THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

In The Cossacks, Tolstoy has Olenin rhapsodize a fantastic encounter with a highland girl while on his way to serve on the line: “She stood there in the mountains, a Circassian slave girl, slender, with a long braid and deep, docile eyes… He imaged her kisses, her shoulders, her sweet voice, her docility. She was beautiful but uneducated, wild, and rough. During the long winter nights he would begin to educate her… She would also have a knack for languages, read French novels, and even understand them – she would surely love Notre-Dame du Paris. And she would be able to speak French.” Tolstoy here captured the essential attributes of the imaginary Circassian female: simple, wild, rough, unformed but welcoming, a sexual idiot savant.

King/Caucasus, 2008