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The Cossacks
The Cossacks
The Cossacks
Audiobook7 hours

The Cossacks

Written by Leo Tolstoy

Narrated by Jonathan Oliver

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this audiobook

Dissolute, disenchanted Dmitri Olénin decides to join the Army as a cadet and is despatched to the Caucasus. There, he is transformed by seeing how the indigenous people live in harmony with nature, how their lives have more meaning than those of the superficial social elite in Moscow, and he finds a new sense of self and purpose. But nothing is ever quite that simple. Love and loyalty are tested to the very limits in this semi-autobiographical novella, which is one of Tolstoy’s best-loved works. Translated by Aylmer and Louise Maude.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 1, 2010
ISBN9789629549350
Author

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is the author of War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Family Happiness, and other classics of Russian literature.

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Reviews for The Cossacks

Rating: 3.74739584375 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

192 ratings5 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked both of these stories. I was hoping for more thoughts about life based upon the back cover. Also keep in mind however that both stories are centered around the 1850s in the region NE of the Black sea. This is the area where the Crimean and Caucasian Wars occurred. Otherwise the difficulties were getting accustomed to his use of language.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Tolstoy’s novella is a simple tale of disappointed love amid a collision of sophisticated city-based aristocracy and country simplicity. Though widely read, the tale has little charm other than showing interesting country characters. There’s a deterministic outcome showing social station is fixed and should never be breached.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Considered Tolstoy's best novel from his early years. Begun in 1853 and completed in 1862, after nearly 10 years of fits and starts he was compelled to finish it after loosing badly at cards in order to pay the debt. The novel describes life among the martial Cossacks as seen through the eyes of a young Russian soldier stationed in a native village on the frontier. Descriptions of Caucuses geography and wildlife are the strongest part of the novel in my opinion, the story itself is slow and uneventful. The Cossack's are a clannish community and the outsider Olenin who tries to penetrate it with modest success discovers himself in the process. It's like Dances with Wolves where a soldier who is sent to subjugate and civilize instead discovers indigenous wisdom and attempts to go native, but finds in the end he can never fully cross over and returns a changed man.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    One of Tolstoy's best short stories / novella. Highly readable and exciting, I found this much more enjoyable than Tolstoy's other, more highly praised, Caucus novel "Hadji Murad".
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Quick, wonderful read. Tolstoy's insights into another culture are poignant and relevant. This novel speaks much of the problems of the multinational Russian empire, and maintains its relevance in the modern era's issues of globalization.