Hadji Murad - (Dover Literature: Historical Fiction) by Leo Tolstoy (Paperback)

About the Book

A simmering feud between Russians and Chechens boils over into a bloody war in this critically acclaimed novella, which draws upon the legends surrounding the Avar warrior chieftain known as Hadji Murád.

Book Synopsis

Tolstoy's novella blends fiction and historical fact to portray a legendary Avar chieftain who switched sides in the nineteenth-century Russo-Caucasian war. Inspired by the author's military service, Hadji Murád offers riveting views of warfare and treason, murder and vengeance, and behind-the-scenes political plotting. An uncharacteristically brief story by the creator of War and Peace, it voices Tolstoy's pacifist beliefs.
This novella also provides a compelling depiction of the Caucasus, a mountainous territory between the Black Sea and the Caspian, prized for its strategic location and natural resources. Located at the crossroads of three empires -- Turkey, Persia, and Russia -- the region has long struggled with incursions by its neighbors and remains a troubled corner of the world to this day. Tolstoy's realistic pictures of life in a war zone raise enduringly relevant issues of life and death.

About the Author

Famed as the author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was born into the Russian aristocracy. Although Hadji Murád was published posthumously in 1912, its genesis began in the 1850s, when Tolstoy witnessed many of the dramatic incidents recounted in his novella.