"The Cossacks" was published in 1863 and is one of Tolstoy's most beautiful novellas, in which he supports the superiority of primitive humans. It is a period in which he himself has devoted himself entirely to agriculture and the prosperity of his property.

The psychological world of Tolstoy's heroes is not something self-existent and self-generating, but is shaped through interaction with the surrounding conditions and the social environment of each hero. Thus, the psychology and mental world of the Cossacks, who live free from any oppression of tsarism, is completely different, as is the psychology of the peasants, who live under completely different conditions.