The practice of being challenged to a duel appeared in Russia quite late, in the second half of the 17th century, thanks to foreigners. Duels were soon banned by Peter I in 1706, and breaking the law was punishable by hanging.
Code of honor
According to the definition of culturologist Yuri Lotman, a duel is "a duel fight that takes place according to certain rules, with the aim of restoring honor, removing the offended shame caused by an insult." Thus, it was the desire to cleanse the insult that was the main reason for being challenged to a duel.
At the same time, in order to restore justice, it was not necessary to reach the fight itself, let alone kill the enemy. As Lotman points out, sometimes the challenge to a duel itself was considered a cleansing, followed by a reconciliation of enemies.
But there were also cases when the removal of the insult required the death of one of the participants. Then the deadly conditions of the duel were initially established, which did not give a chance to one of the opponents.
One of the most famous duels in Russian history, which ended in the death of the great poet Pushkin, refers precisely to such originally predetermined duels. The barriers separated Pushkin and Dantes from each other by only 10 steps.
The literary duel between Grushnitsky and Pechorin, described by Lermontov in the novel A Hero of Our Time, was similar. It was no coincidence that Pechorin chose a narrow area on the top of a cliff as a place for a duel. “Anyone who is injured will certainly fly down and be smashed to smithereens …”, explains Lermontov's hero.
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Cherchez la femme
The duels described above are united by one factor - a woman. In the Russian Empire, duels often took place because of an insult to a woman's honor, or because of an insult to the honor of someone who considered her his.
Another famous "romantic" duel can be considered the so-called duel of four, in which Griboyedov also participated. This is not about one duel, but about two that took place in 1817-1818 in St. Petersburg and Tiflis. In the first of them, the cavalry guard Vasily Sheremetyev and Count Alexander Zavadovsky met.
Sheremetyev challenged Zavadovsky to a duel after he met at his apartment with Sheremetyev's beloved ballerina Avdotya Istomina. Griboyedov, however, was involved in this story due to the fact that it was he who brought the beauty to the apartment of his friend, with whom he was then living.
According to the recollections of a contemporary of these events, playwright Gendre, Sheremetyev did not know whom he should have challenged to a duel, and asked his friend Yakubovich for advice. It was he who suggested to the jealous man that there were "two faces requiring a bullet."
As a result, in November 1817, a duel took place between Sheremetyev and his offender Zavadovsky, the next day after which the wounded cavalry guard died. But his honor was still restored.
As Lotman wrote in his book Conversations on Russian Culture. Life and traditions of the Russian nobility of the 18th - early 19th centuries”, the very fact of the shedding of blood (no matter whose) was already enough to restore the damage.
The second duel with a less tragic outcome took place in 1818 in the Caucasus near Tiflis. Yakubovich, who gave his friend his word to avenge him, fought with Griboyedov, who was heading for the Persian mission at that time. As a result, the diplomat was wounded in the hand, and Yakubovich escaped with a slight fright. Thus, revenge for a friend could also cause a challenge to a duel.
The most unusual duels
Sometimes the reason for the duel was completely ridiculous incidents, which, however, affected the honor of the offended and demanded the restoration of justice. Radishchev wrote about the absurdity of some cases of being challenged to a duel in his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow: we ask in the field ….
So, for example, the same Pushkin, who in all his life participated in 29 duels, in his youth was summoned to the barrier by his comrade Karl Kuchelbecker for an innocent joke. And once in a duel, two great writers Turgenev and Tolstoy almost came together due to the fact that the latter spat in the direction of his old friend during an argument.
The composition of dueling participants was also unusual. Despite the fact that a challenge to a duel is considered rather a way to sort out relations between men, there were also women's fights. So, for example, in 1770, the dispute between Ekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova and the Duchess of Foxon ended in armed proceedings.
The future Empress Catherine II was also a fan of fighting with swords. Even in adolescence, she thus tried to sort things out with her second cousin. And already being the wife of the heir to the throne, Peter Fedorovich, one day she was almost called to a duel by him, because, according to him, she became "unbearably proud."
Unfortunately, duels, which cost the lives of more than one representative of the Russian aristocracy, often took place because of the affected pride, rather than honor.
Maria Tonkova