By Matthew Ilseman
One summer when I was a teenager I decided to read War and Peace. I spent much of that summer in my room going through Leo Tolstoy’s magnum opus. I remember my pride at having finished it and my disappointment at discovering it was an abridged version.
Leo Tolstoy is known of course as one of the greatest writers of human history. This can make his reputation daunting to some people. That and the size of his novels. He however wrote other things than the behemoths War and Peace and Anna Karenina. He wrote novellas and short stories as well.
Tolstoy was born in an aristocratic family. He lived a dissolute lifestyle for a time in Moscow. Hoping to escape his creditors at the time he enlisted in the army and served in the Caucasus. (Dostoevsky, the other Great Russian writer, also had trouble with his creditors. He wrote Crime and Punishment to pay his debts.) His experiences there formed the background to his novella The Cossacks and short story The Raid. (I found an old paper back made up of both stories at a library sell. They seemed to be collected together a lot).
Tolstoy at the end of his life would develop essentially his own religion of absolute pacifism and absolute celibacy. (He would in fact consider sex even inside of marriage for the purpose of reproduction immoral).
The Cossacks’ main character is Olenin a Russian aristocrat who enlists in the military after a failed love affair. He goes to live in a Cossack village where he falls into a love triangle with a young Cossack named Luke over the beautiful Marianka. Olenin grows to admire the simple life of the Cossack’s over the artificial life of Moscow society. He also comes to an epiphany summed up in a single phrase:
“Happiness is living for others.”
The novella follows Olenin’s attempts to live up to his epiphany, his growing attraction Marianka, and finally the tragic ending. One major character is Eroshka an elderly Cossack. A former horse thief and warrior turned hunter, he is based on a Cossack Tolstoy actually knew.
The story is a window into Cossack life in the 1800s.
The Raid is also based on Tolstoy’s personal experiences. It is narrated by an unnamed civilian who philosophizes about courage and what makes man kill his fellow man. The civilian gets his friend Colonel Khlopov, an officer assigned to the Caucasus, to follow along on a raid. The story explores what is the nature of courage. Many characters that seen out of melodrama are introduced but it is the prosaic Khlopov that in the end is shown to be the most courageous.
As I read The Raid, I saw that it could be completely transferred from the Caucasus to say the American frontier. Instead, of say a Tartar uprising it would be an Indian one. The Russian army uses Cossack’s and Tartars as scouts the way the American army used frontiersmen and Indians.
They are probably not as important world literature as War and Peace but they are excellent stories. Both stories allow an authentic glimpse in to a Frontier much like ours and yet very different than the American one. They are also a great starting point for someone interested in Tolstoy but not wanting to crack open one of his giant novels.
Too often, usually because of bad experiences in school, the great writers are overlooked. While I have read supposedly classic works that I did not like, I have found that most the classics are well worth reading. It is a shame more people do not read them.
Tolstoy was in the end many things, but he will forever be known as one of the Great Writers.
lane batot says
Great post! I just let my brother borrow my copy of “The Cowboy And The Cossack”, which I first heard about here on “Frontier Partisans”! It was more fun than Tolstoy, I’m guessing……But back to Cossacks–an historical account some of you might find interesting–I forget the exact time period(except it was long before the Communist Revolution in Russia), the Czar was subjugating many of the Native(non-European) tribes in Russia, to force them to send a certain amount of furs as “tribute”, as Russia made a lot of it’s income on the fur trade, above and beyond even gold mining. Cossacks were often the Russian force sent out to collect this form of taxation, or conquer any tribes that resisted. They had purty much subjugated them all, at one point, except the Chuckchi tribe in the far East, because they had a hard time running them down–the Chuckchis, being rather nomadic hunters in lifestyle, whenever they heard of the Cossacks approaching, simply loaded up their dog teams, and headed out on the pack ice where the Cossacks could not follow, and stayed out till the Cossacks went away. The Chuckchis were famous for their superb dog teams, the descendants of which are our Siberian Huskies today! At one point, the Chuckchis, instead of fleeing, laid an ambush for the Cossacks, in a steep, snow-filled ravine, where they could utilize their spears and bows to good effect, over the Cossacks muskets. The Cossacks’ horses bogged down in the ravine, and the Chuckchis apparently wiped them out, rather like a Russian version of the Little Bighorn! After which, they were left alone, considered more trouble than it was worth to subjugate. The Chuckchis remained free until, alas, the Communist Revolution, when many were massacred like so many others in Russia……
JimC says
This is wonderful. Thank you.
lane batot says
I read that bit in a book on the history of the Siberian Husky breed, and it apparently came from a book written by an early Russian ethnologist, titled “In The Lodges Of The Chuckchi”. I have tried to find an English version of that book forever, but no luck alas(so far……)
Matthew says
Thank you.
The Cowboy and the Cossack is good book, but you probably should read Tolstoy too.
That’s a very interesting story.
lane batot says
I’ll certainly have to try and find a copy of Tolstoy’s novella “The Cossacks” and his short story “The Raid”–I’ll probably manage that better than his ultra thick “War And Peace”, although if I like those, it might make me ambitious……Probably a bit like James Michener’s stuff–I like his novels, but duh-yamm! Most of them go back to the evolution of bacteria in a place, and it can be hard to get through. I loved “Centennial” up until the Indians were driven out, and the mountain men were gone–Potato Brumbagh and the civilization following bored me to tears! Michener’s best books, in my opinion, are the rare few shorter ones he wrote–my favorite is “Caravans”, about Afghanistan, back before we Americans got so involved there! I love the movie they did of the novel too, with the same title(good old Anthony Quinn as the Kochi Nomad leader!)
JimC says
Caravans was really good stuff. I had the same response to Centennial. Just read up through RJ Poteet.
Matthew says
“The Cossacks” and “The Raid” seem to be included in a lot story collections together. I hope you enjoy them.
Stanley says
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll look for Caravans as well as the Cowboy and Cossack.
I endeavored to read the unabridged War and Peace in high school. I got about half way through or more before I decided that it was largely a boring mess–too much Russian parlors, creaking corsets, and downy lips, and not enough grand battles–that, and the fact that everyone had between 3 and 6 names used interchangeably so that I could hardly tell whether there were 3 people in the room or two-dozen.
Clint says
You, good sir, are dangerous to my bank balance and bookshelves. 😉
JimC says
Hah!
Matthew says
I spend way too much money on books too!
Eric Petersen says
Save money and use your local library.