"The Inquiry" (Russian: Дознание, romanised as Doznaniye) is a short story by Alexander Kuprin first published in Russkoye Bogatstvo's August 1894, issue, under the title "From the Distant Past" (Iz otdalyonnovo proshlovo, Из отдалённого прошлого).
The story's original title, "Corporal Punishment" (Экзекуция) has been dropped by the magazine's editor Nikolai Mikhaylovsky so as to avoid possible problems with censorship.
[2] According to the latter, "The Inquiry is central to Kuprin's development because in Kozlovsky it presents the first in a succession of sensitive young officers at odds with their fellows and painfully aware of the injustice prevalent in the army.
"[2] Kozlovsky, a young lieutenant in a provincial garrison, is ordered to conduct an inquiry into the theft of a pair of boot tops and thirty-seven kopecks, of which the Tatar Baiguzin is the only suspect.
Having unwillingly established an irrational spiritual bond with this pathetic childlike creature, he suddenly sees the horrors of the army though Baiguzin's eyes and is now tormented by feelings of guilt.