The Cossacks and Other Stories

In collecting "The Cossacks", "Sevastopol Sketches", and "Hadji Murad" together in "The Cossacks and Other Stories" we find several episodes in which Tolstoy draws upon his own experiences and attempts to portray a contemporary Russian society. Tolstoy, who had served as a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment during the Crimean War, recounts his experiences there during the Siege of Sevastopol in the three episodes of "Sevastopol Sketches." In "The Cossacks" Tolstoy again draws upon his experiences, this time in the Caucasus during the last stages of the Caucasian War. "The Cossacks" is the story of Dmitriy Olenin, a young idealist, who leaves Moscow to start a new life in the Caucasus. Finally in this work we find "Hadji Murad," Tolstoy's final published work, the story of its titular character, an Avar rebel commander who, for reasons of personal revenge, forges an uneasy alliance with the Russians he had been fighting. This collection provides a representative example of Tolstoy's writing and his masterful illustration of his country during the 19th century.