You're right, and I was waiting for someone to bring that up. Nevertheless, he could be symbolic of what may have been (erroneously) perceived as a Russian view of the world. You do know that Cossacks fought on both sides in World War II? Some for Hitler, some for Stalin, depending I think on whose ideology seemed the more pernicious to each of them.
I didn't see the "normalizing" --whatever that means--of brutality and cruelty. On the one side, there was a man, a human, bored with hunting prey that were no longer challenging. In a way, for him, the sport was no longer satisfying, so to improve the risk-taking, perhaps, he could feel he had only accomplished his end (the pleasure of the hunt and outwitting the prey) by pursuing an animal on his own level.
On the other side, there is a man whose only end was in surviving. So the question becomes, who is more likely to expend energy in using the most efficient means of "winning." Whose drives, whose ability to reason is going to outwit the other's?
I didn't see "brutality" as such. It was all about the game for Zaroff. The game became the end, not vanquishing the prey.
There are men who play the game for the "play" itself, as well as for its objective. The fulfillment of those drives evolved of necessity.

Interesting, isn't it, that an ideology (Leftist/Liberal) that embraces relative morality, chooses to instruct the young in morals?
I'm pretty sure the kids are taught that as long as it is for "the greater good" then it is moral.

That's one way to look at it. I am assuming you are a man; you said you enjoyed the adventure of it. I enjoyed what I thought of as strategy, or the reasoning behind the game between the hunter and the hunted. I always thought I would want to elaborate on the ending to include Zaroff trying different means to escape the hunter Rainsford, and not just being shot at the end.
Sort of a Divine Justice.
What it implies about human nature, masculine nature, to be more precise, is priceless. The challenge and the risk-taking become a fulfillment in itself. In some ways, like any competitive endeavor, the competition becomes the end, if one is not careful.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, blarman. I also saw it as a thought-provoking essay on human conflict and human nature. I never read political structure into it, only in so far as it contributes to an understanding of human nature.

You brought up a good point, I think. Zaroff's need (?)---drive, desire---to eliminate boredom overrode any respect he should have had for the "right" of another to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Maybe that should be "the right of another OF life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

I always found this interesting: the word "routine"---in its meaning of "fixed" and thus conducive to boredom---is derived from "route"---a pathway. So someone tire of routine is looking for a new path.

Ovomit has the type of personality, which, like that of Marx, doesn't feel capable of competing. (He is a Marxist, you know.)
It is why he does the things he does: back-stabbing, trying to impose his own reality, eliminating competition, sticking it to the other side, reliance on words.

Nothing would have helped Ovomit. I know.

I did look it up. Interesting song, interesting bit of history.

Well, that's a rather pessimistic way of looking at life!

I myself have had more than my share of falls due to excessive pride---some quite ingenuous---but it has never made me pessimistic. Made me a little more humble, maybe!

Zaroff had no motive, no objective for his hunt, other than to play the "game".

There was a quote in one of my cipher puzzle books, can't remember the author, but he says pretty soon, it becomes all about the game, and not necessarily about the object.
It could work for anything: a business, a football game, politics...

Just read the Wikipedia synopsis. In the same vein, except the tribesmen had a motive for their pursuit; it wasn't just about the game. I think it might be called revenge.
I believe Connell's story is about the "game" itself. Maybe that's why it interested me more than just a tale of men after men.

Think as if you were the hunter, not the hunted, that's what you mean, isn't it.
"The Naked Prey" sounds interesting. I'll look up the synopsis.

Well, I hope you haven't characterized all Cossacks by what you read in this short story. Don't take me wrong here, but I wonder if you have a certain naivete as regards what you read and how you allow that to characterize a person or a people.