Online reading of the book Hadji Murat X

Biography

Born in the late 1790s in the village of Khunzakh, the capital of the Avar Khanate, located in the center of mountainous Dagestan. He was brought up in a family of Avar khans, who were his foster brothers. In September 1834, Hadji Murat participated in a conspiracy by his older brother Osman against Imam Gamzat Bek, who in August 1834 killed the Avar khans during negotiations and took possession of their capital.

Appointed by the Russian general F.K. Kluki-von-Klugenau as the governor of Avaria, Hadji Murat actually ruled the Avar Khanate for some time. His influence was enormous later, even when the Russian administration appointed Ahmed Khan as temporary ruler. In 1840, denunciations and slander from Ahmed Khan led to the arrest of Hadji Murad. Accused of secret connections with Shamil, Hadji-Murat was arrested, his house was destroyed and his property and livestock were looted. On the way to Temir-Khan-Shura, Hadji Murat fled by throwing himself off a cliff.

Other characters

• Narrator.
• Sado is Hadji Murad's kunak, a brave man, faithful in friendship.
• Bata is Sado's brother, an energetic, cheerful person.
• Murids of Hadji Murad:

• Eldar is a handsome, stately young man, strong and calm.
• Hanefi is an Avar, the sworn brother of Hadji Murad, and the manager of his property.
• Gamzalo is a Chechen, red-haired, crooked in one eye, with a scar across his face, hates and despises Russians.
• Khan-Maghoma is a cheerful, cheerful, frivolous person.

• Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov - commander-in-chief of the troops in the Caucasus, Caucasian governor.
• Semyon Mikhailovich Vorontsov - regimental commander of the Kurinsky regiment, son of the commander-in-chief.
• Marya Vasilievna is the wife of Semyon Mikhailovich Vorontsov, a famous St. Petersburg beauty.
• Poltoratsky is a company commander who is in love with Marya Vasilievna.
• Panov was a non-commissioned officer and treated the soldiers well.
• Meller-Zakomelsky is a general, dissatisfied with the fact that Hadji Murat came out not to him, but to his subordinate, regimental commander Vorontsov.
• Pyotr Avdeev is a cheerful, sociable, kind soldier who went to serve in place of his older brother.
• Avdeev’s father is a wealthy peasant, hardworking, quick-witted and resilient.
• Akim is the brother of Pyotr Avdeev, for whom he became a soldier, a lazy man.
• Loris-Melikov is the adjutant of the commander-in-chief, knows the Tatar language, and is a very smart officer.
• Klugenau is a general who once tried in vain to persuade Hadji Murad to come to him.
• Emperor Nicholas is a cold, capricious man.
• Chernyshev - Minister of War. He envied M. S. Vorontsov’s wealth and the sovereign’s special disposition towards him.
• Yusuf is the eighteen-year-old son of Hadji Murad, who did not share his father’s hatred of Shamil.
• Butler is an officer who transferred from the guard to the active army in the Caucasus. He took part in a raid on a Chechen village and became friends with Hadji Murat.
• Petrov Ivan Matveevich - major, head of one of the small fortifications on the Chechen line.
• Marya Dmitrievna is a thirty-year-old daughter of a paramedic, Petrov’s partner, a kind, simple woman.
• Arslan Khan is a Kumyk prince who hates Hadji Murad and had bloodshed with him.
• Baryatinsky is a prince, a friend of the heir, the commander of the entire left flank on the Chechen line.
• Haji-Aga Mehtulinsky is a former kunak of Hadji Murad, who lived with him in the mountains, but then went over to the Russians.

At the service of Imam Shamil

From this time on, Hadji Murat became one of his closest associates, the right hand of Imam Shamil. Since 1843, when Avaria was included in the Shamil Imamate, Hadji Murat became the leader of the Avar tribes. For 10 years, during the Caucasian War, he made many raids that made his name legendary; for his ability to evade persecution he received the nickname “ghostly”. The Russian command sent the best detachments from elite military units to where he could show up. Hadji Murat carried out his raids not only for the sake of loot, but also, as punitive actions, for the sake of revenge. At the same time, part of the spoils was invariably allocated to orphans and widows.

Disagreements with Shamil. Death of Hadji Murad

Disagreements with Shamil on issues of waging war and the internal regime in the imamate, Hadji Murad’s ambition, as well as fear of persecution by Shamil for a number of military failures (especially the failure of the campaign to Tabasaran led by Hadji Murad in 1851) led him to break with Shamil.

On November 23 (December 5), 1851, Hadji Murad fled to Chechnya and went over to the side of the tsarist government, which intended to take advantage of Hadji Murad’s popularity among the highlanders to attract them to its side. However, in April 1852, Hadji Murat, due to distrust of the Russians, fled to the mountains and on April 23 (May 5), 1852, he was killed during a shootout near the city of Nukha (now the city of Sheki in Azerbaijan).

Caucasian folklore preserves a number of legends about Hadji Murat. The last period of his life and death is dedicated to L. N. Tolstoy’s story “Hadji Murad”. The grave of Hadji Murad became a ziyarat - a revered place.

Hadji Murat (Tolstoy L.N., 1904)

I was returning home through the fields. It was the very middle of summer. The meadows had been cleared and they were just about to mow the rye.

There is a lovely selection of flowers this time of year: red, white, pink, fragrant, fluffy porridge; cheeky daisies; milky white with a bright yellow center “love it or not” with its rotten spicy stench; yellow colza with its honey smell; tall purple and white tulip-shaped bells; creeping peas; yellow, red, pink, lilac, neat scabioses; with slightly pink fluff and a slightly audible pleasant smell of plantain; cornflowers, bright blue in the sun and in youth and blue and reddening in the evening and in old age; and tender, almond-scented, immediately fading dodder flowers.

I picked a large bouquet of different flowers and was walking home when I noticed in a ditch a wonderful crimson, in full bloom, burdock of the variety that we call “Tatar” and which is carefully mowed, and when it is accidentally mowed down, they throw out the mows from the hay so as not to prick your hands on him. I decided to pick this burdock and put it in the middle of the bouquet. I climbed down into the ditch and, having driven away the shaggy bumblebee that had dug into the middle of the flower and sweetly and sluggishly slept there, I began to pick the flower. But it was very difficult: not only did the stem prick from all sides, even through the scarf with which I wrapped my hand, it was so terribly strong that I fought with it for about five minutes, tearing the fibers one by one. When I finally tore off the flower, the stem was already all in tatters, and the flower no longer seemed so fresh and beautiful. In addition, due to its rudeness and clumsiness, it did not suit the delicate flowers of the bouquet. I regretted that I had in vain destroyed a flower that was good in its place, and threw it away. “What energy and strength of life, however,” I thought, remembering the efforts with which I tore off the flower. “How he strenuously defended and sold his life dearly.”

The road to the house led through a fallow, freshly plowed black earth field. I walked sideways along a dusty black earth road. The plowed field was a landowner's, very large, so that on both sides of the road and ahead up the mountain nothing could be seen except black, evenly furrowed, not yet burnt steam. The plowing was good, and nowhere in the field was not a single plant or grass visible - everything was black. “What a destructive, cruel creature man is, how many different living beings and plants he destroyed to maintain his life,” I thought, involuntarily looking for something living among this dead black field. Ahead of me, to the right of the road, I could see some bush. When I came closer, I recognized in the bush the same “Tatar” whose flower I had vainly picked and thrown away.

The “Tatar” bush consisted of three shoots. One was torn off, and the rest of the branch stuck out like a severed hand. The other two had a flower on each. These flowers were once red, but now they were black. One stem was broken, and half of it, with a dirty flower at the end, hung down; the other, although smeared with black earth mud, still stuck out upward. It was clear that the entire bush had been run over by a wheel and only then stood up and therefore stood sideways, but still stood. It was as if they had torn out a piece of his body, turned out his insides, torn off his arm, and gouged out his eye. But he still stands and will not surrender to the man who destroyed all his brothers around him.

“What energy! - I thought. “Man has conquered everything, destroyed millions of herbs, but this one still doesn’t give up.”

And I remembered one old Caucasian story, part of which I saw, part of which I heard from eyewitnesses, and part of which I imagined. This story, the way it developed in my memory and imagination, is what it is.

Body without a head

After his death, Hadji Murad’s head was cut off by an unknown person: “...Hadji-Aga, stepping on the back of the body, cut off the head with two blows and carefully, so as not to stain his blood, rolled it away with his foot...” (L.N. Tolstoy “Hadji -Murat").

Then she was sent to Temir-Khan-Shura (present-day Buinaksk), the military capital of the Caucasian Army, and from there to the Tsar’s governor in the Caucasus, Count Vorontsov, in Tiflis as proof of the naib’s death. For some time, the head preserved in alcohol was put on public display in the anatomical theater.

Then the skull was sent to St. Petersburg. At first it ended up in the Military Medical Academy, and in 1959 it was transferred to the collection of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera). In the Kunstkamera, the skull received the inventory status “exhibit No. 119.”

The body of Hadji Murad rested in the village of Tangyt, Gakh region of Azerbaijan. According to historian Majid Mehrani, a group of scientists led by the famous Azerbaijani archaeologist Mamedali Huseynov proved back in 1957-1958 that the body of Hadji Murat was buried in the grave. In particular, it was proven that a man without a head was buried in the grave. In the 80s of the last century, scientists again returned to the study of this issue, examined the remains in the burial and once again confirmed that the grave belongs to Hadji Murad.

The problem of determining the burial place of all the remains in one place has not been solved; some reburial enthusiasts consider the best place of birth to be Khunzakh; the descendants of Naib Shamil want to bury the skull of Hadji Murad along with the remains in a grave located in Azerbaijan.

On Sunday, June 2, a ceremony for the reburial of the remains of Hadji Murad took place in Khunzakh. The administration of the Khunzakh region distanced itself from what was happening, and the ceremony was attended by a direct descendant of Hadji Murad Magomedarip Gadzhimuradov, deputy Gadzhimurad Omarov and public figure Askhabali Zairbekov.

No evidence was provided that the remains belonged to Hadji Murad, and how they were obtained remains unknown. The head of the Azerbaijani Musavat party, Arif Hajili, reports that the grave in the village of Tangyt could indeed have been opened.

At the same time, historian Khadzhimurad Donogo, lawyer Ziyavudin Uvaysov and imam Akhmad Anchikhsky believe that the ceremony did not comply with Sharia. The reburial of the remains has also sparked controversy on social media. Historian Patimat Takhnaeva suggested that the remains of not Hadji Murat, but one of his supporters who died with him, could have been reburied.

ELECTRONIC LIBRARY ModernLib.Net

XV

This report was sent from Tiflis on December 24. On the eve of the new year, 52, the courier, having driven a dozen horses and beating a dozen coachmen bloody, delivered him to Prince Chernyshev, the then Minister of War.

And on January 1, 1852, Chernyshev took Vorontsov’s report, among other things, to Emperor Nicholas.

Chernyshev did not like Vorontsov - both for the universal respect that Vorontsov enjoyed, and for his enormous wealth, and for the fact that Vorontsov was a real gentleman, and Chernyshev is still parvenu[9], most importantly - for the special favor of the emperor towards Vorontsov. And therefore Chernyshev took every opportunity, as much as he could, to harm Vorontsov. In his last report on Caucasian affairs, Chernyshev managed to arouse Nikolai’s displeasure against Vorontsov because, due to the negligence of his superiors, almost the entire small Caucasian detachment was exterminated by the mountaineers. Now he intended to present Vorontsov’s order about Hadji Murad from an unfavorable angle. He wanted to impress upon the sovereign that Vorontsov had always, especially to the detriment of the Russians, provided protection and even indulgence to the natives, leaving Hadji Murad in the Caucasus, had acted unreasonably; that, in all likelihood, Hadji Murad only came out to us to spy on our means of defense and that therefore it was better to send Hadji Murad to the center of Russia and use him only when his family had been rescued from the mountains and it was possible to be sure in his devotion.

But this plan did not succeed for Chernyshev only because on that morning of January 1, Nikolai was especially out of sorts and would not accept any offer from anyone only out of a sense of contradiction; Moreover, he was not inclined to accept Chernyshev’s offer, whom he only tolerated, considering him for now an irreplaceable person, but, knowing his efforts to destroy Zakhar Chernyshev in the process of the Decembrists and the attempt to take possession of his fortune, he considered him a great scoundrel. So, thanks to Nikolai’s bad mood, Hadji-Murat remained in the Caucasus, and his fate did not change as much as it could have changed if Chernyshev had made his report at a different time.

It was half past nine when, in the fog of a twenty-degree frost, Chernyshev’s fat, bearded coachman, in an azure velvet hat with sharp ends, sitting on the box of a small sleigh, the same as the one in which Nikolai Pavlovich rode, drove up to the small entrance of the Winter Palace and nodded in a friendly manner to his friend, the coachman of Prince Dolgoruky, who, having unseated the master, had been standing at the palace entrance for a long time, putting the reins under his thick cotton butt and rubbing his chilled hands.

Chernyshev was wearing an overcoat with a fluffy gray beaver collar and a triangular hat with rooster feathers, worn according to his uniform. Having thrown back the bear's cavity, he carefully pulled his cold feet out of the sleigh without galoshes (he was proud that he did not know galoshes) and, invigorated, his spurs jingling, walked along the carpet to the door respectfully opened for him by the doorman. Having thrown his overcoat into the hands of an old chamber footman who had run up in the hall, Chernyshev walked up to the mirror and carefully took off his hat from his curled wig. Looking at himself in the mirror, with the usual movement of senile hands, he curled his temples and crest and straightened the cross, aiguillettes and large epaulettes with monograms and, walking weakly with poorly obeying senile legs, began to climb up the carpet of the sloping staircase.

Walking past the cell footmen standing in full uniform at the door, obsequiously bowing to him, Chernyshev entered the reception room. The duty officer, the newly appointed aide-de-camp, shining with a new uniform, epaulettes, aiguillettes and a ruddy, not yet worn out face with a black mustache and temples combed to his eyes in the same way as Nikolai Pavlovich combed them, respectfully greeted him. Prince Vasily Dolgoruky, a comrade of the Minister of War, with a bored expression on his dull face, decorated with the same sideburns, mustache and temples that Nikolai wore, stood up to meet Chernyshev and greeted him.

“L'empereur?” [10] Chernyshev turned to the adjutant of the wing, pointing questioningly at the office door.

“Sa Majeste vient de rentrer[11],” the aide-de-camp said, apparently listening with pleasure to the sound of his voice, and, stepping softly, so smoothly that a full glass of water placed on his head would not have spilled, he approached the silently opening door and, showing respect with his whole being to the place he was entering, disappeared behind the door.

Dolgoruky, meanwhile, opened his briefcase, checking the papers in it.

Chernyshev, frowning, walked around, stretching his legs and remembering everything that had to be reported to the emperor. Chernyshev was near the door of the office when it opened again and an even more radiant and respectful adjutant came out of it than before and gestured to invite the minister and his comrade to the sovereign.

The Winter Palace was rebuilt a long time ago after the fire, and Nicholas still lived in it on the top floor. The office in which he received reports from ministers and senior officials was a very high room with four large windows. A large portrait of Emperor Alexander I hung on the main wall. There were two bureaus between the windows. There were several chairs along the walls, in the middle of the room there was a huge desk, in front of the table was Nikolai’s chair, and chairs for those being received.

Nikolai, in a black frock coat without epaulettes, with half shoulder straps, sat at the table, throwing back his huge waist, tightly pulled over his overgrown belly, and motionless, with his lifeless gaze, looked at those entering. The long white face with a huge sloping forehead protruding from the smoothed temples, skillfully connected to a wig that covered the bald spot, was especially cold and motionless today. His eyes, always dull, looked duller than usual, his compressed lips from under his upturned mustache, and his fat, freshly shaved cheeks propped up by a high collar with regular sideburns left behind, and his chin pressed to the collar gave his face an expression of dissatisfaction and even anger. The reason for this mood was fatigue. The reason for the fatigue was that the day before he had been in a masquerade and, as usual, walking in his cavalry guard helmet with a bird on his head, between the crowd crowding towards him and timidly avoiding his huge and self-confident figure, he again met the mask that last The masquerade, having aroused in him the sensuality of an old man with her whiteness, beautiful build and gentle voice, disappeared from him, promising to meet him at the next masquerade. In yesterday's masquerade, she approached him, and he did not let her go. He led her to the box that was kept in readiness especially for this purpose, where he could remain alone with his lady. Having silently reached the door of the box, Nikolai looked around, looking for the steward, but he was not there. Nikolai frowned and pushed the door of the box himself, letting his lady pass ahead of him.

“Il ya quelqu'une[12],” said the mask, stopping. The box was indeed busy. On a velvet sofa, close to each other, sat a Uhlan officer and a young, pretty, blond-curly woman wearing a domino, with her mask off. Seeing Nikolai's figure straightened to its full height and angry, the blond woman hastily covered herself with a mask, while the Uhlan officer, dumbfounded with horror, without getting up from the sofa, looked at Nikolai with fixed eyes.

No matter how accustomed Nikolai was to the horror he aroused in people, this horror was always pleasant to him, and he sometimes liked to amaze people plunged into horror by the contrast of the kind words addressed to them. This is what he did now.

“Well, brother, you’re younger than me,” he said to the officer, numb with horror, “you can give me your seat.”

The officer jumped up and, turning pale and red, bent over and silently walked out of the box behind his mask, and Nikolai was left alone with his lady.

The mask turned out to be a pretty twenty-year-old innocent girl, the daughter of a Swedish governess. This girl told Nikolai how, from childhood, based on portraits, she had fallen in love with him, idolized him and decided to get his attention at any cost. And so she achieved it, and, as she said, she didn’t need anything more. This girl was taken to the place of Nikolai’s usual meetings with women, and Nikolai spent more than an hour with her.

When he returned to his room that night and lay down on the narrow, hard bed of which he was proud, and covered himself with his cloak, which he considered (and said so) as famous as Napoleon’s hat, he could not fall asleep for a long time. He either remembered the frightened and delighted expression of this girl’s white face, or the powerful, full shoulders of his constant mistress Nelidova, and made a comparison between the two. The fact that the debauchery of a married man was not good did not even occur to him, and he would be very surprised if anyone condemned him for it. But, despite the fact that he was sure that he had acted as he should, some kind of unpleasant belching remained in him, and in order to drown out this feeling, he began to think about what always calmed him: about what he was like. great person.

Despite the fact that he fell asleep late, he, as always, got up at eight o'clock, and, having done his usual toilet, wiped his large, well-fed body with ice and prayed to God, he read the usual prayers he had said since childhood: “Virgin Mary,” “I believe,” “Our Father,” without attributing any meaning to the spoken words, and walked out of the small entrance to the embankment, wearing an overcoat and cap.

In the middle of the embankment he met a student of the law school just like himself, a huge student in a uniform and hat. Seeing the uniform of the school, which he did not like for its free-thinking, Nikolai Pavlovich frowned, but his tall stature, and diligent stretching, and the student’s salute with a pointedly protruding elbow softened his displeasure.

- What's your last name? - he asked.

- Polosatov! Your Imperial Majesty.

- Well done!

The student still stood with his hand at his hat. Nikolai stopped.

- Do you want to join the military?

- No, your imperial majesty.

- Blockhead! - and Nikolai, turning away, went further and began to loudly pronounce the first words that came to him. “Koperwein, Koperwein,” he repeated the name of yesterday’s girl several times. “It’s bad, it’s bad.” He did not think about what he was saying, but drowned out his feelings by paying attention to what he was saying. “Yes, what would Russia be without me,” he said to himself, feeling again the approach of a dissatisfied feeling. “Yes, so that without me it would not be Russia alone, but Europe.” And he remembered his brother-in-law, the Prussian king, and his weakness and stupidity and shook his head.

Approaching back to the porch, he saw Elena Pavlovna’s carriage, which with a red footman was driving up to the Saltykovsky entrance. For him, Elena Pavlovna was the personification of those empty people who talked not only about science, poetry, but also about governing people, imagining that they could govern themselves better than he, Nikolai, governed them. He knew that no matter how much he crushed these people, they would float out again and again. And he remembered his recently deceased brother Mikhail Pavlovich. And an annoying and sad feeling came over him. He frowned gloomily and again began to whisper the first words he came across. He stopped whispering only when he entered the palace. Entering his room and smoothing his sideburns and hair on his temples and the hair on his crown in front of the mirror, he twirled his mustache and went straight to the office where reports were received.

He received Chernyshev first. Chernyshev immediately understood from Nikolai’s face and, most importantly, his eyes that he was especially out of sorts that day, and, knowing his behavior yesterday, he understood why this was happening. Having greeted Chernyshev coldly and inviting Chernyshev to sit down, Nikolai stared at him with his lifeless eyes.

The first thing in Chernyshev’s report was the case of the discovered theft of quartermaster officials; then there was the matter of the movement of troops on the Prussian border; then assigning New Year awards to some people missed in the first list; then there was Vorontsov’s report about Hadji Murad’s exit and, finally, the unpleasant case of a student at the medical academy who attempted to kill the professor.

Nikolai, silently pursing his lips, stroked the sheets of paper with his large white hands, with one gold ring on his ring finger, and listened to the report on the theft, not taking his eyes off Chernyshev’s forehead and crest.

Nikolai was sure that everyone was stealing. He knew that it would now be necessary to punish the quartermaster officials, and decided to give them all up as soldiers, but he also knew that this would not prevent those who would take the place of those dismissed from doing the same. The quality of officials was to steal, his duty was to punish them, and, no matter how tired he was of this, he conscientiously fulfilled this duty.

“Apparently, we have only one honest person in Russia,” he said.

Chernyshev immediately realized that this only honest man in Russia was Nikolai himself, and smiled approvingly.

“That must be so, Your Majesty,” he said.

“Leave it, I’ll put the resolution down,” said Nikolai, taking the paper and moving it to the left side of the table.

After this, Chernyshev began to report on awards and the movement of troops. Nicholas looked through the list, crossed out a few names, and then briefly and decisively ordered the movement of two divisions to the Prussian border.

Nicholas could not forgive the Prussian king for the constitution he gave after 1948, and therefore, expressing the most friendly feelings to his brother-in-law in letters and in words, he considered it necessary to have troops on the Prussian border just in case. These troops could also be needed so that in case of indignation of the people in Prussia (Nicholas saw everywhere a readiness for indignation), they could be deployed in defense of the throne of his brother-in-law, just as he advanced an army in defense of Austria against the Hungarians. These troops were also needed on the border to give more weight and significance to their advice to the Prussian king.

“Yes, what would happen to Russia now if it weren’t for me,” he thought again.

- What else? - he said.

“A courier from the Caucasus,” said Chernyshev and began to report what Vorontsov wrote about Hadji Murad’s exit.

“That’s how it is,” said Nikolai. - A good start.

“Obviously, the plan drawn up by Your Majesty is beginning to bear fruit,” said Chernyshev.

This praise of his strategic abilities was especially pleasing to Nicholas, because although he was proud of his strategic abilities, deep down he was aware that he had none. And now he wanted to hear more detailed praise for himself.

- How do you understand? - he asked.

“I understand that if you had long followed your Majesty’s plan - to gradually, albeit slowly, move forward, cutting down forests, destroying reserves, then the Caucasus would have been conquered long ago. I attribute the exit of Hadji Murad only to this. He realized that they could no longer hold on.

“True,” said Nikolai.

Despite the fact that the plan for a slow movement into the enemy’s area through deforestation and food destruction was the plan of Ermolov and Velyaminov, completely opposite to Nicholas’s plan, according to which it was necessary to simultaneously take possession of Shamil’s residence and destroy this nest of robbers, and according to which the Darginskaya was undertaken in 1845 an expedition that cost so many human lives - despite this, Nikolai attributed the plan of slow movement, consistent deforestation and food destruction to himself. It seemed that in order to believe that the plan of slow movement, deforestation and food destruction was his plan, it was necessary to hide the fact that he insisted on a completely opposite military enterprise in 1945. But he did not hide it and was proud of both the plan for his expedition of 1945 and the plan for slowly moving forward, despite the fact that these two plans clearly contradicted one another. The constant, obvious, contrary to evidence, flattery of the people around him brought him to the point where he no longer saw his own contradictions, no longer adjusted his actions and words to reality, logic or even simple common sense, but was quite sure that everything was his. orders, no matter how senseless, unfair and inconsistent with each other, became meaningful, fair, and agreed with each other only because he made them.

This was also his decision about the student at the Medical-Surgical Academy, about whom Chernyshev began to report after the Caucasian report.

The point was that the young man, who had failed the exam twice, took the third time, and when the examiner again did not let him pass, the morbidly nervous student, seeing this as injustice, grabbed a penknife from the table and, in some kind of fit of frenzy, rushed at the professor and inflicted several minor wounds on him.

- What's your last name? - Nikolai asked.

- Brzezowski.

- Pole?

“Polish origin and Catholic,” answered Chernyshev.

Nikolai frowned.

He did a lot of harm to the Poles. To explain this evil, he had to be sure that all Poles are scoundrels. And Nikolai considered them as such and hated them to the extent of the evil that he did to them.

“Wait a little,” he said and, closing his eyes, lowered his head.

Chernyshev knew, having heard this more than once from Nikolai, that when he needed to solve any important issue, he only needed to concentrate for a few moments, and that then an influx came over him, and the most correct decision was drawn up by itself, as if An inner voice told him what needed to be done. He was now thinking about how to more fully satisfy the feeling of anger towards the Poles that had been stirred up in him by the story of this student, and an inner voice told him the following decision. He took the report and wrote it in his large handwriting on the margin: “Deserves the death penalty. But, thank God, we don’t have the death penalty. And it’s not for me to introduce it. Pass through a thousand people 12 times. Nikolay",

- he signed with his unnatural, huge flourish.

Nikolai knew that twelve thousand spitzrutens was not only a certain, painful death, but unnecessary cruelty, since five thousand blows were enough to kill the strongest man. But he was pleased to be inexorably cruel and it was pleasant to think that we did not have the death penalty.

Having written his resolution about the student, he forwarded it to Chernyshev.

“Here,” he said. - Read it. Chernyshev read it and, as a sign of respectful surprise at the wisdom of the decision, bowed his head.

“Yes, bring all the students to the parade ground so that they can be present during the punishment,” Nikolai added.

“It will be useful for them. I will bring out this revolutionary spirit, I will snatch it from the cornet,” he thought.

“I’m listening,” said Chernyshev and, after a short pause and straightening his crest, he returned to the Caucasian report.

- So how do you order me to write to Mikhail Semenovich?

“Stick firmly to my system of destroying homes, destroying food in Chechnya and disturbing them with raids,” said Nikolai.

- What do you order about Hadji Murat? - Chernyshev asked.

- But Vorontsov writes that he wants to use it in the Caucasus.

- Isn't it risky? - Chernyshev said, avoiding Nikolai’s gaze. — Mikhail Semenovich, I’m afraid, is too trusting.

- What would you think? - Nikolai asked sharply, noticing Chernyshev’s intention to cast Vorontsov’s order in a bad light.

- Yes, I would think it would be safer to send him to Russia.

“You thought,” Nikolai said mockingly. - But I don’t think so and agree with Vorontsov. So write to him.

“I’m listening,” said Chernyshev and, standing up, began to take his leave.

Dolgoruky also took his leave, who during the entire report said only a few words about the movement of troops to Nikolai’s questions.

After Chernyshev, the Governor-General of the Western Territory, Bibikov, who came to take his leave, was received. Having approved the measures taken by Bibikov against the rebellious peasants who did not want to convert to Orthodoxy, he ordered him to try all those who disobeyed by military court. This meant being sentenced to being driven through the ranks. In addition, he ordered the editor of the newspaper, who published information about the transfer of several thousand souls of state peasants to appanages, to become a soldier.

“I do this because I think it’s necessary,” he said. “But I don’t allow you to talk about it.”

Bibikov understood all the cruelty of the order on Uniates and all the injustice of transferring state-owned people, that is, the only free people at that time, into appanages, that is, into serfs of the royal family. But there was no point in objecting. To disagree with Nicholas’s order meant to lose all the brilliant position that he had acquired for forty years and enjoyed. And so he obediently bowed his black, graying head as a sign of submission and readiness to fulfill the cruel, insane and dishonest will of the highest.

Having released Bibikov, Nikolai, with the consciousness of a duty well done, stretched, looked at his watch and went to get dressed to go out. Putting on a uniform with epaulettes, orders and a ribbon, he went out into the reception halls, where more than a hundred people, men in uniforms and women in cut-out elegant dresses, all placed in certain places, were awaiting his exit with trepidation.

With a lifeless look, with his chest protruded and his belly stretched and protruding from above and below, he went out to those waiting, and, feeling that all eyes were turned to him with trembling servility, he assumed an even more solemn appearance. Meeting his eyes with familiar faces, he, remembering who - who, stopped and sometimes spoke in Russian, sometimes in French, a few words and, piercing them with a cold, lifeless gaze, listened to what was said to him.

Having accepted the congratulations, Nikolai went to the church.

God, through his servants, as well as the worldly people, greeted and praised Nicholas, and he took these greetings and praises for granted, although he was bored. All this had to be this way, because the prosperity and happiness of the whole world depended on him, and although he was tired of this, he still did not refuse the world his assistance. When at the end of the mass the magnificent, combed deacon proclaimed “many years” and the singers in beautiful voices unanimously picked up these words, Nikolai, looking around, noticed Nelidova standing at the window with her magnificent shoulders and decided in her favor the comparison with yesterday’s maiden.

After mass, he went to the empress and spent a few minutes in the family circle, joking with his children and wife. Then he went through the Hermitage to the Minister of the Court Volkonsky and, among other things, instructed him to issue an annual pension from his special sums to the mother of yesterday’s girl. And from him I went on my usual walk.

Lunch that day was in the Pompeii Hall; In addition to the younger sons, Nicholas and Mikhail, the following were invited: Baron Lieven, Count Rzhevussky, Dolgoruky, the Prussian envoy and aide-de-camp of the Prussian king.

While waiting for the empress and emperor to leave, an interesting conversation began between the Prussian envoy and Baron Lieven on the occasion of the latest alarming news received from Poland.

“La Pologne et le Caucase, ce sont les deux cauteres de la Russie,” said Lieven. — II nous faut cent mille hommes a peu pres dans chacun de ces deux pays.[13]

The envoy expressed feigned surprise that this was so.

“Vous dites la Pologne,” he said.

- Oh, oui, c'etait un coup de maitre de Maeternich de nous en avoir laisse d'ambarras...

[—You say Poland.

- Oh yes, it was a skillful move by Metternich to cause us difficulties... (French)

]

At this point in the conversation, the Empress entered with her shaking head and frozen smile, followed by Nicholas.

At the table, Nikolai spoke about Hadji Murad’s exit and that the Caucasian war should now end soon due to his order to constrain the mountaineers by cutting down forests and a system of fortifications.

The envoy, exchanging a quick glance with the Prussian aide-de-camp, with whom he was still talking this morning about Nicholas’s unfortunate weakness to consider himself a great strategist, highly praised this plan, which once again proved Nicholas’s great strategic abilities.

After dinner, Nikolai went to the ballet, where hundreds of naked women marched in tights. He especially liked one, and, calling the choreographer, Nikolai thanked him and ordered to give him a ring with diamonds.

The next day, during Chernyshev’s report, Nikolai once again confirmed his order to Vorontsov that, now that Hadji Murat had come out, to intensively disturb Chechnya and squeeze it with a cordon line.

Chernyshev wrote to Vorontsov in this sense, and another courier, driving the horses and smashing the faces of the coachmen, galloped to Tiflis.

Return of the Skull

Since 2015, Russia has had a commission for the burial of the head and the possible reburial of his body, which includes scientists, historians, representatives of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The great-grandson of Hadji Murat, Magomedarip Gadzhimuradov, spoke in favor of burying the remains in 2021. On November 2, 2021, Ramzan Kadyrov called for burying not only the body of Vladimir Lenin, but also the skull of Naib Imam Shamil Hadji Murad.

On November 8, 2021, a press conference was held in Makhachkala on the problem of returning the hero’s skull. Participants in the press conference were members of the initiative public committee “The Legacy of Leo Tolstoy and Dagestan.” According to businessman and committee coordinator Jamaludin Omarov, the public organization has been “dealing with the issue of returning the skull since 2000.”

The director of the Leo Tolstoy Estate Museum, Ekaterina Tolstaya, told the conference that she “supports the initiative of the public of Dagestan to reunite the remains of Hadji Murad” since 2006. Moreover, back in 2001, at the request of former State Duma deputy Nadirshakh Khachilayev, the presumed remains of Hadji Murat were removed from the museum’s exhibition into storage rooms.

On January 21, 2021, Advisor to the President of Russia Vladimir Tolstoy responded to the head of the “A Just Russia” faction in the State Duma of the Russian Federation Sergei Mironov regarding the return of Hadji Murad’s head to Dagestan.

“At the direction of the Head of State (dated July 19, 2018 No. Pr-1279), the position expressed in your appeal on the advisability of transferring the remains (skull) of Hadji Murad to the Republic of Dagestan for burial was considered by the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation and, in general, was supported. Based on the results of consultations with the leadership of the Republic of Dagestan, a decision was made to carry out the act of transferring the remains later, taking into account the current internal political situation in the republic.”