The Cossacks (Russian: Казаки [Kazaki]) is a short novel by Leo Tolstoy, published in 1863 in the popular literary magazine The Russian Messenger. It was origi­nally called Young Manhood. Both Ivan Turgenev and the Nobel prize-winning Russian writer Ivan Bunin gave the work great praise, with Turgenev calling it his fa­vourite work by Tolstoy. Tolstoy began work on the story in August 1853. In August 1857, after having reread the Iliad, he vowed to completely rewrite The Cossacks. In February 1862, after having lost badly at cards he finis­hed the novel to help pay his debts. The novel was pub­lished in 1863, the same year his first child was born.