Hadji Murad

Hadji Murad is a short novel by Leo Tolstoy, written intermittently between 1896 and 1904 and published posthumously in 1912. Based on real events, it tells the story of Hadji Murad, a legendary Avar rebel commander who defects from the forces of Imam Shamil to the Russians during the Caucasian War of the 1850s, only to find himself trapped between two empires—mistrusted by his new allies and hunted by his former master, who holds his family hostage.

Often considered Tolstoy’s finest late work, the novella is remarkable for its taut, objective storytelling—a departure from the author’s earlier, more discursive style. Through Hadji Murad’s fate, Tolstoy delivers a devastating critique of imperial violence on both sides, contrasting the natural courage of the mountain tribesmen with the bureaucratic cruelty of Tsar Nicholas I. The novel opens with an unforgettable image of a thistle crushed by a plow yet refusing to die—a symbol of Hadji Murad’s own indomitable spirit.

This edition uses the Aylmer Maude translation, widely regarded as the definitive English rendering of Tolstoy’s prose.