Hadji Murád

by Leo Tolstoy

Overview

In this short novel, Tolstoy fictionalizes the final days of Hadji Murád, a legendary Avar separatist who fought against, and later with, Russia, as the Russian Empire was struggling to annex Chechnya and the surrounding land in the late 1840s. The novel opens with the narrator finding a thistle crushed in a blooming field, which reminds him of Hadji Murád and his tragic tale. As the narrator recounts the story, the reader is quickly thrust into the rich, colorful history of the Caucuses, and its people's fight against Russian imperialism. Hadji Murád is portrayed as a legendary and imposing, yet friendly and approachable figure. Despite his reputation, it seems that his best days are behind him; as the novel opens, Murád is fleeing Shamil, a powerful imam who has captured Murád's family. Murád finds himself thrust between the invading Russians on one side, and Shamil's vengeance on the other. As Murád and his tiny but loyal group of warriors try to forge alliances in their attempt to rescue Murád's family, they quickly find themselves politically outclassed. The Russians are Murád's enemies, yet only they can help him in his struggle against Shamil; and after years of losses incurred by Murád's guerrilla tactics, the Russians would like his help but cannot trust him. Shamil, on the other hand, is a deep link to the region's complex web of tribal blood feuds, vengeances, reprisals, and quarrels over honor. He's one of the few powers left standing between the Russians and their control of the Caucuses, but Murád, having crossed him, can't rescue his family from Shamil's clutches without the help of the Russians. Murád's impossible position, the contradiction between his legendary past and his limping, dignified, and ultimately powerless present, and the struggle against a mighty empire by a people torn by internecine conflict, form the major thematic threads of the novel. The novel was one of the last that Tolstoy finished before his death, and was only publishe

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9791041801619
Publisher:	Culturea
Publication date:	06/17/2023
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

Azar Nafisi is a visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and author of Reading Lolita in Tehran. She won a fellowship at Oxford University and has taught literature and aesthetics at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University, and Allameh Tabatabai University in Iran. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Date of Birth:

September 9, 1828

Date of Death:

November 20, 1910

Place of Birth:

Tula Province, Russia

Place of Death:

Astapovo, Russia

Education:

Privately educated by French and German tutors; attended the University of Kazan, 1844-47

Read an Excerpt

In 1851 Leo Tolstoy enlisted in the Russian army and was sent to the Caucasus to help defeat the Chechens. During this war a great Avar chieftain, Hadji Murád, broke with the Chechen leader Shamil and fled to the Russians for safety. Months later, while attempting to rescue his family from Shamil’s prison, Hadji Murád was pursued by those he had betrayed and, after fighting the most heroic battle of his life, was killed.
Tolstoy, witness to many of the events leading to Hadji Murád’s death, set down this story with painstaking accuracy to preserve for future generations the horror, nobility, and destruction inherent in war.

Author Biography: Azar Nafisi is a visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and author of Reading Lolita in Tehran. She won a fellowship at Oxford University and has taught literature and aesthetics at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University, and Allameh Tabatabai University in Iran. She lives in Washington, D.C.