The end

Was Hadji Murad a hero? Was he ultimately foolish in his attempt to escape the Russians and rescue his family?

Other Tolstoy?

Have you read anything else by Tolstoy? I read "Anna Karenina" a long time ago. I remember liking it. My volume containing "Hadji Murad" has a bunch of Tolstoy's other short fiction, so I started reading "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," which is fascinating. This might be the momentum I need to finally tackle "War and Peace."

Stronger than hate

This passage after the destruction of the Chechen village really struck me:

No one spoke of hatred for the Russians. The feeling experienced by all the Chechens, from the youngest to the oldest, was stronger than hate. It was not hatred, for they did not regard those Russian dogs as human beings; but it was repulsion, disgust, and perplexity at the senseless cruelty of these creatures, that the desire to exterminate them — like the desire to exterminate rats, poisonous spiders, or wolves — was as natural an instinct as that of self-preservation.

You almost can't help thinking about current conflicts, like the Palestinians and Israel, or the American war on terror.

The Russians

What did you think of Tolstoy's portrayal of the Russians, in general? Do you think it's odd considering that Tolstoy himself fought on their side in the Caucasus?

Hadji Murad

What kind of person was Hadji Murad? Tolstoy painted a fairly sympathetic portrait, I think, of a man devoted to God and his family, and yet Murad was unquestionably also a violent killer.

Kim's pick

I've been wanting to read this and was happy to discover that it's novella length! Does Dec. 10 work for everyone?