I want to stress that this is hardly a complete round up of all the examples of duels in Russian literature, but a few thoughts on some interesting examples that I've come across lately in my six month
exploration of Russian literature. It's worth noting that today is the day that I wrap up my initial list from August, but then I added roughly six weeks worth of reading of fairly obscure Soviet-era authors. (No Bulgakov this time around, though I might dip into a couple of his plays, which I have seen but not in quite some time.)
Let me just say at the outset that, since I am focusing on duels and their outcomes, there will be some SPOILERS below.
I decided to put these in order of composition, as it becomes sort of clear that as time progressed and some parts of Russian society tried to become more European, i.e. more Westernized, dueling became increasingly seen as an anachronism and authors became more satirical in their descriptions of duels or failed duels. There is also an increasing separation between writers and the nobility and/or military men. One could argue that there wasn't really a distinct intelligentsia capable of writing novels until perhaps the 1850s. As writers were increasingly drawn from non-titled ranks, it would have been absurd, essentially unthinkable, for a landed gentleman to actually engage in a duel with Dostoevsky for example. Thus, there is at least some bitter truth in Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground where the main character is isolated and essentially a pariah. He has no meaningful outlet for his rage against society or specific individuals; he does consider engaging in a duel but this never happens, partly from his own cowardice and partly because he is essentially beneath notice. The unlikelihood of Russian authors after 1860 or so to actually engage in a duel between gentlemen seems to further push them to write about them satirically.
For the first two authors in the list, Pushkin and Lermontov, duels were no laughing matter, however. Both were killed in duels that have some striking similarities to their masterworks.
Pushkin writes about a postponed duel in "The Shot" in his Tales of Belkin (1830). In this case, an offended man initiates a duel, but then feels that his opponent won't take it seriously because he doesn't seem to have too much to lose. Years later, the man finds his opponent has been married or is about to be married, so he shows up and announces that the duel is back on. It is clear that he is the superior shot, and now his opponent is very fearful of death, but his wife appears and the avenging man takes pity on his opponent. This was a good, concise story that reminded me a bit of a Borges story, or even Garcia Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold (aside from the denouement, of course).
However, Eugene Onegin (1833) is generally considered Pushkin's masterwork. Here, it is really unclear that Lensky really has grounds for challenging him to a duel, but the challenge is made and accepted. Now there are some aspects of the duel that escaped me on first reading (I suspect these
notes are ultimately cribbed from Nabokov). The main point is that the second does not really try to settle the matter without a duel the way that he was supposed to, so it is a particularly stupid and pointless duel. At any rate, Lensky is killed and Onegin eventually becomes a changed and chastened and more serious person.
What is somewhat intriguing is that while Pushkin doesn't seem to think there is actually any honor at stake, he also seems pretty cavalier about the business of death and that maybe it is better to die young and have people think you had all this unfulfilled potential than to die old and patently a fraud (at least an artistic one). (Shades of Neil Young's
"It's better to burn out than to fade away?)
Anyway here are the relevant lines (in dueling translations no less):
Chapter 6, Stanza 39
Perhaps however, to be truthful,
he would have found a normal fate,
The years would pass; no longer youthful,
he’d see his soul cool in its grate;
his nature would be changed and steadied,
he’d sack the Muses and get wedded;
and in the country, blissful, horned,
in quilted dressing-gown adorned,
life’s real meaning would have found him;
at forty he’d have got the gout,
drunk, eaten, yawned, grown weak and stout,
at length, midst children swarming round him,
midst crones with endless tears to shed,
and doctors, he’d have died in bed.
(Johnston translation)
Chapter 6, Stanza 39
Or maybe he was merely fated
To live amid the common tide;
And as his years of youth abated,
The flame within him would have died.
In time he might have changed profoundly,
Have quit the Muses, married soundly;
And in the country he’d have worn
A quilted gown and cuckold’s horn,
And happy, he’d have learned life truly;
At forty he’d have had the gout,
Have eaten, drunk, grown bored and stout,
And so decayed, until he duly
Passed on in bed . . . his children round,
While women wept and doctors frowned.
(Falen translation)
I'm not going to go into great detail about Pushkin's actual death by duel, other than it had a huge impact on Mikhail Lermontov. I should admit right now that I have not read Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time, so I won't say much at all about him, other than he seemed to have a lot of hero-worship for Pushkin and clearly followed in his footsteps. Lermontov nearly challenged Georges d'Anthès, the man who killed Pushkin, to a duel, then wrote a poem,
Death of the Poet, about that earlier duel.
While Pushkin's death was certainly a huge loss for literature, I have to say I think Lermontov was calling out the wrong people and trying to drag them into what had essentially been a personal affair.* At any rate, the Tsar took a dislike to Lermontov and sent him away to quasi-exile in the Caucasus. However, Lermontov ended up distinguishing himself well and came back essentially a hero (though the Tsar and his officials blocked Lermontov from receiving his deserved medals and awards).
Lermontov managed to write A Hero of Our Time in 1840, but then got engaged in an actual duel (with Nikolai Martynov) in 1841 and was killed. Perhaps in terms of wasted potential, this is even a crueler loss than Pushkin, who at least had written several masterpieces or near masterpieces by his death. And the duel was apparently over nothing other than Lermontov teasing Martynov about his style of dress and affectations. How absurd. Here's a blog
post on Lermontov with some description of how art and reality collided with him, just as with Pushkin.
I have to admit that I am just worn out on the Russians at this point, but the next time around (probably 3 or 4 years from now), I will make a special point to read A Hero of Our Time. The other books I am likely to tackle then are Dead Souls, Goncharov's Oblomov, Chernyshevsky's What is to Be Done (even if it isn't the best literature, it will be interesting to see what it was that got under Dostoevsky's skin so much -- Notes from Underground is written almost entirely as an attack on What is to Be Done), Bulgakov's Diaboliad and perhaps the remaining Turgenev -- Smoke, On the Eve and Virgin Soil.
Turning to Turgenev, there are a couple of interesting duels.
His Diary of a Superfluous Man (1850) is almost a forerunner of Dostoevsky's Underground Man, though the superfluous man at least is out and about in the world and does take more action, rather than simply carping about things afterward. The image of a trioka with 3 strong horses harnessed to a 4th weak horse is actually pretty accurate, as the plot of the story is that the Superfluous Man is in love with a young woman who falls for a prince, but then when it is revealed that the prince never had any intentions of marrying her, she settles for a 2nd man, not the Superfluous Man. The Superfluous Man does keep the action moving along though, as he challenges the prince to a duel and kind of accelerates things, even though he doesn't benefit from the next turn of the wheel. Turgenev is pretty good at showing how fickle society is, first loathing the Superfluous Man for engaging in a duel (where neither is seriously hurt) to then championing him when the prince reveals himself to be a bit of a blaggard.
Fathers and Sons (1862) has a slightly more sustained section on the duel, really focusing on how the new generation of thinkers and nihilists are generally not willing to engage in duels, as they consider honour a bit of a outmoded concept. Bazarov decides to go through with the duel with Pavel. Pavel isn't sure whether Bazarov will shoot his pistol in the air (as a show of contempt) or not, and Bazarov himself isn't sure whether he will do this or try to kill Pavel in earnest. In any event, Pavel is wounded, though not seriously, and Bazarov clears off, back to his parents' house.
There is a sort of similar duel in Dostoevsky's Demons (1872) where
Stavrogin -- the most effective of the "new men" -- is challenged to a duel by the son of someone he insulted on a previous visit to his home province (perhaps that was even the governor). While tempted to ignore it, Stavrogin finally accepts the challenge, but shoots 2 or even 3 times straight up in the air (if one was intentionally trying to miss it was better form to not be so obvious about it). The duel is concluded and the son leaves, more humiliated than ever.
Perhaps the most elaborate discussion of the various options open to the two parties in a duel is Chekhov's relatively late novella The Duel (1891). Here the duel goes back and forth between Von Koren and Laevsky being a total anachronism to a joke to being seen as deadly serious. Laevsky in particular mostly thinks that Von Koren will shoot his pistol in the air but occasionally thinks he is deadly serious. Von Koren for his part really does want to kill Laevsky (because he doesn't approve of his lifestyle, apparently) and takes aim but only nicks Laevsky, (though in the neck!). While Chekhov is probably at least somewhat ironical, he still seems to suggest that the duel did some good: Laevsky basically does take this as a sign to mend his ways and becomes a serious person, trying to work his way out of debt and marries the woman with whom he was living in sin.
Finally, I am going to end with Kuprin's The Duel (1905). Kuprin basically doesn't see any good remaining in duels, and they are completely outmoded and a sign of a sick society. Here is a pretty thorough
review.
As I was exploring this theme, I found that
Melville House, has published 5 different novellas specifically on duels as part of the Art of the Novella series, though I have to say at 300 pages Kuprin's contribution completely violates the basic principles of being a novella. These particular novellas come with digital bonus material such as writers going into the mores of dueling or writers expounding on why duels should be outlawed. I don't know why the pricing of the entire Duel series is so off (you pay more than if you ordered them individually), but I think for me, the
subscription is the way to go. It looks like April 2015 through July 2015 would give me all five Duel related novellas, so I'll probably do that. However, this is a case where the Toronto Public Library does seem to have the entire Art of the Novella series, and they are kept in circulation, so I'll definitely be checking a few out.
I feel that I have kind of beaten this into the ground, but I did want to mention two famous duels that "didn't happen," as they are both fairly significant.
As I hinted earlier, the protagonist of Notes from Underground (1864) is not really of a class to challenge the military officer to a duel (he is beneath notice). However, he wants to do something, and he schemes and upgrades his wardrobe by buying a new fur collar for his coat, and ultimately he stands his ground and bumps shoulders with the military officer. What a triumph. (Incidentally, according to Dostoevsky's wife's diaries (as recounted in
Leonid Tsypkin's Summer in Baden Baden), Dostoevsky really was frequently just as frustrated and socially impotent in public as his Underground Man.) There is another challenge to duel issued between the Underground Man and one of his former schoolmates, which is a more serious affair, since it could take place, given that they were more or less on the same social footing. This duel is apparently not taken up, mostly because everyone gets so drunk. As the Underground Man is seen as having no face to lose, why bother trying to make him act "honourably?"
Finally, there is Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1877). While Karenin briefly considers challenging Vronsky to a duel after he starts the affair with Anna, ultimately he decides to play it safe. In many ways it would be far too convenient for Vronsky to kill Karenin, thus satisfying "honour" and then still play around with Karenin's wife. While much of society scorns Karenin for being a coward, there are signs that things are changing and that Karenin's position (and refusal to just agree to being killed by a superior duelist) actually makes life much harder for Vronsky and certainly for Anna. Russia and other parts of Europe still didn't have dueling completely out of its system, but more and more intellectuals started to come around to the idea that the stakes were just too high to engage in a duel just to satisfy one's honour, which was an outmoded concept, and that one could just as well retain honour through the legal system or, even better, by
writing in defense of one's honour.
* Actually, Bulgakov follows up on this theme with a scene in his play Pushkin where the Tsar -- or rather his network of spies and informers -- finds out about the upcoming duel and then orders the police to the wrong location so that the duel will proceed. There are supposedly quite a few intentional parallels made between the Tsar and Pontius Pilate here (and not-so-secret allusions to Stalin as well). References to Pushkin resurface in The Master and Margarita, as well as a long section on Pilate. The cat incidentally does yell out at the police he challenges them to a duel, though it is clear that this is not going to be a fair fight and he just wants to shoot wildly, just as the earlier incident with the literary bureaucrat
Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz losing his head (via streetcar) was a pretty one-sided affair orchestrated by the forces of darkness.
