Prisoner begins with the ambush of a small troop of Russian soldiers policing the Caucasus by Muslim rebels from a nearby mountain village. Two Russian soldiers, a cynical veteran and a young recruit, are taken prisoner and are held for ransom - to be exchanged for the son of the village patriarch, who is being held in a Russian jail. But the anguish of the patriarch over his son's imprisonment, and the rift between the village elders over the fate of the soldiers, are portrayed with equal sensitivity. What emerges is a complex endgame in which both sides are implicated. It's a famous story in Russia, a classic.
Every kid has to read it.
In fact, it was written for kids and I knew the story when I was eight years old. In this story, the Chechens captured two Russian officers because they wanted to sell them for money. But Tolstoy was a Russian officer, so he was pro-Russian. And the Russians were right, and the Chechens were wrong. Tolstoy was a genius, so he could afford to make mistakes.