वाचनालय

A Prisoner of the Caucasus

Leo Tolstoy

Story. Part of the Azbuka cycle (1872–1875), the primers Tolstoy wrote for peasant children, included in the Fourth Russian Reader (1875). The officer Zhilin and his comrade Kostylin are captured by Caucasian mountaineers who demand ransom. Zhilin wins the friendship of Dina, his captor's daughter, who helps him escape. Written for the Azbuka and published in 1872 in the magazine Zarya, Tolstoy considered it a model of his new plain prose.