What do You think about The Cossacks (2006)?
Unlike Leo Tolstoy’s monumental works, War and Peace an Anna Karenina, The Cossacks is a more manageable length. I finished it in less than a week. This is a good book to read and brings recent events into more focus. The Cossacks are inter-related bands of semi-nomadic people nominally allied with Imperial Russia. They are constantly at war with Chechens, or Abreks as referred to in the novel. The mountainous land is claimed by Russia and includes Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and Old Believers, and old spin off of the Orthodox Church.Tolstoy could have included a map as geographic areas were constantly being referenced.Nevertheless, the novel centers on a shallow Russian noble who has reached a point in his life where waste his inheritance no longer appeals to him. He enlists in the Russian army seeking adventure and a fresh start and is sent to the Caucuses. He finds adventure and fulfillment living with the simple Cossacks who have not been tainted by materialism and social conventions. He also falls in love with a girl who is engaged to a fierce Cossack warrior. Tolstoy’s depictions of Cossack life are impressive and I had to remind myself he was writing about a culture different than his own.It was interesting to see how the author portrayed “simple cultures” as nobler but more brutal than typical Russian society. In one conversation the Russian hero asks the Cossack warrior if he feels badly about killing another human being. The Cossack shrugs. The Russian points out that he (the Cossack) could have been the one that was killed. The Cossack says “Yes that happens too of course.” It is as if the Cossack’s simple stoicism prevents them from having feelings or reflections beyond the warfare.Overall this was an excellent book although I was confused how an officer in the Russian army rarely had to report to superiors, could join or refuse to join expeditions, roam about willy-nilly, and had to arrange for his own lodging. Perhaps that is possible but it is certainly different from the British or American frontier armies. This is a solid four star book.
—Shawn
This novel was read as a free e-book.Tolstoy's stories of the Cossacks are the Russian version of America's Western novel genre with cowboys and Indians. The Cossacks, being written by Leo Tolstoy, becomes much more, of course.Tolstoy's short novel is about a young Russian aristocrat, Dmitri Olenin, who leaves Moscow, disillusioned with Moscow society and with love. He joins the army as a cadet, yet still maintains a special status because of his money and place in society. In the Caucasus, he finds his Romantic ideal of the perfect man and society in the Cossacks, and one in particular, Lukashka. Olenin pursues the good, honor, love, and meaning in life against the backdrop of the beautiful and adventurous setting of the Caucasus in the mid 1800's.In the end, the real "hero" of the novel consists of the mountains and steppes and the people who live there. Tolstoy, like his famous American writer of the same time, Mark Twain, both take full advantage of "local color." Much of the story is enriched in the novel by Eroshka, an old Cossack warrior who thrills Olenin with tales of bravery and honor as the two men hunt together and drink during the evening.In the end, this novel is another example of Tolstoy urging the Russian aristocracy to make something meaningful of itself by providing the Cossack culture as a foil to the Russian culture. The two foils to Olenin, Cossack Lukashka and the later-introduced Russian, Beletsky, provide a vision of possibilities as to what the protagonist might become. Olenin we'd like to be successful, but Tolstoy never wrote genre literature, nor was he limited by his publisher to make sure the reader went away with a rosy ending.Change occurs from inside out, and in the end, we see the Cossack culture in its vibrancy, yet already threatened; and we see the Russian aristocracy, rotten in its core, in the character Beletsky, and as readers and children of history, we know the end results of these dynamics to a degree to which even Tolstoy was blind.Enjoy the novel about an era now gone in the sweep of history. Enjoy the pure air of the Caucasus. Most of all, enjoy the masterful hand of Tolstoy telling a tale.Resolve to be a better person. Then do something more about that resolution than sitting around drinking vodka. At least, that's what I took away from the story.
—Tom Kepler
For me as a programmer, going from reading most fiction to reading Tolstoy is like going from writing Java to writing Ruby. It just feels right, I feel more relaxed and at one with the world. I can't think of another author that apparently understands the thoughts and motivations of such a large swath of humanity and communicates them so simply and perfectly.The Cossacks isn't as expansive as War and Peace or as dramatic as Anna Karenina, but it is a story worth reading. It has its share of suspense and murder, of philosophy and humor of nature and depravity, of love and heaving bosoms and of course, beautiful writing.
—Marcus
