Its titular protagonist Hadji Murat is an Avar rebel commander who, to gain revenge, forges an uneasy alliance with the Russians he has been fighting.

Tolstoy created this story set in the Caucasus Mountains during the mid-nineteenth century when Russian imperial expansion sought to subdue Chechen-Dagestani tribes.

Although it was written about fifty years after the events of the story actually happened, Tolstoy convincingly shows the contrast between the bureaucratic decay of Russia and the healthy passionate life of a mountaineer.

[3] The narrator prefaces the story with the image of a crushed, but still living thistle he finds in a field (a symbol for the main character), after which he begins to tell the story of Hadji Murat, a renowned guerrilla leader who falls out with his own commander and eventually sides with the Russians, hoping to save his family, who are captives of Imam Shamil, the Avar leader who abducted his mother, two wives, and five children.

The story opens with Murat and two of his followers fleeing Shamil, the commander of the Caucasian warriors, who are fighting the Russians.

He eventually arrives at the fortress of Vozdvizhenskaya to join the Russian forces, hoping to draw their support to overthrow Shamil and save his family.

Before his arrival, a small skirmish occurs with some Chechen and Dagestani mountaineers outside the fortress, and Petrukha Avdeyev, a young Russian soldier, dies in a military hospital from gunshot wounds.

Hamzat eventually launches an attack on the capital of Khunzakh and kills the pro-Russian khans, taking control of this part of Dagestan.

The slaughter of the khans throws Hadji and his brother against Hamzat, and they eventually succeed in tricking and killing him, causing his followers to flee.

However, Vorontsov's plans are ruined by the War Minister, Chernyshov, a rival prince who is jealous of him, and Murat has to remain in the fortress because the Tsar is told he might be a spy.

The story digresses into a depiction of the Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, which reveals his lethargic and bitter nature and his egotistical complacency, as well as his contempt for women, his brother-in-law Frederick William IV of Prussia, and Russian students.

Meanwhile, Murat's mother, wife and eldest son Yusuf, whom Shamil hold captive, are moved to a more defensible location.

At this point the narrative jumps forward to the arrival of a group of soldiers at the fortress bearing Murat's severed head.

[4] Rebecca Ruth Gould has described Hadji Murat along with Tolstoy's other writings on the Caucasus, as "ethnographic footnotes informing the reader about the history, languages, and customs of Russia’s enemies.

[6] Influential American literature critic Harold Bloom said of Hadji Murat: "[it is] my personal touchstone for the sublime of prose fiction, to me the best story in the world.

The Pevear and Volokhonsky's edition was chosen by Boyd Tonkin as his selection for the BBC Radio 4 show A Good Read on Friday 4 December 2020.

[15] Several editions combine Hadji Murat with the early Tolstoy novel The Cossacks and sometimes also with the 1852-3 story The Raid, all set in the Caucasus during the period of Russia's consolidation of power in the 19th century.

A Malaysian stageplay adaptation directed by A. Wahab Hamzah and Aris Othman based on a script by Anwar Ridhwan, a co-translator of the Malaysian edition, was performed at the Tun Syed Nasir Hall in the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka complex in Kuala Lumpur starting 26 June 2024.