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The Cossacks

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Tolstoy is one of the most famous names in Russian literature. Sadly, the sheer size of most of his celebrated works, i.e. War and Peace, tend to make many readers anxious. However, readers fail to realize that Tolstoy has quite a phenomenal collection of short fiction, such as this 178-page novella.

Tolstoy explores the dissatisfaction a young Russian aristocrat holds towards the emptiness of high-society, and his subsequent journey in search of meaning. The aristocrat finds himself as a young Russian army officer, serving at a remote Cossack outpost in the Caucasus. Here he finds that his wealth and breeding do not garner him respect. Instead he is looked upon as an outsider, and an unwelcome one at that.

Nevertheless, the aristocrat finds himself in love with a beautiful Cossack girl, who is promised to a Cossack warrior. Tolstoy discusses the emotions that rise between these three parties regarding love, class, and sacrifice.

Indeed, The Cossacks is great first exposure to Leo Tolstoy and his descriptive writing style is sure to lead the reader to explore more of his works.

In the middle of _The Cossacks_, Dmitri Olenin, a young Russian cadet reflects joyfully, "Happiness is to live for others. How clear it is!," while being mercilessly bitten by mosquitos during a deer hunt. Despite the fact that his "whole body [is] consumed by a consuming itch," Olenin revels in the beauties of bountiful nature. It is almost as if he gives himself up to the mosquitos, whom he imagines are yelling out to each other, "Over here, boys! Here's someone we can devour!" Tolstoy develops the scene with such skill. We see Olenin's joy quickly turn into confusion and mortal terror.

Leo Tolstoy's _The Cossacks_ (begun in 1852 and published in 1862) is about a young aristocrat's quest for happiness and his uncertainty about what will make him happy--whether a life given up to the senses or a life devoted to others. The novel begins with a late night discussion in a Moscow alehouse about Olenin's relationship with a wealthy Moscow woman whom he is about to abandon. One of his friends responds, "You have not yet loved, and you don't know what love is!" Dmitri bids his friends adieu and sets out by carriage for a military assignment in the faraway Caucasus to start life anew and to find out what love means (ironically, while serving as a military cadet in a war).

The novel contrasts Dmitri Olenin with Lukashka the Snatcher, a young fearless Cossack soldier admired by everyone in his village. While Dmitri's life lacks purpose and direction, Lukashka is driven to become an ideal Cossack warrior. Lukashka is a carouser who is a brave fighter. Dmitri envies Lukashka's life and, in particular, the defined Cossack traditions to which Lukashka devotes himself.

In an incredible early scene, Tolstoy introduces Lukashka on duty at a military look-out point that protects the Cossack village from Chechen "marauders." The tension of the scene and the philosophical undertones also reminded me immediately of Hemingway--as another reviewer commented. In a brilliant transition, Tolstoy revisits this scene later in the novel as seen through Olenin's eyes.

The novel, while mythic in its discussions of love and youthful idealism, takes place in a background of ethnic conflict and suspicion. The Russian troops are quartered in a Cossack village, and the Russians, Cossacks, and Chechens are all in conflict, either in outright war or deep distrust. One of the most endearing characters of the novel, Uncle Eroksha, a rogish seventy year old villager and hunter, suggests the pointlessness of all this division. Uncle Eroksha, who is "a blood brother to all," maintains that "Everyone has his own rules. But if you ask me, it's all the same."

For the contemporary reader, the book also offers some historical context to the current conflict in Chechnia, between the Chechens and the Russians. Cynthia Ozick's introduction provides useful historical background information and challenges Tolstoy's romanticized depiction of Cossack society. Ozick discusses a history of ethnic cleansing in the region that goes back many centuries. The fierce pride in culture and clan often has dangerous effects, a subject that Tolstoy does not really address.

The novel is steeped in sensuous passages, of nature, war, and physical attraction, which are unforgettable. Over the course of the novel, Dmitri becomes obsessed with a Cossack peasant woman named Maryanka. The passages describing his infatuation are intense. The narrator describes Dmitri's first long look at Maryanka as follows: "With the quick and hungry curiosity of youth, he noticed despite himself the strong virginal lines that stood out beneath the thin calico smock, and her beautiful eyes were fixed on him with childish terror and wild curiousity." This gives a taste of the vividness of Tolstoy's writing and the wonderful skill of the translator, Peter Constantine.

This is a truly excellent novel. I agree with the reviewer who says that it is a great novel to introduce Tolstoy to new readers since it is short and accessible. I would recommend this edition in particular because the translation is great and Ozick's introduction is astute. Many of the major themes in Tolstoy's work are evident here, particularly the conflict between sensual and spiritual impulses.

Here's a book that not many people know about which should be read by all. It was really just what I needed to read, having just dropped out of university myself. Also, does anyone else think that this book must have greatly influenced Hemingway? It sounds just like him, and he says in A Moveable Feast that he was reading lots of Russian stuff at the start of his career. I realize it might just be that the translator liked Hemingway, but even so it's amazing how much it ends up reading like one of his novels and is so unlike the rest of Tolstoy.

Truly the best novella that I have ever read. The story of a young Russian aristocrat disillusionned with the life of a city gentleman who looks to the simpler life of a soldier in the Caucasus for his completion. An outstanding read.

Timeless. While the novella centers around a Russian Tribe known as the 'Cossacks', it also tells the story of a young nobleman disenchanted with the high society Moscow crowd who sets out to find himself and discover the joys of youth.

Tolstoy is recognized as one of the leading writer of novels, and he was a leading Russian writer of the 19th century. He wrote three monumental works including War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and the novella The Death of Ivan Ilych." Two were written by Tolstoy at his peak around 1865 to 1980, and Ilych was written in 1886 before Tolstoy started to lose his interest in fiction.

Based on his younger days as a soldier, he wrote four novels or novellas: The Raid (1835), Wood-Felling (1855), The Cossacks (1863), and the last was Hadji Murat, written between 1896 to 1904.

The Cossacks was written just before Tolstoy's peak as a fictional writer or artist, and the writing is acknowledged as an important work for Tolstoy and an important work of Western literature, marking the rise of an important new writer.

The story is about a young and wealthy Russian nobleman, Olenin, who joins the army as an officer cadet and goes to the Caucasus, leaving Moscow life behind. In this story Tolstoy explores the universal theme of a young man falling in love with a woman of a different cultural background. The young woman is called Marianka, and the mystery of the story is will the relationship develop? Will they get married and will he settle in the Caucasus. Will Marianka and her family accept him, or is he simply a short term novelty in the community?

Olenin, who is an army officer, lives in a Cossack community with a Cossack family. He spends a lot of his spare time hunting in the local woods, having discussions with the natives, going to parties with the natives, drinking, etc. It gives Tolstoy the framework to explore his well known themes: "man, society, and nature." The novel contains many beautiful descriptions of the forests and the plants and animals, along with descriptions of the native people and their social customs.

This is an excellent novel. It has some good characters and they display a range of emotions. The first third of the novel is a bit slow and contains many non-fictional comments on the Caucasus, but then as the story develops, the reading becomes much more compelling and the element of drama increases. This is a good novel but it is far less complex and shorter than Anna Karenina.

The Penguin version comes with two other stories: "The Sevastopol Sketches" and "Hadji Murat." I was somewhat neutral about the last story - although it is based on real events - because it lacks a strong central protagonist. Because of that weakness, I preferred the more complex novel, The Cossacks, which has the strong character Olenin.

Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is one of the world's greatest novelist producing such classics as "War and Peace"; "Anna Karenina" and "Resurrection." He was also a master of the novella and short story. Penguin has collected three of these shorter works in a handsomely published new paperback.

The stories are:

The Cossacks: In this semi-autobiographical story a young Moscow nobleman joins the army. He is posted to the distant Caucasus where he becomes friends with people living in a Cossack village. He is infatuated with a Cossack beauty and is involved in a romantic triangle. Olenin meets and befriends an old Cossack who imparts wisdom and the customs of his people to Olenin. The story is filled with information on the customs and lifestyles of the Cossacks. It also includes beautiful descriptions of nature and ponderings on life by Olenin. The Cossacks of Tsarist Russia were a strong,proud and fierce people who loved to drink, love and fight across the vast stretches of the steppes. When Olenin leaves the Cossacks he has grown in maturity.

Sevastopol Sketches is a story concerning the siege of that Crimean City by the French, English and Turks during the Crimean War of the 1850s. Tolstoy was himself present during the siege. The Russians were defeated. We experience in these pages the experience of bombardment, instant death from shells and see the horrific condition of the wounded. The lives and deaths of two brothers are described. This story provides excitement and shows Tolstoy's ability to draw characters and scenes with superb skill. There are three sketches which show us what it is like to be in a beseiged city during war. Tolstoy became a pacificist. This short work shows us the horror of warfare.

Hadji Murat is a tragic tale of a proud Chechen warrior who switches sides to fight with the Russians. In a classic chapter Tolstoy paints the Court of Nicholas I the cruel Czar of all the Russias. Hadji Murat is a man torn by political loyalties. He was a historical character.

Tolstoy wrote in a clear style easy to comphrehend. You will never forget these short works of fiction. Enjoy the words put on paper by a great author!

... between Russia and Chechnya, along the Terek River! But it's not 2010 nor Putin's Russia. It's the mid 1850s, and Imperial Russia is near the accomplishment of 100 years of imperial ambitions to control the Causcasus. A wealthy young Moscovite, Olenin, a bit of a dissolute fop, aimless yet ambitious, becomes disaffected with his life, his society, above with himself, and impetuously volunteers to serve as a cadet in the Tsarist army campaigning in the Caucasus. He finds himself billeted in a Cossack village, the young men of which are allied with the Russians. Olenin is enraptured by the simple 'natural' life of the Cossacks, so much in contrast to the effete parasitic life of his own aristocratic milieu. Naturally he also falls in love with a local beauty ...

"The Cossacks" is a ripping good story, with just one chapter of cultural travelogue to space out the 160 pages of adventure and vivid character-painting. The raffish young Tolstoy did serve as a volunteer in the Caucasus in 1852, He began "The Cossacks" then and there but took ten years to finish it. And it is a very 'finished' piece of writing, at least as far as I can guess from this eloquent translation. I'd rush to buy the film rights to such a novella, except that I'm sure it's already been done, perhaps a dozen times. Unlike Tolstoy's greatest later novels, "The Cossacks" can be read just for pleasure, without labor, with philosophizing. It CAN'T be read for insight into the history of the Russian imperial conquest, or into the real culture of the Cossacks and their neighbors, or into the still-evident sources of burning hostility between the Chechens and the Russians. Reading "The Cossacks" will inform you only that the conflict is old and fierce. In her preface to this translation, Cynthia Ozick argues that Tolstoy deliberately chose to ignore historical realities and actual social conditions, in order to portray his (Olenin's) moral/psychological obsessions with a noble primitive lifestyle straight out of J.J. Rousseau.

The Terek Cossacks, historically, were not an age-old local culture. They had been recruited, chiefly from Ossetia, and installed as a buffer against the Chechens in the 18th Century. They were, in short, an artifice of Russian imperialism, but you'll get no sense of that from Tolstoy's vivid depiction of them. In this account, they are truly idealized noble savages, closer to the Cheyennes of the American West than to the Cossacks who massacred 300,000 Jews in 1648, the Cossacks of the pogroms that sent millions of Jews to the Americas circa 1900. In Tolstoy's account, religious and political differences between the Cossacks and the Chechens are far less 'causative' of warfare than the age-old cultural paradigms of both communities, both cultures of manly honor, revenge, admiration for violence, lusty courage, libidinal ecstasy, drunkenness, above all Freedom of Will.

But the Cossacks of Olenin's village are only the backdrop for Olenin's preoccupation with himself, with his self-disgust, with his craving to find a Meaning for his otherwise insipid and paltry existence. Is "Olenin" an avatar of Tolstoy himself? No amount of literary scholarship could persuade me otherwise. Olenin may be a stripped-down cartoon of the author, simplified for story-telling purposes, but his concerns and his basic character are Tolstoy's. The author's ineffable art, his genius for creating fictional humans than are more alive than anyone you meet on the streets of today, is already perfected in this novella. But Tolstoy's insufferable narcissism, his absurd longing to perceive himself as a Saint, is also perfectly obvious in Olenin, a psychological cripple whose efforts to become "good" are ruinous for others. Olenin, like Tolstoy, slashes arrogantly, destructively, through the lives of others, all in Faustian pursuit of his own moral greatness. One has to give Tolstoy supreme credit, in the end, for being so utterly clear about his own unpardonable egotism, even though his only 'apology' was to move on to yet another cruel obsession. Only Goethe compares to Tolstoy as an example of a Genius who soared above Humanity to the degree of becoming somewhat inhuman.

Originally published in 1863, this is one of Tolstoy's earlier novels, written prior to his two blockbusters War and Peace (Vintage Classics) (1865-1869) and Anna Karenina (Penguin Classics) (1875-1877).

I am reviewing here the "Everyman's Library" hardcover edition which I highly recommend, (published 1994). It's printed in a nice classic typeface on acid-free paper and the sturdy binding (dark burgundy in color) is of a full cloth, sewn-in type. This edition comes with an eye-catching dust jacket which looks attractive on the bookshelf.

The story: A carefree young nobleman, Dmitri (Mitya) Andreich Olenin, forsakes a dynamic Moscow for life in the wilds of the northern Caucasus Mountains where he seeks adventure as a military officer trainee. Once there, he encounters a Cossack mentor of sorts ("Daddy" Eroshka) and a worthy comrade in arms, Lukashka Gavrilov. He also eventually falls in love with Lukashka's betrothed, Maryanka, a tough-spirited gal who is the jewel of her Cossack village.

The exploit revolves around the Russian military tenoned in an uneasy alliance with the Cossacks, engaging in guerilla encounters against the Chechens during this mid-19th Century war of sorts. Lukashka kills a Chechen ("abrek") as the latter attempts to sneak across the Terek River, an incident which notably advances the Cossack's ranking among his fellow villagers. It is also this singular killing which becomes a central reference in the story.

Meanwhile, Olenin becomes emotionally caught up in the romance of life as a Cossack, a culture which manifests the very antithesis of his previous existence - Olenin is a bit of a Walter Mitty. He sees the Cossacks' intimate connections with the natural world and the routines of their simple lives as far superior in quality to his former urban, opulent way of life amongst his noble peers -- still, during his stay in the squalor of the Cossack village, he makes oblivious use of the many rubles which he periodically receives from his serf-driven estates. Life for Olenin becomes more and more complex when he falls in love with Maryanka and he's forced to balance this actuality with his comradeship with her fiancé, Lukashka.

The wallpaper here, the raids on the Chechens throughout the desolate countryside, is more akin to the Appalachian-American Hatfield-McCoy Feud than it is to more traditional wartime encounters. And the relationships (or lack thereof) between the regular Russian soldiers and their Cossack allies clearly convey the fiercely independent nature of the latter.

This tale is one of high adventure more so than of romance, although the love theme does maintain a nicely subtle secondary presence. And while some would say that this book is a good first-reading of Tolstoy (because it's short, 178 pages), I would counsel otherwise. If you read this one subsequent to Tolstoy's later works, you'll find "The Cossacks" to be refreshing in its raw and straightforward conveyance of Tolstoy's clear early-period literary talent.

Since so many works of early Russian literature focus upon the lives of the country's nobility, it's nice that this one ferrets out the intricacies of some subordinate elements of the numerous Russian cultures... the Cossacks, the Chechens, etcetera. One might compare this book in many ways to Nicolai Lyeskov's [The] Enchanted Wanderer since the two stories are both: fictional accounts of adventure; dealing with multi-cultural Russia, and; the tale is simply "told" without the slightest apparent concern for any commercial success that they might generate later for the respective author. The big difference between the two books is that one is related from the perspective of a nobleman while the other is the paradigm of a poverty-stricken serf-monk.

The translators for this edition, Louise and Aylmer Maude, were much attuned to Tolstoy's lyrical meter, resulting in smooth consumption for readers of the English language.

In summary, "The Cossacks" is a terrific story coupled with a glimpse at day-to-day life within unique society of the Cossacks. Highly recommended!

Tolstoy's short novel is as relevant today as it was 150 years ago when originally written. It is a 19th centure Romantic novel -- Romantic with a capital R, not lower case -- meaning that it follows the adventures of a soul who embraces the land and a simpler, more rural-based life. It is also a novel of romance, in which the protaganist becomes involved in a love triangle, with two men interested in the same woman. Olenin, fresh from the parties of the Moscow high life, renounces this former life style, and falls in love with the adventure of life in the Caucasus, as well as the beautiful woman who, in his mind, represents that style. His friend and rival, Lukashka, is one impediment to his winning over Maryanka, but it's far more complicated than one man. Olenin is a stranger from a strange land. Although he embraces the romantic version of the Cossack lifestyle, he cannot truly become a Cossack and that realization is, for Olenin, the true tragedy of this tale. Although this basically can be considered a Romantic novel, it defies the form by avoiding a happy ending. The history of the Russian-Caucasus conflicts does not allow for happily-ever-afters.