Μ. Αρχιμανδρίτου, Histories of penality, 2006

“Histories of penality” is a series of essays that explore the potentiality and actuality of the changing cultural frameworks and social sensibilities with respect to punishment. The scene of the trial in the Iliad of Homer is the starting narrative while blood feuding practices occupy the terrain of two diverse discourses. The death penalty executed on stage during a theatrical performance cuts across our conventional thinking on punishment and attracts a new theoretical approach of it. The discussion of this issue reminds us of medieval ways of executing condemned convicts. Yet the central essay of the whole collection which introduces a new line of enquiry in the discussion on the death penalty in Greece refers to the exploration of the transformations of the execution of the death penalty in this country during the nineteenth and the early twentieth century set in a European comparative perspective.The conclusive thoughts of this essay summarize also the basic premises of it:

“The law and the people during the nineteenth century in Greece were both active authors of history who composed the social reality. What appeared as an impasse in their relationship ended up as a mutual recognition of a common dominant route of legality. Deschamps mentioned that by the end of the nineteenth century the criminal justice system of Greece had reached European standards. The point of ‘due process’ was the law’s final yet dynamic destination. Because ‘due process’ happened to be and always is ‘the guarantee that legal institutions (and legal practices) can be turned into museums of unnecessary, unjust, undeserved pain and death.’ The guillotine, however, was never accepted as a means of execution and eventually it was sent to the museum of penal history. The death penalty itself followed the same path. In fact, we continue to seek answers through this history; and through narrative we continue to return to that remote yet present source of social trauma, which has sharpened our social sensibilities and has shaped our collective consciousness.”