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Everything has grown quiet in Moscow. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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The Maude's translation is excellent - they were Tolstoy's chosen translators. Purchasing this book as an Everyman hardback is recommended. You will want to keep it for a lifetime and give it pride of place on your bookshelf.
Everyman also produce a lengthy, two volume, edition of his shorter works, but without "The Cossacks". It contains several short novels that are close to "The Cossacks" in standard.
If you haven't read Tolstoy yet, try "the Cossacks" first. It demonstrates Tolstoy's mastery in a transparently approachable format. It is the finest of hors d'oeuvres to savour before tackling War & Peace or Anna Karenina.
In The Cossacks, Tolstoi provides a rich and vivid description with meticulous detail of Cossack appearance, everyday life, and its society, showing its warmth and unity all set against the backdrop of the Caucasus. And in true Tolstoi fashion it deals with matters of the human heart, the author's abilities to present and translate the intangible feelings and transfer them to print has long been acknowledged as one of his gifts. We are shown Olyénin's yearning for Maryánushka and his feelings of futility towards the betrothed maiden coupled with the universal indecisiveness that exists within us all and the inner struggle of human nature. He yearns for but lacks the strength even to approach her, only watching from afar, feeling worthless against her and at the same fighting a conflict within him to acknowledge his feelings. Each character is well developed, embodying human shortcomings and the disappointments of real life (we never get what we want). We see the young arrogance of Lushkashka, the snobbery of Vasílyevitch and the old sage Cossack 'uncle' Yeroshka with his stubborn old ways. All of this we are invited to watch by the author without prejudice, for Tolstoi writes without judging.
The theme of "love for all" that runs through so many of Tolstoi's books is by no means absent here, with a love triangle between Olyénin, Maryánushka and Lushkashka. Olyénin is willing to abandon his philosophy of self renunciation for Maryánushka, he as an outsider desperately wanting to be integrated and accepted into this society. And in surrendering to his feelings would go against Cossack tradition and run the risk of being ostracised with Maryánushka, a theme explored more in depth in his later work Anna Karenina.
Tolstoi served as a yunker (Olyénin is also one) in the Caucasus in 1851, there he met the Cossacks and later becoming the subject of this book, their simplicity of life used as a comparison to the decadence of Russian society. The character Olyénin is a reflection of his own quest for happiness through self sacrifice and self renunciation, trying to escape the shallow empty meaningless existence of a Russian gentleman in Moscow society.
In conclusion, this book provides a rich and lush description based upon his encounter. The characters are human, flawed, rounded and real with depth, this is what he does best, his favoured themes such as the complexity of love, finding true happiness through a simple existence and the shunning of the aristocratic society are all included, this will not disappoint his followers.
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