The Cossacks Summary

Dmitri Olenin is a privileged 24-year-old military cadet who, after an aimless youth, decides to go to the Caucasus to serve his country and Tsar. He brings with him the servant, Vanyusha, as he goes from Moscow to pursue dreams of a heroic future filled with "Circassian women, mountains, precipices, terrible torrents, and perils." There, too, this youthful cynic who does not believe in love hopes to find the perfect woman, and to come to her "covered with dust, blood and fame." Deep in the heart of the Caucasus, Olenin encounters a complex culture along the 50-mile length of the Terek River.

Grebensk Cossacks, descendants of original Russians who migrated there, are concentrated on one side of the river where thay have intermarried with nearby Chechens but preserve their language and many of their customs. The center of their settlement is...