captivity

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Captivity is higher in countries with higher inequality

The term imprisonment denotes the long-term and involuntary deprivation of freedom .

Historical overview

Imprisonment in the sense of punishment for a crime is an invention of the 18th century . Both in ancient times and in medieval times it was almost always a temporary form of detention , the transition period (for example regarding the execution of judgments ), deprivation of liberty for the purpose of ransom , coercive measures (mainly debtors opposite) or captivity . In addition, slavery played a major role as mostly lifelong captivity. In 15th century Europe , the preconditions for modern prison sentences were created, so that the public prison - the so-called carcer publicus' - was institutionalized in the following period . In contrast, the private prison ( carcer privatus ) was considered illegal.

The first places of imprisonment were holes in the ground and caves, in the Orient sometimes dry cisterns . Dungeons , dungeons , cellars, and especially Gelasse (digester) Towers served this purpose in the Middle Ages - often occurred in them to torture . However, those who managed to escape from prison usually found asylum in churches .

Oral transmission

People Wrongly Detained

Early examples of this can be found in the Bible : Joseph with Potifar , Daniel in the lions' den , the imprisonment of Jesus , the imprisonment of the apostle Paul . The hagiography has addressed the suffering in and under captivity again in detail (eg. As in the legends of the Saints Catherine of Alexandria , Saint Barbara and Margaret of Antioch ). In the dormouse legend , however, the focus is on voluntary captivity.

In this context, the Blondelsage of the violent liberation of Richard the Lionheart from the captivity of Heinrich VI is known to us from the Middle Ages . , the Kudrun saga and the legend of Gregorius . In addition, the unlawful capture plays a role in some fairy tales ( Hansel and Gretel , Jungfrau Maleen , Rapunzel ).

Escape and Rescue

In the oral tradition , liberation usually takes place through miracles , magic or cunning; Use of force is rather the exception. For example, the first Merseburg magic spell functioned as a releasing spell ; In contrast, heavenly letters had a quasi-preventive effect for soldiers. In the concise dictionary of German superstition it is said that consecrated bread , raven stone and spring root could help a prisoner to freedom. A feather shirt was used in the heroic saga of Wieland the blacksmith , and the Ariadne thread in the Theseus saga was used for this purpose.

Two monks freed themselves, according to an example entitled Salve Regina , by singing the same. According to a legend of saints from the apostle Matthias , it was the Son of God who helped him escape from prison; of St. Nicholas , however, required to any foreign help. In the Legenda aurea is u. a. of the two Holy Leonhard and James the Elder as prisoners cartridges talk; Saint George was worshiped in this regard during the Crusades . The Dialogus miraculorum says of the Blessed Virgin that she rescued a knight from his captivity. Finally, in this context, the devil should be mentioned, who in some legends acts as a lawyer .

Return home

After the “last crusade”  - and the resulting Turkish imprisonment - two narrative materials emerged which became extremely popular in the period that followed: In the first, a man is wonderfully led home to his wife (cf. homecoming of the husband ); in the second, the wife takes matters into her own hands by slipping into the clothing of a monk or pilgrim and going to free her captive husband.

The countless prisoners of war and those held in other camps during and after the two world wars produced a vast number of oral narratives that were often reflected in the literature of the young Weimar Republic and in post-war literature . This includes the well-known and later filmed novel As far as the feet carry . Other stories are less well known. In the second half of the 20th century, for example, the Canadian Mennonites told the story of a freedman whose family was supposed to put a yellow ribbon on the oak in front of the house if they had forgiven him - when he appeared, the tree was full of yellow Been ribbons. Another, little-known example is the life story of Eva-Maria Stege, published in 1991 by Sigrid Moser under the title Soon home -  Skoro domoi , who was abducted into Russian captivity as a young girl.

Triggering a prisoner

The Gesta Danorum (1, 24, 42) speaks of a certain Handvanus von Helaspontus who bought himself free from the captivity of Duke Haddingus by weighing his body in gold - a legal custom that is also entered into oral tradition has found. At the end of the High Middle Ages , the Trinitarian Order and the Mercedarian Order were founded in order to be able to buy off the numerous Christians who had fallen into the hands of Muslim rulers through the Crusades or Islamic expansion in an organized manner. Some German-language narrative songs , but also children's folklore , address the so-called asking for free on the part of the fiancé of the condemned person - in the event of a pardon , the marriage was then concluded.

Singing prisoners

According to a chronicle, Johann II (Count Hans II of Habsburg-Laufenburg) was a prisoner in Zurich for 30 months in the 14th century , where he sang a "blue flower" . In the middle of the 16th century , a group of Swiss Anabaptists in the Passau dungeon wrote the Ausopund , a songbook printed in 1564. Russian and Russian-German prisoners of war tried during the First World War to write down and publish their traditional folk songs . In 1933, Johann Esser and Wolfgang Langhoff composed the Börgermoor song in the Börgermoor concentration camp , which was subsequently translated into more and more languages. The Italian as well as the Spanish prison chants form their own genre: canti carcerari or carceleras .

For prisoners to write, see prisoner literature

Effects

As a result of social isolation and loneliness , prisoners can often see a change in their behavior. B. can express itself in aggressiveness , depression or lethargy . With regard to successful rehabilitation , the so-called prisonization should also be emphasized as an obstructive effect.

List of special shapes

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Captivity  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sigrid Moser (Ed.): Soon home. Skoro domoi. The life of Eva-Maria Stege . Aufbau-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 978-3-7466-0066-6 .
  2. ↑ https://books.google.de/books?id=nzqLp6td3z4C&pg=PR256 .