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CHAPTER XIV
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ENGLISH AND
RUSSIAN POINT OF VIEW UPON DUELLING
The question of duelling has a symptomatic importance for
personal as well as national ethics. For those who
unconditionally adhere to the belief that might creates right and
worship war as the highest manifestation of the world’s
justice, the practice of duelling is right. On the contrary,
for those who recognise the law as supreme, the infraction
of it by force cannot possibly be right. The duel,
representing a wilful and criminal infringement of the law, can
therefore not be right. The Anglo-Saxon world has gone
to war for the sake of maintaining the law recognised by
the nations, and for this very reason it also discountenances
the practice of duelling.
It was due to the repeated immigration of political refugees
from France and to pronounced influence from her neighbour,
Germany, who served as a model in State and social
organisation, that Russia adopted duelling in consonance with
Continental European ideas. It was intended to regulate
social usages in matters concerning quarrels and offences,
and to develop a code of honour on the lines of European
civilisation. The propagation of British ethical ideas had
not yet found a suitable terrain in Russia, chiefly owing to
the more or less open antagonism which kept the two nations
apart from each other for so many years.
Duelling was artificially encouraged in Russian society,
officially introduced in the army, and systematically
organised by authoritative publications. For instance,
General Mikoulin’s ponderous volume gives all possible
details about the rules to be observed in duelling. The
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