Places: The Cossacks

*Caucasus Cossacks, TheMountains. Mountain range south of Moscow between the Black and Caspian Seas that has historically been regarded as the dividing line between Europe and Asia. Now divided among several former Soviet republics, the region was under Russian domination in the nineteenth century. With its picturesque mountains and many fiercely independent tribes, the region occupies a place in Russian literary tradition similar to that of the Wild West in American literature. The various tribes of Tatars, Chechens, Circassians, Azeris, Georgians, Armenians, and others were often regarded as “noble savages” in a manner similar to the literary romanticization of Native Americans.

The Chechens in particular were renowned as fierce fighters, and the appellation dzhigit is often compared to the expression “brave” for a Native American warrior, although it is inextricably linked to expert horsemanship in a way that even the great Plains Indians never attained. The Chechens were also far more successful at resisting Russian overlordship than any Native American societies were at resisting the westward expansion of the United States. Indeed, since the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s, the Chechens have continued to resist Russian domination.

Although Tolstoy’s novel is to some degree the Russian equivalent of an American Western story, Tolstoy tempers the romantic imagery of the half-wild Cossacks and Chechens with knowledge taken from his own experiences as a soldier serving in the Caucasus. In fact, Tolstoy has Olenin thinking of how the reality of the area differs from the romantic stories he heard and dreamed about while living in Moscow.

*Terek River (TEH-rehk). Dividing line between the Christian Cossacks and the various Islamic tribes including the Tatars and Chechens. The Grebenskiye Cossacks were granted an area along the northern bank of the Terek to build their villages, with the understanding that they would defend the area against the depredations of Chechen bandits who rejected the czar’s authority.

Novomlinsk (no-vom-LIHNSK). Cossack village where Olenin is stationed. It is a typical village of the Grebenskiye Cossacks, larger than the peasant villages of central Russia, with neat thatch-roofed houses raised on pillars. The houses do not huddle close together as in a typical Russian peasant village, but all have ample space around them, and are located along several streets and lanes instead of a single central street. By each house is a small vegetable garden, orchard, and grape arbor, all carefully tended. The village is surrounded by an earthen berm upon which prickly hedges grow, and at the gates a sentry stands. In many ways the Cossack village resembles a military camp, with its watchposts and patrols of Cossack men bearing weapons; however, there is little of the spit and polish of a regular military installation. Rather, this is a sort of rough camaraderie of warriors who fight at one another’s back against tribes they often respect more than the regular soldiers of the czar, who are regarded as oppressors and intruders. It is believed that Starogladovskaya, a village in the area, home of a Tolstoy museum, served as the basis for Tolstoy’s fictional village.

*Moscow. Traditional capital and largest city of Russia. To Olenin it represents everything that is wrong with his life, effete and over-civilized. At the time the story takes place, Moscow is not Russia’s political capital. Peter the Great moved the seat of government to his new city of St. Petersburg in 1712, and it would not return to Moscow until 1918, when the Bolsheviks rejected the northern capital as too risky strategically. However, even during the period of this novel, Moscow remained in many ways a cultural capital.