Blurp: Op het einde van zijn leven, geheel gerijpt na alle ontwikkelingsstadia van episch dichter, schreef Leo Tolstoj de roman die hem in zijn jongelingsjaren reeds voor de geest stond, doch tot welke schepping hij zich tot dan toe machteloos voelde: het historische heldendicht van hadji Murad, de geloofsstrijder van de Kaukasus. Het is geworden tot een onvergetelijk monument, van epische kracht, als slechts aan de allergrootsten voorbehouden.
Samenv.: Hadji Murad was een belangrijke leider tijdens opstand in de Kaukasus tegen het Russische Rijk. Leo Tolstoj heeft een boek geschreven dat grotendeels gebaseerd is op het leven van Hadji Murad. Hadji Murad is in 1852 overleden.
Samenv.: With his last remarkable work of fiction, Hadji-Murad (Khadzhi-Murad, 1904), Tolstoi's literary career seems to come full circle. This novel's Caucasian setting and descriptions of armed conflict and the warrior's life mark a recurrence of themes which had engaged Tolstoi's interest at the beginning of his career. He himself referred to Hadji-Murad as a return to his former manner of writing. Indeed, its stylistic artifice and the relative absence of the later Tolstoi's customary moral certitude are hardly in full accord with the principles expressed in What Is Art?. It was perhaps for this reason that Hadji­Murad was held back by Tolstoi and published only after his death.

This is my first immersion in Tolstoy. This is novella-length, and tells the true story of a Chechen leader who goes over to the Russian side and assists Nicholas II conquer the Caucasus in 1852. Tolstoy's focus, I believe, is to bring out the pointlessness of war, and the horrific, wasteful-on-a-grand scale Czarist policies of the time.

By reputation, I understand Russian translates well into English, but this edition of this story is not a good example. I wouldn't say it's stilted, but it is quite stiff in places.

There are interesting descriptions of the broad landscapes, and the broad designs of the rapacious Russian royalty. I doubt this is high in the Tolstoy canon. It probably doesn't deserve to be. ( )

novella, caucasus, 19th century

A fictionalized account of a real event that occurred during the Russian/Chechen conflict in the Caucasus in the late 1800's. Hadji Murad was a great chieftain, both feared and revered. He breaks with the Chechen leader, and attempts to negotiate with the Russians for assistance to rescue his family. As the political events play out, he is unable to trust either side, and is killed in a final battle.

This book may initially be more difficult for many to appreciate than Anna Karenina or Resurrection. It contains Tartar words and descriptions of Chechen villages, dress, and customs that may be just as confusing as the details of the 19th century Russian court. Luckily, the persistent will discover that Hadji Murad also contains the key elements that make Tolstoy's longer works so enjoyable to read. It is his gift for realistic description and his omniscient narrator that make the characters come alive. Since the story of Hadji Murad is a true one, there are several characters that each play a smallish part, but each character is presented clearly and concisely, with insight that allows the reader to know them better than they know themselves. Recommended for fans of Tolstoy. ( )

The famous Russian writer Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy is best known for his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina. If you were expecting another mammoth novel like the two mentioned above then Hadji Murat is a pleasant surprise. There are only about 125 pages.

Some old people have a better memory for events that happened a long time ago.
Even though Tolstoy was sent to the Caucasus in 1851 to help defeat the Chechens, this book was the last one that he wrote and was only published after his death.

In this novel Tolstoy describes with some realism the meeting of two different cultures.
On the one hand the Russians expanding their colonial empire here represented by the Russian army, and on the other hand the traditional Caucasian culture here the Chechen and Avar chieftains.
It is really amazing and ironic that those events from 1851 could be a more or less realistic description of the recent wars between them.

The colonial power (Russia) tries to divide to conquer.
The chieftains have their honour and known the mountains like the palm of their hands. This novel describes with at times witty and ironic comments both Hadji Murat and the Russian soldiers and generals that face a hostile environment in the mountains.
When Hadji Murat surrenders to the Russian army they are delighted but also afraid. In fact, what was at stake was simply the conflict between Hadji Murat and the Chechen leader, Shamil.
His surrender to the Russian made him a traitor and he ended up being killed by the ones he had betrayed.

Tolstoy did not spare us on some brutal details as this gives a more lively account of all that he witnessed during the war in the Caucasus in 1851.

On the whole, this novel gives an insight into ethnic wars as those we have heard about in recent years. ( )