The Cossacks: A Tale of 1852

by graf Leo Tolstoy

  Chapter IV

  That whole part of the Terek line (about fifty miles) along which liethe villages of the Grebensk Cossacks is uniform in character both asto country and inhabitants. The Terek, which separates the Cossacksfrom the mountaineers, still flows turbid and rapid though alreadybroad and smooth, always depositing greyish sand on its low reedy rightbank and washing away the steep, though not high, left bank, with itsroots of century-old oaks, its rotting plane trees, and youngbrushwood. On the right bank lie the villages of pro-Russian, thoughstill somewhat restless, Tartars. Along the left bank, back half a milefrom the river and standing five or six miles apart from one another,are Cossack villages. In olden times most of these villages weresituated on the banks of the river; but the Terek, shifting northwardfrom the mountains year by year, washed away those banks, and now thereremain only the ruins of the old villages and of the gardens of pearand plum trees and poplars, all overgrown with blackberry bushes andwild vines. No one lives there now, and one only sees the tracks of thedeer, the wolves, the hares, and the pheasants, who have learned tolove these places. From village to village runs a road cut through theforest as a cannon-shot might fly. Along the roads are cordons ofCossacks and watch-towers with sentinels in them. Only a narrow stripabout seven hundred yards wide of fertile wooded soil belongs to theCossacks. To the north of it begin the sand-drifts of the Nogay orMozdok steppes, which fetch far to the north and run, Heaven knowswhere, into the Trukhmen, Astrakhan, and Kirghiz-Kaisatsk steppes. Tothe south, beyond the Terek, are the Great Chechnya river, theKochkalov range, the Black Mountains, yet another range, and at lastthe snowy mountains, which can just be seen but have never yet beenscaled. In this fertile wooded strip, rich in vegetation, has dwelt asfar back as memory runs the fine warlike and prosperous Russian tribebelonging to the sect of Old Believers, and called the GrebenskCossacks.

  Long long ago their Old Believer ancestors fled from Russia and settledbeyond the Terek among the Chechens on the Greben, the first range ofwooded mountains of Chechnya. Living among the Chechens the Cossacksintermarried with them and adopted the manners and customs of the hilltribes, though they still retained the Russian language in all itspurity, as well as their Old Faith. A tradition, still fresh amongthem, declares that Tsar Ivan the Terrible came to the Terek, sent fortheir Elders, and gave them the land on this side of the river,exhorting them to remain friendly to Russia and promising not toenforce his rule upon them nor oblige them to change their faith. Evennow the Cossack families claim relationship with the Chechens, and thelove of freedom, of leisure, of plunder and of war, still form theirchief characteristics. Only the harmful side of Russian influence showsitself--by interference at elections, by confiscation of church bells,and by the troops who are quartered in the country or march through it.A Cossack is inclined to hate less the dzhigit hillsman who maybe haskilled his brother, than the soldier quartered on him to defend hisvillage, but who has defiled his hut with tobacco-smoke. He respectshis enemy the hillsman and despises the soldier, who is in his eyes analien and an oppressor. In reality, from a Cossack's point of view aRussian peasant is a foreign, savage, despicable creature, of whom hesees a sample in the hawkers who come to the country and in theUkrainian immigrants whom the Cossack contemptuously calls'woolbeaters'. For him, to be smartly dressed means to be dressed likea Circassian. The best weapons are obtained from the hillsmen and thebest horses are bought, or stolen, from them. A dashing young Cossacklikes to show off his knowledge of Tartar, and when carousing talksTartar even to his fellow Cossack. In spite of all these things thissmall Christian clan stranded in a tiny corner of the earth, surroundedby half-savage Mohammedan tribes and by soldiers, considers itselfhighly advanced, acknowledges none but Cossacks as human beings, anddespises everybody else. The Cossack spends most of his time in thecordon, in action, or in hunting and fishing. He hardly ever works athome. When he stays in the village it is an exception to the generalrule and then he is holiday-making. All Cossacks make their own wine,and drunkenness is not so much a general tendency as a rite, thenon-fulfilment of which would be considered apostasy. The Cossack looksupon a woman as an instrument for his welfare; only the unmarried girlsare allowed to amuse themselves. A married woman has to work for herhusband from youth to very old age: his demands on her are the Orientalones of submission and labour. In consequence of this outlook women arestrongly developed both physically and mentally, and though theyare--as everywhere in the East--nominally in subjection, they possessfar greater influence and importance in family-life than Western women.Their exclusion from public life and inurement to heavy male labourgive the women all the more power and importance in the household. ACossack, who before strangers considers it improper to speakaffectionately or needlessly to his wife, when alone with her isinvoluntarily conscious of her superiority. His house and all hisproperty, in fact the entire homestead, has been acquired and is kepttogether solely by her labour and care. Though firmly convinced thatlabour is degrading to a Cossack and is only proper for a Nogaylabourer or a woman, he is vaguely aware of the fact that all he makesuse of and calls his own is the result of that toil, and that it is inthe power of the woman (his mother or his wife) whom he considers hisslave, to deprive him of all he possesses. Besides, the continuousperformance of man's heavy work and the responsibilities entrusted toher have endowed the Grebensk women with a peculiarly independentmasculine character and have remarkably developed their physicalpowers, common sense, resolution, and stability. The women are in mostcases stronger, more intelligent, more developed, and handsomer thanthe men. A striking feature of a Grebensk woman's beauty is thecombination of the purest Circassian type of face with the broad andpowerful build of Northern women. Cossack women wear the Circassiandress--a Tartar smock, beshmet, and soft slippers--but they tie theirkerchiefs round their heads in the Russian fashion. Smartness,cleanliness and elegance in dress and in the arrangement of their huts,are with them a custom and a necessity. In their relations with men thewomen, and especially the unmarried girls, enjoy perfect freedom.

  Novomlinsk village was considered the very heart of GrebenskCossackdom. In it more than elsewhere the customs of the old Grebenskpopulation have been preserved, and its women have from time immemorialbeen renowned all over the Caucasus for their beauty. A Cossack'slivelihood is derived from vineyards, fruit-gardens, water melon andpumpkin plantations, from fishing, hunting, maize and millet growing,and from war plunder. Novomlinsk village lies about two and a halfmiles away from the Terek, from which it is separated by a denseforest. On one side of the road which runs through the village is theriver; on the other, green vineyards and orchards, beyond which areseen the driftsands of the Nogay Steppe. The village is surrounded byearth-banks and prickly bramble hedges, and is entered by tall gateshung between posts and covered with little reed-thatched roofs. Besidethem on a wooden gun-carriage stands an unwieldy cannon captured by theCossacks at some time or other, and which has not been fired for ahundred years. A uniformed Cossack sentinel with dagger and gunsometimes stands, and sometimes does not stand, on guard beside thegates, and sometimes presents arms to a passing officer and sometimesdoes not. Below the roof of the gateway is written in black letters ona white board: 'Houses 266: male inhabitants 897: female 1012.' TheCossacks' houses are all raised on pillars two and a half feet from theground. They are carefully thatched with reeds and have large carvedgables. If not new they are at least all straight and clean, with highporches of different shapes; and they are not built close together buthave ample space around them, and are all picturesquely placed alongbroad streets and lanes. In front of the large bright windows of manyof the houses, beyond the kitchen gardens, dark green poplars andacacias with their delicate pale verdure and scented white blossomsovertop the houses, and beside them grow flaunting yellow sunflowers,creepers, and grape vines. In the broad open square are three shopswhere drapery, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, locust beans andgingerbreads are sold; and surrounded by a tall fence, loftier andlarger than the other houses, stands the R
egimental Commander'sdwelling with its casement windows, behind a row of tall poplars. Fewpeople are to be seen in the streets of the village on weekdays,especially in summer. The young men are on duty in the cordons or onmilitary expeditions; the old ones are fishing or helping the women inthe orchards and gardens. Only the very old, the sick, and thechildren, remain at home.