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WAR AND WAR: UNDERSTANDING TOLSTOY THROUGH TWO OF HIS WAR NOVELS

Scott Maltby

A SENIOR THESIS PRESENTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS IN RUSSIAN UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2012

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy is one of the best known and most highly regarded authors of all time. Tolstoy’s shorter works can become easily overshadowed by his best-known pieces, "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina". Some of Tolstoy's first- published novels were set during the wars of the mid 1800's, fought in the south of

Russia against rebels in the Caucasus, and the Crimean war, fought against the allied forces of the French and the English. Publishing Childhood in 1852, the stories that would be collectively known as the Sevastopol Sketches, between 1855 and 1856, and then The Cossacks in 1863, Tolstoy established himself firmly as a writer. Leaving the

University of Kazan in 1851 he first served at a Cossack outpost in the Caucasus, before transferring on personal request to Sevastopol during the siege. There Tolstoy gained firsthand experience he integrated into The Cossacks and Sevastopol Sketches.

As he developed his style he began composing works like War and Peace and Anna

Karenina, which deal with large ideas such as the mechanisms of history and the complexities of social life among Russian aristocrats. It is interesting that after spending so much time away from the region (besides his short story The Prisoner of the

Caucasus, based on the poems of the same name by Pushkin and Lermontov, published in 1872) he would return to the region and spend nine years writing Hadji

Murat near the end of his life, from 1896 to 1905, without any attempt at publishing the work. With roughly fifty years separating the time he began The Cossacks and when he finished Hadji Murat, there are some obvious differences and striking similarities that make an examination of the two worthwhile.

Much can be said of and learned from these differences and similarities.

However I intend to focus first on the basic level, that of the subject matter and ideas

developed in the texts, and focus second on what can be said of Tolstoy through his characters, when viewed within the dichotomy of hedgehogs and foxes as laid out by

Isaiah Berlin in his well-known essay “The Hedgehog and The Fox”. On one hand there is the hedgehog, an intellectual who possesses a specific, unified worldview, to which they relate everything and through which they understand life. On the other there is the fox, an intellectual who does not possess a single guiding idea, but instead pursue a variety of ideas and experiences. Berlin identifies as “one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers” (22).

On the more basic level there are a number of elements present in both The

Cossacks and Hadji Murat in varying degrees. In each work Tolstoy addresses the differences between the culture of imperial Russia and that of the local people on either side of the conflict, critiques the Russian state and Orthodox Church, and confronts death and the realities of war, subjects which are very important to Tolstoy’s later writing and philosophy. Taking a step back we can view the characters in each work based on where they lie on the spectrum between hedgehog and fox. In The Cossacks, his earlier work, the main character Dmitry Andreyevich Olenin closely resembles a fox, while in Hadji Murat the title character is a strong hedgehog. This shift can be attributed to changes in personality and thinking Tolstoy underwent during the half century separating the works, but when looked at vis-à-vis, one can better understand the complex character that is Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy. In his well-known essay "The

Hedgehog and the Fox" Isaiah Berlin talks about how it is difficult to place Tolstoy with in the spectrum of the hedgehog and the fox, putting forth the hypothesis “that Tolstoy was by nature a Fox, but believed in being a hedgehog” (24). Considering this

hypothesis in light of the recognition of Olenin as a fox and Hadji Murat as a hedgehog, we see Tolstoy's nature played out in Olenin and his ideal believe exemplified in the life of Hadji Murat. After first examining the similar and contrasting elements of both works, it becomes fruitful to examine the characters in abstraction and to consider their relation to Tolstoy himself.

The clash and intermingling of cultures between imperial Russian and various native cultures is the understandably pervasive through both works. Olenin's romanticism and adoption of aspects of the Cossack way of life embody an attempt at integrating the two cultures, however unsuccessful, while the interactions between Hadji

Murat and Russians demonstrate the gap between the cultures and near impossibility of abolishing that gap.

Olenin joins the army in the Caucasus in order to get a new start in life, “I've made a mess, made a mess of my life. But now it's all over, you're right. And I feel a new life is beginning” (Cossacks 5). This motivation for leaving and outlook set the stage for Olenin to embrace the cultural practices of the Caucasus. Olenin quickly takes to imitating the local dress, but is far from blending in. The first time we encounter

Olenin after he begins serving actively in the army we see him “dressed in Circassian style, but badly; anyone would have realized he was a Russian, not a djigit” (48). Even after spending his days hunting and nights drinking with Uncle Yeroshka, Olenin begins to think he “resembled a djigit; but this was not the case” (110). Uncle Yeroshka serves in part as a mentor for Olenin, teaching him how to hunt and drink like a Cossack from their first meeting (53-54). An old Cossack, Uncle Yeroshka stands apart from the rest of the settlement because he does not think poorly of the Russian soldiers, as he says

“even though you're a soldier, you're still a man, you've got a soul in you, too” (55).

Olenin's attempts at integrate himself outwardly resembles the results of Russia's attempts at subjugating the region “It was all as it was meant to be, yet not as it was meant to be” (48). The Russians have troops, officials, and people in place but despite their efforts the two cultures are so dissimilar that it is difficult for them to fit. However there is an underlying difference between the two; Olenin is motivated by a desire to be like the Cossacks because he sees their way of life as superior and is in love with the beautiful Maryana, while the imperial goals of the Russians are to possess the region and its people.

Almost every interaction between Hadji Murat and a member of the upper tiers of

Russian society highlights the stark contrast between the cultures of the mountains and that of imperial Russia. When Hadji Murat comes over to the Russians and meets the younger Prince Vorontsov, Vorontsov offers his hand to Hadji Murat, as a greeting and a sign that he accept s Hadji Murat’s offer of surrender; but Hadji Murat does not immediately take his hand, instead he momentarily pauses and just looks at the outstretched hand before shaking it (Death 398). Hadji Murat could have been taking a second to consider what he was about to commit to, but it seems unlikely given the resolute nature of his character. More likely the gesture is simply not something that

Hadji Murat practices on a regular basis. Instead he would regularly greet another man the same way he greets Sado earlier, by “[stroking] their faces with their hands, bringing them together at the tip of the beard (377)” After escorting Hadji Murat into his home

Vorontsov leaves Hadji Murat with his wife and stepson while going to attend to the arrangements necessary for Hadji Murat’s arrival (400) and later eating dinner with the

family. This stands in sharp contrast to manner in which Hadji Murat is received in

Sado’s home, where he interacts minimally with the women of the house (377) and falling silent when Sado’s wife and daughter bring in the food (380). While being far from decisive differences, they are indicative of the gap between the two cultures.

After travelling to Tiflis and meeting for the first time with the elder Prince

Vorontsov, Hadji Murat attends an opera that he leaves after the first act and a soiree at which he is clearly out of place (418-419). He observes the performance detached

“With Oriental, Muslim dignity, not only with on expression of surprise, but with an air of indifference”. While the performance is surely something he had never encountered prior, Hadji Murat sees no reason to be interested in the display because it does nothing to further his goal or securing the release of his family. This same attitude is seen at the soiree, where Hadji Murat deflects the guests’ questions of “how did he like what he saw” with the same answer “that his people did not have it—without saying whether it was good or bad that they did not have it” (418-419). In each situation Hadji Murat disregards the norm by leaving the opera early, attempting to discuss business with

Vorontsov at the soiree, and then leaving the soiree early despite being instructed that it would be rude to do so (419). These situations, which are so familiar to the Russians in attendance, are foreign to Hadji Murat and, since they do nothing to further his goals, he is not compelled to play the part the Russians would hope him to; to enjoy the spectacle of the opera, to praise the soiree where he “could not help liking all that he saw” (419).

In his later life Tolstoy was very outspoken against the state and the church to the point of being excommunicated in 1901. This shines brightest in his later writing, but is not absent from his earlier work. Tolstoy's criticism can be seen very clearly in

Hadji Murat, particularly in chapter XV where he portrays Tsar Nicholas as a vain, spiteful man absorbed in his power and position. The amount of criticism doled out in

The Cossacks is nowhere near the levels found in Hadji Murat, but can be found in some of the comments made by Uncle Yeroshka. Of course one reason for the different levels of criticisms is the fact that The Cossacks was published by Tolstoy and therefore needed to pass the censor's pen, while Hadji Murat was not published during his lifetime, and when first published in Russia, it appeared in a highly edited form.

Uncle Yeroshka does not hesitate to speak his mind about religion and the

Orthodox Church, particularly after he has had some chikhir. Late into his first drinking session with Olenin, Yeroshka denounces all holy men—both Orthodox and Muslim—as frauds (Cossacks 67). The Orthodox preachers instruct against “worldly intercourse” and “drinking with Tatars”, while the Muslim leaders call the Christians infidels for eating pork. Uncle Yeroshka contrasts these restrictions with the way animals are always at home and live off the food God provides for them (67). “Everyone has his own law” he says. Uncle Yeroshka holds the heretical view that the differences men perceive between themselves through religion are simply arbitrary distinctions that are the result of the laws one man follows compared to those of another: the distinctions are not the result of one set of laws being “true” and the other being “false”. He goes on to broaden this statement, comparing man with a female boar, who can smell the hunter trying to kill her when the hunter can't smell himself, allowing the boar to escape. “You have one law, and she has another. She may be a sow, but she's no worse than you are” (70).

After placing men of different religions on the same level he goes a step further to place

men—who he has already exposed as falsely considering themselves better than others because of the laws they follow—on the same level as wild animals.

While Uncle Yeroshka is saying goodbye to Olenin, he raises a few more criticisms, again after chikhir, this time directed at the Russian military—one of the main arms of the state. He warns Olenin not to “bunch up with others” when in battle because the enemy always aims for a crowd since it is easier to hit (177). He goes on to wonder at the stupidity of how, after dragging away a fallen soldier, another simply fills the empty space in the group (180). Yeroshka attributes the stupidity to the soldiers themselves, but the soldiers are only fighting based on how they are trained and ordered. Indirectly Yeroshka is calling the Russian military itself stupid because they fight in a way that makes it easier for the enemy to kill them. He also derides the

Russian doctors because “All they know is cutting!”, saying “If I were the Tsar, I'd have hanged all your Russian doctors long ago” (179). He views Russian doctors the same as he does holy men, as “fake, all fake” (179). On the other hand he praises the doctors who come from the mountains and treat with herbs, and for whom Russian officers send instead of their own doctors. In Uncle Yeroshka's eyes, the Russian military is stupid in the way that they fight and foolish in the way they treat those wounded by their tactics. While at times critical of the State and the church, the criticisms are indirect and general, unlike the direct and often personal attacks leveled in

Hadji Murat.

When Hadji Murat was first published in 1912 with some of Tolstoy's other unpublished works it was “severely cut by the censors”, particularly chapter XV, due to the incredibly unfavorable portrayal of Nicholas I (Cossacks xxix). Nicholas is portrayed

as proud, vain, cold, suspicious, spiteful, and cruel. In regards to the plot, the purpose of chapter XV is to explain Nicholas' decision to allow Hadji Murat to remain in the

Caucasus. Chernyshov desires to discredit Prince Vorontsov by convincing Nicholas to not follow Vorontsov's recommendation to keep Hadji Murat in the Caucasus, but

Nicholas does not listen to Chernyshov because he dislikes Chernyshov and is in a foul mood, disinclining him to take suggestions from anyone (Death 435). A proper leader makes decisions by considering the consequences of the decision against the benefits, but Nicholas makes his based on his disposition towards Chernyshov. Tolstoy does not confine himself to the decision of Hadji Murat's fate to negatively characterize Nicholas; going as far as to describe Nicholas' associations with women, thoughts about himself, and judgments he passes down for crimes. We learn that Nicholas is in a bad mood because he is tired and that he is tried because he was at a ball the night before where he encountered a young woman he ended up sleeping with, later lying awake weighing the merits of his usual mistress against the women he had just slept with (437-438).

Vainly Nicholas does not even consider his actions to be immoral and “would have been very surprised if anyone had condemned him for it” (438). In his position as Tsar Tsar he views himself above the rules that would condemn anyone else in the same situation. To help himself fall asleep Nicholas thinks “about what a great man he was”, something he continues to do throughout his day (438).

Pride is the primary condemnation Tolstoy brings against Nicholas. When dealing with the matter of an official caught stealing, he remarks “It seems there's only one honest man in our Russia”, that man being himself (440). We see both his pride and a contradiction of his honesty as he goes on to milk Chernyshov for praise for the

success of the current strategy in the Caucasus; a plan that Nicholas did not devise and is in fact “the complete opposite of [his] plan” (441). The greatest example of the extent of Nicholas' pride comes when he goes to church and “God, through his servants, greeted and praised Nicholas” and we learn that Nicholas considers “the welfare and happiness of the whole world” to depend on him (444). While Uncle Yeroshka criticizes men for considering himself better than another because he follows one set of laws verses another, Tolstoy is criticizing the Tsar for considering himself above all other men to a point that God should praise him for maintaining “the welfare and happiness of the whole world”. However Tolstoy does not completely blame Nicholas for his pride, crediting it partially to the fact the constant flattery of those around him have led

Nicholas to believe “that all his orders, however senseless, unjust, and inconsistent with each other, became sensible, just, and consistent with each other only because he gave them” (441). It is not simply Nicholas who is responsible for his pride and its consequences, but so is the entire Tsarist system because it both allows and encourages men like Nicholas to rule.

This pride exacerbates the cruelty and spite with which Nicholas coldly passes judgment on his subjects and the system prevents anyone from stopping him. The first instance of cruelty comes in the punishment Nicholas orders for a student who attacks his professor after failing an exam. The student is a Polish Catholic, which allows

Nicholas to be particularly cruel because he is “convinced that all Poles were scoundrels” (442). Nicholas orders that “[the student] run the gauntlet of a thousand men twelve times”, well aware that that amount of beatings are more than twice the amount necessary “to kill the strongest man” (442). Nicholas finds joy in the opportunity

to be so cruel and also in the fact that, while the punishment would surely kill the student, Russian possesses no official death penalty (442). In response to this punishment Chernyshov bows his head “as a sign of respectful astonishment at the wisdom of the decision”, without any acknowledgement to the cruelty or injustice of the punishment (443). Later Nicholas similarly punishes a group of peasants who refused to convert to Orthodoxy, ordering that they be tried in military court, which would mean running the gauntlet (443). This time, the official who had presented the report internally acknowledged the cruelty, but says nothing for fear of losing his “brilliant position”; simply bowing his head, ready “to carry out the cruel, insane, and dishonest supreme will” (443-444). Throughout Tolstoy describes Nicholas' eyes and face as cold and empty. First “His eyes, always dull, looked duller than usual”, and then noting how he “coldly” greats Chernyshov and fixes “his lifeless eyes on him”, and later Nicholas surveys the crowd “With his lifeless gaze” that pierces those whose eyes he meets”

(436-437, 439, 444). Taken together, Nicholas' cruelty and his constant cold, lifelessness paint a picture of a man, who is less than human, abuses his power; and is unworthy of everything awarded him by his position.

A hallmark of Tolstoy's later philosophy is his pacifism—which factored heavily into his criticism of the state—and his realistic description of fighting and death in battles are a defining characteristic of many of his writings. Some of his earliest accounts of death and the realities of war can be found in The Cossacks, along with some inklings of his later pacifism. The few condemnations of violence found in The Cossacks are indirect, but can be found in the tone used by Tolstoy. One of the first instances occurs when Uncle Yeroshka praises the Chechen that Lukashka kills; “'You've killed a real

djigit,' he said, with evident regret”, and then “'He's far away now brother …' And again he sadly shook his head” (Cossacks 4243). While no pacifist, Uncle Yeroshka holds the

Chechen in great respect. His attitude contrasts with that of the other Cossacks.

Lukashka refers to the man he killed as “a wild beast”, one Cossack refers to him as “a fine fish someone's landed!”, and the Cossacks main motivation to ensure the body does not rot under the sun or be mauled by jackals is to be able to properly ransom the body back to the Chechens (42-44). By dehumanizing the enemy the Cossacks are able to maintain their cheerful attitude and not be burdened with the regret that Uncle

Yeroshka feels. Having lived longer than the others and having killed and had friends killed Uncle Yeroshka, to some degree, sees the futility of men killing each other.

Talking with Olenin about religion Uncle Yeroshka quotes a kunak of his, saying “''When you die,' he'd say, “the grass will grow on your grave, and that's it'” (68). When Olenin asks if he feels the same Uncle Yeroshka is silent, before dismissively agreeing and pouring Olenin another drink. He goes on to recount one time he saw a cradle floating in the Terek, leading to assume that a soldier killed an infant during a raid on an aul, remaking “men have no souls!” and understanding that this violence will only lead another Chechen to take up arms and return the violence (69). This grim cycle of violence is reiterated by the brother of the Chechen whom Lukashka kills when he is taking his brother's body away, saying “Your people kill our people, our people put yours in coffins” (98). However there is no regret in his voice when he says this because he has been filled with “hatred and contempt” and views the Russians in a similarly dehumanizing manner as the Cossacks regard the Chechens. Taken together these instances implicitly condemn war and the cycles of violence it perpetrates.

As if to confirm that the situation Uncle Yeroshka imagines is accurate, Tolstoy includes two scenes in Hadji Murat where the Russians devastate an aul during a raid, and then how the Chechens react to their homes being destroyed. During the raid the

Russians are “ordered to burn grain, hay, and the saklyas themselves” (saklya is the local word for the type of homes that comprise the auls) and the soldiers loot the saklyas, “mainly catching and shooting the chickens that the mountaineers could not take with them” (Death 448). Meanwhile the officers enjoy their lunch, enjoying themselves detached from the destruction of what the inhabitants had spent their lives building. On the retreat the soldiers sing songs composed “for the glory of the regiment”

(448). The ease and lack of care with which the Russian devastate the aoul is followed in the next chapter with the reaction of the Chechens upon returning to their homes.

The destruction is viewed through the eyes of Sado's family (Sado being the one who harbored Hadji Murat earlier as he was making his way to the Russians in the beginning of the story (376-381)). While completely absent from the Russian account, Sado's son has been killed and Sado goes to dig a grave for him while the dead boy's mother

“clawed her face until it bled and wailed without ceasing” (450). Furthermore not only has the grain and hay been burned, but so have “the apricot and cherry trees [Sado's father] had planted and nursed” along with the beehives, leaving the inhabitants and their livestock to go hungry (450). Of the Chechens' reaction Tolstoy writes:

The feeling that was experienced by all the Chechens, big and small, was stranger than hatred. It was not hatred, but a refusal to recognize these Russian dogs as human beings, and such loathing, disgust, and bewilderment before the absurd cruelty of these beings, that wished to exterminate them, like the wish to exterminate rats, venomous spiders, and wolves as natural as the sense of self-preservation. (450)

The elders then discuss how to respond, “unanimously [deciding] to send envoys to

Shamil asking him for help” instead of going over to the Russians (451). The same response that is imagined by Uncle Yeroshka to a practically identical situation. The cruelty imagined by Uncle Yeroshka in The Cossacks is on par with that carried out in

Hadji Murat; instead of smashing an infant's head against a wall (Cossacks 69) the boy is “stabbed in the back with a bayonet” (Death 450). The degree of the devastation wrought by the Russians is much greater when described from the Chechens point of view, emphasizing the detachment the Russians experience in relation to their actions.

While not as direct as his later writing and lacking some more powerful images, particularly the hospital scenes that can be found in Sevastopol in May and War and

Peace, the beginnings of his realistic approach to war are evident. Unsurprisingly the more developed elements are found in the later Hadji Murat, along with the contrast between the manner in which battles are perceived and how they actually transpire.

Tolstoy combines all of these in the skirmish between the Russians and Chechens in which Avdeev is injured and later dies. Before the battle we see the officers discussing the death of a general in light terms: “No one saw in that death the most important moment of life – its ending and returning to the source from which it had come – but saw only the gallantry of a dashing officer falling upon the mountaineers with his saber and desperately cutting them down.”, going on to note that everyone who had seen real fighting knew that “it is only those running away who are cut down and stabbed” (395).

Shots are heard and a small skirmish breaks out between the Chechens who had come to see Hadji Murat come over and the soldiers chopping wood, during which Avdeev, a simple soldier, is mortally wounded. When Prince Vorontsov arrives, on his way to

meet Hadji Murat, he only briefly acknowledges that a soldier had been injured before boasting about how Hadji Murat was coming over to the Russians (397). Vorontsov and the other officers and soldiers cannot help but ignore the reality that a man's life was ending; surely for reasons similar to Butler's “to preserve his poetic notion of war”, while maintaining an attitude towards the Chechens like that found in The Cossacks (Death

449).

Later, after some of the formalities surrounding Hadji Murat's surrender to the

Russians, we rejoin Avdeev as he is dying in the hospital. There are a few other ill and injured in the hospital and the doctor does what he can for Avdeev but it does not improve his condition (405). Before Avdeev dies, his commanding officer Poltoratsky comes to check on him. Poltoratsky does not stay long and Avdeev dies five minutes after Poltoratsky leaves (406). If Poltoratsky had stayed just a few minutes he would have been present with one of his men as he died, but if he had been it would be more difficult for him to maintain the poetic image of war so ingrained in the military culture.

To reinforce this poetic view of war, which ignores and belittles the deaths of men,

Avdeev's death is followed by the description of the battle as it appeared in the report sent to the command in Tiflis. In the report a “considerable body of mountaineers” attack the Russians, who “fell upon the mountaineers with bayonets”, and concluding that “Two privates were lightly wounded in the action and one was killed. The mountaineers lost around a hundred men killed and wounded” (407). Not only are the losses of Russians marginalized, but the events are inflated to fit the poetic view of war.

In the original account there only “several horsemen” who approached the Russian lines and there is no mention of hand to hand combat, only a few shots are exchanged (398).

Tolstoy does not leave Avdeev's death there, but goes on to show the effect his death has on his family of serfs at the estate on the same day that Avdeev dies.

Avdeev had volunteered to serve in the place of his of his older brother, because he had four children and Avdeev had none. Avdeev's father laments his younger son’s absence and berates the older calling him a “Drunkard!” and saying Avdeev “was worth five the likes of you” (407). We also learn that Avdeev's mother had finally convinced father, after two years of begging, to send Avdeev a single ruble along with one of her letters (408-409). Tragically Avdeev never receives the letter and it is returned to the family “with the news that Petrukha had been killed in the war, 'defending the tsar, the fatherland, and the Orthodox faith'” (409). That he died “defending the tsar, the father land, and the Orthodox faith” is simply the line used for any soldier who died, even in a pointless skirmish. It does little to alleviate the sorrow his death brings to the family and nothing to replace what has been lost, it is only the minimum that is required to maintain the poetic view of war. This is a much more direct condemnation of violence and war than seen in The Cossacks, particularly because Avdeev's character serves no other purpose in the larger story than to be an example of the reality of how men die in war and how that death reaches beyond the battlefield.

While Hadji Murat does contain elements not found in The Cossacks there is one scene that is nearly identical—the showdown in The Cossacks between the Cossacks and the surrounded Chechens, in which Luka is mortally wounded, and Hadji Murat and his murids' final stand against the Cossacks; both of which conclude their respective stories. Both stands resolve plot elements that have been building over the novels; the

Chechens surrounded in The Cossacks are led by the brother of the man Lukashka kills

trying to cross the Terek, and Hadji Murat is surrounded after defying his orders and trying to rescue his family on his own after failing to secure their release through negotiations. Lukashka's death is foreshadowed as his horse stumbles on their way to confront the Chechens, considered a bad omen by Cossacks (Cossacks 171). Similarly

Hadji Murat's is foreshadowed when one of his murids, Hanefi, sings a song about a djigit Hamzat who, with a small group of men, was surrounded by the Russians and fought to the death, exactly how Hadji Murat ends up dying (Death 473-474). The locations where the stands are made are very similar. The Chechens in The Cossacks make their stand “in a marsh at the foot of a hill” (Cossacks 174), and Hadji Murat and his men are positioned on a small island in a flooded rice field. Additionally the course of action is similar in each showdown, the men making a stand are first surrounded and shots are exchanged before reinforcements arrive and an assault is made. Finally the main character who dies does not do so immediately; after he is shot Lukashka falls but leaps back up before falling a final time (175), Hadji Murat is mortally wounded and falls but gathers his strength and continues fighting before falling for a last time (Death 487).

Structurally the two novels differ following their respective deaths. The death of Hadji

Murat ends the novel as the narrator returns to where he started, admiring the resilience of the “Tartar” bush that still stood despite obviously being crushed by a cart wheel

(375). Meanwhile following Luka's wounding, Olenin returns to the village, is rejected by

Maryana, and prepares to leave without saying goodbye.

Even though Hadji Murat ends with his death, its effects can still be seen, both implicitly and explicitly. Implicitly we can assume that Shamil will likely still punish Hadji

Murat's family. At the very least Hadji Murat's son would suffer in some way;

considering Shamil had threatened at first to kill and then to blind him earlier, that Hadji

Murat had said “There has never been any friendship between me and Shamil”, and the general characterization of Shamil as a cruel man (461, 430). Other than Shamil taking

Hadji Murat's son into his service, which seems highly unlikely, the rest of Hadji Murat's family would at the least struggle the rest of their lives since they would be left with nothing (Shamil had seized all of Hadji Murat's possessions before Hadji Murat came over to the Russians (430)). Explicitly we see the reactions of Butler, Ivan Matveevich, and Marya Dmitrievna—all of whom became friendly with Hadji Murat during his stay at the fortress in Grozny—to the news of Hadji Murat's death; this is because the manner of his death was recounted to the three by those sent to spread the word of his betrayal.

Butler is at first shocked that Hadji Murat had actually been killed, but does not allow it to trouble him too greatly because he is so absorbed in the poetry of military life (476).

Ivan Matveevich is rather drunk when he learns the news and desires to kiss the head; he is not put off by the news and seems to be as indoctrinated with the poetry of military life as Butler (479). Marya Dmitrievna is shaken by the news and delivers one the most pacifistic statements found in either work in response to Butler's comment that it is just what happens in war; she says “War! What war? You're butchers, that’s all. A dead body should be in the ground, and they just jeer. Real butchers.” (490). She rejects the notion held so strongly by the men surround her that murder and violence are not terrible things when they are perpetrated in war under the guise of defending “the tsar, the fatherland, and the Orthodox faith”.

The consequences of Lukashka’s mortal wounding are similarly tragic.

Distraught by the imminent death of her love, who she had abandoned the night before

by promising to marry Olenin, Maryana completely rejects Olenin, feeling nothing but revulsion, contempt, and anger towards him (Cossacks 176). There are two likely explanations for her feelings; she either blames Olenin directly for what happened to

Lukashka or sees what happened as a consequence of and punishment for her accepting Olenin's marriage proposal. Regardless of the exact cause, her rejection of

Olenin is due to what happened to Lukashka. Olenin realizes that everything they had built together is dead and he prepares to leave the village forever and be reassigned to headquarters (177). After having a few last drinks with Uncle Yeroshka, “the only person to see him off”, and receiving some advice on how to not get killed in battle,

Olenin makes to leave (177,180). While saying his goodbyes Uncle Yeroshka laments

Olenin’s situation, “You’re such a bitter fellow, so alone, always on your own” (181). As

Olenin is finally on his way, he looks around “and neither the old man nor [Maryana] looked at him” (181). The swift transition from Uncle Yeroshka’s emotional farewell to

Olenin riding off with the two people he was closest with paying him no heed (not but half a page), leaves you with a feeling for how drastically Olenin’s situation has changed. In less than twenty four hours Olenin goes from being on track to marrying the beautiful Maryana to losing her and saying goodbye to Uncle Yeroshka, one of the only people who truly cares for Olenin. All this the result of self-perpetuating cycle of violence created by the war.

All these things taken together—Olenin’s enthusiastic embrace of the Cossack way of life and Hadji Murat's calm distance from Russian society, the direct and scathing criticisms brought against the Russian state found in Hadji Murat versus the more general and subtle in The Cossacks, and the transition from mere hints at

pacifistic tendencies to clear rejections of violence and war—lend themselves to the metric of the hedgehog and the fox laid out in Isaiah Berlin’s essay. The source of

Berlin's metric is “a line from the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says:

'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.'” (22). Berlin examines a possible figurative meaning of this line, which addresses “one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general” (22). That difference exists in the kind of world view an individual subscribes to. On one end of the spectrum lie those “who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel—a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance.” These are the hedgehogs (22).

Meanwhile on the fox end of the spectrum are:

“those who pursue many ends often unrelated or even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related by no moral or aesthetic principle; these last lead lives, perform acts, and entertain ideas that are centrifugal rather than centripetal, their thought is scattered or diffused, moving on many levels, seizing upon the essence of a vast variety of experiences and objects for what they are in themselves...” (22).

Berlin uses this dichotomy to discuss Tolstoy because while “Tolstoy has told us more about himself and his views and attitudes than any other Russian, more, almost, than any other European writer.” The question as to where he belongs on the spectrum

“there is no clear or immediate answer,” and that is an interesting situation (23). Berlin hypothesizes “that Tolstoy was by nature a fox, but believed in being a hedgehog”.

Berlin thus does not attempt to answer that question of where he falls on the spectrum because doing so “would involve nothing less than a critical examination of the art and thought of Tolstoy as a whole” (24). Restricting himself to only what Tolstoy directly

says regarding history in War and Peace, Berlin goes on to use the dichotomy as a tool to better understand “a single man of genius” (24). With that same goal, we can examine the characters of the two novels and how they fall on the spectrum foxes and hedgehogs.

On the fox end of the spectrum we find Olenin in The Cossacks. Olenin considers his life up to the point he leaves Moscow for the Caucasus to be a sham and believes “a new life is beginning”: (Cossacks 5). He begins by adopting Circassian dress and living like Uncle Yeroshka, but is never able to pass for a true djigit and can never truly live the Cossack life like Uncle Yeroshka and Lukashka do. One day, while hunting alone in the woods, Olenin has an epiphany where he discovers what he believes to be a new truth: that the two goals of life should be love and selflessness, because those are the only desires that he see that “can always be satisfied, in spite of external conditions”, making it possible to continually live life happily (93-94). He begins to live his life according to this end immediately; giving Lukashka one of his horses that very same night he meets him (101), and then by not pursuing Maryana to maintain her and Lukashka's happiness. However an old Moscow acquaintance, Prince Beletsky, enters the story and at the party Beletsky throws causes Olenin to reject this newly discovered idea of living selflessly (108, 118-120). Under the influence of chikhir and

Beletsky's familiar interactions with the girls, Olenin kisses Maryana, thinking “They're all nonsense, all those things I thought before: love, and self-denial, and Lukashka.

Happiness is the only thing that matters: he who is happy is right” as he kisses Maryana

(120). After Maryana confirms her intention to marry Lukashka, Olenin writes a letter, which he does not intend to send to anyone, detailing his rejection of the Moscow life,

recounts the evolution of his love for Maryana, and states his intent to take on the

Cossack life and marry Maryana (140, 142, 144-149). Olenin is later able to convince

Maryana to marry him, but the next day Lukashka is wounded and Maryana rejects

Olenin for the final time. Olenin leaves the “new life” he had intended in as much of a mess as he left his Moscow life, only this time not promising another “new life” (177).

It may be argued that Olenin is a hedgehog because he adheres so strongly to some central vision, but in the end he is a fox because that central vision is not consistent. First he rejects the vision of life help by Moscow society and being left searching for a “new life”, then he creates his vision of love and selflessness; later “he who is happy is right”, and in the end still loving Maryana, he is unable to live the vision where she loves him, he sets off on a new life away from the settlement. If he was a true hedgehog, Olenin would not be able to change his views so swiftly; but when one vision fails him, he pursues a new vision. He does not attempt to reconcile the world with his vision; he reconciles his vision with the world. There is no “one big thing” for

Olenin to know and so he ends up “knowing many things”.

On the hedgehog end of the spectrum we find Hadji Murat. Hadji Murat is guided by his Muslim beliefs and securing the safety of his family so that he can bring about the destruction of Shamil. Regardless of the situation, Hadji Murat either interrupts what he is doing or postpones doing something when prayer time comes. The most extreme instance comes after Hadji Murat and Eldar flee Sado’s aul and are not yet safe with the

Russians. Hadji Murat takes the time to perform his prayers in the woods despite the danger of being captured by the men who had pursued him (Death 393). While with the

Russians, Hadji Murat jumps at any opportunity to discuss the business of securing his

family’s release. He “immediately [changes] the playful expression on his face to a stern and serious one (401).”, when the younger Vorontsov enters the room, he promises the older Vorontsov that he “will either die or destroy Shamil” once his family is rescued (418), and even tries to discuss the matter at the soiree (419). As it becomes increasingly clear that Shamil will not release Hadji Murat’s family, Hadji Murat becomes increasingly frustrated, slapping the state councillor who delivers his stipend

(470) and finally making his ill-fated escape attempt. In the account of his life that he gives Loris-Melikov, Hadji Murat explains why he is never afraid. After Hamzat betrays

Hadji Murat’s sworn brothers, killing them after inviting them as guests, Hadji Murat runs away in fear, but says that “Since then I always remembered that shame, and when I remembered it, I was no longer afraid of anything (422). He goes on to explain that he had only served Shamil because he had been arrested and offended by Akhmet Khan and didn’t trust the Russians (430). Even though he hated Shamil for his part in the murder of his sworn brothers, Hadji Murat serves him because he could not continue serving the Russians because his principles that required him to kill Akhmet Khan and he could only accomplish that goal through serving Shamil. The contradiction is not important to Hadji Murat so long as he is able to continue to pursue his current goal of receiving satisfaction for the offence. Like the resilient “Tartar” bush that inspires

Tolstoy to write about him, Hadji Murat is a true hedgehog, never abandoning his principles in the face of contradictions and to his very death.

With Olenin confirmed to be a natural fox and Hadji Murat an arch-hedgehog, we can extend our analysis to Tolstoy himself. In his introduction to The Cossacks, Paul

Foote describes Olenin as “a projection of Tolstoy himself—a young man of Russian

cultivated class who detaches himself from the conventions of society” (xvii), and when also considering Berlin’s hypothesis of Tolstoy as having been “by nature a fox, but believed in being a hedgehog” the resemblance is clear. As a young man Tolstoy had not fully developed all the beliefs that can be found later in his life and so his nature is not suppressed in The Cossacks. On the more basic level his nature shines through in his indirect criticism of the Orthodox Church and the Russian state and his pacifistic statements. Furthermore, the semi-autobiographical Olenin is an intellectual fox, with inklings of the desire to be a hedgehog. Later in his life Tolstoy had established, as firmly as can be said of Tolstoy, his ideas and views. His pacifism is powerful and direct, forcing the reader to confront the consequences of war on individuals on either side. In his introduction, Richard Pevear recalls Tolstoy’s description of the devastation of the aul, saying “Nowhere in Tolstoy’s polemic writings is there a more powerful condemnation of the senseless violence of war” (xx). Tolstoy’s criticism of Nicholas I and the culture surrounding the throne is bold and scathing. Pevear names Hadji Murat as a character “with whom Tolstoy identifies himself” without really explaining why (xx).

However, going back to Berlin’s hypotheses, we can see that as a hedgehog from beginning to end Hadji Murat possessed the thing Tolstoy strove for but could not attain—a single central guiding vision of the world.

LIST OF REFERENCES

Berlin, Isaiah Sir., Henry Hardy, and Aileen M. Kelly. Russian Thinkers. London: Penguin, 1978. Print.

Tolstoy, Leo. The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Vintage, 2009. Print.

Tolstoy, Leo, I. P. Foote, and David McDuff. The Cossacks and Other Stories. London: Penguin, 2006. Print.