The image of Khadgy-Murat in Leo Tolstoy’s story: A personality problem

Abstract

   The article considers the character of Khadgy-Murat from of the same name story of Leo Tolstoy in the light of the writer’s views concerning the essence and purpose of man. Tolstoy reveals the ontological core of man at the crucial time in Russian History, the time of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. Khadgy-Murat is a historical person of that time, but Leo Tolstoy is interested in him as a personality. Long before the twentieth century philosophical works, centered around the concept of “personality”, Leo Tolstoy described his legendary character as an ontological element of history. The human fate, as a prevalent factor in Khadgy-Murat’s decisions, becomes a cross-cutting motif of the story. In the author’s conception, Khadgy-Murat is capable of satisfying his imperious ambitions (to conquer Aviary and Chechnya) only in case his own private problems, the problems in the life of his inner self, are resolved. His human qualities make him a legendary hero of the Caucasus. Leo Tolstoy’s Khadgy-Murat is a person of huge vital force, broken up by the will of fate, determined by history itself. Our interpretation of Khadgy-Murat’s character emphasizes the idea that socio-historical circumstances become an emotional and psychological impetus for Khadgy-Murat to manifest his free will that determines him as a personality. It is important that Leo Tolstoy makes his own contribution to objectifying the images “foe-other” in literary texts. He destroys historically complicated image-cliché of a Caucasian that took shape due to the colonial ideology of Russia’s social consciousness.