Russian Fist Fighting - Fist Fighting in Russian Popular Culture

Fist Fighting in Russian Popular Culture

As for centuries fist fighting was so popular and was such a part of Russian folk life, it occurred frequently in Russian literature and art.

The most famous portrayal of a Russian fistfight is in Mikhail Lermontov's poem, The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov. There, the fistfight tales place as a form of honor duel between an oprichnik (government police agent) and a merchant. It is notable that, according to Lermontov, both characters use combat gloves ('rukavitsy' — reinforced mittens). Though it may be an example of poetic license, the poem states that the first connected blow by Kalashnikov bent a large bronze cross hanging from his opponent's neck, and the second fractured the opponent's temple, killing him. The fight also features in the opera The Merchant Kalashnikov by Anton Rubinstein (1880).

In the 19th century Sergei Aksakov watched famous fist fights in the Kaban frozen lake in Kazan, and later wrote about them in his "Story about student life". Some decades later, at the same lake, the young future opera-singer Feodor Chaliapin took part in a similar fight: "From one side came we, the Russians of Kazan, from the other side the Tatars. We fought hard without feeling sorry for ourselves, but never broke the historic rules of not to hit one that is already down, not to kick, and not to keep iron up one's sleeves". Later, the young Chaliapin was attacked in a fight over a girl, but thanks to knowing fist fighting he won. He wrote: "He jumped to beat me, and even though I was afraid of the police, learning fist fighting at the frozen lakes of Kazan helped me, and he humiliatingly lost".

The Russian poet Sergei Yesenin in his autobiography notes "About myself" told that his grandfather taught him fist fighting.

One of the heroes in the book "Thief" by the Soviet novelist Leonid Leonov said: "In childhood, it happened, only in fist fights I found real friends... And was never wrong! Because only in a fight the whole human nature comes out".

Claims have been made that the Russian nobility favoured fistfights over duels, but on the other hand it has been suggested that the nobility actually were against fistfights and preferred weapons.