Hadji Murat

By: Leo Tolstoy

Narrated by: Chris Blair

Hadji Murat is a short novel by Leo Tolstoy which was published posthumously in 1912. It tells the story of Hadji Murat, a separatist guerrilla in the Caucasus who falls out with his own commander and eventually sides with the Russians in the hope of saving his family.

Hadji Murat differs from the other works Tolstoy produced in this period: In The Devil (1889), The Kreutzer Sonata (1890), "Father Sergius" (1898), Resurrection (1899), "Master and Man" (1895), and The Forged Coupon (1905), the theme is man's moral duty, which is not the case in Hadji Murat, a realist narrative based on actual people and events. It was written about 50 years after the events described, and Tolstoy used archival material, including Murad's own account of his life.

Public Domain (P)2020 Museum Audiobooks

Appalling phony accent

The reader tried to fake a Russian(?) accent. Ruined an amazing story. Who thought that this would not be offensive?

marvelous story

really loved it. one of the best of all Tolstoy books, and with a perfect length for Audio book.
I would have preferred a performance without Russian accents , but it was superb never
rheless.

Didn’t live up to my expectations.

I expected more from this. Tolstoy has some excellent work, I guess I thought this would have been better. It wasn’t a bad story, just not an excellent one. Perhaps if I didn’t know it was him writing it, I wouldn’t be so harsh on it. I suppose this is an issue when you see an author as being one of the greats, even the greatest of us don’t hit it out of the park every time.

Appallingly bad reading.

This atrocious reading in an amateurish attempt at a Russian accent ruins the experience of this novella. This voice, which sounds like a bad caricature of Yiddish, is used for all the characters, whether Russian or not. This would be bad enough, but the reader goes further, using it for the entire narrative, making listening nearly unbearable for anyone sensitive to the nuances of voice or language.

bad accent

the book was excellent, but the bad fake accent was unnecessary and detracted from Tolstoy