"...The next day, at the appointed time, I am with / mine.? already behind the ricks, waiting for my opponent. Soon he came, too.

"We may be caught," he said to me. We'll take off our uniforms, put on our doublets, and draw our swords."

A. S. Pushkin "The Captain's Daughter"

The duel between Shvabrin and Grinev is a familiar scene from school. The duel between two officers, one of whom stood up for the honor of a woman, is a common plot move in Russian literature. Suffice it to recall Lermontov Pechorin, Kuprinsky Romashov... And who among the modern officers at least once in their lives did not get into such life circumstances when the thought of a duel would flash by. This has happened to me before. That is why the idea arose: if we assume that behind the thrown glove lies not "farce, excessive arrogance and outrageous arrogance", as the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, criticizing the duel, but a person's desire to preserve his good name, reputation, authority, in other words, honor and dignity, then talk about a duel as a social and moral mechanism for protecting the honor of the individual, it will seem no less topical than a century and a half ago. Moreover, today's practice shows that there is no effective mechanism for protecting the personal honor of an officer in the modern Russian army yet.

In the dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, I found the following definition of a duel: "A duel or duel is an agreed fight between two persons with deadly weapons, according to the rules established for the given case or sanctified by tradition, usually with the purpose of washing offended honor."

The word "duel" comes from the Latin "duellum", which means "war" or the Spanish "duello" - "suffering". Numerous studies of this phenomenon in the past convincingly prove that dueling historically arose against the background of private wars, when disputes between opponents were resolved in hand-to-hand combat or an armed duel. The ancient world did not know duels. Only in the Bible there is a mention of the confrontation between David and Goliath to resolve the conflict between the two peoples. It is generally believed that the duel appeared in Western Europe in the Middle Ages.

In 1501, King Hun-Debald of Burgundy issued a decree called "Trial by Combat", according to which anyone offended who refused to fight was declared to have lost honor. And in 1610, John Seldom wrote the first scientific treatise on duels, Duello or the battle of two debaters. Even at that time, the concept of a duel implied a challenge to it and its acceptance. Since the end of the XVI century, such a custom came into force: during a duel, seconds take part in it, entering into single combat among themselves. A duel between women was also possible. In 1701, a duel took place between the Countess of Rocca and the Marquise of Bellegarde. With the development of capitalist relations in Europe, dueling as a way of purifying honor persisted until the beginning of the XX century among the privileged strata of the population: the nobility, officers, students and ... journalists. So, in Italy from 1880 to 1888, out of 2424 duels conducted, 974 were among journalists. But let's turn to Russia.

In the Russian Middle Ages, jousting tournaments and duels - the forerunner of dueling - did not exist. However, there were different forms of ritual combat, such as aristia (military duel) and judicial duel (in the West - ordalia - God's Judgment), which was wonderfully depicted by M. Y. Lermontov in his song about the merchant Kalashnikov, which in Russia was called "field". Both aristia and polya disappeared from Russian everyday life long before the XVIII century. Therefore, the first duels in Russia were perceived as an alien, foreign phenomenon. They originally occurred only between foreigners. So, in the annals there is a mention that on June 6, 1637 in Moscow in Palashevsky Lane, two foreign sergeants Falk and Grace staged a duel over an unpaid monetary debt. How exactly did the Russian phenomenon of dueling appear in the era of Peter the Great? But the reinterpretation of duels by Russian society, and especially by the nobility, occurred much later and was the result of the policy of the ruling circles, who actively planted knightly traditions in Russia. In this regard, we can mention the famous Catherine's "carousels", arranged in the form of jousting tournaments, the Maltese complex of Paul I, etc. The consolidation of the dueling tradition in the Russian public consciousness can be associated, on the one hand, with the exclusive position of the nobility in the social pyramid of the Russian Empire, with the special role of the army in Russian history; on the other hand, with the system of mandatory ethical norms, with the idea of class nobility and officer honor.

Before the concept of "honor", and therefore before a duel, everyone turned out to be equal: the brilliant Pushkin and the rake Dantes, the aide-de-camp V. Novosiltsev and the provincial nobleman K. Chernov.

And here's an even better example. In 1803, a duel took place between Staff Captain A. P. Kushelev and Major General N. N. Bakhmetev. The reason for the duel was that back in 1797, Bakhmetev hit Kushelev, who was then a cadet, for an official offense. And six years later, now a staff captain, Kushelev challenged the Major General to a duel. The difference in age and official position was huge, but Bakhmetev's own attempts to resolve the case by peace with the mediation of such famous people as P. I. Bagration and N. I. Depreradovich could not force Kushelev to abandon the duel. The duel took place. The opponents made one unsuccessful shot, after which Bakhmetev apologized, and Kushelev accepted them. None of the participants, it is obvious, did not want blood. The duel was more of a ritual act. An act of recognition of the equality of a nobleman and an officer in the face of honor. It is noteworthy that Kushelev himself was not afraid of punishment after the duel and made the fact of the duel public, thereby achieving the restoration of his honor in the eyes of society.

This fact shows that honor was considered at that time the basis of the entire life of a noble person. It was placed above the ranks. Thus, even a demoted nobleman remained a nobleman. Honor prevailed over the state and the law. This is evidenced by the attitude in society towards the participants of the December uprising of 1825. Finally, honor was worth more than life. Not being acquired once and for all, it required its daily confirmation by every act and, in exceptional cases, was defended in a duel.

It is also important that almost throughout the entire history of Russia and the world, there was a contradiction between the state and personal attitude to such a method of washing honor, which was a duel. On the part of the state and Christian morality, there has been an increasing tendency in the course of historical development to condemn dueling from both a moral and legal point of view. The state authorities rightly saw duels as an invasion of the judicial functions of the authorities and prohibited dueling as a lynching. The Church has long condemned dueling, and the Council of Trent of the Roman Catholic Church in 1563 equated duels with murder. The state authorities, both in Russia and in Western Europe, resorted to harsh measures of criminal repression in the fight against duels. In France, since the 16th century, in Germany, according to the imperial law of 1688, and in Russia, according to the military charter of 1716, dueling was subject to the death penalty. Everyone who found out about the match, according to this Peter's Charter, was supposed to report it on command. Otherwise, the officers lost their salaries. The duelists themselves ended their journey on visilitsa.

However, the knighthood, the nobility, and a little later the officers have always considered it humiliating to resort to mediation and protection of the state in matters of honor. The class that wore a sword assumed the" right of the sword " as its inherent privilege and continued duels. In the West, they were held even in the royal palace, and no amount of repression helped. The supreme power had no choice but to make concessions to the duelists, pardoning the latter. In France alone, from 1589 to 1608, there were 7,000 pardons for eight thousand duels. In Germany, the ban on dueling almost always remained a mere formality. By the way, such a cruel measure as hanging duelists, for 70 years of operation of the Petrovsky Charter, has not been applied even once! In the Russian officers ' environment, the attitude to dueling has always been directly opposite to the state one. Approving rather than disapproving. Therefore, potential duelists, knowing about the ban on duels, looked at him through their fingers. However, so did many of their commanders. Let us recall how the commandant of the fortress reacted to the already mentioned duel between Shvabrin and Grinev. Pushkin writes that " Ivan Kuzmin fully agreed with his wife and said:: "But listen, Vasilisa Yegorovna is telling the truth. Duels are formally prohibited in the military article."

This contradiction of "formally prohibited" duels and, in fact, justified duels in the class opinion continued throughout the XVIII-XIX centuries. The manifesto on duels from 1787, although he considered the latter as premeditated murders, nevertheless drew attention to the imperfection of Russian legislation in the sense of protecting personal honor from insults. In the reign of Nicholas I, who said: "I hate dueling. This is barbarism, in which there is nothing chivalrous, " a code of laws on dueling was developed. And Alexander III in 1894, having approved the "Rules for the investigation of quarrels that occur among officers", actually legalized the duel in the Russian army. According to these rules, a duel between officers was considered mandatory if the court of officer honor recognized the duel as the only means of satisfying the offended honor. The initiative to challenge to a duel for the first time in the practice of dueling belonged not only to the offended officer, but also to the court of honor. Following the " Rules "appeared several dueling codes (Bolgar, Kireev, etc.), the most popular of which was the" Dueling Code " Durasov, published in St. Petersburg in 1908. The code clearly delineated the line between dueling right, wrong, and treacherous. An essential condition for a correct duel was the equality of chances of combat on both sides (in terms of weapons and conditions of attack and defense). A dangerous or treacherous duel was a duel in which the principle of equal chances of personal safety was violated (one of the duelists was in chain mail, a bullet was taken out of the pistol of one of the shooters, one of the opponents was blind, etc.), and also if one of the duelists deviated from the accepted rules (shot before the signal, or in the back of the opponent, or out of turn). The code also stipulated the reasons for dueling. These were: swearing, slapping, compromising an officer or his wife, and other insults (including refusing to greet each other). Ignoring a bow, shaking hands, and not giving military honor were considered gross violations of the rules of politeness and were recognized as an encroachment on honor, since they showed disregard for the individual and, therefore, could also lead to a duel.

Relying on the best European (primarily French) dueling codes, Durasov, after analyzing the established Russian tradition of duels, included in his code the rules of dueling developed to the smallest detail. However, he could not avoid a number of paradoxes. Here is one of them. According to the code, only honest and noble people could be allowed to duel. But it was precisely those who had committed a dishonorable and ignoble act who were challenged to a duel! At the same time, as noted in the code, a person involved in a "matter of honor", who could fight and did not fight, "did not wash away the insult with blood", remained dishonored until the end of his days. This is what Lermontov's Arbenin's idea is built on:" find fault with trifles and slap them in the face "and then refuse to duel - "leave the seducer with a slap in the face". A nobleman who found himself in such a position became an object of ridicule and contempt forever and ever.

The refusal of one of the duelists from the duel was also considered a disgrace, once and for all expelling a person from society, deprived of honor. Among the officers, such an act was so unacceptable that the guilty person had to submit a resignation report himself, otherwise he was dismissed without a report for two weeks. Even a report to the commander about the received challenge, as required by the charter, in the officer environment did not serve as an excuse for refusing to fight. So, the hero of M. Zhukova's story "Evenings on Karpovka" Gotovitsky is forced to leave the regiment and leave the service, because his colleagues tell him: "You have fulfilled your duty by revealing an illegal act to your superior, but you understand that after that, no officer will want to meet with you."

Personal honor and the honor of the regiment were inseparable for an officer. Here is how one of the characters of "War and Peace" tells Nikolai Rostov about it: "You, father, are in the regiment for a week without a year; today you are here, tomorrow you have become adjutants; you don't care what they say: "There are thieves among the Pavlograd officers!" And we care." Fellow soldiers were often chosen as seconds, and in exceptional cases, they replaced their comrade on the field of honor. It is important to note that an insult or dishonorable act committed in the presence of a noble person, even if they were not directed at him, still hurt his honor. An officer who found himself in a similar position had to offer himself as a second or make a challenge to the offender. If a woman was insulted, then the man who was next to her was obliged to protect her honor, " even if she was not familiar to him at all, "as Colonel Mechin, the hero of A. Bestuzhev - Marlinsky's story"Evening at the Bivouac", explained.

The dueling Code also stipulated that in matters of honor, an officer had to behave in accordance with strict rules of etiquette. People who used to be friends would switch to you, who used to call each other by their first names, and address each other only officially: by rank and position. Direct communication between the opponents was kept to a minimum. The discussion of the match was conducted through the seconds, who were two on each side. Usually, if the seconds managed to agree on a reconciliation, the most difficult thing was to bring the opponents to one place.

The code also clearly stipulated the logical structures of the duel. At the barrier, according to the rules of the duel, the opponents must be equal in everything. Equality of arms, for example, required that duelists ' pistols must necessarily be someone else's, which they had not used before. Equality of chances, regardless of who is responsible for the duel, is a feature of duels in Russia. European tradition provided for some advantage for the offended (choice of weapon, right of first shot). In Russia, lots were preferred. Finally, in the outcome of the duel, it did not matter at all whether the blood was shed: the insulter or the insulted. Dishonor was washed away by it. The essence of the duel was understood as the readiness of each nobleman (officer) to defend his honor with weapons in his hands. In the officers ' environment, people who did not try to curb this desire, who fought duels, despite the danger of death and even more punishment, were revered as heroes. In the last century, Tolstoy, the American, Yakubovich, Dorokhov, and other brawlers were no less prominent figures in Russian society than writers, scientists, and politicians. By their actions, they created a model of behavior. On the other hand, their participation in duels sanctified the duel, ensured strict observance of the ritual. As already mentioned, the first codes appeared in Russia at the end of the XIX century. And this was due not only to censorship, but also to the presence in each regiment of its own Silvio, and in each district of its own Zaretsky, who acted as such living guardians of the dueling ritual. Silvio's self-description in Pushkin's "Shot" is quite characteristic in this respect: "In our time, violence was in fashion...Duels in our regiment happened every minute: I was either a witness or an actor at all of them. My comrades adored me. And the regimental commanders, who were constantly being replaced, looked at me as a necessary evil."

With this phrase of Pushkin's, we could conclude this little excursion into the history of the duel in the Russian army, which ended together with the history of the tsarist army itself in the twenties of our century. But you need to make one addition. Nothing in history is random. At least from the range of phenomena that are fixed in social traditions. And since dueling as a "necessary evil" has existed in the Russian officer environment for about two centuries, it means that they were needed for something... I am not going to give a eulogy to duels, referring to the words of Voltaire, who said:: "In this world, success is achieved only with the point of the sword and die with weapons in their hands," but it is necessary to focus on the problem. The debate about the validity of dueling as a tool for protecting honor has been going on for several centuries. The defenders of the duel and its opponents had their own strong arguments. It was supported by such arguments as the absence of laws protecting the honor of the individual, the ability of duels to develop courage and a sense of honor for an officer. Opponents argued that the duel is an anachronism, an inhumane act, relying on chance, which does not always help the right in an argument. Let us leave these arguments to the conscience of the disputants. Let's think about something else: have reliable mechanisms been found in our enlightened age to protect the honor and dignity of an officer? At the beginning of this article, I already expressed my opinion - there is no such mechanism yet.

I once heard the following words about our brother officer:: "Defenseless most of all." Paradoxically, but a fact. It is really not easy for an officer to defend his honor, his own dignity, and basic human rights. The new version of the law "On the Status of Military Personnel" still does not work, and the constitutional guarantees of an officer are blurred. In addition to the right to work, a modern serviceman has little to boast about... What's far to go? A fairly common case: the commander insulted an officer. Who should I complain to? To court? Few people apply there today. By instance? At best, they will listen and calm you down. In practice, it turns out like this: no matter how much the offended person seeks justice, in the end he will still find himself at the door of his abuser, the commander - in-chief. Say, go to the officer's honor court. So in the post-Soviet period, they simply forgot about such people - the honor turned out to be not in honor... So it turns out that the officer is defenseless before the offender.

In my opinion, it is necessary to raise the issue of protecting the honor and dignity of an officer's personality to the level of state policy and the morality of society as a whole. It is not for nothing that Schopenhauer, who in the past sharply criticized the duel, saw in its existence nothing more or less, but the position of the government. The philosopher wrote: "In fact, I understand perfectly well that the government has no serious desire to end the duel." And he named the reasons for this: "The salaries of civil officials, and even more so of officers, are far from corresponding to their work. The other half is therefore given to them as an honor. The latter is primarily expressed by titles and orders, and in a broader sense-by class honor. And for this class honor, a duel is a convenient accomplice." As applied to Soviet history, a man in uniform received a similar "compensation" in the form of popular love for the army and the prestige of the officer's profession in society. Today, when these positions are largely lost, it is necessary to start work on reviving the officer's honor essentially from scratch. An in-depth analysis of the role and place of such an obsolete, but containing a certain social and moral experience of the mechanism for protecting the personal honor of an officer, such as a duel, can also provide invaluable help in preparing the spiritual foundations of this process. People who think about what an armed defender of a renewed Russia should be like would do well to remember the popular wisdom that states that a person who is unable to defend his honor will never become a reliable defender for others.

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