Vladimir Chertkov, (with a preface by Leo Tolstoy)
Allowed by censorship. St. Petersburg, December 5, 1890
Printing house of A. S. Suvorin. Ertelev Lane, 13
Original here: http://www.vita.org.ru/library/prose/chertkov-amusement.htm.
Preface
A few years ago I happened to hear the following conversation between young novice hunters and former hunters who had given up hunting because of the awareness of the immorality of this amusement:
Young hunter (with confidence): What’s wrong with hunting?
Former hunter : It is bad, unnecessary, for fun to kill animals.
It is impossible to object to this, nor to agree with it. So it’s just clear and unquestionable. But, despite this, the young hunter did not give up hunting at the same time, and is still hunting. But the confidence in the harmlessness of hunting is broken; Conscience is awakened in relation to a cause that has hitherto been undoubtedly considered right.
And the young man will not hunt for long. This is the effect that this beautiful article will undoubtedly produce on all those who read it. God grant that there are as many of them as possible, especially from young people.
Leo Tolstoy October 15, 1890
Sometimes they say that it is easier to buy a hare,
than to spend time chasing him.
And, indeed, it is easier to buy a hare;
but the purchase of a hare will not replace hunting for a person,
because the purchased hare will not distract a person
from thinking about himself, about death, about misfortunes;
and hunting, playing, excitement, drunkenness,
vain cares and amusements do just that.
Pascal.
Constantly remind me, my conscience,
that I cannot harm anyone with impunity,
that by inflicting a wound on a living being,
I am doing damage to my own soul.
Mercier
Ask any hunter what the main charm of hunting is, and a rare one will say that it gives him pleasure to chase and kill animals. Most hunters will say that the beauty of hunting is not in killing, but in what is associated with it.
It is in vain to think, the hunter will say, that the very act of killing game or beast gives the main pleasure of hunting. If that were the case, it would be much easier to slaughter calves and chickens in the barnyard. The attractiveness of hunting is not in the pursuit and killing of animals, but in all those various sensations and impressions that the hunter experiences from leaving the house to returning. Hunting gives a person who is constantly engaged in one or another monotonous activity the opportunity to break out of his usual rut and, forgetting all conventional constraints, live in fits and starts with nature. And his communication with nature during hunting is not limited to passive contemplation of it: during hunting, man, obeying the law inherent in all living things – the struggle for existence, merges with nature and lives at one with it.
“A hunter exercises not only the strength and endurance of the body, the dexterity and flexibility of movements, the accuracy of the eye, the firmness of the hand, but also some spiritual qualities: energy, enterprise, perseverance. Thus, in addition to getting closer to nature, the hunter also develops in himself such physical and mental strengths that, under the conditions of urban and office life in general, are inactive and therefore weaken. From this point of view, hunting has an educational value for young people: it tames them to rely on their own strength, does without outside help; And this is especially useful for those who from childhood are accustomed to using someone else’s labor in everything that requires the application of physical strength. In addition, the passion for hunting is often beneficial in that it saves a young man from other hobbies that are morally and physically pernicious, such as wine, cards, and women. It is not for nothing that hunting is considered a courageous and noble entertainment and has been honored by all peoples since ancient times.”
This is what hunters say, who want to justify and comprehend their favorite fun. And at first glance these arguments seem to be well-founded. But are they really fair?
For many years I was a passionate hunter. I took this occupation with the greatest seriousness, not only hunting in all sorts of ways, but also theoretically studying hunting from books. Nothing in the world was so enthusiastic about me as hunting: I knew no pleasure higher than the excitement of hunting. And yet, doubts crept into my soul about the legitimacy of this pleasure. Not wanting to give up the hunt, I tried in every possible way to stifle this doubt in myself. And at first I succeeded. But doubt grew over the years, undermining the pleasure of hunting. And then the tiny, barely audible reproach of conscience gradually grew and finally began to bother me in earnest. I was compelled to face the truth, and as soon as I did so, I understood the evil of the hunt with my whole being. Now I cannot but recognize hunting as not only inhuman, but downright bestial, and therefore peculiar only to savages and people in general, who still live an unconscious life, but in no way correspond to the level of spiritual enlightenment on which we consider ourselves worth.
I gave up hunting, but for a long time, whenever I remembered hunting, I longed to return to it. Now, thank God, this passion has completely subsided in me, and I can, calmly looking back, sum up all that I have thought and felt about it.
They say that it is not the hunt itself that is important, but the conditions that accompany it.
But if this were so, then the mere communion of the hunter with nature could satisfy him. However, this is not the case. Neither walking, nor rolling, nor any occupation in the garden, in the field, in the midst of nature, can replace the hunter with a special pleasure, which, as hunters say with the consciousness of their superiority, is available only to those who have a hunting feeling.
What is this special hunting feeling and the pleasure it evokes?
No matter how much a hunter refuses, his main pleasure in hunting is precisely in chasing and killing animals. In this, and only in this, lies the whole meaning of hunting and the enjoyment of it, and the vaunted hunting feeling. It is this, and nothing else, that gives hunting its attractiveness.
It is also said that the attractiveness of hunting arises from the fact that, by indulging in it and surrendering to the law of the struggle for existence inherent in all living things, man unites with nature.
It is indeed true that if a man hunts for the maintenance of his existence, which happens only in rare cases, he is subject to the law of the struggle for existence. But, firstly, this never happens not only for rich, but also for well-to-do hunters; and secondly, the struggle for existence has a special meaning for man, which can hardly be expressed in the form of hunting.
It is true that in nature everything is constantly struggling for existence. But even among animals, the struggle for existence is not limited to devouring the weak by the strong, many animals exert no less effort and skill in the struggle against the elements of nature, arranging for themselves dwellings that protect them from bad weather, and similar cares. For man, the main form of the struggle for existence consists in the construction of dwellings, the manufacture of clothing, and, most importantly, in obtaining food for himself, in the cultivation of nutritious plants. As you move further and further away from the original savage state, the forms of the struggle for existence gradually change. The most primitive form of this struggle, hunting, really coincides with the methods of fighting in animals; But as the conditions of life improve, this brutal struggle with animals becomes superfluous, and at the present time it is no longer at all necessary for mankind to kill animals even for its own subsistence, as is confirmed by all people, whose number is constantly increasing, who consciously eat only vegetable and dairy food.
And therefore hunting is no longer a natural form of struggle for existence, but a voluntary return to a primitive animal-like state, with the only difference that for primitive man hunting served as a natural matter, corresponding to all the rest of his way of life. For modern cultured man, however, such an occupation encourages, exercises and develops in him such animal instincts that have long outgrown human consciousness.
One has only to vividly recall or imagine the conduct of every hunter during the hunt to be convinced that he, giving full rein to the worst qualities of his nature, resorts to such actions as under any other circumstances he would be ashamed to even think of.
There is a category of actions, some methods of action, which are quite reasonably recognized as unworthy of a decent person. Deception, deceit, imitation of someone else’s identity, ambush, waiting for one’s victim around the corner, attacking him from behind, chasing one by many, the weakest strong, finishing off a lying person, exploiting for one’s own benefit the hopeless situation of a living being, its hunger, infatuation, parental love, forcibly taking children away from parents and parents from children, luring one’s victim to certain death under the guise of a good deed – all these are vile and vile deeds in themselves. regardless of who they are committed against. And yet, by some astonishing inadequacy, all these abominable and criminal acts, and many others, which are worthily similar to them, are shamelessly committed in the sight of all in the hunt with unrequited creatures, by the very people who would not shake hands with their acquaintance if they knew that he had done something similar to a man. It is as if people are so intolerably burdensome to behave among their own kind, that they go to the forests and fields, looking for such animals over which they can freely vent their embarrassment and give full rein to their lowest and most brutal inclinations.
To tear open the belly with a dagger, to crush the brain on a stump, to tear it to pieces, etc., all these are the most ordinary and even necessary actions in hunting. But it is natural for every person to feel sorry for animals and it is painful to see their suffering. Why then do the same people, as soon as they are on the hunt, not only not feel sorry, but also not ashamed to deceive, persecute, chase, poison and torture animals in every possible way? Every man commits such acts in hunting for which he would elect or beat a street boy if he were to catch him committing them on animals that are not recognized as game.
Let every hunter consider his conduct towards the creatures he hunts; let him be transported to their position for a moment, and he will be forced to admit that this is so.
It is a strange thing that we are proud of the progress of civilization, we smugly survey what we consider to be its successes in all possible branches of life, and at the same time we do not notice that our life is often based on the most savage, unjust and cruel principles, which the future humanity will remember in due time with the same disgust with which we now look back. For example, slavery and torture.
Hunting, of course, is not the most important and egregious of all the surviving outrages of the past; but its shameless and unhindered prosperity in our time is curious and instructive. It is instructive that the true meaning of the hunt cannot be obscured and embellished with the false guise of serving some great principle, which is supposed to be necessary for the good of men, just as the true meaning of most of the manifestations of the remnants of barbarism that have survived to this day is obscured and concealed.
But the human mind is obliging and always ready to find a noble excuse for any bad deed. So it was with me when I doubted the legality of hunting, but did not want to give it up yet. I am now both ashamed and amused to remember how many intricate excuses I invented at that time only in order to somehow retain the moral right to continue my favorite amusement.
I remember that one of my justifications was the idea that every animal, carnivorous or non-predatory, destroys other living creatures. Not only does the wolf eat sheep and hares, but the hare certainly swallows with its food a large number of insects that accidentally get there and want to live as much as any other animal. Therefore, by killing one living creature in the hunt, I thereby save the lives of all those creatures that it would destroy if it continued to live. Comforted by this excuse, which seemed to me a sufficient argument, I continued to hunt.
But one day, standing on the edge of the forest during a roundup, I threw down vodka with a shot and ran up to him to finish him off with a thick stick reserved for this purpose. I struck the bridge of my nose, the most delicate part of the wolf’s body, and the wolf looked me straight in the eyes with a wild frenzy and gave a dull sigh with each blow. Soon his paws twitched convulsively, stretched out, a slight shiver ran through them, and they stiffened. I ran to my room and, all out of breath with excitement, hid behind my tree, waiting for a new victim. In the evening, in bed, I remembered the impressions of the day, and my imagination kept returning to the moment when a rustle was heard in the bushes, not far from me, a wolf appeared on the edge of the forest and began to look around. I remembered how the wolf, not noticing me and hearing the cries of the beaters behind him, set off from the forest into the steppe, how at that moment I knocked him down with a shot and how I began to finish him off.
I remembered all this with a sinking heart and relived my excitement with pleasure. Remembering this, I noticed that with a kind of real voluptuousness I reveled in the sufferings of a dying animal. I felt ashamed of myself. And then I felt at once, not in my mind, but in my heart, that this killing of the wolf was in itself a bad deed, that worse than the deed itself was my enjoyment of it, and that worst of all was the unscrupulousness with which I justified all this.
Only then did reason point out to me the logical inconsistency of my previous reasoning in favor of hunting. I realized that if, in killing a wolf, I consoled myself by saving its victims from death, then, in the position of the wolf itself, I could say in the same way that by staying alive and eating, for example, a hare, I was saving those insects which the hare would have swallowed with its food if it had lived, and so on without end.
Perhaps it would not be worth mentioning such pathetic sophisms. But when analyzing them, an analogy with those high-sounding phrases and profound arguments with which we are accustomed to justify the larger outrages of modern life, legitimized by public opinion, involuntarily suggests itself.
I also remember that at one time the danger to which the hunter is exposed in certain types of hunting served in my eyes as a circumstance that gave hunting some special dignity. I did not notice then that the hunter always arranges himself in such a way that there is incomparably less danger for him than for the animal; and the main thing is that, risking his life for fun, given to him to serve people, the hunter not only does not reduce, but even increases his guilt. There are so many ways to serve one’s neighbor at the risk of one’s life that it is a sin to expose oneself to it for one’s own lust.
But even if hunters are proud of the danger to which they sometimes expose themselves, they do not at all perceive another, incomparably more substantial danger, to which they are constantly exposed in all, absolutely all kinds of hunting.
Compassion provides one of the most precious qualities of the human soul. Feeling sorry for the suffering creature, a person forgets himself and is transferred to his position. In this way he frees himself from the limitations of his separate personality and is able to feel the unity of his life with the life of other beings, which seems to him without suffering incomprehensible and alien, completely separate, having nothing in common with his life. By exercising and developing this faculty, man approaches merging with that extra-personal life which raises his consciousness to a higher level and gives him the greatest good available to him. Thus compassion, while helping other beings to alleviate their sufferings, is at the same time of greater benefit to the one in whom it is born.
Buddha Sakkia-Muni, the teacher of compassion, forbade his disciples to kill any living creature. A touching legend has survived about how one of his wandering followers came across a dog suffering from an ulcer filled with worms. The wanderer, as the legend says, sat down on the ground, pulled out the worms with his own hands, raked them into a heap on the road and went on. But suddenly he remembered that he had taken food from the worms, and that they would die without it. And he felt sorry for them. He went back and cut a piece of meat out of his shank and put it in a pile of worms so that they would have something to eat. And only then did he go his own way with a calm soul.
This story is instructive, of course, not in the sense that we should all give ourselves alive to be devoured by worms, but in the sense that there is no limit to the increase in the feeling of pity, and that it should never be stifled, but, on the contrary, always encouraged.
Pity is the same feeling, whether it is caused by the suffering of a person or a fly. In both cases, a person, giving himself up to pity, emerges from his personality and increases the volume and content of his life. And therefore a person should especially cherish every manifestation of pity in himself, no matter what kind of creature it may be aroused, at the first slightest glimmer of pity, even if it is caused by the most seemingly insignificant reason, this feeling should be given free play without stifling it. A person who understands the meaning of pity will not be afraid that its manifestation may seem ridiculous to people. What does it matter to him that, by carrying a caught mouse out into the yard and releasing it from the mousetrap, instead of killing it, he provoked the ridicule or disapproval of those around him, when he knows that by doing so he has not only saved from death a creature who no less values his life, but, by giving free way to the feeling of compassion, has approached that supreme life of all-embracing love? which, not fitting into any conventional boundaries, frees him from death and merges with the source of life.
Every hunter does just the opposite: he does not once or twice, but constantly stifles this precious feeling of pity in its very beginning. There is hardly one among the hunters who has never experienced the slightest hint of pity for any of his victims. But every hunter always hastens to drown out this feeling, considering it shameful. And so, the first sprout of compassion, pity, from which grows the highest and most joyful feeling of love, is trampling. It is in this gradual, spiritual suicide that the main harm of hunting lies.
Yes, no matter how you look at it, hunting is a senseless, cruel and destructive thing for the moral sense of man. Therefore, it is not surprising that, in addition to evil relations with the animals themselves, hunters also mostly show the most unattractive sides of their character in communication with each other. Self-satisfaction, self-love, vanity, charisma, boasting, lying, envy, schadenfreude — all these and similar qualities are constantly manifested in hunters, depending on their upbringing, in a more or less rude and frank form. With this, I am sure, will agree any hunter who has taken a closer look at his own mood at the hunt, and at the relations of his comrades among themselves.
Perov’s famous painting “Hunters” perfectly depicts one side of this relationship. During breakfast in the field, a man of respectable years, apparently telling some of his hunting adventures, lied. His young comrade is apparently still so naïve that he does not dare to doubt the veracity of the venerable narrator. But the third listener scratches his head with such an obvious expression of distrust that excludes the possibility of the slightest respect for the gray-haired liar.
All this happens all the time.
I remember another small picture. The fox was hunted at the very burrow, to which the unfortunate woman had only two gallops left. Frenzied dogs, grabbing one by her throat, the other by her ass, tear her in different directions. She, with her mouth open, is suffocating with suffering and horror. The hunters who galloped up are savagely enjoying themselves. One of them has already jumped off his horse and runs up to the fox, tightly gripping the arapnik with which he will finish it off. Another, an old man, at full gallop reining in his horse, stared at the suffering animal with bloodthirsty animal joy. From different directions, other hunters rush to the same place.
The author of the picture, without any, apparently second thought, simply depicted one of the most ordinary episodes of hunting in a hit-and-run. But the viewer, not the hunter, looking at this disgusting scene, is decidedly involuntarily presented with the question: which of the characters is the most bestial, whether the dogs are fervent and furious, or their owners who are brutal.
There is another painting by an English artist, striking in this respect – “A Quiet Autumn Night”. On the rocky shore of a picturesque, moonlit lake, a huge deer, wounded but not tracked by hunters, has sunk to the ground in exhaustion and is breathing its last breath. Above him, with its neck stretched up, stands a doe, weeping tears, roaring desperately with an expression of such hopeless grief and suffering that it is impossible without indignation to think of those monsters who, having committed their bloody and idle crime, at this very moment, smoking and drinking wine or beer, are lying in armchairs near the blazing fireplace and discussing their heroic hunting exploits.
If it were possible to depict in a picture all the suffering and sorrow which in the course of his life the hunter alone brought into the midst of the animals he persecuted, tortured, and killed, I believe that, however callous and heartless he might be, he would nevertheless be ashamed and ashamed.
There is no need, I think, to prove the bad educational value of hunting and the harmful influence produced by that plausible environment, that false halo of nobility and even heroism, in which the most inhuman kinds of activity, including hunting, are clothed in our time. When a child or a young man sees how much importance adults attach to such an empty amusement as hunting, sees with what attention and solemnity all the trifles relating to this amusement are arranged, and, above all, sees with what undisguised pleasure people whom he respects are engaged in inflicting suffering on defenseless creatures, it is difficult to expect that such a child or youth will correctly form the concepts of good and evil. about what is important, what is insignificant, what is really worthy of respect and imitation, and what, on the contrary, deserves condemnation and contempt. It is truly horrible for the rising generation when one thinks of the atmosphere of legalized evil and approved vices which they have to breathe at the very time when the pure air of goodness and truth is most necessary for their proper spiritual growth.
It is in favour of hunting that for young people who are forced to lead a monotonous and unsympathetic life, hunting alone provides the opportunity for physical exercise in the open air in direct communion with nature. But this argument is also unfair.
For this purpose the most useful, worthy, and peaceful of all human occupations suggests itself, agriculture, in the various branches of which an infinitely varied application can be found for the very faculties of soul and body, the exercise of which is credited to hunting. Sowing, ploughing, mowing, harvesting grain and hay, threshing, felling wood, various carpentry work, laying a bed of land, gardening, gardening, caring for animals and bringing them out—it is impossible to enumerate all the various occupations connected with agriculture, and which require no less exercise of physical strength, art, and skill than shooting or riding. In all these occupations, communication with nature is constant and close, as well as with animals, which in this case man teaches to help him in a reasonable and necessary matter, as opposed to teaching them to serve the idle amusement of hunters.
Having said, as best I could, what was in my heart about hunting, I confess frankly that I expect only ridicule and mockery from most hunters in return. It is not to people with established views which fully satisfy them that I am addressing in the present case, but to that comparative minority of chiefly young people in whom the consciousness has not yet become rigid but has retained its inquisitiveness and capacity for further development, and who are bold enough to take a critical view of their views and, if necessary, to change them, even if this entails giving up some favourite amusement.
Life is not a joke, and there is no life’s work that can be treated jokingly or lightly.
October 1, 1890