Hadji Murat

Hadji Murat is a 1904 novella by Leo Tolstoy detailing the struggles of a historical Caucasian rebel named Hadji Murat and his moral struggles during a revolution.

Summary
The novella opens with a narrative frame wherein the narrator notices a thistle in a recently plowed field that refuses to be destroyed by the process. The narrator reflects on the destructive nature of mankind and then segues into the main narrative. Hadji Murat and his followers are fleeing from Shamil, the leader of the Caucasian rebels. He has turned against Shamil in hopes of saving his family. Though he initially is helped by a villager, he is forced to flee when the villagers realize that he is there. He makes contact with the Russians and meets them outside of a fortress. He befriends the Prince who is the head of the fortress and succeeds in charming the Prince's wife. All of the soldiers admire Murat, who is physically strong, religiously devout, and morally honest. During his stay at the fortress, one of the Russians who speaks his language meets with him and records his personal history. The reader learns that the cause of his antipathy towards Shamil is a blood-feud stemming from Shamil's murder of Murat's brother. Murat leverages the Prince in order to gain favor with the Tsar, whom Tolstoy depicts as incompetent and corrupt. The depiciton of Tsar Nicholas is then contrasted with the rule of Shamil, who is still corrupt morally but is at least competent and religiously devout. Murat finds himself stuck in a political deadlock due to the Tsar's incompetence and petty rivalries between government officials. Murat decides to take matters into his own hands instead of forging an alliance with the Russians and organizes his men to leave. The narrative then shifts to a later point wherein a group of soldiers brings Murat's severed head to the Prince, causing the Prince's wife to exclaim that the soldiers are "real butchers". The soldiers tell the tale of Murat's death. He fled from the Russians with his men but got caught up in a bog and was chased by a large contingent of Russian villagers and soldiers. Murat and his men put up a last stand, slaughtering many Russians in the process, but, in the end, they all end up being killed. The narrative shifts back to the frame, where the narrator makes a final mention of the thistle as the story ends.

The Moral of the Story
The moral imperative of this work is much more complicated than Tolstoy's other work. Tolstoy is critical of various institutions for myriad reasons. One of the most telling criticisms is when he depicts the petty rivalries between government officials and the incompetence of the Tsar. He specifically depicts these as the cause of the deaths of many soldiers and innocent civilians, including the boy with "shining eyes" who earlier expressed admiration for Murat. While people are being slaughtered, the Tsar and government officials are only concerned with their meaningless personal matters and are not aware of the enormous consequences that their actions have for others. Another helpful way of extracting the moral imperative of this book is by viewing Hadji Murat as a tragic hero. The cause of his death is that he undertook action too soon. In the context of Tolstoy's other work, this is perplexing, as Ivan Ilyich's fault was his failure to take action until the end of his life. But, Ilyich is not presented as a tragic figure, and the ending of his story is decidedly positive, whereas Murat's death is depicted tragically and negatively. Thus, it's possible that the meaning of these two in tandem is that it doesn't matter how long it takes for one to take right action as long as one undertakes it. Murat took wrong action because he took action too hastily. Combining the actions of the government officials and of Murat, the moral imperative of the work can probably most aptly be summarized as taking action only with knowledge of the consequences after due deliberation, which both the government and Murat failed to do.

Additional Links

 * Hadji Murat Opening - a pdf of the first 32 pages of the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation (the one we used in class)