4.0
The Cossacks Introduction by John Bayley
by Leo Tolstoy
A brilliant short novel inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s experience as a soldier in the Caucasus, The Cossacks has all the energy and poetry of youth while also foreshadowing the great themes of Tolstoy’s later years. His naïve hero, Olenin, is a young nobleman who is disenchanted with his privileged and superficial existence in Moscow and hopes to find a simpler life in a Cossack village. As Olenin foolishly involves himself in their violent clashes with neighboring Chechen tribesmen and falls in love with a local girl, Tolstoy gives us a wider view than Olenin himself ever possesses of the brutal realities of the Cossack way of life and the wild, untamed beauty of the rugged landscape.
This novel of love, adventure, and male rivalry on the Russian frontier—completed in 1862, when the author was in his early thirties—has always surprised readers who know Tolstoy best through the vast, panoramic fictions of his middle years. Unlike those works, The Cossacks is lean and supple, economical in design and execution. But Tolstoy could never touch a subject without imbuing it with his magnificent many-sidedness, and so this book bears witness to his brilliant historical imagination, his passionately alive spiritual awareness, and his instinctive feeling for every level of human and natural life.
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
FictionClassicsLiteraryPsychological
RELEASED1994
PUBLISHERKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group
LENGTH224
LANGUAGEEN
Count **Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy** (Russian: **Лев Николаевич Толстой**, 9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910), usually referred to in English as **Leo Tolstoy**, was a Russian writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time. Tolstoy's notable works include the novels *War and Peace* (1869) and *Anna Karenina* (1878), often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction, and two of the greatest books of all time.
4.0
The Cossacks Introduction by John Bayley
by Leo Tolstoy
A brilliant short novel inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s experience as a soldier in the Caucasus, The Cossacks has all the energy and poetry of youth while also foreshadowing the great themes of Tolstoy’s later years. His naïve hero, Olenin, is a young nobleman who is disenchanted with his privileged and superficial existence in Moscow and hopes to find a simpler life in a Cossack village. As Olenin foolishly involves himself in their violent clashes with neighboring Chechen tribesmen and falls in love with a local girl, Tolstoy gives us a wider view than Olenin himself ever possesses of the brutal realities of the Cossack way of life and the wild, untamed beauty of the rugged landscape.
This novel of love, adventure, and male rivalry on the Russian frontier—completed in 1862, when the author was in his early thirties—has always surprised readers who know Tolstoy best through the vast, panoramic fictions of his middle years. Unlike those works, The Cossacks is lean and supple, economical in design and execution. But Tolstoy could never touch a subject without imbuing it with his magnificent many-sidedness, and so this book bears witness to his brilliant historical imagination, his passionately alive spiritual awareness, and his instinctive feeling for every level of human and natural life.
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
FictionClassicsLiteraryPsychological
RELEASED1994
PUBLISHERKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group
LENGTH224
LANGUAGEEN
Count **Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy** (Russian: **Лев Николаевич Толстой**, 9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910), usually referred to in English as **Leo Tolstoy**, was a Russian writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time. Tolstoy's notable works include the novels *War and Peace* (1869) and *Anna Karenina* (1878), often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction, and two of the greatest books of all time.
