Hadji Murád · Chapter
XVI explained
A Russian raiding party marches into Chechnya in January 1852.
What happens
A Russian raiding party marches into Chechnya in January 1852. The column, including Butler and his company, encounters Chechen horsemen and artillery fire. They pursue the mountaineers, burn an abandoned aoul, and retreat without casualties. Butler reflects on his new life in the Caucasus, contrasting it with his past gambling debts in Petersburg, and enjoys the camaraderie and adventure of war.
Themes in this chapter
The Nature of War and Violence
Butler romanticizes war as an adventure, ignoring the dead and wounded, while the raid involves burning an aoul and killing livestock, highlighting the brutal reality of conflict.
Resilience and Defiance
The Chechen mountaineers, though outgunned, continue to fire at the retreating Russian column, showing their persistent resistance.
Characters to notice
- Butler
A tall, handsome officer recently exchanged from the Guards, leading the 5th Company. He feels buoyant and joyful, viewing war romantically and avoiding thoughts of death and wounds.
- Major Petróv
Butler's commanding officer and housemate, a tipsy but good-natured man who lives with Márya Dmítrievna. He enjoys the raid and looks forward to home comforts.
- Márya Dmítrievna
The Major's faithful companion, a handsome, freckled woman of thirty who cares for him and provides nourishing meals for the officers.
- Shamil
Mentioned as possibly present among the Chechen horsemen, identified by a large green banner.
Key passages
“He was filled with a buoyant sense of the joy of living, the danger of death, and a wish for action, and the consciousness of being part of an immense whole directed by a single will.”
Butler felt a lively joy in being alive, excitement about the danger of death, a desire for action, and a sense of belonging to a large force guided by one purpose.
Butler's romanticized view of war as exhilarating and purposeful.
“War presented itself to him as consisting only in his exposing himself to danger and to possible death, thereby gaining rewards and the respect of his comrades here, as well as of his friends in Russia. Strange to say, his imagination never pictured the other aspect of war: the death and wounds of the soldiers, officers, and mountaineers.”
Butler saw war only as a chance to face danger and earn rewards and respect, never imagining the suffering and death it caused.
Butler's willful blindness to the true horrors of war.