imp
Page 17 and 18: law committee while the view of the
Page 19 and 20: penalty of death as the society mur
Page 21 and 22: ägnas denna skrift vördsamt av f
Page 23 and 24: Budapest also a statistical congres
Page 25 and 26: willing to be at hand when further
Page 27 and 28: Besides from communicating informat
Page 29 and 30: Christian Naumann, prison officials
Page 31 and 32: aised, not without some success. In
Page 33 and 34: necessary to preserve society and i
Page 35 and 36: Unsucessfully raising his voice in
Page 37 and 38: somewhere in between? Interesting i
Page 39 and 40: penal code gave the courts less lee
Page 41 and 42: wrote a preface.1 The action of Ros
Page 43 and 44: death.1 It’s an irony of history
Page 45 and 46: exceptional circumstances of the cr
Page 47 and 48: A few days later Olivecrona and Osc
Page 49 and 50: Those feelings, however, were not p
Page 51 and 52: moratoriums were appreciated roads
Page 53 and 54: An ideal of development, of a brigh
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HEIDELBERG Universitätsbibliothek
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1988 Une prison verte dans les mara
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1987-89 Naumann, Christian i: Svens
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1868b Om förbättringsanstalten i
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Rodhe, Edvard 1926 Förbindelser me
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Knut Olivecrona and his ”Om dödsstraffet”. - Figuras

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