A Swiss-born author’s dangerous game
Who invented it? Probably Russian soldiers. And who made it world famous? Definitely an author born in Biel-Bienne. The story of Russian roulette.
Beat Kuhn
Beat Kuhn is Regional Editor at the Bieler Tagblatt and pulls out the occasional exciting news story from the archives.
Website: Bieler Tagblatt
Two other adult siblings, a brother and a sister, lived in the USA. As a child, Georges liked to read books about William Tell, Swiss history, the life of Napoleon and the French Foreign Legion as well as American adventure stories.
When Georges was twelve, the family moved to the United States, where Eugène, by now dissatisfied with his job as a watchmaker, had lived for a while in younger years. In his new home town, New York, Georges stood out as a foreigner and was picked on by his classmates, who called him names like “dirty Swiss”. He left school at age 16. At 19, he emigrated to Africa to start a new life in Côte d’Ivoire, at that time a French colony, from where he made trips to other countries on the continent, including Morocco and Sudan.
This romantic adventure was adapted for the big screen in 1927 by the film production company of a certain Joseph Kennedy – whose son would later go on to become US President. Surdez became a naturalised American citizen in 1928, encouraged by his wife Edith, a much-older schoolteacher he had married in 1922. At first, she did not appear to have a problem with her husband churning out what was commonly referred to as ‘pulp fiction’. But, in 1943, she left him for another man.
The story concerns a unit of the Foreign Legion stationed in North Africa. Its main protagonists are the Russian Sergeant Burkowski, a compulsive gambler, and the German Sergeant Feldheim, who tries to coax Burkowski out of his addiction. However, Burkowski is playing for more than just money, he is also playing with his life. He survives several rounds of Russian roulette, before finally taking his own life by deliberately shooting himself in the head. In the story, Burkowski claims that the game was invented in 1917 by Russian officers in Romania – during the final days of Russia’s involvement in World War One, when the Tsar's demoralised army was on the retreat. In other words, the game is supposed to be grounded in real-life – or at least appear plausibly so.
Russian roulette
In Russian roulette, a single cartridge is placed in the cylinder of a revolver, which usually has six chambers, i.e. space for six cartridges. After spinning the cylinder so that the player cannot tell which chamber holds the cartridge, the player then aims the gun at their own head and pulls the trigger.
Whether or not Russian roulette existed before Surdez’s story, it certainly did afterwards. For example, in 1954 American rhythm-and-blues singer Johnny Ace died playing the game. The term also made its way into everyday use and nowadays is frequently used as a synonym for a high-risk venture – such as when UN Secretary General António Guterres stated in June 2024 that we are "playing Russian roulette with our planet".
Incidentally, the author himself passed away in 1949 of natural causes.
This post is a shortened version of an article previously published in the Bieler Tagblatt on 9 October 2017. Its full title was: ‘Dem Bieler, der Russisch Roulette bekannt gemacht hat, auf der Spur.
