Caucasian Captive: A True Story

Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy 1828-1910 - a Russian writer and philosopher, author of world-famous works such as War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and Resurrection. He was born in Yasnaya Polyana into a wealthy aristocratic family. L.N. Tolstoy became an orphan at... an early age. In 1837, he moved to Moscow with his sister and three brothers, where a distant relative T.A. Ergolskaya took care of their upbringing. In 1851, he joined the military service in the Caucasus, where he wrote extensively. In 1852, L.N. Tolstoy sent the manuscript of Childhood to the popular magazine Sovremennik at the time. The editor of the magazine, N.A. Nekrasov, already highly appreciated the young author's work. After the end of the Crimean War, L.N. Tolstoy moved to St. Petersburg and immediately joined the circle of Sovremennik. In 1872, L.N. Tolstoy wrote the story The Caucasian Captive, which tells about a Russian officer captured by the mountaineers. The work is partly based on a true story that happened to the writer in the Caucasus. Together with his Chechen friend Sado, he traveled far from the detachment escorting the convoy and nearly fell into captivity. The sentry of the fortress of Grozny timely noticed that they were being pursued by the mountaineers and alerted the Cossacks. The protagonist of the story, officer Zhilin, becomes a captive. He develops complex relationships with the inhabitants of the aul, and only the kind girl Dina becomes his friend. By truthfully describing the details of Zhilin's captivity, Tolstoy shows that war is evil, condemns ethnic strife, and mutual hatred.