He trusted no one. He betrayed everyone. He never surrendered.
The year is 1851. In the rugged mountains of the Caucasus, a legendary warrior flees from both sides. Hadji Murad-feared by the Russians, hunted by his own commander-walks into the enemy camp with a desperate gambit: ally with the empire to save the family he loves, then turn again. But empires do not keep promises. And tribal honor does not forget. Tolstoy's final masterpiece-written fifty years after the events it describes, published only after his death-cuts to the bone of human conflict. Through the eyes of a man trapped between two tyrannies, we see war as it truly is: not glory, but betrayal; not heroes, but survivors; not enemies, but people-Chechen villagers watching their homes burn, Russian soldiers dreaming of their mothers, a chieftain whose severed head still wears a "kindly, childlike expression." The greatest short novel ever written. The story of every man who ever fought for something and lost everything.
