Hadji Murat

Hadji Murat, Tolstoy's second book with the Caucasus as its setting can be considered a work of historical fiction that is a beautiful tale of resistance, and a window into not only the Caucasian War of the mid-nineteenth century, but also the culture of the Russian Empire during this period. As a work of fiction the reader must be wary of depictions of actual persons such as Tsar Nicholas I, whom Tolstoy was not enamored with, to say the least, but many insights about the period and its people can be gleaned from the story. The novel is one of great contrasts between Chechens and Russians and also of what life was like during this time.

Tolstoy's emphasizes deeply with the Chechen people as he details their suffering at the hands of the Russians. Through Hadji Murat we get to know the people of the Caucasus and their peaceful existence, followed by the depiction of a brutal Russian raid on a Chechen village. The Russians burn the food reserves of the town, kill livestock, and raze many of the buildings as well. The structures that are not completely destroyed are defiled by the Russian troops, including the village's mosque. Even the well is fouled. The village chosen by the Russians was the same that gave hospitality to Hadji Murat at the beginning of the novel. Sado, the man who offered his home to Hadji Murat returns to find it destroyed and his son dead, bayoneted in the back by the Russians. The outrage that Tolstoy must have felt in writing this is palpable, played out in the unimaginable hatred that the Chechen villagers feel towards the Russians. To Tolstoy, this feeling of hatred towards the Russians was just as natural a feeling a feeling as the feeling of self-preservation (Tolstoy p85). Like the thistle in the opening of the novel these people would not submit until destroyed. These villagers are left with task of rebuilding and then choosing to continue to resist and have the same thing occur again, or to submit to the destroyers and defilers of their home. They decide to ask Shamil for help, revealing one of Tolstoy's messages in Hadji Murat; that oppression and violence will only breed more dissent.

The brutal attacks by Russian soldiers can also be likened to Nicholas I's suppression of dissent in the rest of the Russian empire, particularly political dissent. When he was deciding on the public punishment of a Pole who had attacked his academy professor the Tsar stated that; "It'll be good for them. I'll stamp out this spirit of revolution, I'll tear it out by the roots... (Tolstoy p76)." The crime had nothing to do with politics, but the Tsar saw it as an opportunity to control his subjects through fear. This was the policy of the Russian General Tsitsianov, whose brutal policy of ruling the Caucasus through fear was a major cause in the mountaineers' rebellion.

The protagonist of the novel, Hadji Murat, became caught between the two despotic leaders Nicholas I, and Shamil. Murat is eventually destroyed because of this. In Hadji Murat Tolstoy depicts the two despots as sharing some similar characteristics.

Tsar Nicholas I is depicted in a most unfavorable manner. He delights in causing terror to those around him, in one case an army officer and his female companion at a masquerade (Tolstoy p71). In the same scene Nicholas is portrayed as a lecherous man, having liaisons with various women (Tolstoy pp70-71). This portrayal of the Tsar is problematic as he is considered by historians to have been a family man and devoted to his wife, with whom sexual intercourse was impossible due to her health problems (Moss p357). Tolstoy obviously finds this unacceptable. Nicholas is stupid and egotistical as well, taking credit for the successes of the raids on Chechen villages when he had advocated a completely different policy. Tolstoy also accuses Tsar Nicholas I as not being a serious Christian when he depicts him saying his prayers "without attaching any significance to the words he was saying (Tolstoy p72)." This is unlikely as historians like Moss argue that Tsar Nicholas was actually a dedicated Christian whose "religious convictions and high sense of duty, not any love of his work, that kept him laboring at the increasingly difficult job of running his empire (Moss p375)."

Tolstoy's Shamil, however, strikes a much more impressive image than the Tsar; "The imam wore nothing shiny, no gold or silver whatsoever, and his tall, erect, powerful figure created that very impression of greatness that he wished and knew how to create among the people (Tolstoy p90)." Having taken Hadji Murat's family hostage as a punishment for disloyalty, Shamil calmly considers alternative tortures for them, and how best he may trap and murder their father as calmly as Tsar Nicholas contemplates sentencing a man to run a gauntlet of "a thousand men, twelve times (Tolstoy pp76-77)." While the visual images of the two men differ, they share some in common between their personalities.

The army is also not safe from Tolstoy's literary criticism. He presents the Russian army as ready to falsify reports if the truth might be problematic. The casualties suffered by a Russian column ambushed by the Chechens in chapter five are later transformed into heroes of an overwhelmingly victorious offensive. The letter that Petrukha's mother receives informing her of his death reads; "he had been killed in war, 'defending the Tsar, his homeland, and the Orthodox faith (Tolstoy p41)." This is the autocracy, nationality and orthodoxy that Nicholas I promoted so fervently during his reign.

In addition to presenting a literary viewpoint of the Caucasian War, Hadji Murat also shows many elements of Russian culture. Many of his characters, be they low or high-born provide examples of certain aspects of Russian life.

Tolstoy paints a vivid literary picture of the lifestyle that many Russian nobles led during the mid-nineteenth century. His nobles are educated in Western fashion, with numerous instances where they speak French instead of Russian. When Prince Semyon Mikhailovich Vorontsov speaks to a Russian soldier soon after meeting Hadji Murat he speaks the words slowly, and with an English accent (Tolstoy pp30). Count Tolstoy was in prime position to experience this aspect of Russian nobility, and it naturally appears in his novel. One of the nobility's favorite pastimes, gambling, is evident in the character

...