The Russian Jewish writer Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel fought in the first World War, later becoming a journalist. In many of his stories, the narrator appears as a semi-autobiographical apparition of Babel himself. Throughout his tales, the identity of a soldier and the grasp on the horrors of battles and war are shown with great, gory detail and shock the reader into attention. Set near the town of Brody, “The Death of Dolgushov” tells of the Russian Invasion into Polish territory. In the story, a man in the army makes the decision to flee after witnessing the horrors of war. The narrator’s grasp to the value of a human life is shown through many aspects of the tale and is a constant reminder of the humanity of war regardless of the moral or ethical reasons for any of the actions. Constant environmental cues pop up in the actions of the superiors and the actions of fellow soldiers as they lay on the border of battle. In memories and interactions of the men are the threads of their thoughts on what the price of a life is and if it is worth expending.
In a particular scene, Vytyagaichenko, the regimental commander who is rumored to be fired, has an interaction with his wounded men. The men are spoken for under one delegate who says that they are not able to fight anymore. Under normal circumstances in the Russian Army, they would kill the wounded who refused to fight and die honorably. “’Don’t whine.’ Said Vytygaichenko, turning to face him. ‘Don’t worry – we won’t leave you behind.’ And he gave the order to move off.” A true show of how men of war regard the death and life of their brothers perhaps. These wounded men were about to meet their maker on the battlefield if their injuries did not succeed in killing them first. Afonka, a comrade in arms, has a response that surprises the narrator with his blunt statement: “If he’s really been fired, we’re done for. Yes, soap the rope and kick away the stool…” Vytyagaichenko does not bother with the lives of his men when he has nothing to go back to after the war. If the rumors are true, he would return disgraced. Afonka, knowing this, continues into the fight with the high probability of being wounded or killed. The tears in his eyes symbolize his farewell to life as he “soaps the rope and kicks away the stool.”
The environment of death seems to sweep closer to them, it is apparent in the beginning as “the veils of battle swept towards the town,” and Babel describes how the bullets whined and burrowed into the ground. This boils down to Afonka’s frustration with the commander’s decision to march into death as he says: “’The enemy are all of three miles away. How are we going to slash them down if our horses are winded? There’ll be time enough – God damn it – to meet our Maker!” This attention to God and the afterlife seems to almost pair with the upcoming scene of the narrator and another man, Grishchuk, as they come upon Polish soldiers that pop up behind graves like zombies. The decision for Vytyagaichenko to march on is made clear through these passages. His regard to the human life of those under his command does not matter as long as his position in the regiment is in danger. Near the end of the story, there is a moment where the narrator moves away from this environment to save his own life which he valued so dearly. “I rode off at a walk, not turning round; in my back I felt the cold of death.” He rides away at the same pace that Vytyagaichenko sets for the riders to go into their demise. Behind him is the ruin of a line of men to never return to their families or have children and Afonka who returns to battle.
After the Polish soldiers emerge from behind the graves and threaten the life of the narrator and Grishchuk comes a change of emotion for “The Death of Dolgushov.” He recalls the image of women in a moment of near death. Women are the carriers of life and through bearing children perpetuate human life into continued existence. “’Why do women bother?’ he answered more sadly. ‘What’s the use of matchmakin’ and marryin’? What’s the use of godfathers and godmothers, and dancin’ at weddin’s?’” Grishchuk is asking what the point is of extending human life if it is to end in battle for no particularly good reason. The futility of life is seeps into his mind while he is on death’s doorstep. What use is having children if there will be a ceaseless amount of wars? What use is it if they will simply ride off to those wars and never return? Women and children are the future that no longer supply meaning to Grishchuck.
The futility of survival in battle is shown through the imagery of fruit, a symbol of perpetuation of life. Vytyagaichenko has a pocketful of plums which he eats as he yells at a soldier, Timoshka, to get a flag out. He spits out the kosti’ or “bones” of the fruit. The Russian word for the pit is also the same word as bones; the connection is clear. The “bones” that Vytyagaichenko spits out are a metaphor for the bones and lives of the men. At the end, Grishchuk hands out a wrinkled apple to the narrator and begs him to eat it in a slightly absurd ending to the story. After the narrator says that he had lost his first friend, Afonka “Grishchuk took out a wrinkled apple from under his seat. ‘Eat this,’ he said. ‘Eat it, please.’” This wrinkled, dying apple seems to show an indifference to the lives that they are leaving behind them. They are turning their backs to the withering lives behind them that are like the withering apple and do the simple human task of survival of eating.
The pivotal moment of the story is the death of Dolgushov, a telephonist. He is a man sitting under a tree who is fatally wounded. He shows the narrator his wounds: “His stomach had been torn out, his intestines were slithering down into his thighs, and his heartbeats were visible.” The narrator almost makes a comparison to himself being touched by this death in using the same word to slither in the phrase “sweat was slithering down my body.” The word gives a living quality to the the man’s intestines that clearly demonstrate the fatal qualities of his wounds. Dolgushov asks to be killed. This is a reasonable request to give seeing as he is going to die a slow death because of his wounds or the Polish soldiers who would take revenge on his body, yet the narrator is incapable of taking the life. He simply says no and rides on. The taking of a human life of his comrade seems to be too much of a task to fulfill and shows that he cannot be the one kill Dolgushov. Afonka rides “gaily” towards them from death and battle. It seems strange that there is anything happy about the death and torment in the battle and between Dolgushov and the coming moments this small moment of sunshine seems disingenuous and brief. Afonka is shown the telephonist and commits the deed that the narrator could not. This is described in passing, as if Afonka killed him without much thought. This simple act of mercy leaves a bad feeling because of this and drives the point that Afonka, just like many, does not seem to care about other’s lives. Afterwards, when the narrator approaches Afonka and tells him that he simply could not kill the man himself he is threatened to be killed and Afonka accuses, “You four-eyed lot feel as much pity for us as a cat does for a mouse.” It seems a strange mercy for people to kill a man than to not kill a man under normal circumstances, and Afonka has no trouble killing one who is at the midst of death as well as one at the midst of life. The narrator’s “first friend,” Afonka, is lost to him at this moment. In such a time, the ethics and morals of killing men is glanced upon in “The Death of Dolgushov” in which the narrator recollects his memories of the awful choices they had to make.
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