The history of the creation of the novel War and Peace by Tolstoy. The creative history of the creation of the novel 'War and Peace' Briefly

During our school years, each of us was fascinated by the story of the fate and love of the main characters of the brilliant creation of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy called “War and Peace.” Natasha Rostova and Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov - we have known these names since childhood, because through these characters the author conveyed to us the problems of the nineteenth century and how people struggled with them. Let's trace the history of the creation of "War and Peace" together.

Tolstoy managed to create a work that became popular all over the world, which he created for many years by working hard. Many global events taking place in our country at the beginning of the nineteenth century prompted the writer to express his thoughts in this format. The uprisings of peasants and Decembrists, the abolition of serfdom, the victory in the Patriotic War with Napoleon, all this made it clear and understand how powerful and strong the unification of the entire people can be.

In each individual hero, in the depiction of the entire Russian people and in their character as a whole, which are indicated in the novel, we can catch the well-founded, thoughtful view of the writer and his conclusions that he made by studying the history of his homeland, visiting the places of battles described in his work. Tragic destinies, poignant love lines, and the experiences of the characters were able to convey the entire atmosphere that took place during that difficult period of time.

The main idea, the main plot line of the novel “War and Peace” briefly.

The work took a long time to be created; it is known that Tolstoy rewrote the first volume of his novel many times, the plot changed, and the main idea also changed. What did the author come to anyway?

"People's Thought". This favorite phrase of the author can characterize the work. He came to this idea based on studying history. What helped us defeat Napoleon in terrible war? It is the unification of all people into a single whole, such a strong wall that is difficult for the enemy to break. But delving into all the events of that time, you can find a lot of interesting things in the fate and character of everyone who went through that war.

Reference. Initially, the idea was to tell about the fate of one brave Decembrist, but during the writing several more storylines were added. The Rostov family, Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov are the main characters, watching whom we delve into the beginning of the 19th century and can feel at least a small part of what they experienced. Using their example, we see that despite military operations and what is happening around us, we must always have faith, love and simply live. In addition to the personal lives of the heroes, there is a storyline of historical events.

The period of work on the novel.

The writer thought about writing a novel long before its publication. Back in 1856, he began work and only in 1861 he decided to read the first chapter to Turgenev. There were many different test titles, different plots. At first it was planned to describe completely different events, but soon Lev Nikolaevich abandoned his manuscripts and later began a completely different narrative, which was later recognized as brilliant and has survived to this day.

For six years Tolstoy worked on his legendary work. This lasted from 1863 to December 1869.

What sources were used to write the novel?

The author studied a huge amount of material, documents and chronicles that dated back to 1812. He was able to collect a large library of books describing the biography of both Alexander the Great and Napoleon. But all these sources only confused him and confused his thoughts. In view of this, Tolstoy began to develop his own opinion and attitude towards all historical figures and events. He decided to trust his inner voice and begin to independently collect historical facts that found their place in the novel.

For his work, he began to use the notes of his contemporaries, collected information in newspaper and magazine articles, and read letters from generals. I personally visited the place where the tragic events took place and lived for a couple of days in Borodino. The trip inspired me to continue my work and gave me a special mood and elation.

Tolstoy's thoughts and experiences during the period of writing

The epic novel is imbued with the thoughts, experiences, feelings and thoughts of the author. Through text, he was able to convey everything that was inside him, his entire worldview on the events of those years. Philosophical thoughts in historical chapters form an integral part of the worldview that developed in him in a difficult way and brought long-awaited peace and happiness.

The underlying idea is that historical moments in people's lives are governed by inexorable laws. Even the desire and will of individual outstanding personalities is not enough; they cannot influence the development of history. A person who sets goals for himself and goes to achieve them, directing all his strength, thinks that he is free in his actions. Not only is he not free, but he also does not always achieve the results he hopes to see. The historical process consists precisely of what a large number of people do, regardless of their personal goals and aspirations.

Tolstoy knew that in all grandiose historical events, the people's unification was the decisive part. This awareness of the role of the masses in history forms the basis of the story of the historical past that War and Peace gives us. Understanding this made it easier for the author artistic creation the image of that same national unity, depicting its participation in the war. Describing the war, the writer draws attention to the properties of the Russian people - they do not bend before the most terrible invasion of the enemy, about their will and patriotism, they are ready to die, but will never surrender to the one who attacks them. Tolstoy also shows us more detailed image Kutuzov as a historical figure of that era. It was his image that helped Lev Nikolaevich very deeply and clearly reveal the character that the people had during the Patriotic War of 1812. It shows us the army's trust in its commander and makes him a truly popular historical figure. This deep and very true thought guided the author when he created the image of Kutuzov in “War and Peace.”

In the digressions and chapters where Tolstoy expressed his philosophical thoughts, he often repeated that he thought that historical events happen only because they have to happen, and if we try to understand and explain these phenomena, then they immediately become even more incomprehensible.

The role of one person in the whole story negligible. No matter how brilliant and outstanding a person is, he will still not be able to control the movement of history at will. History is created by all of humanity, by all the masses, and not by one person who put himself above others and took upon himself the right to control the course of events.

From all this it follows that Tolstoy did not deny the role of man in history and did not reduce it to zero. Anyone who participates in events, is gifted with intelligence and is able to delve into events, grasp the meaning of what is happening, who is close to the people, deserves the right to be called great and brilliant. There are very few of them, one of them is Kutuzov, but Napoleon is his complete opposite.

Conclusion

One of the greatest creations is rightfully called the epic novel “War and Peace.” This is Tolstoy’s most outstanding creation, which managed to occupy a special place in his work, as well as in the development of the artistic culture of all people on earth. This book brought him fame all over the world and gave reason to recognize him as one of the most brilliant realist writers.

“War and Peace” is the legendary epic novel by L.N. Tolstoy, who laid the foundation for a new genre of prose in world literature. The lines of the great work were created under the influence of history, philosophy and social disciplines, which the great writer thoroughly studied, since historical works require the most accurate information. Having studied many documents, Tolstoy covered historical events with maximum accuracy, confirming the information with memoirs of eyewitnesses of the great era.

Prerequisites for writing the novel War and Peace

The idea of ​​writing a novel arose as a result of impressions from a meeting with the Decembrist S. Volkonsky, who told Tolstoy about life in exile in the Siberian expanses. It was 1856. A separate chapter called “Decembrists” fully conveyed the spirit of the hero, his principles and political beliefs.

After some time, the author decides to return to the depths of history and highlight the events not only of 1825, but also the beginning of the formation of the Decembrist movement and their ideology. Covering the events of 1812, Tolstoy studies a lot of historical materials of that era - the records of V.A. Perovsky, S. Zhikharev, A.P. Ermolov, letters from General F.P. Uvarova, maids of honor M.A. Volkova, as well as a number of materials from Russian and French historians. An equally important role in the creation of the novel was played by the authentic battle plans, orders and instructions of the high ranks of the imperial palace during the War of 1812.

But the writer does not stop there either, returning to the historical events of the early 19th century. The novel features historical figures Napoleon and Alexander I, thereby complicating the structure and genre of the great work.

The main theme of the epic War and Peace

This ingenious historical work, which took about 6 years to write, represents the incredibly truthful mood of the Russian people, their psychology and worldview during the time of the imperial battles. The lines of the novel are imbued with the morality and individuality of each of the characters, of which there are more than 500 in the novel. The whole picture of the work lies in the ingenious reproduction of artistic images of representatives of all walks of life, from the emperor to the ordinary soldier. An incredible impression is made by the scenes where the author conveys both the high motives of the heroes and the base ones, thereby pointing to the life of a Russian person in its various manifestations.

Over the years, under the influence of literary critics, Tolstoy made some changes to some parts of the work - he reduced the number of volumes to 4, transferred some of the thoughts to the epilogue, and made some stylistic changes. In 1868, a work appeared in which the author sets out some of the details of writing the novel, sheds light on some details of the style and genre of writing, as well as the characteristics of the main characters.

Thanks to the restless and talented personality that was Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, the world saw a great book about self-improvement, which was, is and will be relevant among a huge number of readers of all times and peoples. Here anyone will find answers to life’s most difficult questions, drawing on wisdom, philosophy and the brilliant historical experience of the Russian people.

The history of the creation of the novel "War and Peace"

Tolstoy's path to "War and Peace" was difficult - however, there were no easy paths in his life.

Tolstoy brilliantly entered literature with his first work - the initial part of the autobiographical trilogy "Childhood" (1852). "Sevastopol Stories" (1855) strengthened the success. The young writer, yesterday's army officer, was joyfully greeted by St. Petersburg writers - especially from among the authors and employees of Sovremennik (Nekrasov was the first to read the manuscript "Childhood", highly appreciated it and published it in the magazine). However, the commonality of views and interests of Tolstoy and the capital’s writers cannot be overestimated. Tolstoy very soon began to distance himself from his fellow writers, moreover, he emphasized in every possible way that the very spirit of literary salons was alien to him.

Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg, where the “advanced literary community” opened its arms to him from Sevastopol. During the war, amid blood, fear and pain, there was no time for entertainment, just as there was no time for intellectual conversations. In the capital, he is in a hurry to make up for lost time - he divides his time between carousing with gypsies and conversations with Turgenev, Druzhinin, Botkin, Aksakov. However, if the gypsies did not disappoint expectations, then “conversations with smart people“After two weeks, Tolstoy ceased to be interested. In letters to his sister and brother, he angrily joked that he liked “smart conversation” with writers, but he was “too behind them”, in their company “you want to fall apart, take off your pants and blow your nose in your hand, but in an intelligent conversation you want to tell a stupid lie." And the point is not that one of the St. Petersburg writers was personally unpleasant to Tolstoy. He does not accept the very atmosphere of literary circles and parties, all this near-literary fuss. The craft of writing is a lonely business : alone with a piece of paper, with his soul and conscience. No incoming circle interests should influence what is written or determine the position of the author. And in May 1856, Tolstoy “flees” to Yasnaya Polyana. From that moment on, he only left for a short time, never striving to return to the light.From Yasnaya Polyana there was only one way - to even greater simplicity: to the asceticism of the wanderer.

Literary affairs are combined with simple and clear activities: organizing a home, farming, peasant labors. At this moment, one of Tolstoy’s most important traits manifests itself: writing seems to him to be a kind of departure from the real business, a substitution. It does not give the right to eat bread grown by peasants with a clear conscience. This torments and depresses the writer, forcing him to spend more and more time away from his desk. And so in July 1857 he finds something to do that allows him to constantly work and see the real fruits of this work: Tolstoy opens in Yasnaya Polyana school for peasant children. The efforts of Tolstoy the teacher were not directed toward elementary educational attainment. He strives to awaken creative forces in children, activate and develop their spiritual and intellectual potential.

While working at school, Tolstoy became more and more immersed in the peasant world, comprehending its laws, psychological and moral foundations. He contrasted this world of simple and clear human relationships with the world of the nobility, the educated world, led away by civilization from eternal foundations. And this opposition was not in favor of the people of his circle.

The purity of thoughts, the freshness and accuracy of perception of his barefoot students, their ability to absorb knowledge and creativity forced Tolstoy to write a sharply polemical article on the nature of artistic creativity with a shocking title: “Who should learn to write from whom, the peasant children from us or us from the peasant children?”

The question of the nationality of literature has always been one of the most important for Tolstoy. And turning to pedagogy, he penetrated even deeper into the essence and laws of artistic creativity, sought and found strong “support points” for his literary “independence.”

Parting with St. Petersburg and the society of metropolitan writers, the search for one’s own direction in creativity and a sharp refusal to participate in public life, as the revolutionary democrats understood it, to engage in pedagogy - all these are features of the first crisis in creative biography Tolstoy. The brilliant beginning is a thing of the past: everything written by Tolstoy in the second half of the 50s ("Lucerne", "Albert") is not successful; In the novel "Family Happiness" the author himself becomes disappointed and leaves the work unfinished. Experiencing this crisis, Tolstoy strives to completely rethink his worldview in order to live and write differently.

The beginning of a new period is marked by the revised and completed story “Cossacks” (1862). And so, in February 1863, Tolstoy began work on a novel, which would later be called “War and Peace.”

“Thus began a book on which seven years of incessant and exceptional labor under the best living conditions would be spent.” A book that contains years of historical research (“a whole library of books”) and family legends, the tragic experience of the Sevastopol bastions and the little things of Yasnaya Polyana life, the problems raised in “Childhood” and “Lucerne”, “Sevastopol Stories” and “Cossacks” (Roman L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace" in Russian criticism: Collection of articles. - Leningrad, Leningrad University Publishing House, 1989).

The begun novel becomes an alloy of the highest achievements of Tolstoy's early creativity: the psychological analysis of "Childhood", the truth-seeking and de-romanticization of the war of "Sevastopol Stories", the philosophical understanding of the world of "Lucerne", the nationality of the "Cossacks". On this complex basis, the idea of ​​a moral-psychological and historical-philosophical novel, an epic novel, was formed, in which the author sought to recreate the true historical picture three eras of Russian history and analyze their moral lessons, comprehend and proclaim the very laws of history.

Tolstoy’s first ideas for a new novel appeared in the late 50s: a novel about a Decembrist who returned with his family from Siberia in 1856: then the main characters were called Pierre and Natasha Lobazov. But this idea was abandoned - and in 1863 the writer returned to it. “As the plan progressed, there was an intense search for the title of the novel. The original, “Three Times,” soon ceased to correspond to the content, because from 1856 to 1825 Tolstoy moved further into the past; the focus was on only one “time” - 1812. So a different date appeared, and the first chapters of the novel were published in the magazine "Russian Bulletin" under the title "1805". new option, no longer concretely historical, but philosophical: “All’s well that ends well.” And finally, in 1867 - another title, where the historical and philosophical formed a certain balance - “War and Peace”... (L.N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” in Russian criticism: Collection of articles. - L.: Leningrad University Publishing House, 1989).

What is the essence of this consistently developing plan, why, starting in 1856, did Tolstoy come to 1805? What is the essence of this time chain: 1856 - 1825 -1812 -1805?

1856 for 1863, when work began on the novel, is modernity, the beginning of a new era in the history of Russia. Nicholas I died in 1855. His successor on the throne, Alexander II, granted amnesty to the Decembrists and allowed them to return to central Russia. The new sovereign was preparing reforms that were supposed to radically transform the life of the country (the main one was the abolition of serfdom). So, a novel is conceived about modernity, about 1856. But this is modernity in a historical aspect, for Decembrism takes us back to 1825, to the uprising in Senate Square on the day of taking the oath to Nicholas I. More than 30 years have passed since that day - and now the aspirations of the Decembrists, although partially, are beginning to come true, their work, during which they spent three decades in prisons, "convict holes" and in settlements - alive. With what eyes will the Decembrist see the renewing Fatherland, having parted with it for more than thirty years, withdrawn from active public life, and knowing the real life of Nikolaev Russia only from afar? Who will the current reformers seem to him like - sons? followers? strangers?

Any historical works - if it is not an elementary illustration and not the desire to fantasize with impunity on historical material - are written in order to better understand modernity, to find and understand the origins of today. That is why Tolstoy, pondering the essence of the changes taking place before his eyes, into the future, looks for their origins, because he understands that truly these new times did not begin yesterday, but much earlier.

So, from 1856 to 1825. But the uprising of December 14, 1825 was not the beginning either: it was only an outcome - and a tragic outcome! - Decembrism. As is known, the formation of the first Decembrist organization, the Union of Salvation, dates back to 1816. In order to create secret society, its future members needed to endure and formulate common “protests and hopes,” see the goal and realize that it can only be achieved by uniting. Consequently, 1816 is not the origin. And then everything concentrates on 1812 - the beginning of the Patriotic War.

The generally accepted point of view on the origins of Decembrism is known: having defeated the “invincible Napoleon”, having crossed half of Europe in the liberation campaign, having experienced military brotherhood, which transcends ranks and class barriers, Russian society returned to the same deceitful, perverted state and social system that it had before. before the war. And the best, the most conscientious, could not come to terms with this. This view of the origins of Decembrism is supported by the famous statement of one of the Decembrists: “We were children of the twelfth year...”

However, this view of the Decembrist uprising from 1812 does not seem exhaustive to Tolstoy. This logic is too elementary, suspiciously simple for him: they defeated Napoleon - they realized their strength - they saw a free Europe - they returned to Russia and felt the need for change. Tolstoy is not looking for an explicit historical sequence of events, but for a philosophical understanding of history, knowledge of its laws. And then the beginning of the novel’s action moves to 1805 - the era of the “ascension” of Napoleon and the penetration of the “Napoleonic idea” into Russian minds. This becomes for the author the starting point at which all the contradictions of the Decembrist idea, which determined the course of Russian history for many decades, are concentrated.

The meaning of the novel's title

The final version of the title of the novel "War and Peace" not only combines the philosophical and historical. This name is much deeper and more meaningful than all the original ones. At first glance, “War and Peace” seems to illustrate the alternation and combination of military and peaceful episodes in the novel. But in the Russian language, the word peace means not only “a state without war,” but also a human community, initially a peasant community; and the world - like everything that surrounds us: the environment, the physical and spiritual atmosphere of living. And all these meanings are “triggered” in the title of Tolstoy’s novel. The more seriously it is read, the more deeply it is understood, the more voluminous and multidimensional the meaning of this formula becomes: war and peace.

Tolstoy's novel is about the place and role of war in people's lives, about the unnaturalness of bloody strife in human relationships. About what is lost and what is gained in the heat of battle. About the fact that, in addition to wooden houses burning to the ground, the very world of pre-war Russia is disappearing into oblivion; that with every person who dies on the battlefield, his entire unique spiritual world dies, thousands of threads are torn, dozens of destinies of his loved ones are crippled... This is a novel about the fact that there is war in the life of the people and in the life of every person; what role does it play in world history; about the origins of the war and its outcome.

Bibliography

Dolinina N.G. Through the pages of War and Peace. Notes about the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace". - St. Petersburg: "Lyceum", 1999.

Maymin K.A. Lev Tolstoy. The writer's path. - M.: Nauka, 1980.

Monakhova O.P., Malkhazova M.V. Russian literature of the 19th century. Part 1. - M.-1994.

Roman L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" in Russian criticism: Sat. articles. - L.: Lening publishing house. University, 1989

The creative history of the epic novel is extremely complex. “War and Peace” is the result of six years of ascetic work (1863-1869). Many variants and rough drafts have been preserved, the volume of which significantly exceeds the main text of the novel. The concept of the work took shape over several years. At first, Tolstoy conceived a novel from modern life—about a Decembrist returning from exile in 1856. In 1860, three chapters of the novel “The Decembrists” were written.

In 1863, Tolstoy began work on “A Novel from the Time of 1810-1820.” But this time he was interested in a wider range of issues. From the narrative about the fate of the Decembrist, he moved on to the theme of Decembrism as a socio-historical phenomenon, therefore he turned not to modernity, but to 1825 - the era of “delusions and misfortunes” of the main character, and then to the Patriotic War of 1812 and the events that preceded it in 1805 -1807 It was during this historical period, according to Tolstoy, that a special type of consciousness was formed, characteristic of future participants in secret societies.

Already in 1863, several versions of the beginning of the novel were created. One of the sketches, “Three Times,” appeared when Tolstoy was about to write a trilogy about the Decembrist, covering three eras: 1812, 1825 and 1856. Gradually, the chronological scope of the novel expanded: the action was supposed to take place in 1805, 1807, 1812, 1825 and 1856. However, later the writer limited himself to a narrower historical era. New options have appeared, including “A Day in Moscow (name day in Moscow 1808).” In 1864, the excerpt “From 1805 to 1814” was written. A novel by Count L.N. Tolstoy. 1805 Part 1. Chapter 1." The main character was the Decembrist (this corresponded to the original plan), but from the “Decembrist” trilogy the idea of ​​a historical novel about the era of the Napoleonic wars had already finally emerged. Tolstoy studied historical documents, planning to write a chronicle of the life of a noble family at the beginning of the century. This work was supposed to have several parts.

Having submitted the manuscript of the first part (“1805”) to the magazine “Russian Messenger” (published in early 1865), Tolstoy doubted the correctness of his plan. He decided to supplement the “character concept” with a “historical concept”, introduce historical figures into the novel - Alexander I and Napoleon, write them “ psychological history" This required turning to historical documents, careful study of memoirs and letters of the early 19th century. At this stage, the genre structure of the work became significantly more complicated. Due to the abundance of historical materials that were of independent interest, it no longer fit into the framework of a traditional family novel. At the end of 1865, the second part of the novel “1805” was created (published in 1866 in the magazine “Russian Messenger”).

In 1866-1867 Tolstoy sketched the last parts of the novel under the title "All's Well That Ends Well." The ending of the novel differed from the ending of the final version of War and Peace: the heroes successfully and “without losses” went through difficult trials. In addition, the important theme of “War and Peace” - historical and philosophical - was barely outlined, the image historical figures played a minor role.

Work on the novel, contrary to Tolstoy’s plans, did not end there. The idea expanded again. This time, one of the main themes of the future epic novel appeared - the theme of the people. The appearance of the entire work has changed: from a family history novel (“1805”) it turned into an epic work of enormous historical scale. It included pictures of the Patriotic War of 1812, lengthy reflections on the course and meaning of historical events. In September 1867, Tolstoy made a trip to the Borodino field in order to study the site of one of the greatest battles that decided the outcome of the war. Having reviewed everything he had written again, the writer abandoned the original version of the ending and the title “All’s well that ends well,” introduced new characters and finally determined the title of the novel: “War and Peace.”

In December 1867, the first three volumes were published. Work on the fourth slowed down - it was created only in 1868. In 1869, the fifth and sixth volumes were published. At the same time in 1868-1869. The second edition of the novel was published.

In 1873, “The Works of Count L.N. Tolstoy in Eight Parts” was published. While preparing War and Peace for this publication, Tolstoy “erased out everything superfluous.” Along with the new stylistic edits, he changed the structure of the novel: he reduced six volumes into four, included military-theoretical and historical-philosophical reflections in the appendix “Articles on the Campaign of 12,” and translated the French text throughout into Russian. The preparation of this edition completed the work on the novel “War and Peace”.

The problem of genre. "War and Peace" is a work in which various genre trends coexist, therefore the accepted designation of the genre - novel - is very arbitrary.

The genre synthesis achieved in War and Peace is determined primarily by the fact that Tolstoy comprehensively showed the life of Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. (1805-1812), touching on a wide range of universal human problems. “War and Peace” depicts the most important historical moment in the life of the nation (the Patriotic War of 1812), and various social groups are represented (nobility, merchants, peasantry, burghers, army). The fates of individual characters and the way of life in Russia are shown as historically determined phenomena. The scale of the narrative, reflecting the life of an entire nation and individual classes, the historical destinies of the people and the state, events in the foreign and domestic policies of Russia, makes “War and Peace” a historical epic novel. One of the leading motifs of Tolstoy's epic novel is the traditional motif of a national feat for a heroic epic.

The most important feature of the epic novel form is its complex, multi-level composition. The narrative is divided into many storylines, in which not only fictional characters act, but also real-life historical figures.

The romantic genre tendency is easily traced: Tolstoy depicts the fate of the heroes in the process of their formation and development. However, War and Peace differs from the traditional European novel in the absence of a central hero and a huge number of characters. Let us note that the genre structure of “War and Peace” was influenced by several types of novels: a historical novel, a family novel, a psychological novel, and an “educational novel.”

One of the significant genre tendencies of the work - moral descriptive - was especially clearly manifested in the depiction of the family life of the Rostovs and Bolkonskys, the life and customs of the Moscow and St. Petersburg nobility. The abundance of the author's reflections on history in the third and fourth volumes and especially in the epilogue also influenced the genre originality of the epic novel: philosophical and journalistic chapters allowed Tolstoy, who overcame the “limitations” of artistic narration, to substantiate and develop his concept of history.

History concept. In numerous authorial digressions, Tolstoy reflects on what history is, what forces have a decisive influence on the historical process, what are the causes of historical events. Polemics with historians who considered the events of the past to be the result of the will of historical figures elevated above the “crowd,” Tolstoy argues that the life of humanity does not depend on the will and intentions of individual people, even if they have enormous power.

In the process of working on the novel, Tolstoy developed a coherent system of ideas about history. The life of humanity, in his understanding, is spontaneous, “swarm”. It consists of the interaction of private and general interests, desires and intentions of millions of people. The historical process is their universal spontaneous activity: history is made not by historical individuals, but by the masses, guided by common, often unconscious, interests. The writer talks in detail about the fact that any historical event is the result of the coincidence of many reasons. To explain it only by the actions of so-called “great people” means, according to Tolstoy, to simplify the real complexity of history.

The meaning of what is happening, hidden from the direct participants in historical events, becomes clear over time. Participants in the War of 1812, according to the writer, “performed work hidden from them, but understandable to us.” However, looking at history “from top to bottom” also has its drawbacks: historical distance does not allow us to consider details, details of long-standing events, or understand the immediate motives that determined people’s actions. This is the main difference between the living perception of historical events by contemporaries and the “judgment” of descendants, who re-evaluate these events and discover new meaning in them. “... It involuntarily seems to us, who did not live at that time, that all Russian people, young and old, were busy only with sacrificing themselves, saving the fatherland or crying over its destruction...” writes Tolstoy. - In reality it was not like that. It seems to us that this is so only because we see from the past one common historical interest of that time and do not see all those personal, human interests that people had” (vol. 4, part 1, IV). According to the writer, a person has personal freedom - he is free to build his own private life, but, being a participant historical process, inevitably obeys its laws - “necessity”. “Man consciously lives for himself, but serves as an unconscious tool for achieving historical, universal goals” (vol. 3, part 1, I) - this is Tolstoy’s main conclusion.

He disagreed with those historians who believed that major historical figures enjoyed greater freedom and were less constrained in their actions than simple people, and therefore have more opportunities to influence the course of history. Reflecting in the epilogue of “War and Peace” about what power is, what role those in power play in history, the writer came to important conclusions. Power, if we consider it in relation to the course of history, is such a person’s attitude towards other participants in the historical process, when a person endowed with power expresses the sum of “opinions, assumptions and justifications for the collective action taking place” (epilogue, part 2, VII) and in at the same time takes minimal part in this action. Thus, a historical figure, according to Tolstoy, is only an exponent of general trends that spontaneously develop in the “swarm” life of people.

The very concept of power in Tolstoy’s historical concept has been rethought: a person’s high social status does not mean that his ability to influence people and be a source of historical development is equally great. On the contrary, power makes a person unfree and predetermines his actions: “The higher a person stands on the social ladder, the more important people he is associated with, the more power he has over other people, the more obvious [from the point of view of history] is the predetermination and inevitability of each of his actions "(vol. 3, part 1.1).

Based on his ideas about freedom and necessity, about the accidental and the natural in history, Tolstoy solves the question of to what extent the meaning of historical development is accessible to man. In history, “what we know we call the laws of necessity; what is unknown is freedom.” The study of the past inevitably leads to historical fatalism, which, according to the writer, “is inevitable for explaining irrational phenomena (that is, those whose rationality we do not understand). The more we try to rationally explain these phenomena in history, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible they become for us” (vol. 3, part 1, I). But fatalism does not mean that knowledge of history is impossible: after all, the meaning of events hidden from a person can be revealed to all of humanity. Comprehension of history is a long and difficult process, in which the theoretical understanding of the past is complemented by new historical experience. Not explaining individual historical events, but “groping” for general historical patterns should be the goal of the historian, Tolstoy argues.

In his ideas about history, Tolstoy was a fatalist: everything that happens to humanity, in his opinion, is the implementation of the inexorable law of historical necessity. Only in privacy people are completely free and therefore bear full responsibility for their actions. Not considering the human mind as a force capable of influencing the course of history, the writer came to the conviction that the “unconscious” historical activity of people is much more effective than conscious, rational actions: “In historical events, the most obvious thing is the prohibition of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Only unconscious activity bears fruit, and the person who plays a role in a historical event never understands its significance. If he tries to understand it, he is struck by its futility” (vol. 4, part 1, IV). Tolstoy’s decisive argument is the war of 1812, when most people “did not pay any attention to the general course of affairs, but were guided only by the personal interests of the present.” She calls these people “the most useful figures of that time,” and the most “useless” are those “who tried to understand the general course of affairs and wanted to participate in it with self-sacrifice and heroism” (vol. 4, part 1, IV).

The author of War and Peace was ironic about politics and military science, skeptical about the role of material factors in war, emphasizing the pointlessness of attempts to consciously influence the historical process. Tolstoy was concerned not so much with the military-political side of historical events as with their moral and psychological meaning.

The historical events of 1805-1809, Tolstoy believes, did not affect the interests of the majority of Russian society - this was the result of political games and military ambitions. Depicting military actions of 1805-1807. and historical characters - emperors and military leaders, the writer criticizes deceitful state power and people who arrogantly tried to influence the course of events. He considered the military alliances concluded in 1805-1811 to be pure hypocrisy: after all, completely different interests and intentions were hidden behind them. The “friendship” between Napoleon and Alexander I could not prevent war: the emperors called each other “my sovereign brother” and emphasized their love of peace, but both were preparing for war. The inexorable laws of the movement of peoples acted independently of their will: huge troops accumulated on both sides of the Russian border - and the collision of two historical forces turned out to be inevitable.

Narrating the events of 1805, Tolstoy focuses on two episodes: the Battles of Shengraben and Austerlitz. In the defensive Battle of Shengraben, the morale of Russian soldiers and officers was exceptionally high. Bagration’s detachment covered the retreat of Kutuzov’s army; the soldiers did not fight for the sake of some interests alien to them, but defended their brothers. For Tolstoy, the Battle of Shengraben is a center of justice in a war alien to the interests of the people. The decisive role in it was played by Captain Tushin’s battery and Timokhin’s company. Ordinary participants in the event, obeying their own intuition, took the initiative into their own hands. The victory was achieved by their unplanned, but the only possible and naturally occurring actions. The meaning of the Battle of Austerlitz was not clear to the soldiers, so the Battle of Austerlitz ended in a crushing defeat. The Schöngraben victory and the Austerlitz defeat were determined, from the writer’s point of view, primarily by moral reasons.

In 1812, the theater of military operations moved to Russia. Tolstoy emphasizes that the entire course of the campaign did not fit any “former legends of wars,” that the war was being waged “against all the rules.” From a political game waged in Europe by Alexander I and Napoleon, the war between France and Russia turned into a people's war: this is a “real”, just war, the fate of an entire nation depended on its outcome. Not only the army took part in it (as in the war of 1805), but also non-military people, far from army life. The senior military authorities were unable to control the course of the war - their orders and dispositions did not correspond to the real state of affairs and were not carried out. All battles, Tolstoy emphasized, took place “by chance,” and not at all by the will of the commanders.

The Russian army was transformed: the soldiers ceased to be indifferent executors of orders, as during the war of 1805. Not only the army, but also the common people - the Cossacks and peasants - took the initiative to wage war. The expulsion of Napoleonic troops is a goal that “unconsciously,” according to Tolstoy, was pursued by the entire Russian people. The depiction of historical events in “War and Peace” ends at the moment when the goal of the people in the Patriotic War - “cleanse the land from invasion” - was achieved.

True events of the beginning of the 19th century. - an integral part of most storylines. Like historical characters, fictional heroes are full-fledged characters in the “historical” plots developed in the novel. Tolstoy strives to show events and real historical figures (Alexander I, Napoleon, Speransky, Kutuzov), focusing on the point of view fictional characters. The Battle of Shengraben was largely seen through the eyes of Bolkonsky and Nikolai Rostov, the Tilsit meeting of Russian and French emperors— through the eyes of Nikolai Rostov and Boris Drubetsky, Borodino is shown mainly from Pierre’s point of view.

A historian has no right to fiction; for a historical novelist, fiction in covering the facts of history is the soil on which artistic generalizations grow. Tolstoy understood that subjectivity in the coverage of historical events is a property of human perception, because even in the most true stories There are many fictitious eyewitnesses. Thus, speaking about Nikolai Rostov’s intention to give a truthful picture of the Battle of Shengraben, the writer emphasized that he “imperceptibly, involuntarily and inevitably for himself turned into a lie” (vol. 1, part 3, VII). Tolstoy the novelist took full advantage of his right to fiction to reveal the psychology of historical characters. Literalism in depicting historical facts was also absolutely unacceptable to him: he did not create a “photograph” of an event, but an artistic image of it, revealing the meaning of what happened.

According to Tolstoy, understanding the general patterns of historical events is more important than reproducing them in all details. The pattern, determining the “color” of the event, does not depend on the writer, but the particulars are entirely in his power. These are the shades that the artist finds in the palette of history in order to clarify his idea of ​​​​the meaning and significance of the event. The artist does not present or rewrite history - he finds and enlarges in it what eludes the gaze of historians and eyewitnesses. Many factual inaccuracies noted by Tolstoy’s contemporaries can be called “slips of the tongue” of the writer, who is firmly convinced that artistic truth is more important than factual truth. For example, after Bagration was wounded, Kutuzov sends a new military leader to take command of the first army, but Bagration commanded not the first, but the second army. This army was the first to take the enemy’s attack, occupying the key left flank, which, obviously, led to Tolstoy’s “slip of the tongue.”

The Patriotic War of 1812, the main historical event of the early 19th century, depicted by Tolstoy, occupies a central place in the composition of the novel. The writer connects the fates of most of the heroes with the War of 1812, which became the decisive stage in their biography, the highest point in spiritual development. However, the Patriotic War is not only the culmination of each of the novel’s plot lines, but also the culmination of the “historical” plot, in which the fate of the Russian people is revealed.

The Patriotic War is a test for the entire Russian society. It is considered by Tolstoy as an experience of a living, non-verbal unity of people on the scale of the entire nation on the basis of national interests.

The War of 1812 in the writer’s interpretation is a people’s war. “Since the fire of Smolensk, a war began that does not fit any previous legends of war,” notes Tolstoy. “The burning of cities and villages, retreat after battles, Borodin’s attack and retreat again, the fire of Moscow, catching marauders, rehiring transports, guerrilla warfare - all these were deviations from the rules” (vol. 4, part 3.1).

Tolstoy saw the main paradox of the Patriotic War in the fact that Napoleonic army, having won almost all the battles, lost the war and collapsed without any noticeable activity on the part of the Russian army. The defeat of the French, Tolstoy emphasized, is a manifestation of a historical pattern, although a superficial look at the events may suggest the irrationality of what happened.

One of the key episodes of the Patriotic War is the Battle of Borodino, which “neither for the French nor for the Russians... did not make the slightest sense” from the point of view of military strategy. Arguing his position, Tolstoy writes: “The immediate result was and should have been - for the Russians, that we were closer to the destruction of Moscow (which we feared most in the world), and for the French, that they were closer to the destruction of the entire army (which they, too, were afraid more than anything else in the world)” (vol. 3, part 2, XIX). He emphasizes that “by giving and accepting the Battle of Borodino, Kutuzov and Napoleon acted involuntarily and senselessly,” that is, they submitted to historical necessity. “The direct consequence of the Battle of Borodino was the causeless flight of Napoleon from Moscow, the return along the old Smolensk road, the death of the five hundred thousandth invasion and the death of Napoleonic France, which for the first time at Borodino was laid by the hand of the strongest enemy in spirit” (vol. 3, part 2, XXXIX ). Thus, a battle that made no sense from the point of view of military strategy became a manifestation of an inexorable historical law.

The abandonment of Moscow by its inhabitants is a clear manifestation of the patriotism of the Russian people, an event, according to Tolstoy, more important than the retreat of Russian troops from Moscow. This is an act of civic consciousness of Muscovites: they make any sacrifice, not wanting to be under the rule of Napoleon. Not only in Moscow, but in all Russian cities, residents abandoned them, set them on fire, and destroyed their property. The Napoleonic army encountered this phenomenon only on the territory of Russia - in other countries, the inhabitants of the conquered cities remained under the rule of the French and even gave the conquerors a ceremonial welcome.

Tolstoy emphasized that residents left Moscow spontaneously. They were forced to do this by a sense of national pride, and not by Rostopchin’s patriotic “posters.” The first to leave were “rich, educated people who knew very well that Vienna and Berlin remained intact and that there, during Napoleon’s occupation of them, the inhabitants had fun with the charming Frenchmen, whom Russian men and especially ladies loved so much at that time” (vol. 3, part 3, V). They could not do otherwise, because “for the Russian people there could be no question: whether it would be good or bad under the rule of the French in Moscow. It was impossible to be under the control of the French: it was the worst of all” (vol. 3, part 3, V).

The most important feature of the war of 1812 is the partisan movement, which Tolstoy calls “the club of the people’s war.”: “Despite the complaints of the French about non-compliance with the rules, despite the fact that for some reason the highest Russian people seemed ashamed to fight with a club..., - the club of the people’s war rose with all its formidable and majestic strength and, without asking anyone’s tastes and rules, with stupid simplicity, but with expediency, without considering anything, it rose, fell and nailed the French until the entire invasion was destroyed” ( vol. 4, part 3.1). The people beat the enemy “as unconsciously as dogs unconsciously kill a runaway rabid dog,” destroying the “Great Army piece by piece” (vol. 4, part 3, III). Tolstoy writes about the existence of many different partisan detachments (“parties”) that had sole purpose- expulsion of the French from Russian soil: “In October, while the French fled to Smolensk, there were hundreds of these parties of various sizes and characters. There were parties that adopted all the techniques of the army, with infantry, artillery, headquarters, and the comforts of life; there were only Cossacks and cavalry; there were small ones, prefabricated ones, on foot and on horseback, there were peasant and landowner ones, unknown to anyone. There was a sexton as the head of the party, who took several hundred prisoners a month. There was the elder Vasilisa, who killed hundreds of French” (vol. 4, part 3, III).

Participants in a spontaneous people's war intuitively, without thinking about the “general course of affairs,” acted exactly as historical necessity required. “And these people were the most useful figures of that time,” the writer emphasizes. The true goal of the People's War was not to completely destroy the French army, "take all the French captive" or "capture Napoleon with his marshals and army." Such a war, according to Tolstoy, exists only as a fiction of historians who study events “from letters of sovereigns and generals, from communications, reports.” The goal of the merciless “club of the people’s war” that nailed the French was simple and understandable to every Russian patriot - “to cleanse your land from invasion” (vol. 4, part 3, XIX).

Justifying the people's liberation war of 1812, Tolstoy condemns the war in general, assessing it as “an event contrary to human reason and all human nature” (vol. 3, part 1, I). Any war is a crime against humanity. On the eve of the Battle of Borodino, Andrei Bolkonsky is ready to die for the Fatherland, but angrily condemns the war, considering it “the most disgusting thing in life” (vol. 3, part 2, XXV). War is a senseless massacre, “glory bought with blood” (M.Yu. Lermontov), ​​for which people hypocritically thank God: “They will come together, like tomorrow, to kill each other, kill, maim tens of thousands of people, and then they will serve thanksgiving they pray for the fact that many people have been beaten (the number of which is still being added), and they proclaim victory, believing that the more people are beaten, the greater the merit. How God looks and listens to them from there! - Prince Andrei shouted in a thin, squeaky voice” (vol. 3, part 2, XXV).

The year 1812, as depicted by Tolstoy, is a historical test that the Russian people passed with honor, but it also represents the horrors of mass extermination of people, grief and suffering. Everyone, without exception, experiences physical and moral torment - both the “right” and the “guilty,” both soldiers and civilians. It is no coincidence that by the end of the war, the “feeling of insult and revenge” in the souls of the Russian people is replaced by “contempt and pity” for the defeated enemy, the pitiful and humiliated soldiers of the once invincible army. The inhumane nature of the war was also reflected in the fate of the heroes. War means disasters and irreparable losses: Prince Andrei and Petya died. The death of her youngest son finally broke Countess Rostova and accelerated the death of Count Ilya Andreevich.

The images of Kutuzov and Napoleon created in the novel are a vivid embodiment of Tolstoy’s principles of depicting historical figures. Kutuzov and Napoleon do not in every way coincide with their prototypes: the author of War and Peace did not strive to create documentary-reliable portraits of them. Many well-known facts are omitted, some of the true qualities of the commanders are exaggerated (for example, Kutuzov’s senility and passivity, Napoleon’s narcissism and posturing). Evaluating the Russian and French commanders, like all other historical figures, Tolstoy applied strict moral criteria.

The antithesis of Kutuzov - Napoleon - is the main moral antithesis of the novel. If Kutuzov can be called a “positive” hero of history, then Napoleon, as portrayed by Tolstoy, is its main “anti-hero.”

The author emphasizes Napoleon's self-confidence and limitations, manifested in all his actions, gestures and words. The portrait of the “European hero” is ironic, extremely reduced. “A fat, short figure”, “fat thighs of short legs”, a swift, fussy gait - such is Napoleon in Tolstoy’s portrayal. His behavior and manner of speaking reveal narrow-mindedness and narcissism. He is convinced of his greatness and genius: “it’s not what’s good that’s good, but what came into his head.” Each appearance of Napoleon in the novel is accompanied by a merciless psychological commentary by the author. “It was clear that only what was happening in his soul was of interest to him. Everything that was outside of him did not matter to him, because everything in the world, as it seemed to him, depended only on his will” (vol. 3, part 1, VI) - this is Napoleon during his meeting with Balashev. Tolstoy emphasizes the contrast between Napoleon's inflated self-esteem and his insignificance. The comic effect that arises is the best proof of the powerlessness and emptiness of a historical figure who “pretends” to be strong and majestic.

The spiritual world of Napoleon in Tolstoy’s understanding is “an artificial world of ghosts of some greatness” (vol. 3, part 2, XXXVIII), although in fact he is living proof of the old truth: “the king is a slave of history” (vol. 3, part 1, I). Thinking that he was “doing something for himself,” Napoleon played “the cruel, sad and difficult, inhuman role that was intended for him.” It is unlikely that he would have been able to bear the full weight of this historical role if his “mind and conscience were not darkened” (vol. 3, part 2, XXXVIII). The writer sees the “darkening” of Napoleon’s mind in the fact that he consciously cultivated spiritual callousness in himself, mistaking it for courage and true greatness. He “usually loved to look at the dead and wounded, thereby testing his mental strength(as he thought)” (vol. 3, part 2, XXXVIII). When a squadron of Polish lancers swam across the Neman before his eyes and the adjutant “allowed himself to draw the emperor’s attention to the devotion of the Poles to his person,” Napoleon “got up and, calling Berthier to him, began to walk with him back and forth along the shore, giving him orders and occasionally looking displeasedly at the drowning lancers who were entertaining his attention.” Death for him is a familiar and boring sight; he takes for granted the selfless devotion of his soldiers.

Napoleon, Tolstoy emphasizes, is a deeply unhappy person who does not notice this only due to a complete lack of moral sense. The “European hero,” the “great” Napoleon is morally blind, unable to understand “neither goodness, nor beauty, nor truth, nor the meaning of his actions, which were too opposite to goodness and truth, too far from everything human for him to understand their meaning" (vol. 3, part 2, XXXVIII). It is possible, according to the writer, to arrive at “good and truth” only by renouncing one’s imaginary greatness, but Napoleon is completely incapable of this “heroic” act. However, despite the fact that Napoleon is doomed to play his “negative” role in history, Tolstoy does not at all diminish his moral responsibility for what he did: “He, destined by providence for the sad, unfree role of the executioner of nations, assured himself that the purpose of his actions was good peoples and that he could lead the destinies of millions and do good deeds through power! ... He imagined that by his will there was a war with Russia, and the horror of what had happened did not strike his soul” (vol. 3, part 2, XXXVIII).

The writer associates the “Napoleonic” qualities in other heroes of the novel with their complete lack of moral sense (Helen) or with tragic errors. Pierre, who in his youth was carried away by the ideas of Napoleon, remained in Moscow with the goal of killing him and becoming the “savior of mankind.” In the early stages of his spiritual life, Andrei Bolkonsky dreamed of rising above people, even if it meant sacrificing his family and loved ones. Napoleonism, as depicted by Tolstoy, is a dangerous disease that separates people, forcing them to wander along spiritual “roads.”

Napoleon's antipode - Kutuzov - is the embodiment of folk morality, true greatness, “simplicity, goodness and truth” (vol. 4, part 3, XVIII). The “Kutuzovian”, popular principle is contrasted with the “Napoleonic”, egoistic one. Kutuzov can hardly be called a “hero”: after all, he does not strive for superiority over other people. Without trying to influence the course of history, he submits to the logic of the historical process and intuitively perceives the highest meaning of what is happening. This explains his external inactivity and reluctance to force the course of events. Kutuzov, Tolstoy emphasized, is endowed with true wisdom, a special instinct, which prompts him during the Patriotic War to act in accordance with the principle: what must happen will happen on its own.

The source of the “extraordinary power of insight into the meaning of occurring phenomena” (vol. 4, part 4, V), which Kutuzov possessed, was popular feeling. The commander “carried within himself in all its purity and strength” this feeling, which placed him at the “highest human heights.” It was this that was recognized by the people in Kutuzov - and the Russian people chose him “to represent the people’s war.” The writer saw the main merit of Kutuzov the commander in the fact that “this old man, alone, contrary to the opinion of everyone, could guess so correctly the meaning of the popular meaning of the event that he never betrayed him in all his activities.” Kutuzov the commander-in-chief is as unusual as the “people’s war” is not like a conventional war. The meaning of his military strategy is not to “kill and exterminate people,” but to “save and have pity on them” (vol. 4, part 4, V).

Historians, Tolstoy notes, extol Napoleon, considering him a brilliant commander, and blame Kutuzov for his military failures and excessive passivity. Indeed, Napoleon developed a vigorous activity in 1812: he fussed around, gave a lot of orders that seemed brilliant to him and everyone around him - in a word, he behaved as befits a “great commander.” Kutuzov in Tolstoy’s portrayal does not correspond to traditional ideas about a military genius. The writer deliberately exaggerates Kutuzov’s decrepitude: the commander-in-chief falls asleep during one of the military councils not because he wanted to “show his contempt for the disposition or for anything else,” but because “for him it was about the irrepressible satisfaction of a human need - sleep "(vol. 1, part 3, XII). He does not give orders, approving what seems reasonable to him and rejecting what is unreasonable, does not undertake anything, does not seek battles. At the council in Fili, it is Kutuzov who outwardly calmly makes the decision to leave Moscow, although this costs him terrible mental anguish.

Napoleon won almost all the battles - Kutuzov lost most of the battles. The Russian army suffered setbacks at Krasny and Berezina. But in the end, it was the Russian army under the command of Kutuzov that defeated the “victorious” French army, commanded by the “brilliant commander” Napoleon, in the War of 1812. And yet, Tolstoy emphasizes, historians, lackeyly devoted to Napoleon, consider him a “hero”, a “great man”, and for a great man, in their opinion, there cannot be good and bad. The actions of a “great” person are beyond moral criteria: even Napoleon’s shameful flight from the army is assessed as a “majestic” act. True greatness, according to Tolstoy, is not measured by any “false formulas” of historians: “This simple, modest and therefore truly majestic figure could not fit into that false formula of a European hero ostensibly ruling people, which history came up with” (vol. 4, part .4, V). The greatness of Napoleon thus turns out to be a great historical lie. Tolstoy found true greatness in Kutuzov, a humble worker of history.

Russian and French commanders. Among the historical characters of the “military” novel, commanders occupy a central place.

The main criterion for assessing the historical role and moral qualities of Russian commanders is the ability to sense the mood of the army and the people. Tolstoy carefully analyzed their role in the Patriotic War of 1812, and in talking about the campaign of 1805, he tried to understand how consistent their activities were with the interests of the army.

Bagration is one of the few who comes close to Tolstoy’s ideal of a “people’s” commander. Tolstoy emphasized his apparent inactivity in the Battle of Shengraben. Just pretending to be in command, he actually only tried not to interfere with the natural course of events, and this turned out to be the most effective model of behavior. Bagration's leadership talent was also manifested in his moral influence on soldiers and officers. His mere presence in the positions raised their morale. Any, even the most insignificant words of Bagration are filled with special meaning for them. “Whose company? - Prince Bagration asked the fireworksman standing by the boxes.” Tolstoy comments: “He asked: “Whose company?” “, but in essence he asked: “Aren’t you shy here?” And the fireworksman understood this” (vol. 1, part 2, XVII).

Bagration on the eve of the Battle of Shengraben is a mortally tired man “with half-closed, dull, as if sleep-deprived eyes” and a “motionless face”, indifferent to what is happening. But with the beginning of the battle, the commander was transformed: “There were neither sleep-deprived, dull eyes, nor a feignedly thoughtful look: round, hard, hawk eyes looked forward enthusiastically and somewhat contemptuously, obviously not stopping at anything, although the same slowness and regularity remained in his movements "(vol. 1, part 2, XVIII). Bagration is not afraid to put himself in danger - in battle he is next to ordinary soldiers and officers. At Shengraben, his personal example was enough to inspire the troops and lead them into the attack.

Unlike most other commanders, Bagration is depicted during battles, and not at military councils. Brave and decisive on the battlefield, in secular society he is timid and shy. At a banquet organized in Moscow in his honor, Bagration found himself “out of place”: “He walked, not knowing where to put his hands, shyly and awkwardly, along the parquet floor of the reception room: it was more familiar and easier for him to walk under bullets across a plowed field, like he walked in front of the Kursk regiment in Shengraben.” Recognizing Nikolai Rostov, he said “several awkward, awkward words, like all the words he spoke that day” (vol. 2, part 1, III). Bagration’s “non-secularism” is a touch that testifies to Tolstoy’s warm attitude towards this hero.

Bagration resembles Kutuzov in many qualities. Both commanders are endowed with the highest wisdom, historical sense, and always act exactly as needed in this moment, show true heroism, unostentatious greatness. The “leisurely” Bagration seems to duplicate the “inactive” Kutuzov: he does not interfere with the natural course of events, intuitively seeing their meaning, and does not interfere with the actions of his subordinates.

Many commanders cannot withstand the strict moral judgment of Tolstoy the historian and artist. “Foreign” generals in Russian service are staff theorists. They fuss a lot, thinking that the outcome of battles depends on their dispositions, but they do not bring real benefit, since they are guided only by selfish considerations. You won’t see them on the battlefield, but they participate in all military councils, where they bravely “fight” in verbal battles, as, for example, at the military council on the eve of the Battle of Lusterlitz. Everything that the generals talk about meaningfully is dictated by their pettiness and exorbitant pride. For example, the objections of Langeron, who criticized the disposition of the arrogant and proud Weyrother, “were thorough,” but their real goal was “to insult Weyrother in his author’s military pride as sarcastically as possible” (vol. 1, part 3, XII).

Barclay de Tolly is one of the most famous military leaders of 1812, but Tolstoy “excluded” him from participating in historical events. In rare judgments of the novel's heroes, he is called an “unpopular German”, “not inspiring confidence”: “he stands for caution”, avoids battles. Captain Timokhin, expressing the people's point of view, when asked by Pierre Bezukhov what he thought of Barclay, answered evasively: “They saw the light, your Excellency, how His Serene Highness [Kutuzov] acted...” (vol. 3, part 2, XXV) . Timokhin's words indicate the unpopularity of Barclay de Tolly in the army. There is no place for him in people's war, despite his honesty, “German” diligence and accuracy. Barclay, according to the writer, is too rational and straightforward, far from national interests, to effectively participate in such a spontaneous event as the Patriotic War.

At the sovereign's headquarters on initial stage during the war there were many generals who “were without military positions in the army, but by their position they had influence” (vol. 3, part 1, IX). Among them is Armfeld - “an evil hater of Napoleon and a general, self-confident, which always had an influence on Alexander”, Paulochi, “brave and decisive in his speeches”. One of the “armchair theorists” is General Pfuhl, who tried to “lead the cause of war” without participating in a single battle. His vigorous activity was limited to drawing up dispositions and participating in military councils. In Pfuel, Tolstoy emphasizes, “there was Weyrother, and Mack, and Schmidt, and many other German theoretic generals,” but “he was more typical than all of them.” The main negative traits of this general are extreme self-confidence and straightforwardness. Even when Pfuel was threatened with disfavor, he suffered most of all from the fact that he would no longer be able to prove the superiority of his theory, in which he fanatically believed.

Tolstoy showed the Russian army at different hierarchical levels. Much less attention is paid to the depiction of the French army and French commanders. The writer's attitude towards the French commanders is extremely negative. This is due to the fact that the army, led by French commanders, waged an unjust, aggressive war, while the Russian army and many Russian commanders participated in a just, people's liberation war.

Two French commanders are depicted in detail - Murat and Davout. They are shown, in particular, through the perception of the envoy of Alexander I Balashev, who meets with both. In the author’s descriptions of Murat, an ironic tone prevails, his appearance and behavior are emphatically comical: “On a black horse with harness shining in the sun rode a tall man in a hat with feathers, with black hair curled to the shoulders, in a red robe and with long legs, stuck out forward, like the French drive” (vol. 3, part 1, IV). “The King of Naples” Murat - a horseman with a “solemn theatrical face”, all “in bracelets, feathers, necklaces and gold” - resembles a musketeer from the adventure novels of A. Dumas. In Tolstoy's portrayal, he is an operetta figure, an evil parody of Napoleon himself.

Marshal Davout is the complete opposite of the frivolous and stupid Murat. Tolstoy compares Davout with Arakcheev: “Davout was the Arakcheev of Emperor Napoleon - Arakcheev is not a coward, but just as serviceable, cruel and unable to express his devotion except by cruelty” (vol. 3, part 1, V). This is one of the people who contrasted “living” life with bureaucratic routine. The Napoleonic marshal likes to instill fear, to see in people “a consciousness of subordination and insignificance.”

Davout is a morally dead man, but even he is capable of experiencing a simple human feeling, for a moment “communing” with human brotherhood. This happened when the eyes of the marshal, who was trying the “arsonists” of Moscow, and Pierre, his defendant, met: “They looked at each other for a few seconds, and this look saved Pierre. In this view, apart from all the conditions of war and trial, a human relationship was established between these two people. Both of them in that one minute vaguely experienced countless things and realized that they were both children of humanity, that they were brothers” (vol. 4, part 1, X). But “the order, the set of circumstances” forces Davout to carry out an unjust trial. The guilt of the “French Arakcheev,” Tolstoy emphasizes, is enormous, because he did not even try to resist the “structure of circumstances,” becoming the personification of brute force and cruelty of military bureaucracy.

Man at war is the most important theme of the novel. Russian soldiers and officers are shown in various conditions - in foreign campaigns of 1805 and 1807. (in battles, in everyday life, during parades and shows), on various stages Patriotic War of 1812.

Tolstoy, drawing on his military experience, emphasized the invariability of the soldiers’ everyday life on the march: “A soldier on the move is as surrounded, limited and drawn by his regiment as a sailor by the ship on which he is located. No matter how far he goes, no matter what strange, unknown and dangerous latitudes he goes, around him - as for a sailor, there are always and everywhere the same decks, masts, ropes of his ship - always and everywhere the same comrades, the same rows, the same sergeant major Ivan Mitrich, the same company dog ​​Zhuchka, the same superiors” (vol. 1, part 3, XIV). Usually the life of soldiers, even during war, is limited to everyday everyday interests, which, according to Tolstoy, is quite natural. But there are moments in their lives when they want to get out of their closed world and join what is happening outside of it. On days of battle, soldiers “listen, look closely and eagerly ask about what is happening around them” (vol. 1, part 3, XIV).

Tolstoy carefully analyzes the moral state of Russian soldiers and the fighting spirit of the army. At Austerlitz, the army was demoralized: Russian troops fled from the battlefield even before the end of the battle. On the eve of the Battle of Borodino, soldiers and officers experienced a strong emotional upsurge. Their condition is due to the “hidden warmth of patriotism”, a feeling of unity on the eve of the “solemn” event that awaited everyone without exception. During the prayer service before the battle, “an expression of consciousness of the solemnity of the coming minute” flashed on all the faces of the soldiers and militia, “uniformly greedily” looking at the icon. At the end of the day spent in the positions, Pierre, after a conversation with Prince Andrei, understood “the whole meaning and the whole significance of this war and the upcoming battle. ... He understood that hidden (latentel), as they say in physics, warmth of patriotism, which was in all those people whom he saw, and which explained to him why all these people were calmly and seemingly frivolously preparing for death" ( vol. 3, part 2, XXV).

At Raevsky’s battery “one felt the same and common to everyone, as if a family revival.” Despite the danger of being killed or wounded and the natural fear of death (one of the soldiers explained his condition to Pierre: “After all, she will not have mercy. She will smack her guts out. You can’t help but be afraid,” he said laughing”; vol. 3, part. 2, XXXI), the soldiers are in high spirits. The “business” for which they are preparing helps overcome the fear of death and makes them forget about danger. The mood of the soldiers in Andrei Bolkonsky’s regiment, who was in reserve, is completely different - they are silent and gloomy. Forced inaction and constant awareness of danger only exacerbate the fear of death. To take their mind off him, everyone tried to do other things and “seemed completely immersed in these activities.” Prince Andrei, like everyone else, was inactive: “All the strength of his soul, just like that of every soldier, was unconsciously aimed at refraining only from contemplating the horror of the situation in which they were” (vol. 3, part. 2, XXXVI).

By the end of the war, the spirit of the Russian army grew stronger, despite the extremely difficult conditions of soldier life. One of the most striking manifestations of the fortitude and spontaneous humanism of the victorious Russian soldiers is their attitude towards the enemy. If during the retreat the army was gripped by a “spirit of bitterness against the enemy,” then at the last stage of the war, when French troops were fleeing Russia, the “feeling of insult and revenge” gave way to “contempt and pity” among the soldiers. Their attitude towards the French becomes contemptuous and sympathetic: they warm and feed the prisoners, despite the fact that they themselves lack food. The humane treatment of prisoners by Russian soldiers is a characteristic feature of the people's war.

Tolstoy notes that it is in the army, united by unity of interests, that the ability of people for spiritual unity is manifested. The relationship between Russian soldiers and officers resembles an atmosphere of “nepotism”: officers care about their subordinates and understand their mood. Military relations often go beyond military articles. The spiritual unity of the army is especially impressive during the Battle of Borodino, when everyone is engaged in military labor for the glory of the Fatherland.

The theme of true and false heroism is connected with the depiction of the Russian army in Tolstoy’s novel. Tolstoy showed the heroism of Russian soldiers and officers, the “little people” of the great war, as something ordinary, everyday. Heroic deeds are performed by quiet, inconspicuous people who do not recognize themselves as heroes - they simply do their “job,” “unconsciously” participating in the “swarm” movement of humanity. This is true heroism, in contrast to false, “theatrical” heroism, dictated by considerations of career, thirst for fame, or even the most noble, but very abstract goals, such as, for example, the “salvation of humanity” (some of Tolstoy’s “favorite” heroes strive for this). - Bezukhov and Bolkonsky).

The true heroes are the modest “workers” of the war, Captain Tushin and Captain Gimokhin. Both officers are rather unprepossessing people, they do not have an emphasized “validity”, like, for example, Denisov, on the contrary, they are very modest and timid.

Captain Tushin is the hero of the Battle of Shengraben. In his appearance, speech, and demeanor “there was something special, not at all military, somewhat comical, but extremely attractive” (vol. 1, part 2, XV). Several strokes emphasize Tushin’s “non-military” nature: he saluted Bagration “with a timid and awkward movement, not at all the way the military salute, but the way the priests bless” (vol. 1, part 2, XVII). The staff officer made a remark to Tushin, “a small, dirty, thin artillery officer, who, without boots (he gave them to a sutler to dry), wearing only stockings, stood in front of those who came in, smiling not entirely naturally.” “The soldiers say: when you come to your senses, you become more dexterous,” said Captain Tushin, smiling and timid, apparently wanting to switch from his awkward position to a humorous tone” (vol. 1, part 2, XV).

Before the battle, he reflects on death, not hiding the fact that death frightens him primarily because of the unknown: “You are afraid of the unknown, that’s what. Whatever you say, the soul will go to heaven... after all, we know that there is no sky, but only an atmosphere” (vol. 1, part 2, XVI). At this time, a cannonball fell not far from the booth, and “little Tushin with a tube bitten to one side” immediately rushed to the soldiers, no longer thinking about death

It was the timid, “domestic” Tushin who took the initiative during the Battle of Shengraben. He violated the disposition and did what seemed to him the only correct thing: “the action of Tushin’s forgotten battery, which managed to light Shengraben, stopped the movement of the French” (vol. 1, part 2, XIX). But besides Prince Andrei, few people understood the significance of Tushin’s feat. He himself does not consider himself a hero, thinking about his mistakes and feeling guilty that “while remaining alive, he lost two guns.” Tushin’s most important trait is his philanthropy and ability to compassion: he picks up a seriously wounded infantry officer and shell-shocked Nikolai Rostov, although they were “ordered to be abandoned.”

Captain Timokhin shares with the hero Shengraben both a “non-military” appearance and a deep inner kinship. Summoned to the regimental commander, company commander Timokhin - “an already elderly man and not in the habit of running” - runs, “clinging awkwardly with his toes,” “trotting.” “The captain’s face,” notes Tolstoy, “expressed the anxiety of a schoolboy who is told to tell a lesson he has not learned. There were spots on his red (obviously from intemperance) face, and his mouth could not find a position” (vol. 1, part 2, I). Outwardly, Timokhin is an unremarkable “servant”. However, Kutuzov, who recognized him during the inspection, spoke with sympathy about the captain: “Another Izmailovo comrade... A brave officer!” On the eve of Borodin, Timokhin simply and casually speaks about the upcoming battle: “Why feel sorry for yourself now! The soldiers in my battalion, believe me, didn’t drink vodka: it’s not such a day, they say” (vol. 3, part 2, XXV). According to Prince Andrei, “what is in Timokhin” and in every Russian soldier is a deep patriotic feeling - “the only thing needed for tomorrow” to win the Battle of Borodino. The success of the battle, Bolkonsky concludes, “never depended and will never depend on position, weapons, or even numbers” (vol. 3, part 2, XXV) - it depends only on the patriotism of soldiers and officers.

Tushin and Timokhin are heroes living in a world of simple and therefore the only correct moral truths, trusting their deep moral sense. True heroism, like true greatness, according to Tolstoy, does not exist where there is no “simplicity, goodness and truth.”

Image of the Russian nobility. One of the most important thematic layers of the novel is the life of the Russian nobility at the beginning of the 19th century. Back in the 1850s. Tolstoy the artist was interested in the nobility as an environment in which the characters of the future Decembrists were formed. In his opinion, the origins of Decembrism had to be sought in the Patriotic War of 1812, when many representatives of the nobility, having experienced a patriotic upsurge, made their moral choice. In the final version of the novel, the nobility is no longer only the environment from which people who think about the future of Russia emerge, not only the socio-ideological background for the main character - the Decembrist, but also a full-fledged object of depiction, accumulating the author’s thoughts about the fate of the Russian nation.

Tolstoy considers the nobility in its relation to the people and national culture. The writer’s field of view is the life of the entire class, which appears in the novel as a complex social organism: this is a community of people living with diverse, sometimes polar opposite, interests and aspirations. The morals, behavior, psychology, lifestyle of the various nobility and even its individual representatives are the object of the novelist’s intense attention.

The St. Petersburg society is only a small part of the class, most distant from the interests of the people. Her spiritual appearance is revealed at the very beginning of the novel. An evening at Anna Pavlovna Scherer’s, whom the author compares to the owner of a “spinning workshop,” is a “smooth, decent conversational machine,” set up to discuss fashionable topics (they talk about Napoleon and the impending anti-Napoleonic coalition) and demonstrate social good manners. Everything here - conversations, behavior of the characters, even poses and facial expressions - is completely false. There are no faces, no individualities: everyone seems to have put on masks that are firmly attached to their faces. Vasily Kuragin “always spoke lazily, like an actor speaking the role of an old play.” Anna Pavlovna Scherer, on the contrary, despite her forty years, “was full of animation and impulses.” Live communication has been replaced by rituals and mechanical observance of secular etiquette. “All the guests,” the author ironically notes, “performed a ritual of greeting an unknown, uninteresting and unnecessary aunt to anyone” (vol. 1, part 1, II). Loud conversation, laughter, animation, any direct manifestation of human emotions are absolutely inappropriate here, as they violate a predetermined ritual of social communication. This is why Pierre Bezukhov's behavior seems tactless. He says what he thinks, gets carried away, argues with his interlocutors. Naive Pierre, succumbing to the charm of the “elegant” faces, kept waiting for something “especially smart.”

What becomes more important than speeches is what is not expressed, but carefully hidden by Scherer’s visitors. For example, Princess Drubetskaya came to the evening only because she wanted to obtain protection from Prince Vasily for her son Boris. Prince Vasily himself, who wants to place his son in the place that was intended for Baron Funke, asks if it is true that the empress wants the appointment of a baron to this place, “as if she had just remembered something and especially casually, whereas what he was talking about asked, was the main purpose of his visit” (vol. 1, part 1, I). The seamy side of the convention-bound life of high society in St. Petersburg is Anatol Kuragin’s wild drinking party, in which Pierre Bezukhov takes part.

In Moscow, life is less subject to conventions than in St. Petersburg. Here more people extraordinary ones, such as Count Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhov, an old nobleman from Catherine, or Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, an eccentric Moscow lady - rude, not afraid to express everything that she considers necessary and to whom she considers it necessary. In Moscow they got used to her, but in St. Petersburg her behavior would shock many.

The Rostov family is a typical Moscow noble family. Ilya Andreevich Rostov is known for his hospitality and generosity. Natasha's birthday is the complete opposite of the evening at Scherer's. Ease of communication, lively contact between people, goodwill and sincerity are felt in everything. The heroes do not act out the usual performance, but indulge in sincere fun. Etiquette is constantly violated, but this does not horrify anyone. Contagious laughter - unfeigned, testifying to the fullness of the feeling of life - is a constant guest in the happy Rostov family. It quickly spreads to everyone, connecting even the most distant people. The Rostovs’ guest talks about Pierre’s outrages in St. Petersburg, about how the policeman was tied to a bear. “The policeman’s figure is good,” the count shouted, dying of laughter.” At the same time, “the ladies involuntarily laughed themselves” (vol. 1, part 1, VII). Natasha, laughing, runs with her doll into the room where the adults are sitting. She “laughed at something, talking abruptly about a doll...”, in the end, “could no longer speak (everything seemed funny to her) ... and laughed so loudly and loudly that everyone, even the prim guest, laughed against their will "(vol. 1, part 1, VIII). In the Rostov house they do not pretend, exchanging meaningful glances and strained smiles, but laugh, if it’s funny, sincerely enjoy life, are saddened by the grief of others, and do not hide their own.

In 1812, the selfishness of the St. Petersburg nobility, its caste isolation, and alienation from the interests of the people became especially clear. The “talking machine” is working at full capacity, but behind the smooth secular discussions about the national disaster and the treacherous French there is nothing but the usual indifference and jingoistic hypocrisy. Muscovites leave their city without thinking about how it will look from the outside, without making patriotic gestures. Anna Pavlovna Scherer demonstratively refuses to go to the French theater: for “patriotic” reasons. Unlike Moscow and all of Russia, nothing changed in St. Petersburg during the war. It was still “calm, luxurious, concerned only with ghosts, reflections of life, St. Petersburg life” (vol. 4, part 1, I). St. Petersburg society is more interested in which of her many admirers Helen will choose, who is in favor or in disgrace at court, than what is happening in the country. For St. Petersburg residents, the events of the war are a source of secular news and gossip about the intrigues of the military staff.

The life of the Moscow and provincial nobility changed dramatically during the war. Residents of cities and villages that found themselves in Napoleon's path had to either flee, abandoning everything, or remain under the rule of the enemy. Napoleonic troops destroyed the Bolkonskys' estate Bald Mountains and the estates of their neighbors. Muscovites, according to Tolstoy, with the approach of the enemy treated their situation “even more frivolously, as is always the case with people who see a great danger approaching.” “We haven’t had so much fun in Moscow for a long time as this year,” “Rastopchin’s posters... were read and discussed on a par with the last storm of Vasily Lvovich Pushkin” (vol. 3, part 2, XVII). For many, a hasty departure from Moscow threatened ruin, but no one thought whether Moscow would be good or bad under French control; everyone was sure that “it was impossible to be under French control.”

Russian peasantry. Image of Platon Karataev. The world of the peasantry as depicted by Tolstoy is harmonious and self-sufficient. The writer did not believe that the peasants needed any intellectual influence: none of the noble heroes even thought that the peasants needed to be “developed.” On the contrary, they are often the ones who are closer to understanding the meaning of life than the nobles. Tolstoy portrays the artless spirituality of the peasant and the complex spiritual world of the nobleman as different but complementary principles of national existence. Moreover, the very ability to establish contact with the people is an indicator of the moral health of Tolstoy’s noble heroes.

Tolstoy repeatedly emphasizes the fragility of inter-class boundaries: the common, human, makes them “transparent”. For example, the hunter Danilo is filled with “independence and contempt for everything in the world, which only hunters have.” He allows himself to look “contemptuously” at the master, Nikolai Rostov. But for him “this contempt was not offensive”: he “knew that this Danilo, who despised everything and stood above all else, was still his man and hunter” (vol. 2, part 4, III). During the hunt, everyone is equal, everyone obeys the established order: “Each dog knew its owner and name. Each hunter knew his business, place and purpose” (vol. 2, part 4, IV). Only in the heat of the hunt can the hunter Danilo scold Ilya Andreevich for missing the wolf, and even swing his arapnik at him. Under normal conditions, such behavior of a serf towards a master is impossible.

The meeting with Platon Karataev in the barracks for prisoners became the most important stage in the spiritual life of Pierre Bezukhov: it was this peasant soldier who restored his lost faith in life. In the epilogue of the novel, the main moral criterion for Pierre becomes Karataev’s possible attitude towards his activities. He comes to the conclusion that he, perhaps, would not understand his social activities, but would certainly approve of family life, since he loved “pretty” in everything.

People's life in the novel is complex and diverse. In his depiction of the rebellion of Bogucharov's peasants, Tolstoy expressed his attitude towards the conservative principles of the patriarchal-communal world, inclined to resist any change. The Bogucharov peasants differed from the Lysogorsk peasants “in their speech, their clothes, and their morals.” The spontaneity of people's life in Bogucharovo is much more noticeable than in other areas: there were very few landowners, courtyard servants and literate people. Bogucharovo peasants live in a small closed community, virtually isolated from the rest of the world. For no apparent reason, they suddenly begin a “swarm” movement in some direction, obeying some incomprehensible laws of existence. “In the life of the peasants of this area, those mysterious currents of Russian folk life were more noticeable and stronger than in others, the causes and significance of which are inexplicable to contemporaries” (vol. 3, part 2, IX), the writer emphasizes. Isolation from the rest of the world gave rise to the most absurd and bizarre rumors among them, “either about listing them all as Cossacks, or about a new faith to which they will be converted...”. Therefore, “rumors about the war and Bonaparte and his invasion were combined for them with the same unclear ideas about the Antichrist, the end of the world and pure will” (vol. 3, part 2, IX).

The element of Bogucharov’s rebellion, the general “worldly” mood completely subjugates every peasant. Even the elder Dron was caught up in the general impulse to revolt. Princess Marya's attempt to distribute the master's bread ended in failure: the “men of the crowd” cannot be convinced with the help of reasonable arguments. Only Rostov’s “unreasonable act”, his “unreasonable animal anger” could “produce good results” and sober up the indignant crowd. The men unquestioningly submitted to brute force, admitting that they rebelled “out of stupidity.” Tolstoy showed not only the external reasons for Bogucharov’s rebellion (rumors about “freedom” that “the gentlemen took away” and “relations with the French”). The deep socio-historical reason for this event, hidden from prying eyes, is the internal “force” accumulated as a result of the work of “underwater jets”, which burst out like lava from a boiling volcano.

The image of Tikhon Shcherbaty is an important detail of the huge historical fresco about the people's war created by Tolstoy. Tikhon was the only one from his village who attacked the “miroders” - the French. He's own initiative joined Denisov’s “party” and soon became “one of the most needed people” in it, showing “a great desire and ability for guerrilla warfare.” In the partisan detachment, Tikhon occupied “his own special” place. He not only did all the most menial work when “something especially difficult and nasty had to be done,” but he was also “the most useful and brave man in the party”: “no one else discovered cases of attack, no one else took him.” and did not beat the French."

In addition, Tikhon was “the jester of all Cossacks and hussars and he himself willingly succumbed to this rank.” In Tikhon’s appearance and behavior, the writer sharpened the features of a jester, a holy fool: “a face pitted with smallpox and wrinkles” “with small narrow eyes.” Tikhon’s face, after he “climbed... into the very middle of the French during the day and... was discovered by them,” “shone with self-satisfied joy,” suddenly “his whole face stretched into a shining stupid smile, revealing a missing tooth (for which he and nicknamed Shcherbaty)” (vol. 4, part 3, VI). Tikhon's sincere gaiety is communicated to those around him, who cannot help but smile.

Tikhon is a merciless, cold-blooded warrior. When killing the French, he obeys only the instinct of exterminating the enemy, and treats the “worlders” almost as if they were inanimate objects. About the captured Frenchman whom he had just killed, he says this: “What, he’s completely out of order... He’s wearing bad clothes, where should we take him... Just let it get dark, I’ll bring at least three of you.” (vol. 4, part 3, VI). With his cruelty, Tikhon resembles a predator. It is no coincidence that the author compares him to a wolf: Tikhon “mastered an ax like a wolf wields teeth, equally easily picking out fleas from wool and biting through thick bones.”

The image of Platon Karataev is one of the key images of the novel, reflecting the writer’s thoughts about the foundations of the spiritual life of the Russian people. Karataev is a peasant, cut off from his usual way of life and placed in new conditions (the army and French captivity), in which his spirituality was especially clearly manifested. He lives in harmony with the world, treats all people and everything that happens around him with love. He feels life deeply, perceives each person vividly and directly. Karataev, as depicted by Tolstoy, is an example of a “natural” man from the people, the embodiment of instinctive folk morality.

Platon Karataev is shown mainly through the perception of Pierre Bezukhov, for whom he became “the most powerful and dear memory.” He immediately gave Pierre “the impression of something round,” cozy: “Plato’s whole figure in his French overcoat belted with a rope, in a cap and bast shoes, was round, his head was completely round, his back, chest, shoulders, even his hands, which he wore, as if always going to hug something, were round; a pleasant smile and large brown gentle eyes were round” (vol. 4, part 1, XIII). The very presence of Karataev in the barracks for prisoners created a feeling of comfort: Pierre was interested in how he took off his shoes and settled down in his “comfortable” corner - even in this “one felt something pleasant, soothing and round.”

Karataev looked very youthful, although, judging by his stories about past battles, he was over fifty (he himself did not know his age), he seemed to be a physically strong and healthy person. But what was especially striking was the “youthful” expression on his face: it “had an expression of innocence and youth.” Karataev was constantly doing something, which apparently became a habit. He “knew how to do everything, not very well, but not badly either.” Having been captured, he seemed to “not understand what fatigue and illness were,” he felt at home in the barracks.

Karataev’s voice, in which Pierre found an extraordinary “expression of affection and simplicity,” is “Pleasant and melodious.” His speech was sometimes incoherent and illogical, but “irresistibly convincing”, making a deep impression on his listeners. In Karataev’s words, as well as in his appearance and actions, there was “solemn decorum.” His manner of speaking reflected the fluidity of his consciousness, changeable like life itself: “Often he said the exact opposite of what he said before, but both were fair” (vol. 4, part 1, XIII). He spoke freely, without making any effort, “as if his words were always ready in his mouth and accidentally flew out of him,” sprinkled his speech with proverbs and sayings (“never refuse a scrip and prison,” “where is the court?” , there’s no truth there,” “our happiness, my friend, is like water in delirium: if you pull it, it’s inflated, but if you pull it out, there’s nothing,” “not by our mind, but by God’s judgment”).

Karataev loved the whole world and all people. His love was universal, indiscriminate: he “lived lovingly with everything that life brought him to, and especially with man,” “with those people who were before his eyes.” Therefore, “Karataev did not have any” “attachments, friendship, love” in the usual sense. He deeply felt that his life “had no meaning as a separate life,” “it made sense only as a particle of the whole, which he constantly felt” (vol. 4, part 1, XIII). Karataev’s short prayer seems to be a simple set of words (“Lord, Jesus Christ, Nikola Ugodnik, Frola and Lavra...”) - this is a prayer for everything living on earth, which is offered by a person who keenly feels his connection with the world.

Outside the usual conditions of a soldier's life, outside of everything that pressed on him from the outside, Karataev imperceptibly and naturally returned to the peasant way of life, appearance and even manner of speaking, discarding everything alien, forcibly imposed on him from the outside. Peasant life is especially attractive to him: dear memories and ideas of decorum are associated with it. That’s why he talked mainly about the events of “Christian” life, as he called it.

Karataev died as naturally as he lived, experiencing “quiet delight” and tenderness before the great mystery of death that lay before him. Telling, not for the first time, the story of an innocently injured old merchant, he was full of “ecstatic joy,” which was transmitted to those around him, including Pierre. Karataev did not perceive death as punishment or torment, therefore there was no suffering on his face: an “expression of quiet solemnity” “shone” in him (vol. 4, part 3, XIV).

The image of Platon Karataev is the image of a righteous peasant who not only lived in harmony with the world and people, admiring any manifestation of “living life,” but also managed to resurrect Pierre Bezukhov, who had reached a spiritual impasse, forever remaining for him “the eternal personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth."

Moral quests of the novel's heroes. According to Tolstoy, the true spiritual life of a person is a thorny path to moral truths. Many of the novel's heroes go this route. Moral quests are characteristic, according to Tolstoy, only of the nobility - peasants intuitively feel the meaning of existence. They live a harmonious, natural life, and therefore it is easier for them to be happy. They are not disturbed by the constant companions of a nobleman’s moral quest - mental turmoil and a painful feeling of the meaninglessness of their existence.

The goal of the moral quest of Tolstoy's heroes is happiness. The happiness or unhappiness of people is an indicator of the truth or falsity of their lives. The meaning of the spiritual search of most of the novel's heroes is that they eventually begin to see the light, getting rid of the false understanding of life that prevented them from being happy.

The “great, incomprehensible and infinite” is revealed to them in simple, everyday things that earlier, during the period of delusions, seemed too “prosaic” and therefore unworthy of attention. Pierre Bezukhov, having been captured, realized that happiness is “the absence of suffering, the satisfaction of needs and, as a result, the freedom to choose activities, that is, a way of life,” and an excess of “conveniences of life” makes a person unhappy (vol. 4, part 2, XII). Tolstoy teaches us to see happiness in the most ordinary things, accessible to absolutely all people: in the family, children, in housekeeping. What unites people is, according to the writer, the most important and significant. That is why the attempts of his heroes to find happiness in politics, in the ideas of Napoleonism or social “improvement” fail.

The ability for spiritual evolution is a characteristic feature of the “beloved” heroes who are spiritually close to the author: Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova. Spiritually alien to Tolstoy, “unloved” heroes (Kuragins, Drubetskys, Berg) are not capable of moral development, their inner world is devoid of dynamics.

The moral quest of each of the characters has a uniquely individual rhythmic pattern. But there is also something in common: life forces each of them to constantly reconsider their views. Beliefs developed earlier are questioned and replaced by others at new stages of moral development. New life experiences destroy faith in what not so long ago seemed an unshakable truth. The moral path of the novel's heroes is a change of opposite cycles of spiritual life: faith is replaced by disappointment, followed by the acquisition of new faith, the return of the lost meaning of life.

In the depiction of the central characters of War and Peace, Tolstoy’s concept of human moral freedom is realized. Tolstoy is an irreconcilable opponent of the suppression of individual freedom and any violence against it, but he resolutely denies self-will, individualistic arbitrariness, in which the idea of ​​freedom is brought to the point of absurdity. He understands freedom primarily as the ability for a person to choose the right path in life. It is needed only until he finds his place in life, until his connections with the world become stronger. A mature and independent person, who voluntarily renounces the temptations of self-will, gains true freedom: he does not fence himself off from people, but becomes part of the “world” - an integral, organic being. This is the result of the moral quest of all Tolstoy’s “favorite” heroes.

The spiritual path of Andrei Bolkonsky. Prince Andrei is a highly intelligent hero. Periods of spiritual enlightenment are replaced in his life by periods of skepticism and disappointment, “slipping” of thoughts, and mental turmoil. Let us outline the main stages of Andrei Bolkonsky’s spiritual path:

- the period of omnipotence of the false, “Napoleonic” idea, the cult of Napoleon, dreams of glory against the backdrop of disappointment in social life (conversation with Pierre in the Scherer salon, departure for the army, participation in the war of 1805). The climax is an unsuccessful attempt to find “your Toulon” on the Field of Austerlitz;

- spiritual crisis after being wounded at Austerlitz: dreams of glory and even Napoleon himself, who was for Prince Andrei the standard of a great man, now seem to him infinitely small in comparison with the “high, fair and kind sky”, which has become a capacious spiritual symbol for him;

- return to Bald Mountains, the birth of a son and the death of his wife, an awakened feeling of guilt towards her, disappointment in previous individualistic ideals, the decision to live “for oneself” and one’s loved ones;

- meeting with Pierre, inspired by Masonic ideas, arguing with him about good and evil, the meaning of life, and self-sacrifice. Pierre was struck by Bolkonsky’s look - “extinguished, dead, to which, despite the apparent desire, Prince Andrei could not give a joyful and cheerful shine” (vol. 2, part 2, XI). Bolkonsky was skeptical about his friend’s Masonic ideas, emphasizing that he knows in life “only two real misfortunes: remorse and illness” and that all his wisdom now is “to live for yourself, avoiding only these two evils.” Pierre, in his opinion, “maybe right for himself,” but “everyone lives in their own way.” In a dispute at the crossing, Andrei, by the power of logic, “defeats” Pierre, who talks about God and future life, but moral “concern” appears in him: Pierre’s words touched him to the quick.

Prince Andrei is transformed even externally: his “extinct, dead” look becomes “radiant, childish, tender.” State of mind also changed: he looked at the sky and “for the first time after Austerlitz... I saw that high, eternal sky that he had seen while lying on the Field of Austerlitz, and something that had long fallen asleep, something better that was in it, suddenly joyful and youthful awakened in his soul” (vol. 2, part 2, XII). The author notes that “the meeting with Pierre was for Prince Andrei an era that began, although in appearance the same, but in his inner world new life"(vol. 2, part 2, XII). After this, the hero carries out transformations on his estates, “without showing them to anyone and without noticeable labor.” He “fulfilled” in himself what Pierre failed to do;

- a trip to the Rostovs’ Otradnoye estate, a meeting with Natasha, under whose influence (especially after her unwittingly overheard night monologue) a turning point is outlined in Andrei’s soul: he feels rejuvenated, reborn to a new life. The symbol of this revival was an old oak, seen by him twice: on the way to Otradnoye and on the way back;

- participation in government reforms, communication with the reformer Speransky and disappointment in him. Love for Natasha transformed Prince Andrei, who realized the meaninglessness of government activities. He is again going to live “for himself”, and not for the illusory “improvement” of humanity;

- the break with Natasha became the cause of a new and, perhaps, the most acute spiritual crisis of Andrei Bolkonsky. Natasha’s betrayal “struck him all the more, the more diligently he hid the effect it had on him from everyone.” Bolkonsky is looking for the “most immediate”, “practical interests” that one can “grasp” (vol. 3, part 1, VIII). Anger and unavenged insult poisoned the “artificial calm” that Andrei tried to find in military service;

- at the beginning of the war of 1812, Bolkonsky joined the active army (because of which he “lost himself forever in the court world”). He commands a regiment and becomes close to his soldiers, who call him “our prince.” On the eve of the Battle of Borodino, a new turning point emerged in Prince Andrei’s worldview: life presented itself to him “ magic lantern“, and everything that previously seemed important to him - “glory, public good, love for a woman, the fatherland itself” - “roughly painted figures”, “false images” (vol. 3, part 2, XXIV);

- Bolkonsky’s moral insight occurs after being wounded near Borodino. He experienced “enthusiastic pity and love” for his defeated enemy, the mutilated Anatole, with whom he found himself in the same hut. Reflecting on Anatole, he came to the conclusion that the most important thing in life is what Princess Marya had previously taught him and what he did not understand: “compassion, love for brothers, for those who love, love for those who hate us, love for enemies - .. ... the love that God preached on earth...” (vol. 3, part 2, XXXVII). Before his death, Bolkonsky forgave Natasha. Two days before his death, he seems to “awaken from life,” experiencing alienation from living people and their problems - they seem insignificant to him in comparison with the important and mysterious that awaits him.

In the early stages of Andrei Bolkonsky's spiritual life, his high spirituality is accompanied by an arrogant and contemptuous alienation from people: he disdains his wife, and is burdened by any clash with the ordinary and vulgar. Under Natasha's influence, he discovers the opportunity to enjoy life and understands that he used to fuss senselessly in a “narrow, closed frame.”

During periods of moral error, Prince Andrei focuses on the immediate practical problems, feeling that his spiritual horizon was sharply narrowing: “It was as if that endless receding vault of the sky, which had previously stood above him, suddenly turned into a low, definite, oppressive vault, in which everything was clear, but there was nothing eternal and mysterious” ( vol. 3, part 1, VIII). Like other heroes of the novel, Prince Andrei at the most important moments of his life experiences a state of tenderness and spiritual enlightenment (for example, during the birth of his wife or in Mytishchi, when Natasha comes to him, wounded). On the contrary, in moments of mental decline, Prince Andrei treats his surroundings ironically. The turning points in his worldview are the result of a collision with the tragic and incomprehensible (the death of a loved one, the betrayal of a bride), with manifestations of “living” life (birth, death, love, physical suffering). Bolkonsky’s insights seem, at first glance, sudden, but they are all motivated by the author’s careful analysis of the most complex “dialectics” of his soul, even when the hero is absolutely confident that he is right.

A new spiritual experience forces Prince Andrei to reconsider decisions that seemed final and irrevocable to him. So, having fallen in love with Natasha, he forgets about his intention to never marry. The break with Natasha and the invasion of Napoleon determined his decision to join the active army, despite the fact that after Austerlitz and the death of his wife, he promised never to serve in the Russian army, even “if Bonaparte stood ... at Smolensk, threatening the Bald Mountains” (t 2, part 2, XI).

— Pierre is a “stranger” in the secular world of St. Petersburg. Raised abroad, he admires Napoleon and considers Rousseau’s theory of the “social contract” and the ideas of the Great French Revolution to be saving for Europe. Inexperienced, naive Pierre also learns the “wrong side” of the life of the St. Petersburg elite: he participates in carousing with Dolokhov and Kuragin;

- having received a rich inheritance, Pierre Bezukhov found himself in the spotlight. He takes the flattery of others as a manifestation of sincere love. Understanding nothing in this new life, Pierre completely relies on people who seek to control him in order to benefit themselves. The culmination of his secular “off-road” is his marriage to Helen Kuragina. The marriage arranged by Prince Vasily became a real life disaster for Pierre. A duel with Dolokhov, in which he wounds his opponent, leads to a deep moral crisis. Pierre feels that he has lost everything life values And moral guidelines. The crisis ends with a meeting with the freemason Bazdeev and Pierre’s entry into the lodge of “free masons”;

— active participation in the activities of the Masonic lodge. Trying to subordinate his life to strict moral regulations, Pierre keeps a diary, interesting for its merciless psychological introspection. One of important events At this stage of his life there was a trip to the southern estates, where he tried to alleviate the lot of the peasants. The attempt was unsuccessful: Pierre was never able to overcome the alienation between him, the master, and the peasants, who considered all his innovations a suspicious whim. However, the hero himself is sure that he has accomplished something important and significant;

- dissatisfaction with Masonic activities, a break with the St. Petersburg Freemasons. A distracted, meaningless life and a new spiritual crisis, which Pierre overcomes under the influence of a sudden feeling for Natasha;

— The Patriotic War is a decisive stage in Pierre’s moral development. At his own expense, he equips the militia, finding a special charm in “sacrificing everything.” The moment of truth for him was the Battle of Borodino, his stay at the Raevsky battery: he felt complete uselessness among people engaged in military labor;

- Pierre, remaining in Moscow, intends to benefit the Fatherland by killing Napoleon. Obsessed with this unrealistic goal, individualistic in nature, he witnesses the fire of Moscow. Having failed to accomplish his main feat, Pierre shows fearlessness and courage: he saves a girl during a fire, protects a woman from drunken French soldiers. He was arrested and imprisoned in a French prison on charges of arson;

- the unjust trial of Marshal Davout. An acute spiritual crisis caused by the spectacle of the execution of innocent people. Pierre's humanistic illusions finally dissipated: he found himself at a dangerous point, almost losing faith in life and in God. In the barracks for prisoners there is a meeting with Platon Karataev, who amazed him with his simple and wise attitude towards life, people, and everything living on earth. It was the personality of Karataev, the bearer of folk morality, that helped him overcome the crisis of his worldview and gain faith in himself. Pierre's spiritual revival begins under the most difficult conditions;

- marriage with Natasha, achieving spiritual harmony, a clear moral goal. Pierre Bezukhov in the epilogue (late 1810s) is in opposition to the government, believes that “all good people need to unite,” and intends to create a legal or secret society.

In the early stages of his spiritual life, Pierre is infantile and unusually trusting, willingly and even joyfully submitting to the will of others, naively believing in the benevolence of others. He becomes a victim of the selfish Prince Vasily and an easy prey for the crafty Masons, who are also not indifferent to his condition. Tolstoy notes: obedience “did not even seem to him to be a virtue, but happiness.” He lacks the determination to resist the will of others.

One of the moral errors of the young Bezukhov is the unconscious need to imitate Napoleon. In the first chapters of the novel, he admires the “great man,” considering him the defender of the gains of the French Revolution; later he rejoices in his role as a “benefactor” and, in the long term, a “liberator” of the peasants; in 1812 he wants to rid people of Napoleon, the “Antichrist.” All this is the result of Pierre’s “Napoleonic” hobbies. The desire to rise above people, even dictated by noble goals, invariably leads him to a spiritual dead end. According to Tolstoy, both blind obedience to someone else’s will and individualistic “messianicism” are equally untenable: both are based on an immoral view of life, which recognizes the right of some people to command, and the obligation to obey for others. The true order of life should, on the contrary, promote the unity of people based on universal equality.

Like Andrei Bolkonsky, young Pierre is a representative of the intellectual noble elite of Russia, who treated the “close” and “understandable” with contempt. Tolstoy emphasizes the “optical self-deception” of the hero, alienated from everyday life: in the everyday he is not able to consider the great and infinite, he sees only “one limited, petty, everyday, meaningless.” Pierre's spiritual insight is the comprehension of the value of an ordinary, “non-heroic” life. Having experienced captivity, humiliation, seeing the seamy side of human relationships and high spirituality in the ordinary Russian peasant Platon Karataev, he realized that happiness lies in the person himself, in “satisfying needs.” “... He learned to see the great, the eternal and the infinite in everything and therefore... threw down the trumpet into which he had been looking until now through the heads of people” (vol. 4, part 4, XII), Tolstoy emphasizes.

At every stage of his spiritual development, Pierre painfully resolves philosophical questions that “cannot be escaped.” These are the simplest and most insoluble questions: “What is bad? What well? What should you love, what should you hate? Why live, and what am I? What is life, what is death? What force controls everything? (vol. 2, part 2.1). The intensity of moral searches intensifies in moments of crisis. Pierre often experiences “disgust for everything around him,” everything in himself and in people seems to him “confused, meaningless and disgusting” (vol. 2, part 2, I). But he does not turn into a misanthrope - after violent attacks of despair, Pierre again looks at the world through the eyes of a happy man who has comprehended the wise simplicity of human relationships, not abstract, but real humanism. “Living” life constantly adjusts the hero’s moral self-awareness.

While in captivity, Pierre for the first time felt a feeling of complete merging with the world: “and all this is mine, and all this is in me, and all this is me.” He continues to experience joyful enlightenment even after liberation - the entire universe seems reasonable and “well-ordered” to him. Life no longer requires rational thinking and rigid planning: “now he made no plans,” and most importantly, “he could not have a goal, because he now had faith - not faith in words, rules and thoughts, but faith in the living, always felt God” (vol. 4, part 4, xii).

While a person is alive, Tolstoy argued, he follows the path of disappointments, gains and new losses. This also applies to Pierre Bezukhov. The periods of delusion and disappointment that replaced spiritual enlightenment were not the moral degradation of the hero, a return to a lower level of moral self-awareness. Pierre's spiritual development is a complex spiral, each new turn of which not only repeats the previous one in some way, but also takes the hero to a new spiritual height.

The life path of Pierre Bezukhov is open in time, and therefore his spiritual quest is not interrupted. In the epilogue of the novel, Tolstoy not only introduces the reader to the “new” Pierre, convinced of his moral rightness, but also outlines one of the possible paths of his moral movement associated with the new era and new circumstances of life.

Problems of family and education. Family and family traditions, according to Tolstoy, are the basis for the formation of personality. It is in the family that Tolstoy’s “favorite” heroes receive their first moral lessons and become familiar with the spiritual experience of their elders, which helps them settle into a wider community of people. Many chapters of the novel are devoted to the family life of the characters and intra-family relationships. The discord between close people (for example, the hostile attitude of old Bolkonsky towards his daughter, Princess Marya) is one of the contradictions of “living” life, but the main thing in the family episodes of War and Peace is direct communication between close people.

The family in Tolstoy’s view is a free-personal, non-hierarchical unity of people; it is like an ideal social structure in miniature. Harmonious family world the writer contrasts the discord and alienation of people outside the family, outside the home.

“Family harmony” is expressed in different ways in the novel. With the Rostovs, everything is completely different from the Bolkonskys. The “young” families whose lives are shown in the epilogue are also different from each other. Relationships between family members cannot be regulated by any rules, customs or etiquette: they develop on their own and in a new way in each new family. Each family is unique, but without the common, most necessary basis of family existence - loving unity between people - a true family, according to Tolstoy, is impossible. That is why the novel shows, along with “harmonious” families corresponding to Tolstoy’s ideal, “inauthentic” families (Kuragins, Pierre and Hélène, Bergs, Julie and Boris Drubetsky), in which people who are close by blood or united by marriage are not connected by common spiritual interests.

The criteria for “authenticity” and “inauthenticity” of a family for Tolstoy are the purpose of marriage and attitude towards children. Creating a family, in his opinion, is incompatible with narrowly selfish goals (marriage of convenience or marriage considered as a way to obtain “legitimate” pleasure). The natural instincts of a person that force him to create a family are of a much more reasonable and sublime nature than any rational motives. By creating a family, a person takes a step towards “living” life, approaches “organic” being. It is in the creation of a family that Tolstoy’s “favorite” heroes find the meaning of life: the family completes the stage of their youthful “disorder” and becomes a kind of result of their spiritual quest.

Tolstoy is by no means an indifferent spectator of the family life of the heroes. Comparing its various options, he shows what a family should be like, what true family values ​​are and how they influence the formation human personality. It is no coincidence that all the heroes who are spiritually close to the author were brought up in “real”, “full-fledged” families and, on the contrary, egoists and cynics - in “false”, “random” families, in which people are connected with each other only formally. Tolstoy sees an important moral pattern in this.

The Rostov and Bolkonsky families are especially close to the writer, as well as some of the “new” families whose lives are shown in the epilogue - Nikolai and Marya, Pierre and Natasha.

The Rostovs in War and Peace are the ideal of family life, based on good relationships between close people. They easily experience troubles; there is no place for cold rationality in their relationships with each other. The Rostovs are close to national traditions: hospitable, unscrupulous, loving village life, folk holidays. The “family” traits of the Rostovs are sincerity, openness, simplicity, and attentive attitude towards people. In 1812, they make difficult decisions: they agree to let Petya go into the army, leave Moscow, and give carts to the wounded. The Rostovs live in the interests of the nation.

The Bolkonsky family structure is completely different. Their life is subject to strict regulations, established once and for all by the domestic “despot”, the old prince Nikolai Andreevich. He brings up Princess Marya according to a special system, cannot stand it when people contradict him, and therefore often quarrels with his daughter and son. Although relations within the family are outwardly very cool, since the Bolkonskys are people with strong characters, they are all truly attached to each other. They are united by a hidden, not expressed in words, kindred warmth. The old prince is proud of his son and loves his daughter, and feels guilty for quarrels with children. Only before his death does he give free rein to the feeling of pity and love for his daughter, which he had previously carefully hidden.

Nikolai Rostov and Marya Bolkonskaya are an example of a happy married couple. They complement each other, feeling like one whole (Nikolai compares his wife to a finger that cannot be cut off). He is absorbed in housework, maintaining the family's wealth, caring for the future material well-being of the children. Marya in their family is a source of spirituality, kindness and tenderness. Sometimes it seems that they are completely different people, absorbed in their own interests, but this not only does not separate them, but, on the contrary, unites them even more tightly. Nikolai’s love for his wife, Tolstoy emphasizes, is “firm, tender and proud,” and “the feeling of surprise at her sincerity” does not fade away in him. He was proud that “she was so smart, and was well aware of his insignificance before her in the spiritual world, and was even more happy that she and her soul not only belonged to him, but formed a part of him.” Marya is an excellent teacher who strives to understand the interests of children. The “children's diary” that she keeps not only does not provoke ridicule from Nikolai, which she secretly feared, but on the contrary, “this tireless, eternal mental tension, aimed only at the moral good of children, delighted him” (epilogue, part 1, XV).

The family life of Pierre and Natasha as depicted by Tolstoy is almost idyll. The purpose of their marriage is not only procreation and raising children, but also spiritual unity. Pierre "after seven years of marriage... felt a joyful, firm consciousness that he was not a bad person, and he felt this because he saw himself reflected in his wife." Natasha is the “mirror” of her husband, reflecting “only what was truly good” (epilogue, part 1, X). They are so close that they are able to intuitively understand each other. Natasha often “guessed” “the essence of Pierre’s desires.” For the sake of the family, they had to sacrifice many habits: Pierre was “under the shoe of his wife” and “did not dare” to do anything that would be detrimental to the interests of the family, Natasha gave up “all her charms.” But these sacrifices, Tolstoy emphasizes, are imaginary: after all, Pierre and Natasha simply cannot live otherwise.

At the other extreme of the novel is the depiction of “inauthentic”, “random” families. These are the Kuragins: the connection between the members of this family is formal, the relationship between parents and children is maintained only for the sake of decency. According to Prince Vasily, children are his “cross.” The princess is jealous of her own daughter. All Kuragins are selfish and vicious: Prince Vasily actually sells his daughter, Helen takes many lovers and does not even consider it necessary to hide it, for Anatole there is nothing more important than sensual pleasures. The “family” traits of the Kuragins are ordinaryness and stupidity, which they carefully disguise, strictly observing the rules of secular decency. To the surprise of Pierre, who knew that his wife was stupid, Helen was considered in the world “the smartest woman.” It was no coincidence that the marriage of Pierre and Helene turned out to be unsuccessful: Helene married for convenience, and Pierre felt nothing for her except physical, “animal” attraction. Children were not the goal of their marriage from the very beginning - Helen cynically declares that she is “not a fool to want to have children.”

The Drubetsky family is also far from Tolstoy's ideas about a real family. Boris does not respect his mother, seeing her willingness to humiliate herself for the sake of money, but very soon comes to the conclusion that a career and material well-being are the most important things in life. He marries Julie Karagina for her money, overcoming his disgust for her. Another “accidental”, fragile family was formed: after all, Julie married Boris only in order not to remain an old maid.

“Family thought” in the novel is inextricably linked with the problem of education. The life and spiritual development of children and adolescents is one of Tolstoy’s favorite themes. The youth of many of the novel's heroes, especially the young Rostovs, is a happy and carefree time, which they are sorry to part with. Natasha tells Nikolai after the hunt in Otradnoye: “I know that I will never be as happy and calm as I am now” (vol. 2, part 4, VII). But Tolstoy is not inclined to idealize youth: after all, this is only a stage in the development of the heroes’ personalities. From the first scenes of the novel, covered in the poetry of childhood and youth, the narrative moves to the mature period of their lives, in which they find happiness in the family and raising their own children. Every stage of a person’s life seems equally important and “poetic” to the writer.

At the heart of Tolstoy's pedagogical concept are the principles of J.-J. Rousseau. Upbringing should be “natural”, unnoticeable, children cannot be “kept strictly”. A too “rational” approach to them can lead to undesirable results even in close-knit families. In fact, Vera, the only one of all the Rostovs, makes an unpleasant impression, despite her beauty, good manners and “correctness” of judgment. She amazes with her selfishness and inability to get in touch with people. It turns out that she was “raised completely differently” than Natasha, whom her mother spoils. The Rostovs themselves understand their mistake. “I treated the eldest strictly,” the countess complains. “To be honest, ... the countess was wise with Vera,” Ilya Andreevich echoes her (vol. 1, part 1, IX).

Tolstoy showed two options for upbringing, painting youth in bright or dark, joyless tones. The first is “Rostov”: the older Rostovs do not have any special principles of education, their communication with children is spontaneous “Rousseauism”. In the Rostov family, pampering and mischief are allowed, developing spontaneity and cheerfulness in children. The second is the method of education followed by the old Prince Bolkonsky, who is extremely demanding of children and extremely restrained in expressing paternal feelings. Marya and Andrey become “reluctant romantics”: ideals and passions are deeply hidden in their souls, a mask of indifference and coldness carefully hides their romantic spirituality. The youth of Marya Bolkonskaya is a severe test. The severity of her father's demands deprives her of the feeling of joy and happiness - the natural companions of youth. But it is precisely during the years of forced seclusion in her parents’ house that “pure spiritual work” takes place in her, her spiritual potential increases, making her so attractive in the eyes of Nikolai Rostov.

Youth is not only an enchantingly beautiful time, but also a “dangerous” one: there is a high probability of mistakes in people and in choosing a path. And Pierre, and Nikolai, and Natasha in their youth have to pay for their excessive gullibility, passion for secular temptations or excess sensuality. Life experience and contact with history develop in them a sense of responsibility for their actions, for their family and the fate of their loved ones. Nikolai Rostov, having lost a large sum of money, tried to compensate for the damage caused to the family by reducing the money going to his maintenance. Later, when the Rostovs were threatened with ruin, he decided to take up farming, although military service seemed to him a more pleasant and easier occupation. Natasha, who has not recovered from grief after the death of Prince Andrei, believes that she must devote herself to her mother, broken by the news of Petya’s death.

Particularly difficult trials befell the gentle and trusting Pierre. His life resembles movement by touch, because, unlike other heroes of the novel, he was raised outside the family. Pierre's example proves: even the most progressive pedagogical principles cannot prepare a person for life if there are no relatives, spiritually close people next to him.

Image of Natasha Rostova. Natasha Rostova is the embodiment of “living life”, the most charming female image created by Tolstoy. Her main qualities are amazing sincerity and spontaneity, love for people. All this makes Natasha, who does not have perfect plastic beauty, surprisingly attractive to others.

Spiritual generosity and sensitivity are constantly manifested in her actions and in her relationships with people. She is always ready to communicate, is sincerely disposed towards all people and expects reciprocal goodwill. Even with unfamiliar people, she quickly achieves maximum frankness and complete trust, winning her over with a smile, a look, an intonation, and a gesture. It is no coincidence that Natasha, in her letters to Prince Andrey, cannot convey what she “is accustomed to expressing with her voice, smile and gaze” (vol. 2, part 4, XIII). An important feature of Tolstoy’s heroine, the “countess,” raised by a French emigrant, is an organic, instinctive closeness to the national spirit and “techniques,” “inimitable, unstudied, Russian.” Natasha, Tolstoy emphasizes, “knew how to understand what was... in every Russian person” (vol. 2, part 4, VII).

Natasha is the embodiment of naturalness, she is guided by “reasonable, natural, naive egoism.” Loyalty to oneself in each specific situation, inattention to the opinions and assessments of others are signs of her holistic, organic worldview. Excess vital energy is the reason for many of Natasha’s “unreasonable” hobbies, but much more often her irrepressible thirst for life helps her accept the only correct solution. In crisis situations, Natasha does not have to think about her behavior: actions are performed as if by themselves. For example, at the time of her departure from Moscow in 1812, she insists that the Rostov carts be given to the wounded, because “it is so necessary,” without even imagining that it could be done differently.

The indomitable “power of vitality” inherent in Natasha is transmitted to people, and an atmosphere of cheerful animation often arises around her. She has the gift of infecting everyone with her vital energy. Upset by a large card loss, Nikolai Rostov listens to her singing and forgets about his misfortune. Prince Andrei, having seen Natasha in Otradnoye and accidentally heard her night monologue, feels rejuvenated: love for her fills the life of a man who until recently felt like an “old man” with joy and new meaning. And Pierre is given the thirst for life, which he was surprised to see in young Natasha. It influences people involuntarily and disinterestedly, without noticing its impact on them. The essence of Natasha’s life, Tolstoy emphasizes, is love, which means not only the need for happiness and joy, but also dedication, self-denial.

Tolstoy finds poetry in each of Natasha’s ages, showing the process of her growing up, the gradual transformation of the teenage girl she first appears in the novel into a girl and then into a mature woman. In the epilogue, Natasha is no less happy than at the beginning of the novel. She goes from half-childish cheerfulness and carefree, self-willed youth through repentance and a painful consciousness of her sinfulness (after the story with Anatole), through the pain of the loss of a loved one - Prince Andrei - to a happy family life and motherhood.

The epilogue of the novel is Tolstoy's detailed polemic with the ideas of women's emancipation. After marriage, all Natasha's interests are focused on the family. She fulfills the natural purpose of a woman: her girlish “impulses” and dreams ultimately led precisely to creating a family. When this “unconscious” goal was achieved, everything else turned out to be unimportant and “fell away” by itself. “Natasha needed a husband. A husband was given to her. And her husband gave her a family” (epilogue, part 1, X) - with such biblically aphoristic words the writer sums up her life. When she got married, she gave up “all her charms” because “she felt that those charms that instinct taught her to use before would now only be ridiculous in the eyes of her husband.” According to Tolstoy, the change in Natasha, which surprised many, was a completely natural reaction to the demands of life: now she had “absolutely no time” to “decorate” herself in order to “please others.” Only the old countess, with her “maternal instinct,” understood her condition; she “was surprised at the surprise of people who did not understand Natasha, and repeated that she always knew that Natasha would be an exemplary wife and mother” (epilogue, part 1, X).

Natasha Rostova in the epilogue is Tolstoy’s ideal of a woman fulfilling her natural destiny, living a harmonious life, free from everything false and superficial. Natasha found the meaning of her existence in family and motherhood - this made her involved in the whole element of human life.

Mastery of psychological analysis. Tolstoy uses the entire arsenal of artistic means and techniques to recreate a complex picture of the characters’ inner world, the “dialectics of the soul.”

The main means of psychological depiction in the novel War and Peace are internal monologues and psychological portraits.

Tolstoy was one of the first to demonstrate the enormous psychological potential of internal monologues. Depicting the main characters, the writer creates, as it were, a series of instant “X-ray images” of their soul. These verbal “snapshots” have remarkable qualities: impartiality, authenticity and persuasiveness. The more Tolstoy trusts his hero, the more he strives to show the significance and importance of his spiritual quest, the more often inner speech replaces the author’s characteristics of the heroes’ psychology. At the same time, Tolstoy never forgets about his right to comment on internal monologues and tell the reader how they should be interpreted.

In the novel War and Peace, internal monologues are used to convey the psychology of several main characters: Andrei Bolkonsky (volume 1, part 4, chapter XII, chapter XVI; volume 2, part 3, chapters I, III; volume 3, part 3, chapter XXXII; volume 4, part 1, chapter XXI); Pierre Bezukhov (volume 2, part 1, chapter VI; volume 2, part 5, chapter I; volume 3, part 3, chapter IX; volume 3, part 3, chapter XXVII), Natasha Rostova (volume 2, part 5, chapter VIII; volume 4, part 4, chapter I), Marya Bolkonskaya (volume 2, part 3, chapter XXVI; volume 3, part 2, chapter XII; epilogue, part 1, chapter VI) . The internal monologues of these heroes are a sign of their complex and subtle spiritual organization and intense moral quest. Tolstoy carefully recreates the spiritual “self-portraits” of the characters, ensuring that the reader feels the fluidity, variability, pulsation of a variety of, sometimes contradictory, interrupting each other, thoughts, feelings, and experiences. The inner speech of each character is extremely individualized. Looking, with the help of the writer, into the recesses of their souls, we see how, from the chaos and contradictions of the internal “cosmos” in these people, “before our eyes,” ideas, opinions, assessments mature, and are formed. moral principles, and sometimes behavior programs. In the form of inner speech, Tolstoy conveys the impressions of some other heroes, for example Nikolai Rostov (volume 1, part 2, chapter XIX; volume 1, part 4, chapter XIII; volume 2, part 2, chapter XX) and Petya Rostov (volume 3, part 1, chapter XXI; volume 4, part 3, chapter X).

It should be noted that inner speech is by no means a universal method of psychological characterization. This technique is not used in the depiction of most of the characters in the novel War and Peace. Among them are not only those for whom Tolstoy feels obvious antipathy (the Kuragin, Drubetsky, Berg families, Anna Pavlovna Sherer), but also such heroes to whom the author has a “neutral” or ambivalent attitude: the old Prince Bolkonsky, the old Rostovs, Denisov, Dolokhov , statesmen, generals, numerous minor and episodic characters. Inner world these people are revealed only when the author himself considers it necessary to report about him. Tolstoy includes information about the psychology of heroes in their portrait characteristics and statements, and reveals the psychological subtext of actions and behavior.

The internal monologues of Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova, Marya Bolkonskaya are “signs” of their belonging to a special group - the group of “favorite” heroes, internally close to Tolstoy. The spiritual world of each of these people is dynamic, fluctuating between conscious, stable and unconscious, underembodied in thought and feeling. All of them are bright individuals. And this is also visible in the very content, pace and direction of internal changes. The boundaries of their characters are flexible and easily overcome. Therefore, any frozen, momentary characteristics of their internal appearance would be obviously incomplete. A specific means of in-depth psychological depiction of such people is an internal monologue. In cases where a person’s psychological appearance is stable and stable, Tolstoy does not go beyond the traditional forms and techniques of psychologism.

Let's consider one of the relatively short internal monologues (vol. 2, part 5, X; internal speech is italicized, words underlined by Tolstoy). Its “author” is Natasha Rostova, who returned from the theater, where she first met Anatoly Kuragin and was immediately “defeated” by his beauty, confidence, and “the good-natured gentleness of his smile.” While putting Natasha into the carriage, Anatole “shook her hand above the wrist.”

“Only having arrived home, Natasha could clearly think through everything that had happened to her, and suddenly, remembering Prince Andrei, she was horrified and in front of everyone, over tea, which everyone sat down to after the theater, she gasped loudly and, flushed, ran out of the room. "My God! I'm dead! - she said to herself. “How could I let this happen?” - she thought. She sat for a long time, covering her flushed face with her hands, trying to give herself a clear account of what had happened to her, and could neither understand what had happened to her, nor what she felt. Everything seemed dark, unclear and scary to her. [...] "What it is? What was this fear that I felt for him? What is this remorse that I feel now? - she thought.

Natasha would be able to tell the old countess alone in bed at night everything that she thought. Sonya, she knew, with her stern and practical gaze, either would not have understood anything, or would have been horrified by her confession. Natasha, alone with herself, tried to resolve what was tormenting her.

“Did I die for the love of Prince Andrey or not?” - she asked herself and with a reassuring smile answered herself: “What kind of fool am I that I ask this? What happened to me? Nothing. I didn't do anything, I didn't do anything to cause this. No one will know, and I will never see him again, she told herself. “So it’s clear that nothing happened, that there’s nothing to repent of, that Prince Andrei can love me just the way I am.” But what kind? Oh my God, my God! Why isn’t he here!” Natasha calmed down for a moment, but then again some instinct told her that although all this was true and although nothing had happened, instinct told her that all the former purity of her love for Prince Andrei had perished. And again in her imagination she repeated her entire conversation with Kuragin and imagined the face, gesture and gentle smile of this handsome and brave man, while he shook her hand.”

Natasha is trying to understand what happened to her in the theater, whether she lost the right to Prince Andrei’s love or not. She is outraged with herself, she is tormented by remorse and fear of the future. These moods are replaced by others: the heroine calms herself down, reason tells her that nothing terrible happened. But the whirling of thoughts and feelings again returns Natasha to the beginning of the mental process, to the previous feeling of shame and horror.

The writer actively intervenes in the internal monologue, interrupting it four times, clarifying and strengthening it with the author’s messages about Natasha’s experiences. The internal monologue breaks down into a series of internal remarks, which further enhances the impression of chaos that suddenly arose in the heroine’s soul.

One of the most fundamental and highly artistic prose works in the history of Russian literature is the epic novel “War and Peace.” The high ideological and compositional perfection of the work is the fruit of many years of work. The history of the creation of Tolstoy's War and Peace reflects the hard work on the novel from 1863 to 1870.

Interest in the theme of the Decembrists

The work is based on the Patriotic War of 1812, its reflection on the destinies of people, the awakening of moral and patriotic feelings, and the spiritual unity of the Russian people. However, before starting to create a story about the Patriotic War, the author changed his plans many times. For many years he was concerned about the topic of the Decembrists, their role in the development of the state and the outcome of the uprising.

Tolstoy decided to write a work reflecting the story of the Decembrist, who returned in 1856 after a 30-year exile. According to Tolstoy, the beginning of the story should have begun in 1856. Later, the author decides to begin his story in 1825 in order to show what reasons led the hero to exile. But having plunged into the abyss of historical events, the author felt the need to depict not only the fate of one hero, but the Decembrist uprising itself, its origins.

Original concept

The work was conceived as a story, and later as a novel “The Decembrists,” on which he worked in 1860–1861. Over time, the author is not satisfied with only the events of 1825 and comes to the understanding that it is necessary to reveal in the work earlier historical events that formed the wave of the patriotic movement and the awakening of civic consciousness in Russia. But the author did not stop there either, understanding the inextricable connection between the events of 1812 and their origins, which date back to 1805. Thus, the idea of ​​creative recreation of artistic and historical reality is planned by the author into a half-century large-scale picture reflecting events from 1805 to the 1850s.

“Three Times” in the history of Russia

The author called this idea of ​​​​recreating historical reality “Three Times”. The first of them was supposed to reflect the historical realities of the 19th century, personifying the conditions for the formation of the young Decembrists. The next time is the 1820s - the moment of formation of civic activity and the moral position of the Decembrists. The culmination of this historical period, according to Tolstoy, was a direct description of the Decembrist uprising, its defeat and consequences. The third period was conceived by the author as a recreation of the reality of the 50s, marked by the return of the Decembrists from exile under an amnesty due to the death of Nicholas I. The third part was supposed to personify the time of the onset of long-awaited changes in the political atmosphere of Russia.

Such a global plan of the author, which consists in depicting a very wide time period filled with numerous and significant historical events, required enormous effort and artistic strength from the writer. The work, in the finale of which the return of Pierre Bezukhov and Natasha Rostova from exile was planned, did not fit into the framework of not only a traditional historical story, but even a novel. Understanding this and realizing the importance of a detailed recreation of the pictures of the War of 1812 and its starting points, Lev Nikolaevich decides to narrow the historical scope of the planned work.

The final version of the artistic concept

In the author’s final plan, the extreme time point turns out to be the 20s of the 19th century, which the reader learns about only in the prologue, while the main events of the work coincide with historical reality from 1805 to 1812. Despite the fact that the author decided to convey the essence of the historical era more briefly, the book could not fit into any of the traditional historical genres. The work, combining detailed descriptions of all aspects of war and peacetime, resulted in a four-volume epic novel,

Working on a novel

Despite the fact that the author established himself with the final version of the artistic concept, work on the work was not easy. Over the seven-year period of its creation, the author repeatedly abandoned work on the novel and returned to it again. The peculiarities of the work are evidenced by numerous manuscripts of the work, preserved in the writer’s archive, numbering more than five thousand pages. It is through them that the history of the creation of the novel “War and Peace” can be traced.

The archive contained 15 draft versions of the novel, which indicates the author’s utmost responsibility for working on the work, a high degree of introspection and criticism. Realizing the importance of the topic, Tolstoy wanted to be as close to the truth as possible. historical facts, philosophical and moral views of society, civic sentiments of the first quarter of the XIX century. To write the novel “War and Peace,” the writer had to study many memoirs of eyewitnesses of the war, historical documents and scientific works, personal letters. “When I write history, I like to be faithful to reality down to the smallest detail,” Tolstoy asserted. As a result, it turned out that the writer unwittingly collected a whole collection of books dedicated to the events of 1812.

In addition to working on historical sources, to accurately depict the events of the war, the author visited the sites of military battles. It was these trips that formed the basis for the unique landscape sketches that turn the novel from historical chronicle into a highly artistic work of literature.

The title of the work, chosen by the author, personifies the main idea. Peace, which consists of spiritual harmony and the absence of military action in native land, can make a person truly happy. L.N. Tolstoy, who at the time of creating the work wrote: “The artist’s goal is not to undeniably resolve the issue, but to make one love life in its countless, never-exhaustible manifestations,” undoubtedly succeeded in realizing his ideological plan.

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