After War and Peace, every character ranks a score between 1 and Pierre. On a scale from 1 to Pierre, The Cossacks‘ main character ranks a solid 9, with his strife for happiness and his zero idea of how to achieve it.
Leo Tolstoy’s The Cossacks (1863) is a short novel subtitled “A Caucasus Tale of 1852,” and it follows the emotional journey of a young Russian nobleman, Dmitry Olenin, during his time among the Greben Cossacks in the Caucasus. Again, it’s partly autobiographical and draws on Tolstoy’s own experiences as an officer in the region.
Tolstoy uses the Cossacks to explore the contrast between the urban Russian aristocracy and what he portrays as the more genuine life of the Cossacks. Among the main themes, there’s the nobleman’s search for authenticity and moral purpose through contact with a simpler, active, rural–warrior culture (something Pierre would certainly approve), and a subsequent, inevitable tension between this romantic idealisation and the gritty realities of violence and war.
As others are saying on Goodreads, the first part is a little slow, and it takes a while for the situation to take off. Still, it eventually entraps you, and Tolstoy’s always a master in painting subtle shades of how humans can complicate their own lives. Until war arrives and tips the scales for absolutely nothing.
In the header, Cossacks are Writing a Letter to the Turkish Sultan by the Ukrainian painter Ilya Repin
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