"Valerik" is a war poem published in 1843 by the Russian Romantic

Romantic poetry

Romanticism, a philosophical, literary, artistic and cultural era which began in the mid/late-1700s as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day , also influenced poetry...

 writer Mikhail Lermontov

Mikhail Lermontov

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov , a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", became the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837. Lermontov is considered the supreme poet of Russian literature alongside Pushkin and the greatest...

.

The battle

The Battle of the Valerik River was fought on July 11, 1840, between the Imperial Russian Army

Imperial Russian Army

The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...

 and Chechen mountain tribesman, as part of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus.

Mikhail Lermontov

Mikhail Lermontov

Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov , a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", became the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837. Lermontov is considered the supreme poet of Russian literature alongside Pushkin and the greatest...

, a lieutenant in the Tenginsky Regiment, showed exemplary valor in the battle. Eyewitness accounts describe him astride a white horse, leading his men into battle with reckless abandon. The official battle report stated:

For this, Lermontov was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir

Order of St. Vladimir

The Cross of Saint Vladimir was an Imperial Russian Order established in 1782 by Empress Catherine II in memory of the deeds of Saint Vladimir, the Grand Prince and the Baptizer of the Kievan Rus....

 Fourth Class, but he never received the award as his name was removed from the final list of recipients by Czar Nicholas I

Nicholas I of Russia

Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...

, who harbored a strong dislike for the contumacious poet.

The poem

After the battle, Lermontov struggled to find a way to express his experience. His own feelings about combat were mixed - He wrote in a letter that he had developed "a taste for war" as a gamble with death and with breezy sarcasm described "the ravine where this fun took place", but the poem he wrote ultimately viewed war as a senseless slaughter, and he and the fighters (on both sides) as "beasts" violating the beautiful world of his beloved pristine Caucasus

Although the poem contains battle scenes both stirring and grisly (which correlate in great detail to the official action report), it ends on a pensive note as the protagonist sits on a drum after the battle:
"Valerik" was first published (with omissions) posthumously in 1843 in the anthology Dawn.

Because of the poem's designation of the Valerik as the River of Death (the Chechen name (Valargthe) does actually mean "river of the dead"), the term "Valerik" is still used occasionally in Russia as a metaphor for "place of slaughter".

External links

• Text of Lermontov's poem Valerik
• Brief description and analysis of Lermontov's poem Valerik

Further reading

• An analysis of "Valerik" is found in