The new novel by the Stavropol writer V. Butenko, “The Cossack Altar,” tells about the fate of the Cossacks at a turning point in the historical era of the 20th century. For the first time in Russian literature, the author turned to the little-known events of the Great Patriotic War that took place in the North Caucasus and Western Europe. The action takes place during the most dramatic period of the war, when in the summer of 1942, Nazi troops broke through to the steppe expanses of the Kuban. The war split the ancient Cossack family of the Shatalovs, and the heroes were faced with the problem of a moral choice: to sacrifice themselves in the fight against the invaders in the name of the Soviet government, which mercilessly oppressed them, or to support the invaders, who promised a free life? But they are guided by a feeling of love for their native land, loyalty to Cossack traditions.