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Tales of Sevastopol and The Cossacks
Tolstoy (1828-1910) joined the army in 1851 and took part in campaigns against the native Caucasian tribes and, soon after, in the Crimean War (1853-56). This book of three sketches published between 1855 and 1856 is based on his experiences during the Crimean War.
332 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1858
About the author
Leo Tolstoy
8,243 books29.1k followersLev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой; most appropriately used Liev Tolstoy; commonly Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.
His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
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May 25, 2021
செவஸ்தபோல் கதைகள்
லியோ டால்ஸ்டாய்
தமிழில்:பேராசிரியர்.நா.தர்மராஜன்
1853இல் டால்ஸ்டாய் தான் பங்குபெற்ற கிரிமியப் போரில்,தான் கண்ட அனுபவங்களைக் கொண்டு இந்நூலை புனைந்துள்ளார்.
மூன்று பாகங்களாக எழுதப்பட்ட இந்நூலில் முதல் பகுதியில் போரின் சூழ்நிலையை நம் கண்முன்னே நிறுத்துவதும்,Second Person Narration மூலமாக கதையை நகர்த்தியுள்ளார்.
இரண்டாவது பகுதியில் போரில் பங்குகொண்ட செல்வந்தர்கள் எவ்வாறு வெறும் பேரும் புகழுக்காகவும் நடந்துக்கொண்ட விதத்தையும் இப்பகுதியில் அவர்களை சாடியுள்ளார்.மேலும் போர்க்களத்தில் வீரர்களின் மனோபாவம்,பயம்,கோழைத்தனம் மற்றும் இன்ன பிற உணர்ச்சிகளை நாமே நேரில் கண்டுகொள்ளும் விதமாக எழுதியிருக்கிறார். இதற்கு முன்பு நான் படித்த டால்ஸ்டாய்யின் "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" என்ற குறும்புதினத்தில் ஒரு மனிதனின் மரண அவஸ்தை,மரணத்தை நோக்கியப் பயணம்,வலி மற்றும் நோயின் தீவிரத்தை நாமே அந்த அனுபவத்தைப் பெறும் வகையில் புனைந்திருப்பார்.அதே அனுபவத்தையும் இந்நூலில் நாம் உணர முடியும்.
மூன்றாவது பகுதியில் செவஸ்தபோல் நகரத்தை பிரெஞ்சுப் படையினர் கைப்பற்றும் பொழுது ருசிய வீரர்களின் ஏமாற்றம் மற்றும் வருத்தங்களுடன் நூலை நிறைவு செய்வார்.
தமிழ் மொழிபெயர்ப்பு சற்று கடினமாகவும்,சராசரி தரத்தில் இருந்தது.
லியோ டால்ஸ்டாய்
தமிழில்:பேராசிரியர்.நா.தர்மராஜன்
1853இல் டால்ஸ்டாய் தான் பங்குபெற்ற கிரிமியப் போரில்,தான் கண்ட அனுபவங்களைக் கொண்டு இந்நூலை புனைந்துள்ளார்.
மூன்று பாகங்களாக எழுதப்பட்ட இந்நூலில் முதல் பகுதியில் போரின் சூழ்நிலையை நம் கண்முன்னே நிறுத்துவதும்,Second Person Narration மூலமாக கதையை நகர்த்தியுள்ளார்.
இரண்டாவது பகுதியில் போரில் பங்குகொண்ட செல்வந்தர்கள் எவ்வாறு வெறும் பேரும் புகழுக்காகவும் நடந்துக்கொண்ட விதத்தையும் இப்பகுதியில் அவர்களை சாடியுள்ளார்.மேலும் போர்க்களத்தில் வீரர்களின் மனோபாவம்,பயம்,கோழைத்தனம் மற்றும் இன்ன பிற உணர்ச்சிகளை நாமே நேரில் கண்டுகொள்ளும் விதமாக எழுதியிருக்கிறார். இதற்கு முன்பு நான் படித்த டால்ஸ்டாய்யின் "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" என்ற குறும்புதினத்தில் ஒரு மனிதனின் மரண அவஸ்தை,மரணத்தை நோக்கியப் பயணம்,வலி மற்றும் நோயின் தீவிரத்தை நாமே அந்த அனுபவத்தைப் பெறும் வகையில் புனைந்திருப்பார்.அதே அனுபவத்தையும் இந்நூலில் நாம் உணர முடியும்.
மூன்றாவது பகுதியில் செவஸ்தபோல் நகரத்தை பிரெஞ்சுப் படையினர் கைப்பற்றும் பொழுது ருசிய வீரர்களின் ஏமாற்றம் மற்றும் வருத்தங்களுடன் நூலை நிறைவு செய்வார்.
தமிழ் மொழிபெயர்ப்பு சற்று கடினமாகவும்,சராசரி தரத்தில் இருந்தது.
August 15, 2024
Contains the earliest stories of Tolstoy, and above all the war stories. Especially "the siege of Sewastopol" is captivating, this must be just about the first anti-war novel. The short story "the morning of the country nobleman" is a beautiful social document.
June 8, 2017
This rating is for the Sevastopol series - excellent war writing
Especially excellent about fear and cowardice and fear of cowardice. And the pressures on young men to be heroic.
Masterful descriptions of wounds and dressing wounds and death - I could almost smell how vile it all was. The details of how cities get suddenly swallowed by war - when they previously been close neighbours felt very real.
All this feels extremely relevant today.
Sadly.
(Cossacks is much duller, and much less well written. Which provides hope for us all: to write as poorly as Cossacks, and then as well as Sevastopol! If that's good enough for Tolstoy .... )
Especially excellent about fear and cowardice and fear of cowardice. And the pressures on young men to be heroic.
Masterful descriptions of wounds and dressing wounds and death - I could almost smell how vile it all was. The details of how cities get suddenly swallowed by war - when they previously been close neighbours felt very real.
All this feels extremely relevant today.
Sadly.
(Cossacks is much duller, and much less well written. Which provides hope for us all: to write as poorly as Cossacks, and then as well as Sevastopol! If that's good enough for Tolstoy .... )
February 4, 2025
Interesting. War is so inescapable this sem
October 25, 2021
It made me very happy to find this beautiful illustrated edition of Tolstoy’s “Tales of Sevastopol” and “The Cossacks”, published in English in the Soviet Union in 1982.
“Tales of Sevastopol”, more often translated as “Sevastopol Sketches”, tells of Tolstoy’s first-hand impressions of the siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War over 1854-55, before it ultimately fell to the Allies. The picture of Tolstoy on the jacket cover from 1854, at the age of 26, is a classic. Tolstoy was patriotic and admired the bravery of the Russian soldiers, and that comes through in his writing, but he was also honest about the horror of the conditions, and the senselessness of the death and dismembership he saw all around him. The result is a collection of sketches that shine with humanity, and ultimately both Tolstoy’s realism (“Who is the villain, and who the hero? All are good, and all are evil.”) and his idealism (“The hero of my tale, whom I love with all my heart and soul, whom I have tried to depict in all his beauty, and who always was, is and will be beautiful – is Truth.”)
“The Cossacks” is a short novel that Tolstoy started in 1853, but didn’t finish and publish until 1863 to help pay off his gambling debts. In it a Moscow nobleman leaves society to explore the mountainous region of the Caucasus, in Southern Russia, present-day Chechnya. He has no real plan but fantasizes over meeting a Circassian woman with “a fine figure with long tresses and deep submissive eyes”. He finds a group of Russian “Old Believers” who have split off from Russia’s Orthodox Church and live a rugged life, lives with them despite their distrust of him, and begins to admire their ways. They are constantly skirmishing with a group of native Chechens who live across the river. The local hero, a strapping young man, has his eyes on a girl who is beautiful and who also has a certain spark to her, and naturally enough, the newcomer also feels an attraction, thus setting up a love triangle. Meanwhile, the newcomer begins to question his life and what is important to him.
Elements of both stories reveal glimpses of Tolstoy’s soul searching later in his life, and the stories are timely given recent events in Crimea and Chechnya, reminding us a little of the history in these regions. Definitely worth reading.
Quotes:
One oneness, this from The Cossacks. Perhaps in this love of life and connectedness, one can see the germ of Tolstoy’s vegetarianism later in life:
“He felt cool and comfortable and had no thoughts or desires. And suddenly he was overcome by such a strange feeling of joy, and of love for everything, that, from an old habit of his childhood, he began crossing himself and giving thanks to someone. Suddenly, with unusual clarity, he thought: ‘Here am I, Dmitry Olenin, a being so distinct from every other being, now lying all alone, Heaven only knows where – where a stag used to live – a handsome old fellow, who perhaps had never seen the face of man, and in a place where no human being has ever sat, or thought these thoughts.
…
And it came to him clearly that he was not a Russian nobleman, a member of Moscow society, the friend and relation of so-and-so and so-and-so, but just such a mosquito, or pheasant, or deer, as those that were now living all round him. ‘Just as they, just as Uncle Yeroshka, I shall live awhile and die, and as he says truly, grass will grow and nothing more.’”
On happiness in running away from the ‘real world’, also from The Cossacks. Shades of ‘watching the wheels go ‘round and ‘round from John Lennon:
‘Oh, how repulsive and pitiable you all seem to me! You do not know what happiness is, and what life is! One must once taste life in all its natural beauty! One must see and understand what I see every day before me; those eternally unapproachable snowy peaks, and a majestic woman in that primitive beauty in which the first woman must have come from her Creator’s hands. That it becomes clear who is ruining himself, and who is living truly or falsely – you or I.”
“Tales of Sevastopol”, more often translated as “Sevastopol Sketches”, tells of Tolstoy’s first-hand impressions of the siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War over 1854-55, before it ultimately fell to the Allies. The picture of Tolstoy on the jacket cover from 1854, at the age of 26, is a classic. Tolstoy was patriotic and admired the bravery of the Russian soldiers, and that comes through in his writing, but he was also honest about the horror of the conditions, and the senselessness of the death and dismembership he saw all around him. The result is a collection of sketches that shine with humanity, and ultimately both Tolstoy’s realism (“Who is the villain, and who the hero? All are good, and all are evil.”) and his idealism (“The hero of my tale, whom I love with all my heart and soul, whom I have tried to depict in all his beauty, and who always was, is and will be beautiful – is Truth.”)
“The Cossacks” is a short novel that Tolstoy started in 1853, but didn’t finish and publish until 1863 to help pay off his gambling debts. In it a Moscow nobleman leaves society to explore the mountainous region of the Caucasus, in Southern Russia, present-day Chechnya. He has no real plan but fantasizes over meeting a Circassian woman with “a fine figure with long tresses and deep submissive eyes”. He finds a group of Russian “Old Believers” who have split off from Russia’s Orthodox Church and live a rugged life, lives with them despite their distrust of him, and begins to admire their ways. They are constantly skirmishing with a group of native Chechens who live across the river. The local hero, a strapping young man, has his eyes on a girl who is beautiful and who also has a certain spark to her, and naturally enough, the newcomer also feels an attraction, thus setting up a love triangle. Meanwhile, the newcomer begins to question his life and what is important to him.
Elements of both stories reveal glimpses of Tolstoy’s soul searching later in his life, and the stories are timely given recent events in Crimea and Chechnya, reminding us a little of the history in these regions. Definitely worth reading.
Quotes:
One oneness, this from The Cossacks. Perhaps in this love of life and connectedness, one can see the germ of Tolstoy’s vegetarianism later in life:
“He felt cool and comfortable and had no thoughts or desires. And suddenly he was overcome by such a strange feeling of joy, and of love for everything, that, from an old habit of his childhood, he began crossing himself and giving thanks to someone. Suddenly, with unusual clarity, he thought: ‘Here am I, Dmitry Olenin, a being so distinct from every other being, now lying all alone, Heaven only knows where – where a stag used to live – a handsome old fellow, who perhaps had never seen the face of man, and in a place where no human being has ever sat, or thought these thoughts.
…
And it came to him clearly that he was not a Russian nobleman, a member of Moscow society, the friend and relation of so-and-so and so-and-so, but just such a mosquito, or pheasant, or deer, as those that were now living all round him. ‘Just as they, just as Uncle Yeroshka, I shall live awhile and die, and as he says truly, grass will grow and nothing more.’”
On happiness in running away from the ‘real world’, also from The Cossacks. Shades of ‘watching the wheels go ‘round and ‘round from John Lennon:
‘Oh, how repulsive and pitiable you all seem to me! You do not know what happiness is, and what life is! One must once taste life in all its natural beauty! One must see and understand what I see every day before me; those eternally unapproachable snowy peaks, and a majestic woman in that primitive beauty in which the first woman must have come from her Creator’s hands. That it becomes clear who is ruining himself, and who is living truly or falsely – you or I.”
July 4, 2020
Nice short read. Very enjoyable.
May 25, 2022
sevastopol stories as a kind of introduction to tolstoy. already believe i would think this man is genius before going in. i enjoyed these. pretty good.
July 3, 2022
not hard cover but on my Kindle
good story proving the futility of war.
good story proving the futility of war.
January 7, 2025
Y'know, I really like this book but it's so low in the Tolstoy pantheon that it can't really go higher than four stars
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January 28, 2026(Sevastopol Tales) RUSS3222
March 18, 2026
Sevastopol in May has my favorite closing line in any work I’ve read to date.
February 12, 2017
"čovjek nikada nije toliko sebičan kao u času duševnog ushićenja. njemu se čini da u tom trenutku ne postoji na svijetu ništa divnije ni zanimljivije nego što je on sam.
kao što uvijek biva na dalekom putu, na prve dvije-tri postaje duša ostaje još uvijek na onom mjestu odakle se pošlo pa se poslije odjednom, s prvim jutrom što je na putu osvanulo, prenese na cilj putovanja i tamo već gradi kule budućnosti.
Olenjinovo pismo - str. 336
kao što uvijek biva na dalekom putu, na prve dvije-tri postaje duša ostaje još uvijek na onom mjestu odakle se pošlo pa se poslije odjednom, s prvim jutrom što je na putu osvanulo, prenese na cilj putovanja i tamo već gradi kule budućnosti.
Olenjinovo pismo - str. 336
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