The Cossacks, Sevastopol, the Invaders, and Other Stories/3 Volumes in 1 (Short Story Index Reprint Series)

by Leo Tolstoy

THE COSSACKS is one of the finest portrayals in all Russian literature. Written in part in 1852 while Tolstoy was serving in the army of the Caucasus (though not published until 1862, three years before the first installment of his epic WAR AND PEACE), this novel is rich in the descriptions of that superb region.

In a uniquely Russian form, this story is the old romantic European drama of "The Noble Savage." The young hero, Olenin, an educated aristocrat like Tolstoy, comes to the Caucasus to find himself. Olenin falls in love with a young Cossack girl, Maryanka, She shreds his cherished control and refinement, and the desires she awakes in him take his emotions by storm.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published September 27, 2015

About the author

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой; most appropriately used Liev Tolstoy; commonly Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.

His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Reviews

[Ahmad Rajiv · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aku membaca versi terjemahan Indonesia dari buku ini, atau mungkin juga gabungan dengan buku-buku lainnya, yang diberi judul "Leo Tolstoy; Kumpulan Cerita Pendek Terbaik." Kesanku dengan Tolstoy adalah gambaran kemuraman kenyataan kehidupan manusia yang terjebak dalam realitas yang tidak bisa mereka kendalikan. Kegetiran karena ketidakmampuan melakukan apa-apa menjadikan mereka menjalani hidup dengan apa adanya saja. Sedikit ada perasaan pemberontakan, namun kebanyakan yang mereka bisa lakukan hanya pasrah menjalani lakon kehidupan mereka. Ini bukanlah buku cerita dongeng dengan tindakan kepahlawanan yang mengagumkan, ini adalah potret perjuangan manusia seutuhnya sebagai manusia.