Stenka (Russian Wall Fight)
Стеношный бойStenka na stenku is a Russian folk mass fist fight in which two rows of men met on holidays and the side that pushed the other beyond the boundary won.
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Who It Suits
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
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About Stenka (Russian Wall Fight)
Stenka na stenku is a Russian folk mass fist fight, which Belyukov (2013) describes as the group form of kulachny boy, alongside one-on-one combat, and calls the most popular and widespread kind in Russia. According to Junghanns (2006), rows of fighters from two neighbouring villages faced each other and the aim was to break the opponent's wall with one's own, while Kuc (2013) regards pushing the opponent's wall beyond a set boundary as victory. According to Belyukov, the fights took place on holidays, especially at Shrovetide and Christmas, in winter on frozen rivers and lakes.
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The rules were unwritten, according to Belyukov: do not hit a fallen opponent and hide nothing in the gloves. Rulev (2024) states that in law it appeared in a decree of 1726 that forbade carrying balls, stones and kisten in gloves and hitting a man lying down. According to Sapunkov and Fomenko (2021), the tsarist administration repeatedly banned or regulated the fights from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, from the decree of Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich of 1640 to the Ustav on Penalties of 1864. Rulev and Belyukov state a ban in the Svod zakonov of 1832. According to Rulev, Peter I in 1722 merely restricted folk games during processions. According to Belyukov, citing the recollections of Nikolay Starostin, fights were held in Moscow until 1916. Today, according to Junghanns, wall fighting is part of folklore tournaments, and according to Kylasov (2017) the Atmanovskiye kulachki of Tambov Oblast were entered in 2013 in the register of intangible cultural heritage. The sources give no founder or year of origin, as it is a folk tradition.
History
Early reports are summarized by Sapunkov (2021), according to whom the Nikon Chronicle under the year 1068 criticizes mass igrishcha as sinful entertainment and the Vladimir council of 1274 condemned kulachny boy as demonic customs. According to him, secular princely law was silent about them and the authorities tolerated them as warrior training. Herberstein, who stayed in Moscow in 1516 and 1526, described, according to Sapunkov, festive brawls of young men that began at a whistle and were meant to teach them to endure blows. Rulev (2024) states that Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich forbade gathering for fights behind Old Vagankovo in 1627. Sapunkov and Fomenko (2021) regard his decree of 1640 as the first direct mention in Russian law and also cite the decree of regent Sofia Alekseyevna of 1684 with punishments by knout, the regulation of Catherine I of 1726, the ban of Elizabeth Petrovna for St Petersburg and Moscow of 1743, the decree of Alexander I of 1823 after a killing in Piryatin, and bans of 1839, 1845 and 1864. Belyukov (2013) describes fights in Pskov between the suburbs of Zapskovye and Zavelichye with several hundred men on each side.
How it differs
Sapunkov (2021) distinguishes kulachny boy from the judicial duel attested from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, for example in the treaty of Smolensk with Riga of 1229, in the Pskov and Novgorod judicial charters and in the Sudebniks of 1497 and 1550, which was a combat of armed persons. Aleksandrov (2010) questions the thesis of Belov, founder of Slavyano-Goritskaya borba, about two schools of kulachny boy, the Moscow and the Novgorod one. Junghanns (2006) states that wall fighting is part of today's folklore tournaments but is not at the centre of the Russian Style movement, because its repertoire of movement is, according to the movement's pioneers, too limited. Belyukov (2013) states that, unlike English bare-knuckle boxing, the one-on-one fight was stopped once a fighter fell.
Technique
According to Belyukov (2013), people fought face to face, unwritten rules included not hitting a fallen opponent and hiding nothing in the gloves, and later kicks and throws with the legs were banned too. Rulev (2024) states that the decree of 1726 forbade carrying balls, stones and kisten in gloves and ordered not to hit those lying down. Tinyakova (2017), in a student article, writes that one could hit with the fist, only trip with the feet, and only push with the shoulder or both hands. Aleksandrov (2010) reports from field research that the rules against hitting a man on the ground and kicking below the belt were sometimes observed and sometimes not, and that legs came into use in collective contests only after the breakup of the line. Kuts (2013) distinguishes kulachny boy ochotnickij (sam na sam), stenochny, scepljalka-svalka and a circular fight of one against all. Kuts (2014) describes the lateral whipping strike chlest, popularly also podchlest or s plecha, in which the trunk and arms turn the same way with maximum amplitude.
Ranks and progression
Sapunkov and Fomenko (2021) cite Gorbunov, who counted 3429 reports of kulachny boy from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in 59 governorates and regions, and judge this a failure of the policy of bans. According to them, fights declined from the mid-nineteenth century but grew again among workers in industrial towns at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. They also cite V. Lebedev, who wrote in 1913 that kulachny boy still existed in many places in the country. In their account, the last great kulachny boy in Moscow took place in February 1865 by the Yauza River between the merchants of Shvivaya Gorka and factory workers. Belyukov (2013), citing Nikolay Starostin's recollections, states that fighting on the Moskva River continued until 1916 and crowds reached ten thousand spectators. Borchenko (2009) writes that in the twentieth century the technique of kulachny boy grew poorer, circular fighting disappeared earlier, and the remaining wall fighting allows neither turning nor leg work.
Competition
According to Belyukov (2013), the fight usually began with boys starting minor skirmishes to goad the older fighters, and only then did adults step in, with participants lining up by age. According to him, fights took place on holidays, in summer at places set aside for the purpose and in winter on frozen rivers and lakes, and in Velikiye Luki at Christmas and at Shrovetide. Ogonyok in Kommersant (2018) describes two present-day forms. Festival kulachny boy has an unlimited but equal number of fighters on both sides, no protective gear and a ban on blows to the head. Russian stenka is played in teams of seven in helmets and gloves on a field of 9 x 14 m, and the aim is to knock the opponent to the ground or push him off the field. Radio Svoboda (2004), citing the organizing committee chairman O. Popov, describes wall fighting at the Dmitriev Day festival in Yekaterinburg, in which children go first, then youth and finally adults, the aim is to push the opponent back over his starting line, and blows to the head and kicks are banned.
Today
Kylasov (2017) states that the Atmanovskiye kulachki from the village of Atmanov Ugol in Tambov Oblast were entered in the register of intangible cultural heritage in 2013 and have been funded by a federal programme since 2014. According to Ogonyok in Kommersant (2018), the festival was first held in 2010 by the historian and athlete Anatoly Tedoradze, had its eighth edition in 2018 and takes place around the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God on 28 August. Ogonyok states that it is supported by the Vsemirnoye obshchestvo etnosporta, led by Aleksey Kylasov. According to Kylasov, the project Russkiye igry has been carried out since 2012 by the Federatsiya iskonnykh zabav i etnosporta Rossii, which revives traditional games including kulachki in Moscow and in Moscow, Belgorod, Tambov, Rostov and Yaroslavl Oblasts. Kylasov, who at the same time represents ethnosport, claims that it is not a reconstruction but a revival, because bearers of the tradition are still alive. Radio Svoboda (2004) states that at the tenth edition of the Dmitriev Day festival in Yekaterinburg six wall fights took place.
Did you know
Sapunkov and Fomenko (2021) state that the bans did not affect the custom of storming the snow town, which included kulachny boy and which Vasily Surikov painted in 1891. According to them, under Peter II around 1730 kulachny boy became a court entertainment, and Prince M. M. Shcherbatov wrote that the favourite I. A. Dolgorukov lured the tsar into it. Ogonyok in Kommersant (2018) states that the obligatory musical accompaniment of the stenka na stenku fight is the accordion. Tinyakova (2017) lists kulachny boy in the literature of S. T. Aksakov, P. P. Bazhov, M. Gorky, M. Y. Lermontov and S. Yesenin. According to Grevtsova (2024), Yesenin took part in kulachny boy as a boy and his grandfather encouraged him to. Belyukov (2013) also cites Lermontov's Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov as a literary source, and according to English Wikipedia, in it Kalashnikov kills the oprichnik Kiribeevich with a blow to the temple in a kulachny boy duel before the tsar.
Frequently asked questions
When was stenka na stenku fought?
According to Belyukov (2013), the fights took place on holidays, especially at Shrovetide and Christmas, in summer at designated places and in winter on frozen rivers and lakes.
How did the tsarist administration treat the kulachny boy fights?
Sapunkov and Fomenko (2021) state that it repeatedly banned them from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, for example in 1640, 1743 and 1839, or regulated them, like the decree of Catherine I of 1726.
What rules did stenka na stenku have?
According to Belyukov (2013), the rules were unwritten: do not hit a fallen opponent and hide nothing in the gloves. According to Rulev (2024), the written ban on hitting a man lying down appeared in a decree of 1726.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.