{{Otheruses}}
Russian roulette ({{lang-ru|
Русская рулетка,
Russkaya ruletka}}) is a potentially lethal
game of chanceA game of chance is a game whose outcome is strongly influenced by some randomizing device, and upon which contestants may or may not wager money or anything of monetary value. Common devices used include dice, spinning tops, playing cards, roulette wheels or numbered balls drawn from a...
in which participants place a single
roundA cartridge, also called a round, packages the bullet, gunpowder and primer into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the firing chamber of a firearm. The primer is a small charge of impact-sensitive chemical that may be located at the center of the case head or at its rim ....
in a
revolverA revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. As the user cocks the hammer, the cylinder revolves to align the next chamber and round with the hammer and barrel, which gives this type of firearm its name...
, spin the cylinder, place the muzzle against their head and pull the trigger. "
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n" refers to the supposed country of origin of the game and
rouletteRoulette is a casino and gambling game named after a French diminutive for "little wheel". In the game, players may choose to place bets on either a number, a range of numbers, the colors red or black, or whether the number is odd or even....
to the element of risk-taking and the spinning of the revolver's cylinder being reminiscent of spinning a roulette wheel.
The form of the game can be as varied as the participants or their motives (displays of bravado,
boredomBoredom is an emotional state experienced during periods lacking activity or when individuals are uninterested in the opportunities surrounding them...
,
suicideSuicide is the intentional killing of one's self. Many dictionaries also note the metaphorical sense of "willful destruction of one's self-interest"...
, etc.), but typically a single round is placed in a six-shot revolver resulting in a 1/6 (or approximately 16.67%) chance of the revolver discharging the round. Regardless of any player's position in the shooting sequence, his initial odds are the same as for all other players. The revolver's cylinder can either be spun again to reset the game conditions, or the trigger can be pulled again. Using revolvers with fewer chambers or increasing the number of rounds are variations that increase the risk of being killed in any given round of play.
History
Legends abound regarding the invention of Russian roulette. Most of these, predictably, are set in
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
or occur among Russian soldiers.
In one legend, 19th-century Russian prisoners were forced to play the game while the prison guards bet on the outcome. In another version, desperate and suicidal officers in the Russian army played the game to impress each other.
Whether
TsarTsar or czar , occasionally spelled csar or Tzar in English, is a Slavic term with Bulgarian origins used to designate certain monarchs...
ist officers actually played Russian roulette is unclear. In a text on the Tsarist officer corps, John Bushnell, a Russian history expert at
Northwestern University{{Infobox university|name = Northwestern University|image_name = NU seal.png|motto = Quaecumque sunt vera |mottoeng =Whatsoever things are true |established = 1851|type = Private|calendar = Quarter...
, cited two near-contemporary memoirs by Russian army veterans:
The Duel (1905) by
Aleksandr KuprinAleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin was a Russian writer, pilot, explorer and adventurer who is perhaps best known for his masterpiece The Duel...
and
From Double Eagle to Red Flag (1921) by
Pyotr KrasnovPyotr Nikolayevich Krasnov , sometimes referred to in English as Peter Krasnov, was Lieutenant General of the Russian army when the revolution broke out in 1917, and one of the leaders of the counterrevolutionary White movement afterwards.- Biography :Pyotr Krasnov was born in 1869 in...
. Both books tell of officers' suicidal and outrageous behaviour, but Russian roulette is not mentioned in either text. The standard sidearm issued to Russian officers from 1895 to 1930 was the
Nagant M1895The Nagant M1895 Revolver was a seven-shot, gas-seal revolver designed and produced by Belgian industrialist Léon Nagant for Tsarist Russia. The Nagant M1895 was chambered for a proprietary cartridge, 7.62x38R, and featured an unusual "gas-seal" system in which the cylinder moved forward when the...
revolver. A double-action, seven chambered revolver, the Nagant's cylinder spins clockwise until the hammer is cocked. While the cylinder does not swing out as in modern hand-ejector style double action revolvers, it can be spun around to randomize the result. It is possible that Russian officers shot six and kept the seventh cartridge live. Due to the deeply seated rounds unique to the Nagant's cartridge and that the primers are concealed, it would be very difficult to tell from the outside where the live round was and which were spent; this would add to the uncertainty of the results.
Several teen deaths following the release of the film
The Deer HunterThe Deer Hunter is a war drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Russian American steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War...
caused police and the media to blame the film's depiction of Russian roulette, saying that it inspired the youth.
Variations
It is assumed, probably solely based on some cinematic depictions, that two players either take turns spinning and firing the revolver so that each successive turn has an equal 1/6
probabilityProbability is a way of expressing knowledge or belief that an event will occur or has occurred. In mathematics the concept has been given an exact meaning in probability theory, that is used extensively in such areas of study as mathematics, statistics, finance, gambling, science, and philosophy...
of failure or that the players simply take turns without spinning the cylinders until one is shot. If playing with more than two players, without re-spinning, the initial probability of each player for being killed is 1/6th, but the probability of being killed changes every time the trigger is pulled. The second player has a 1/5th (20%) probability of being killed, and the probability of the third player 1/4th (25%). Until player #6 when the chance of being killed is 1 (100%) assuming the bullet properly works.
In the former case, where they respin the chamber, the game could continue indefinitely and gamblers could presumably only wager on which players will survive and how many turns the game will last.
Notable Russian roulette incidents
Numerous incidents have been reported regarding Russian roulette. Many are teenagers, with some players as young as 14.
- British author Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
claimed that in his youth he often played Russian roulette as a means to provide "excitement and get away from the boredom". But he later decided that "it was no more exciting than taking aspirin for a headache".
- In his autobiography
The Autobiography of Malcolm X was written by Alex Haley between 1964 and 1965, as told to him through conversations with Malcolm conducted shortly before Malcolm X's death , and published in 1965...
, Malcolm XMalcolm X , also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African-American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist. To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against...
says that during his burglary career he once played Russian roulette, pulling the trigger three times in a row to convince his partners in crime that he was not afraid to die. In the epilogue to the book, Alex Haley Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was an American writer. He is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and The Autobiography of Malcolm X ....
states that Malcolm X revealed to him that he palmedPalming is a technique for holding or concealing an object in the palm of the hand. It is used frequently by magicians to conceal the presence of a card, coin, or other object. When done skillfully, the hand containing the palmed object appears to be completely empty.-Methods:Methods for palming...
the round.
- On December 24, 1954, the American blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre created within the African-American communities in the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
musician Johnny AceJohnny Ace , born John Marshall Alexander, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, was one of the stars of American rhythm and blues singing.-Career:...
killed himself in TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
after a gun he pointed at his own head discharged. Many sources, including the Washington Post attribute this to Russian roulette, though witnesses to the shooting have claimed it was actually an accident after Ace had been playing with his weapon.
- John Hinckley, Jr.
John Warnock Hinckley, Jr., attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Washington, D.C., on March 30, 1981, as the culmination of an effort to impress actress Jodie Foster. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and has remained under institutional psychiatric care since...
, the man who attempted to murderThe Reagan assassination attempt occurred on March 30, 1981, just 69 days into the presidency of Ronald Reagan. While leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., President Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr....
President Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California .Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s...
in 1981, was known to play Russian roulette, alone, on two occasions. Hinckley also took a picture of himself in 1980 pointing a gun at his head.
- PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television service with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. However, its operations are largely funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting...
claims that William ShockleyWilliam Bradford Shockley was an American physicist and inventor. Along with John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain, Shockley co-invented the transistor, for which all three were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics...
, co-inventor of the transistorA transistor is a semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals. A transistor is made of a solid piece of a semiconductor material, with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's...
and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, had attempted suicide by playing a solo game of Russian roulette.
- On October 5, 2003, psychological illusionist Derren Brown
Derren Victor Brown is an English magician, illusionist, mentalist, painter and sceptic. He was born in Croydon, South London, educated at Whitgift School, where his father coached swimming, and studied Law and German at the University of Bristol...
played Russian roulette on British television Channel 4Channel 4 is a UK public-service television broadcaster which began working on November 2, 1982. Although commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station owned now and operated by the Channel Four Television...
. The stunt was broadcast live with a slight delay allowing the program to cut to a black screen if anything had gone wrong. The stunt was condemned by some as being irresponsible, and a statement by the police that they had been informed of the arrangements in advance and were satisfied that "at no time was anyone at risk" made it clear that the incident was a hoax. However, it was proved on the prerecorded segment of the program that at point blank range even a blankA blank is a type of cartridge for a firearm that contains gunpowder but no bullet or shot. When fired, the blank makes a flash and an explosive sound . Blanks are often used for simulation , training, and for signaling...
cartridge is potentially lethal, and may cause concussion to the head, deafness or burns.
See also
- Russian roulette in popular culture
-In film:*The 1948 film Unfaithfully Yours features a dream sequence where the main character challenges his wife's lover to a game of Russian roulette....
- Quantum Suicide
- Russian Roulette (game show)
Russian Roulette is an American game show created by executive producer Gunnar Wetterberg that ran for two seasons on Game Show Network from June 3, 2002 to June 13, 2003. It was hosted by Mark L. Walberg, with Burton Richardson announcing. Todd Newton hosted an April Fool's Day episode in 2003....
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Russian Roulette}}