Tolstoy Leo 
The Cossacks (Annotated) 

• All content is redone in a new style, with the author’s name and the title of the novel at the top.

• For a better glance, a small graphic is added at the beginning of each chapter.

• With a picture of Leo Tolstoy, a detailed biography of him is added.



This 1862 novel is Tolstoy’s semiautobiographical narrative of young Olenin, a wealthy, dissatisfied Muscovite who joins the Russian army and journeys to the wild frontier of the Caucasus in quest of a more authentic life, in a colourful new translation by Peter Constantine. Olenin falls in love with a free-spirited girl whose fiancé turns out to be a formidable opponent while attempting to adapt the rough and ready lifestyle of the local Cossacks. This long-overdue translation is a revelation, displaying the intellectual depth that would distinguish Tolstoy’s later classics.