1573: Hans Boije af Gennäs

ExecutedToday.com ^ | January 1, 2020 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

On this date in 1573, the Swedish commander of Weissenstein (present-day Paide, Estonia), Hans Boije af Gennäs was executed when his fortress was overrun by Russian troops, during the Livonian War.

A walled city with a Teutonic Knights-built keep, Weissenstein sat at a crossroads in interior Livonia and changed hands several times during this decades-long multilateral conflict involving Russia, Sweden, Denmark-Norway, Poland, and Lithuania — the latter two of which united into a Commonwealth during the war.

Big picture, the Livonian War ran from 1558 to 1583; the stakes were, as one might guess, control of Livonia — essentially, the present-day Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia. Long ago this precinct had been the medieval remit of those same Teutonic Knights; after 1561, it was controlled in the south by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (that’s Latvia), and in the north by Sweden (that’s Estonia, containing Weissenstein).

Needless to say, this brought enormous suffering to Livonian, which Livonian chroniclers like Johann Renner, Balthasar Russow and Salomon Henning blamed mostly on the Russians. As Charles Halperin summarizes,...

[humblegunner]

Hans Boije af Gennäs
Got himself mad at some sinners
He smote them real hard
And was a retard
But the cops, in the end, was the winnas.

[texas booster]

Paide Order Castle

The construction of the Paide Order Castle began in 1265 using local white limestone. The first building on Vallimägi Hill was the octagonal Tall Hermann Tower, which was destroyed by the retreating Red Army in 1941. The tower was restored for the 650th anniversary of the St George's Night Uprising in 1993.

Interesting facts: The stronghold established in Paide was the second castle built by the order in the territory of Estonia after Viljandi. Paide Vallitorn became the symbol of Paide Town and Järva County and is depicted on their coats of arms. There is a memorial on Paide Vallimägi Hill to the four Estonian elders executed during the uprising.