Since the birth of the professional officer corps, the tasks of moral education of people who devoted themselves to military service were set, among them - the education of the honor and dignity of an officer.

Strict adherence to the established standards of honor among officers sometimes took on a dramatic character for some of them.

If an officer's misdemeanor exceeded the limits of what was allowed, the so-called Dueling Code came into force, according to which the main reasons for a duel were: refusal to greet each other, abuse, slap in the face, compromising the officer or his wife. Ignoring a bow, avoiding a handshake, and not giving honor according to the Dueling Code were considered a gross violation of the rules of politeness and were recognized as an encroachment on honor, since such behavior was regarded as a disregard for the individual, a clear humiliation of human dignity in the eyes of society.

There were certain rules for considering quarrels among officers. First, the regimental commander referred the case to the Officers ' society for examination whenever there was an insult that degraded an officer's dignity. Secondly, the members of this court took measures for possible reconciliation of the parties, if this did not contradict the established concepts of honor and dignity. If this was not possible, the court decided that the fight was inevitable. Third, in the case of a duel, the court of the officers ' society used its influence on the seconds to ensure that the conditions of the duel were most appropriate to the circumstances of the given confrontation. Fourthly, if the duel did not take place within two weeks after the announcement of the decision of the court of the society of officers and the officer who refused to fight did not submit a report on dismissal from service, the unit commander applied to a higher instance with a request for dismissal of this officer without his report.

One of the versions of the origin of the duel is as follows. The young warrior who was being knighted knelt on one knee, and the old knight, according to the established ritual, struck him on the back with the shaft of a spear. At the same time, the initiate placed his hand on the hilt of his sword and solemnly swore that this was the last blow that would go unpunished, that from now on no insult would go unanswered, and that every challenge would be accepted.

The Russian officer of the late XVII-XVIII centuries was particularly acutely aware of the infringement of his dignity, and by any means, including by means of a duel, defended his honor. During this period of time, he was influenced by two factors that determine his behavior in society. On the one hand, as a person in the service, he had to obey the order of the commander, otherwise his specific activity would lose its meaning. On the other hand, as a representative of the corporate estate, he had to obey the laws of honor. From this point of view, the officer, as a representative of the noble culture, should have been completely free of fear, and his actions should have been consistent with the norms of honor. Therefore, in this case, the officer's behavior did not necessarily have to be measured by victory or defeat, but to a certain extent had the character of an end in itself. This was especially noticeable in a duel - the deadly danger of a duel became a means of moral and psychological purification, which removed the insult from a person.

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While theoretically condemning dueling as a way to resolve a contradiction, many secular people, including famous ones, took up arms to defend their honor. After the murder of A. S. Pushkin in a duel, Lieutenant M. Y. Lermontov in a well - known poem directly calls Dantes a murderer and yet he himself is killed by another killer-Martynov. G. Gumilev and M. Voloshin, A. Blok and A. Belov went out to the barrier. As for A. S. Pushkin, he repeatedly participated in duels. For example, the following case is known. Once, being in the officers ' meeting of the regiment as a guest, Alexander Sergeevich, against the wishes of the officers present, ordered a dance at will, which was perceived negatively by others and caused a duel. And since the regiment commander, Lieutenant Colonel S. Starov, was present at the meeting at that time, in accordance with the established norms of etiquette, it was he who called the offender to a duel. At the scene of the duel, there was a blizzard with a strong wind, which prevented the opponents from making aimed shots. Twice they both made mistakes, but the duel took place according to all the rules of the ritual of honor. Seeing each other as worthy opponents, a day later the regiment commander and A. S. Pushkin reconciled.

An important event in the protection of officer honor was the adoption of the law on officer duels on May 20, 1894. The law caused a lot of discussion on the pages of the civil and military press, but among officers it was met mostly sympathetically, since it emphasized the exclusivity of the position of officers in society. From a psychological point of view, the ability to pay for the insult inflicted on an officer at the cost of one's own life was crucial in maintaining a sense of self-esteem and respect for this feeling in other people.

In practice, the number of duels was small, and duels with a fatal outcome were generally exceptional. As the historian S. V. Volkov notes, from 1876 to 1890, 15 duels took place, and in the ten years after the adoption of the law of 1894-186 duels, of which 130 (70 percent) ended bloodlessly, 9 (5 percent) with scratches or contusions,28 (15 percent) with light wounds, with serious injuries-8 (4 percent), with a fatal outcome - 11 (6 percent).

With the development of realistic literature, the semantic load of the idea of a duel in the plot of the work increases. So, for example, the duel in A. Kuprin's story "Duel" is shown in a certain sense as a symbol of the confrontation between the individual and the system of social relations that had developed by this time in the army. The duel between Lieutenant Romashov and Lieutenant Nikolayev was a kind of finale to the moral and psychological conflict between the young officer and his colleagues. The second lieutenant decided to go to the reserve as soon as the three mandatory years that he had to serve for his education at the military school had passed. But fate turns out that the hero of the story dies at the hands of Lieutenant Nikolaev. Their personal conflict had gone too far. The decision of the officers 'community was unanimous:" The Court of Honor of the Society of officers of the N-sk Infantry Regiment, having considered the case of a clash in the officers ' meeting of Lieutenant Nikolaev and Second lieutenant Romashov, found that in view of the severity of mutual insults, the quarrel of these senior officers could not be ended by reconciliation and that a duel between them is the only officer's dignity".

There were cases when duels in a certain sense were of an international nature. So, in the last year of the reign of Empress Catherine II, a German baron came to St. Petersburg. At that time, Lieutenant Prince Shcherbatov served in the Izmailovo regiment, who was distinguished by an ardent disposition. Once in the theater during the intermission, when the defiant behavior of the German, they quarreled, while Shcherbatov hit the foreigner in the face with a cane. For this act, the lieutenant was dismissed from the regiment and exiled to live in the village with a ban on traveling to the capital. After Catherine's death, Emperor Paul summoned Shcherbatov to St. Petersburg and assigned him to the same regiment with a promotion. Soon a challenge to a duel came from the offended German baron. The emperor ordered an officer traveling abroad, to the place of the duel, to give five thousand rubles for the road. When Shcherbatov returned, the emperor was very pleased and asked him at the introduction: "Did you kill a German?"

At the beginning of the XX century, duels in the army were again banned and as a phenomenon disappeared from life. Along with them, the theme of dueling also left Russian literature.

The theme of the duel has gone out of literature, but it has not gone out of our memory, it will excite the imagination of contemporary officers for a long time with the power of moral and psychological influences on people who defended their honor and dignity in such an extraordinary way.

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