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The extract I will be quoting from below is from Leo Tolstoy's Al-Hagg Murad which is rendered in english translation oddly as Hadji Murat, purportedly because the story takes place in Chechnya and this is apparently how they pronounce the arabic (الحج مراد) there. Anyway...to start off I should give a little background to this story. This story takes place during one of the Russian campaigns in Chechnya, which has a long history of Russian interference and oppression, and also of fierce armed resistance by the Chechen people (the most recent examples of this are the 1994 and 1999 inhuman Russian wars on Chechnya). We should remember our Chechen brothers and sisters who are today living under Russian occupation with a collaborationist puppet ruling over them. This post is dedicated to the struggling Chechen people...FOR A FREE CHECHNYA!!!

The main character is a collaborator named al-Hagg Murad. At the beginning of the story he is fleeing through a resistance-controlled area intending to offer his services to the Russians, which he subsequently does. On his way to the Russians he spends a night with the family of Sado, an old comrade who is not a collaborator, but who protects Murad for a night and gives him shelter. Sado is risking his life by doing this as he lives in a resistance-controlled town, but he does it out of the goodness of his heart. Also, someone named Shamil is mentioned in the excerpt. Shamil is the leader of the resistance and has authority over the resistance-controlled areas.

Here is the excerpt:

In prompt execution of Nicholas' instructions a raid on Chechnya was carried out in January 1852...

Butler [a Russian officer] and his company entered the village at the double after the Cossacks [Russian cavalry]. The inhabitants were all gone. The soldiers were ordered to burn the corn and hay and the houses too. An acrid layer of smoke spread through the village; in the smoke soldiers rushed about carrying off what they could find from the houses, but chiefly chasing and shooting the chickens which the villagers had been unable to take with them. The officers sat down away from the smoke, and had lunch and something to drink. The sergeant major brought them honeycombs on a board. There was no sound of the Chechens. Soon after midday the order was given to withdraw. The companies formed into a column at the back of the village and Butler had to bring up the rear. As soon as they moved off, the Chechens reappeared and followed, firing parting shots into the column...

The village laid waste by the raiding party was the one in which Hadji Murat had spent the night before going over to the Russians.

Sado, with whom he had stayed, took his family away to the mountains when the Russians approached the village. When he came back he found his house destroyed: the roof was caved in, the door and the post supporting the veranda were burnt and the inside befouled. His son, the good-looking boy with shining eyes who had regarded Hadji Murat with such rapture, was brought in to the mosque dead on the back of a horse draped with a cloak. He had been bayoneted in the back. The fine-looking woman who had waited on Hadji Murat during his visit stood over her son with her hair loose and the smock she was wearing rent at the chest to reveal her old, sagging breasts. She stood clawing her face till the blood ran and wailing without stop. Sado took a pick and shovel and went with his kinsmen to dig a grave for his son. The old grandfather sat by the wall of the ruined house, whittling a stick and gazing blankly into space. He had just come back from his bee-garden. The two small hayricks he had there were burnt; the apricot and cherry trees which he had planted and tended were broken and scorched; and, worst of all, everyone of his hives had been burnt together with the bees. The wailing of women sounded in every house and in the square where two more bodies were brought. The young children wailed with their mothers. The hungry animals howled, too, and there was nothing to give them. The older children played no games and watched their elders with frightened eyes.

The fountain had been befouled, evidently on purpose, so no water could be drawn from it. The mosque, too, had been defiled and the mullah and his pupils were cleaning it out.

The village elders gathered in the square and squatted on their heels to discuss the situation. Nobody spoke a word of hatred for the Russians. The emotion felt by every Chechen, old and young alike, was stronger than hatred. It was not hatred, it was a refusal to recognize these Russian dogs as men at all, and a feeling of such disgust, revulsion and bewilderment at the senseless cruelty of these creatures that the urge to destroy them - like the urge to destroy rats, venomous spiders or wolves - was an instinct as natural as that of self-preservation.

The villagers were faced with a choice: either to remain as before and by terrible exertions restore all that had been created with such labour and so easily and senselessly destroyed, while every minute expecting a repetition of the same thing, or they could act contrary to the law of their religion and, despite the revulsion and scorn they felt for the Russians, submit to them.

The old men prayed and resolved unanimously to send envoys to ask Shamil for help, and straightaway they set about rebuilding what had been destroyed.

Liberation:

Hadji Murat - Leo Tolstoy.pdf