Как срывали маски с палачей: имена доносчиков стали известны через 400 лет

People were arrested on the basis of denunciation. Trials lasted from one to five days, if torture was involved. The entire village attended the executions; failure to appear was a crime. Every family had either an executed person or an informer. This is not a dystopia, but a true story. But its main act took place 400 years later, when the executioners and informers were unmasked. Tatyana Britskaya and Irina Vorobyova traveled to the edge of Europe—to the Norwegian town of Vardo, where one of the most brutal witch hunts in Scandinavian history took place in the 17th century. Here, 91 people were executed on charges of witchcraft. A denunciation was often enough to secure a conviction; confessions were extracted through torture, and the executions became obligatory public spectacles. Today, a memorial stands at the site of the bonfires. Thanks to surviving court documents, historians have been able to reconstruct not only the names of the victims, but also the names of the judges, executioners, officials, and informers. Thus, four centuries later, the mechanisms of mass persecution and dehumanization were revealed. How did the witch hunt machine work? Why did the state encourage denunciations? Who stopped the decades-long reign of terror? And why does this story seem surprisingly modern? Watch the new film by NO.Media from Russia ❤️ Support independent journalism, it helps us continue our work. 💳 One-time donation: ▪ 1000 ₽ — https://u.to/t37nIQ 🔁 Monthly support: ▪ 300 ₽ — https://u.to/-H7nIQ ▪ 500 ₽ — https://u.to/MX-nIQ ▪ 1000 ₽ — https://u.to/aX-nIQ ⸻ 🛍 Our merch: https://bookmerchshop.ru https://ozon.ru/t/bepddwW ⸻ 📰 Read Novaya Gazeta articles: https://novayagazeta.ru ⸻ 📲 YouTube is slowing down — subscribe to our video channel Telegram: http://t.me/nomediarussia ⸻ 📩 For advertising and partnership inquiries: [email protected] ⸻ 🎙 The YouTube channel "NO.Media from Russia" is a project by independent journalists who continue to work in Moscow. *designated a foreign agent by the Russian Ministry of Justice Timecodes: 00:00 Why We Came to Vardo 00:58 The Road to the Edge of Europe 02:02 How the Inquisition and Witch Hunts Worked 03:22 King Christian IV and the Witchcraft Law 04:40 Vardo — the Capital of Witch Hunts 05:06 Historian Liv Hellen Willumsen and the Trial Archives 07:20 Torture as an Investigative Method 08:04 Water Trial 09:30 How Confessions Were Extracted 10:12 Why Finnmark Executed So Many People 12:00 Fear, Outsiders, and the Search for the Guilty 13:32 Bonfire as a Public Spectacle 15:21 Trials Lasting Several Days 15:46 The Story of Ingiborg Jørgensdater 18:20 How the Victim Became the Accused 21:13 The Mechanism Dehumanization 23:22 Sami, Children, and Witchcraft Accusations 24:17 The Judge Who Stopped the Witch Hunt 25:32 Repentance After 400 Years 26:24 Ward Memorial 27:20 The Eternal Flame of Witches 28:57 Why the Memory of Repression Is Uncomfortable 29:57 National Traitors, Aliens, and New Witch Hunts 31:23 Could History Repeat Itself? 33:32 91 People Killed on Denunciations