Fast-forward from Tolstoy's 1850s to 1920: Isaac Babel, a Soviet reporter, is riding with the Red Cossacks, a brigade that has made common cause with the Bolsheviks. They are hoping forcibly to ...

Leo Tolstoy grew up on an estate and was orphaned at nine. He lived aimlessly before joining the army at 23. His army service contributed to a successful collection of stories, “Sevastapol ...

When Leo Tolstoy sat down to write “The Cossacks,” he set it near present-day Stavropol, where the Terek River divided the Muslim-populated mountains from the steppes, which were Cossack country.