In Hadji Murat, Tolstoy recounts the extraordinary meeting of two polarized cultures—the refined, Europeanized court of the Russian tsar and the fierce Muslim chieftains of the Chechnen hills. This brilliant, culturally resonant fiction was written towards the end of Tolstoy’s life, but the conflict it describes has obvious, ironic parallels with current affairs today. It is 1852, and... (read more)