The Cossacks

Favourite Quotes

“It is no sin to look at a nice girl. That’s what she was made for; to be loved and to give joy.” - p. 132

“Happiness lies in living for others” - p. 165

Summary

• Olenin, a young man who comes from the Russia aristocracy is bored of daily life, so he decides to join the army in the Caucasus war
• He begins his journey to the Caucasus. He travels with his servant Vanyusha. On his way he dreams about being in the Caucasus, gaining fame and glory, but more importantly finding a Circassian wife
• Olenin reflects on the fact that he is going to a less civilized place, i.e. the Caucasus and this gives him a sense of freedom - p. 95
  • it also has to do with the fact that he will be anonymous, he’ll be a new person, he can start over
• story shifts to a Cossack village.
  • There’s a young woman named Maryanka living with her mom. Granny Ulitka. They are wealthy cause her father is a cornet (an officer)
  • There’s a poor woman who has a 20 year old son named Lukashka who is in the Cossack army. The woman really wants Maryanka to marry her son
  • Nazarka is Lukashka’s friend in the army. They are about the same age
• Nazarka tells Lukashka that his girl (Dunayka) might be cheating on him and that he should give Maryanka a chance. Lukashka says all these girls are the same! - p. 111 - 112
• Nazarka, Lukashka, and Ergushov are assigned to be on night patrol by the river
  • Lukashka stays awake while the other two sleep
  • during night patrol Lukashka sees an enemy Tatar swimming in the water. He shoots and kills him
• story shifts back to Olenin. At this point he has now arrived in the Cossack village and is quartered in the house of Granny Ulitka
• Vanyusha complains how their stay is going to be horrible and that Cossacks are horrible people and that “even the Tartars are more noble” - p. 125
• Olenin and Vanyusha meet Granny Ulitka. Granny is NOT nice to them, she basically wishes death upon them
  • Olenin sees Maryanka and thinks she’s exactly the type of Cossack woman he’s been looking for
• Olenin meets Daddy Eroshka (the old uncle who hunts pheasants) and they become friends
• Lukashka (Luke) returns to the village and people are aware he killed an enemy, he has a positive reputation now
• Luke is pursuing Maryanka for marriage, even though he has a woman already, Dunayka
• Olenin meets Maryanka’s father, the cornet officer
• Olenin self-reflects about his life and happiness - p. 164 - 166
• Olenin, Luke, and some other Cossack soldiers meet up with the Chechens to give them the body of the Chechen Luke killed
• Olenin and Luke walk home together. Olenin likes Luke
• Olenin gives Luke a horse as a present, for nothing in return. Luke is shocked
  • “Olenin was as happy as a boy of twelve” - p. 173
• Later on Luke became suspicious of Olenin… why did he give him a horse?? Word spreads throughout the village and other people became suspicious of Olenin, at the same time they respected him for his simplicity and wealth
  • at the same time, Luke now considers Olenin to be his ‘kunak’ (close friend)
• One of Olenin’s old friends from Moscow, Beletski, arrives in the village and throws a ball.
  • invited are all the young women, Olenin, and of course Beletski
  • Olenin is, at first, refusing to go due to thinking this is pure debauchery, but eventually goes after Beletski begs him
  • Olenin kissed Maryanka at the ball
• after the events of the ball, Olenin is more accepted in the cornet officer’s house
  • at this point in the novel, Olenin is completely ingrained and loving life in the Cossack village.
  • “his past seemed quite foreign to him” - p. 190
• fast forward a bit; Luke and Maryanka are getting married. Olenin does not attend the betrothal because he thinks Luke is mad at him
  • Daddy Eroshka reveals that people told Luke that Eroshka has been trying to get Maryanka to be with Olenin. So likely this is why Luke is mad at Olenin
• Maryanka and Olenin are alone at a vineyard. Olenin reveals that he loves her - p. 206
  • she’s taken aback and shocked. She says to him “leave me alone, you pitch!”
• in the morning Olenin is sneaking around Maryanka’s window and knocks on her door. At that time, Nazarka, Luke’s friend catches him. Olenin bribes him to keep quiet
• Olenin is becoming more and more anxious, not able to sleep at nights. All because of his infatuation for Maryanka - p. 209
• Olenin goes back to Maryanka BEGGING for her to marry him. She refuses, “do gentlemen marry Cossack girls? Go away!” - p. 217
• it’s a holiday in the Cossack village and everyone is celebrating
  • Luke comes back. Maryanka seems to be not as happy to see Luke. He notices and asks do you have contempt for me
  • Maryanka AGREES to marry Olenin. Olenin says he’ll talk to her dad
• Days later the Cossacks and Olenin go on an expedition to hunt Abreks.
  • Luke is shot and is on death’s door
  • when they return, Maryanka refuses to talk to Olenin. Olenin feels like it’s now over for him and Maryanka
• Soon after, Olenin packs up to leave the village for good
  • Luke is still on death’s door. We don’t know if he’s going to survive.
  • Maryanka is still mad at Olenin and doesn’t say good bye
  • only Daddy Eroshka says an emotional good bye to Olenin
  • Vanyusha (Olenin’s servant) seems happy to finally leave. He never liked the place

Analysis

Notes and Quotes

Love

• Olenin, as he was leaving, was reminiscing on how everyone, even those who hated him, were saying good bye to him and seemed to grow fond of him and/or forgive him, similar to when people do this right before someone dies (they forgive the dying person, for example). Olenin thinks, perhaps he may not return from the Caucasus. He also feels like he loves his friends and the others giving him farewells - p. 89
  • Olenin contemplated that he may not return from the Caucasus. Did this change his mind? Not at all.
• He has a lot of cognitive dissonance with the concept of love. He thinks it doesn’t exist, yet dreams of it
  • “One other vision, the sweetest of them all… the vision of a woman… a Circassian slave, fine figure with a long plait of hair and deep submissive eyes… he is conscious of her kisses, her shoulders, her sweet voice… ‘oh what nonsense!‘… ‘there’s no such thing as love’, said he to himself” - p. 94
• After being in the village for a while, he truly believes in love:
  • “the one way to be happy is to love, to love self-denyingly, to love everybody and everything; to spread a web of love on all sides and to take all who come into it.” - p. 194
• Olenin writes a letter to himself talking about love and Maryanka. Page 210-214
  • it seems like he’s switching away from the belief of service to others. He wants happiness.
  • “when in my soul there is only love for myself…”
• Living for others and love - p. 165
  • Olenin comes to the conclusion you can find happiness in two ways:
    • selfishly (seeking riches, fame, comforts)
    • self-sacrifice and love
  • self-sacrifice is living for others
  • Olenin was scared of death (p. 166). He wants to live so that he can at least perform a feat of self-sacrifice
  • p. 211-214 is interesting. He backtracks on the concept of living for others. He’s fed up with it; he loves Maryanka but knows that she’s Luke’s girl. But he wants her. He doesn’t want to live for others. He wants happiness for himself
  • Olenin gives Lukashka a horse as a present, for nothing in return. Lukashka is shocked. This was an act of self-sacrifice
    • “Olenin was as happy as a boy of twelve” - p. 173

Olenin’s Character

• “At the age of 18 he was free, as only rich young Russians in the forties who had lost their parents at an early age could be. Neither physical nor moral fetters of any kind existed for him; he could do as he liked, lacking nothing and bound by nothing. Neither relatives, nor fatherland, nor religion, nor wants, existed for him. He believed in nothing and admitted nothing… He had come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as love, yet his heart always overflowed in the presence of a young and attractive woman. He had been aware that honors and position were nonsense, yet involuntary he felt pleased at a ball Prince Sergius came up and spoke to him affably. But he yielded to his impulses only in so far as they did not limit his freedom. As soon as he had yielded to any influence and became conscious of its leading on to labor and struggle, he instinctively hastened to free himself from the feeling or activity into which he was being drawn and to regain his freedom.” - p. 90
  • seems like major cognitive dissonance.
  • “He meditated on the use to which he should devote that power of youth which is granted to man only once in a lifetime: that force which gives a man the power of making himself, or even - as it seemed to him - of making the universe, into anything he wishes: should it be to art, to science, to love of woman, or to practical activities? It is true that some people are devoid of this impulse, and on entering life at once place their necks under the first yoke that offers itself and honestly labor under it for the rest of their loves. But Olenin was too strongly conscious of the presence of that all-powerful God of Youth - of that capacity to be entirely transformed into an aspiration or idea - the capacity to wish and to do - to throw oneself headlong into a bottomless abyss without knowing why or wherefore. He bore this consciousness within himself, was proud of it and, without knowing it, was happy in that consciousness.” - p. 90
    • as Jordan Peterson has said many times, the pursuit of happiness is the false pursuit, rather it’s the pursuit of purpose/meaning that we must go after. This is what the ‘God of Youth’ basically is, and trying to find it is bringing Olenin happiness.
  • “His imagination was now turned to the future: to the Caucasus. All his dreams of the future were mingled with pictures of Amalat-Beks, Circassian women, mountains, precipices, terrible torrents, and perils. All these things were vague and dim, but the love of fame and the danger of death furnished the interest of that future.” - p. 93
    • Olenin is after two things: love of fame, danger of death. He truly is bored!
• page 90 - 91 really dives into Olenin’s psychology and his worldview… very interesting part
  • he honestly seems a little delusional and has cognitive dissonance. He comes from wealth, lost his parents young, and therefore had no one to answer to. He could do whatever he wanted to. His never found his true calling or even had a career, but whole-heartedly believes that there is something out there that he can give all his effort to and fully submerse himself into, i.e. his true calling, or the “God of Youth” (as he calls it). He believes in some things, yet does the other. For example, he believes love does not exist, yet feels love when he sees an attractive lady. He believes ‘status’ is nonsense, yet feels pleased when a Prince speaks to him.
• Olenin’s character transformation
  • he was an outsider in both Russian society in the village. He wanted nothing more but to fit in, but I think by the end of the novel he realizes he could never fit into the Cossack village
    • near the end, Olenin accompanies the Cossacks on an expedition. They all ignore him as if he’s not there. Although Olenin/Tolstoy doesn’t point that out, it’s pretty obvious what it’s trying to signify…

Sociology

• The Christian Cossacks hate the ‘worldly’ Russians even more than they do the Muslim Tartars - p. 131

Religion

• “But listen to a Mullah, he says, you unbelieving Gaiours (non-Muslims), why do you eat pig? That shows everyone has his own law. But I think it’s all one. God has made everything for the joy of man. There is no sin in any of it.” - p. 141

Main Idea of the Book

• Olenin wants to do something big, something special. He wants to find his true calling. He thought he could find it in the Cossack village, but after spending some time there he realizes he won’t ever fit in.
• Tolstoy’s main lesson is that you should try to live your authentic self rather than trying to be something else. You need to get in touch with your inner self.
• Another main lesson is that of love, a common theme in Tolstoy’s works:
  • Olenin goes from denying the concept of love proclaiming “there is no such thing as love” (p. 90), but overtime as he spends more time in the Cossack village he starts to see beauty and innate love in everything around him, finally proclaiming “the one way to be happy is to love, to love self-denyingly, to love everybody and everything; to spread a web of love on all sides and to take all who come into it.” (p. 194)
  • also Olenin realizes the self-sacrifice as a means to love is the best way to find happiness

Foreign Words

• Kunak = friendship with serious obligations, or brotherhood
• Abrek = a warrior from the Caucasus fighting against Colonial Russia

Reflections

My main problem was the central idea of this book was a bit harder to understand and not clearly outlined in the book… it was harder to reach the central moral of the story.