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| Discover how Leo Tolstoy masterfully weaves grand historical events with deeply personal narratives in War and Peace. This timeless literary masterpiece explores the clash between destiny and free will, war and love, history and humanity. |
War and Peace: How Tolstoy Balanced Epic History with Intimate Human Stories
Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace stands as a monumental achievement in world literature, a sweeping epic that transcends its historical setting to explore the universal complexities of human existence.
Published in 1869, the novel is often hailed as one of the greatest works ever written, not only for its vast scope and intricate storytelling but also for its profound philosophical insights into war, peace, love, and destiny. Its inclusion among the 10 Most Influential Novels in English Literature is a testament to its enduring relevance and its ability to captivate readers across generations and cultures.
Beyond its philosophical depth, War and Peace has profoundly influenced the development of the modern novel.
Tolstoy’s innovative narrative techniques, such as his use of multiple perspectives and his seamless integration of historical events with personal stories, have inspired countless writers. The novel’s exploration of the human condition—its joys, sorrows, triumphs, and failures—has made it a touchstone for readers seeking to understand the complexities of life.
To read War and Peace is not merely to engage with a classic; it is to embark on a transformative journey that challenges and enriches the soul.
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Introduction
War and Peace is a historical novel that chronicles the tumultuous events in Russia during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century.
Focusing on an aristocratic way of life that had already started to fade when Leo Tolstoy came to write the book in the 1860s, it covers a comparatively short span of time—15 years—but it renders the lives of disparate characters from all segments of society in vivid, well-realized detail.
The story captures a generation on the brink of change, some defending the existing class structure with their lives while others realize that the old way of life is disappearing. Part history lesson, part grand romance, part battlefield revisionism, and part philosophy lecture, War and Peace has captivated generations of readers with its gripping narrative and its clear, intelligible understanding of the human soul.
Plot Summary
Book I
War and Peace is an immense, sprawling novel that chronicles events in Russia during the early 19th century, when the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte conquered much of Europe in the Napoleonic Wars. Bonaparte unsuccessfully tried to expand his dominion into Russia, only to be turned back in 1812.
As War and Peace opens in July 1805, Russia has allied herself with England, Austria, and Sweden to stave off Bonaparte’s aggressive expansion.
A member of a dissolute, upper-class crowd, Pierre Bezukhov is a troublemaker who criticizes governmental policies. At night he frequents drunken card parties with his fellow debauchees, including Anatole Kurgagin and Fedya Dolokhov, whom Tolstoy describes as “an officer and a desperado”. Another member of the group, Prince Andrew, is a patriot who is determined to defend his country and aristocratic way of life.
War and Peace soon introduces the Rostov family as they prepare a celebration for their youngest daughter Natasha.
Pierre is the illegitimate son of a well-known, wealthy aristocrat. However, his life changes when his father dies and he becomes the heir to his substantial fortune. Prince Andrew sets off to fight in the war against the French, leaving his pregnant wife with his father and sister Mary.
Natasha’s brother, Nicholas, gets into trouble in the army for threatening a superior officer whom he has caught cheating; later, in battle, Nicholas runs away from the enemy and realizes that he is the coward and cheat. Enjoying newfound popularity, Pierre marries Helene Kuragin.
Her brother, Anatole, proposes to Mary, but her father will not allow her to marry. Prince Andrew is wounded in battle and left for dead.
Book II
Nicholas Rostov is in love with his cousin Sonya, and she loves him; unfortunately, the family needs him to marry somebody with money because their wealth is dwindling.
Pierre, reacting to rumours about an affair between his wife and Dolokhov, challenges Dolokhov to a duel. Having wounded Dolokhov, Pierre runs away, questioning his own morals. In an inn he meets an old acquaintance who introduces him to the Freemasons, a secret society that does good deeds.
Pierre becomes an enthusiastic member, separating from Helene and arranging to give away his belongings to help humanity.
Prince Andrew returns from the war on the same day that his wife dies giving birth to their son. Nicholas encourages Sonya to accept Dolokhov’s marriage proposal, but she refuses. Soon after his father has put him on a budget of 2,000 roubles, Nicholas gambles with Dolokhov and loses 43,000 roubles, which the family has to sell more property to pay. While Pierre is busy freeing his serfs from their commitment to him, in accordance with his new Masonic beliefs, Prince Andrew is setting up new economic policies that will allow the serfs to be self-sustaining once they have earned their freedom.
In 1808 a truce is called in the Napoleonic War. Prince Andrew becomes disheartened with the difficulties of dealing with the army bureaucracy and Pierre becomes disenchanted with being a Mason. In 1809 Pierre falls in love with the now 16-year-old Natasha. So does Andrew, and he proposes to the young lady. However, Andrew’s father will not give his consent and tells him to wait a year before marrying. Andrew returns to the army.
Meanwhile, Nicholas’s mother convinces him that he cannot marry Sonya—he must marry someone rich.
While she waits, impatiently, for Andrew to return, Natasha lets Anatole court her and secretly gives in to his charms. He makes plans to run away with her, but fails to tell her that he is already married to a girl in Poland.
The intended elopement does not take place because when Anatole arrives to fetch Natasha he is met by a huge doorman, and like a coward he runs away. Word gets back to Andrew and he breaks off the engagement. Natasha tries to poison herself but is unsuccessful. Pierre visits her and confesses his love.
Book III
The war begins again in 1812, when the French army moves into Russia. War and Peace relates Napoleon’s thoughts and impressions of the campaign, and then switches to Tsar Alexander, going back and forth between them.
During the fighting, Nicholas comes to realize that his earlier cowardice was just a normal reaction to war and he forgives himself.
Recovering from her suicide attempt, Natasha starts to attend morning mass and gains peace and serenity. Her younger brother, Petya, joins the army, but cannot find a way to tell his family.
As the French army advances towards the Bolkonsky estate in the country, Mary’s father has a stroke. After his death, Mary rides into the town nearby to prepare to evacuate her household servants. When she sees that the peasants are starving she offers them all of the grain stored on the family estate, but they become suspicious and think it is some sort of trick to get them to leave their land.
They are on the verge of rioting against Mary when Nicholas rides up and saves her. Nicholas falls in love with Mary.
People flee Moscow to avoid the oncoming French army. Pierre travels out to Borondino, which is the last place where the French can be stopped.
Much of Part III is concerned with the different perspectives of Napoleon, Andrew, Pierre, and Kutuzov on the Battle of Borondino.
After the Russian defeat, Moscow is evacuated. Natasha insists that the wagons taking her family’s belongings must be emptied in order to transport injured soldiers too. One of the injured soldiers turns out to be Andrew, who on seeing Natasha for the first time since their engagement was broken off, forgives her.
In a deserted Moscow, Pierre comes up with a crazed scheme to assassinate Napoleon. Taken into custody by a French captain, he saves the man’s life when Pierre’s servant is about to shoot him.
After being given the comforts of good food and drink he forgets his assassination plans. He races into a burning building to save a peasant’s child, then assaults a French soldier who is molesting a woman, for which he is arrested.
Book IV
Pierre’s wife dies while he is a prisoner of the French army. During a long march, Pierre finds inner peace when he meets Platon Karataev, a peasant who owns nothing but has a joyful outlook, and decides to be more like him.
Mary finds out that her brother, Andrew, is still alive. She travels to where Natasha and her family are caring for him, and the two women take turns nursing him until he dies.
Kutuzov, the Russian general, is pressured to overtake and destroy the fleeing French, but he knows his army is depleted of energy. Petya Rostov admires Dolokhov’s daring when he accompanies him on a scouting party into the French camp.
The next day, they attack the French. Pierre is freed as the French soldiers flee, but Petya is killed. While the French menace fades, Pierre rejoins the Rostov family and he and Natasha console each other over their grief: she has lost her brother, Petya, and her lover Andrew; he has lost many friends in the fighting. They fall in love.
First Epilogue
Nicholas and Mary marry, as do Pierre and Natasha. They all live at Bald Hills, the estate left to Mary by her father. On December 6, 1820, Pierre arrives home from a trip to Moscow, where he has been meeting with a secret organization. Pierre and Nicholas disagree about the citizen’s responsibility to the state, but everyone is happy living together—especially Andrew’s son Nicholas, who idolizes Pierre
Second Epilogue
Tolstoy discusses his view of history and the weaknesses of the historian’s method, which fails to distinguish between those actions that are undertaken by free will and those dictated by circumstance.
Characters
1. Sonya
Sonya is a pathetic figure, always in love but too meek to do anything about it. She is a cousin of and lives with the Rostov family, and early in the book she and Nicholas Rostov pronounce their love for one another. However, members of his hard-pressed family object, in the hope that he will find a woman with a better dowry. Sonya is Natasha’s confidante, and stands by her during her various disastrous love affairs.
2. Prince Andrew Bolkonsky
Prince Andrew is a dashing, romantic figure. For much of the book, he and Natasha are in love but are separated by the war. In the beginning he is married to the pregnant Anna Pavlovna, “the little princess”, and is active in the army. At the Battle of Austerlitz he is wounded and listed as dead, but he returns alive just as his wife dies giving birth to their son, Nicholas.
When he falls in love with Natasha Rostov, he asks her to marry him straight away, but his domineering father tells him to wait for a year to see if their love will endure. He is wounded at the Battle of Borodino and again news comes that he is dead. However, while Moscow is being evacuated wounded soldiers are brought to the Rostov house and Andrew is among them.
Nastasha stays with him through the evacuation, but he eventually dies. In the end, he reaches a new level of spiritual enlightenment.
3. Elizabeth Bolkonskaya
Elizabeth is Prince Andrew’s wife. She dies while giving birth to their son, Nicholas.
4. Mary Bolkonskaya
Mary is the sister of Prince Andrew. She is a devoutly religious woman who stays devoted to her father even though her devotion nearly ruins her life. Early in the book she is engaged to Anatole Kuragin, but her father objects, and she finds that she cannot ignore his objection.
While Andrew goes off to war, Mary stays on the family estate, looking after her father and Andrew’s son, Nicholas Bolkonsky. Her father, Prince Nicholas Bolkonsky, becomes more and more verbally abusive in his old age, and Mary becomes more involved with the religious pilgrims who stop at their estate.
When Nicholas Rostov stops at Bolkonsky, he protects her from the peasants and they fall in love. After her father’s death she is racked by guilt, feeling that she was wrong not to have been with him in his last moments. Finally, she marries Nicholas.
5. Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon is the emperor of France. Napoleon mistakenly thinks that his army’s progress is due to his own skill, and fails to take into account the role of fate.
On the eve of the great Battle of Borodino, for instance, he is more concerned with a painting of his infant son than with devising an effective battle plan for his troops.
6. Pierre Buzekhov
Pierre is the central character of War and Peace and its moral conscience. When he first appears, he is a loud, obnoxious man only interested in himself and the whereabouts of the next party. Pierre is forced to change when his father dies.
After some uncertainty over the will, it is determined that the old count recognized Pierre as his son. Suddenly rich and titled as Count Buzekhov, Pierre finds himself very popular. He marries Princess Helene Kuragin.
On hearing rumours of an affair between Helene and Dolokhov, Pierre challenges Dolokhov to a duel. Having wounded Dolokhov, Pierre escapes, and while he is travelling across the country he is invited by an old acquaintance to join the Freemasons, a secret society.
As a Mason, Pierre releases his servants and spends millions on charitable endeavours, often without knowing that he is being defrauded. He is still married to Helene, but they lead different lives, and he finds himself attracted to Natasha Rostov. As the battle is waged against the French outside Moscow, Pierre hangs around asking questions of the officers; following his return to Moscow, he plans to kill Napoleon.
He is captured after he saves a child from a burning building, and is taken as a prisoner when the French march back to Paris.
After the war, when he has been freed, Pierre marries Natasha. They have children, and at the end of the novel he is involved in a secret society that gathers to overthrow the social structure that kept men as serfs. The society described resembles the one that in actuality led the Decembrist uprising in Russia five years later.
7. Vasili Dmitrich Denisov
Denisov is the model of a professional military man. Angered at the inept bureaucracy that is preventing provisions from reaching his troops, Denisov rides off to the division headquarters and threatens a commander. His actions secure food supplies for his troops but also make Denisov subject to court-martial.
Returning from the division headquarters, Denisov is shot by a French sharpshooter. When Nicholas Rostov tries to visit him at the hospital the place is quarantined with typhus, with only one doctor for 400 patients.
Eventually, the court-martial is averted, but Denisov retires from the service disillusioned. At the end of the book he is staying with the family of Count Nicholas at their estate.
8. Fedya Dolokhov
Dolokhov is portrayed as a rogue, a man of small means who manages to impress society’s elite and get ahead by using his social position. As a gambler, he wins thousands from Nicholas Rostov.
As a lover, he fights a duel with Pierre Bezukhov over rumours about Dolokhov and Pierre’s wife. He is wounded in the duel, but that makes him even more of a romantic figure. He proposes to Sonya, but she rejects him.
While the Russian forces are chasing the French army out of the country, Dolokhov makes the bold move of riding into the enemy camp in disguise on a scouting mission; young Petya Rostov idolizes him for his courage.
9. Boris Drubetskoy
Drubetskoy’s rise in the military is due to the social machinations of his mother, who is a wealthy society widow and not afraid to ask, or even beg, highly-placed officers to give her son a good position in the army.
10. Platon Karataev
Platon is a Russian soldier who gives spiritual comfort to Nicholas.
11. Anatole Kuragin
Anatole is a scoundrel. His main action in the book is to break up the engagement of Natasha and Prince Andrew.
He starts paying attention to her out of a sense of adventure, considering her as another in his string of conquests. When he proposes and arranges to elope with her, even his friend and companion Dolokhov finds the scheme ridiculous. Anatole is already married in Poland, and the priest and witnesses whom he arranges for the wedding are gambling friends willing to go along with a hoax. The wedding plans fail to transpire when, approaching the house, Anatole is asked in by a huge doorman, and takes flight instead.
Later, while injured at a field hospital, Prince Andrew is put on a stretcher next to Anatole, the man who ruined his wedding plans. Anatole is to have his leg amputated, and he later dies of complications from the operation.
12. Helene Kuragin
Helen is Anatole’s sister, and she is every bit as devious as he is. When Pierre inherits his father’s fortune, she marries him. After he has fought a duel with Dolokhov over her honour, they lead separate lives. Helene is known in Petersburg polite society.
She converts to Roman Catholicism, and, under the pretence that to the church her marriage to Pierre is invalid, she plans to marry one of her two suitors.
When she dies, it is from a botched operation to cure an illness that is not clearly described in the book, indicating that it might be an abortion: “They all knew very well that the enchanting countess’s illness arose from an inconvenience resulting from marrying two husbands at the same time, and that the Italian’s cure consisted in removing such inconvenience.”
13. Kutuzov
Kutuzov is the commander of the Russian Army. War and Peace follows Kutuzov through his decision-making process, especially focusing on his wisdom in ignoring the popular decision that he should attack the French army as it was fleeing back home.
14. Natasha Rostov
In the course of the story, Natasha (also known as Nataly) grows from a petulant child to a mature woman who knows the sorrows of war. Natasha is pretty and flirtatious, and the young soldiers are smitten with her.
When she and Andrew become engaged, she is delighted to feel like a grown-up, but as time goes by she grows impatient. Kuragin, having convinced her that she is in love with him, arranges for them to elope, even though he is already secretly married. When Andrew learns about it, he rejects her. She tries to poison herself in shame.
Later, when Moscow is being evacuated, Natasha is the one who convinces her parents to leave some of their fine possessions behind so that they can take some wounded soldiers.
When she finds out that Prince Andrew is one of the wounded, she writes to his sister Mary and together they nurse him until his death. Natasha marries Pierre because he is the only person to whom she can talk about Andrew’s death.
15. Nataly Rostov
See Natasha Rostov.
16. Nicholas Rostov
Presented as a typical example of a nobleman, Rostov lives a wasteful life with little intellectual or spiritual depth. Early on he joins the army because he needs the money.
He loses great sums of money gambling. Passing by the town near the Bolkonsky estate, he finds the peasants accusing Mary of trying to steal their land. His aristocratic sensibilities are offended; unarmed, he silences the mob rulers and makes them turn away.
At the end of the book he is a retired gentleman, who argues with his brother-in-law Pierre that he should leave the government alone to handle the situation of the serfs properly.
17. Peter Rostov
The youngest member of the Rostov family, Peter is mostly forgotten in the background, playing childish games, until, at the age of 16, he enlists in the army. He is killed in the same attack that frees Pierre from the retreating French forces.
Themes
Class Conflict
Although there is not much open conflict between members of different classes in the novel, there is an underlying tension between them. Members of the older generation, such as Countess Rostova and Prince Nicholas Bolkonsky, verbally abuse the peasants who are under their command.
In a patronizing manner, they openly discuss how lost the peasants would be without their guidance. At the same time, there are characters like Platon Karataev, a poor man who leads a simple and happy life.
The closest War and Peace comes to open class conflict is when Mary is confronted by the peasants at Bogucharovo, near her family’s estate, as she is planning to evacuate before the French arrive. Tolstoy is clear that they act, not out of resentment for the social privilege Mary has enjoyed at their expense, but because of their fear that they will have no leader.
They are starving, but will not accept the grain that Mary offers them because they are afraid of angering the French. The greatest danger that they pose to her is blocking her horse when she plans to leave. When Nicholas arrives they automatically fall under his spell and comply with his demands without hesitation, apparently in recognition of his superior breeding and intelligence.
He orders the leaders of the insurrection to be bound, and several men in the crowd offer their belts for the purpose. “How can one talk to the masters like that?” says a drunken peasant to his former leader as he is being led away. “What were you thinking of, you fool?”
Duty and Responsibility
The greatest motivation for the noble families in War and Peace is their duty to the serfs in their care. In other words, the upper classes believe that they have the responsibility to care for their serfs, looking after them as one would look after children. This assumption stems from the common perception that the serfs are not intelligent enough to survive on their own.
Duty of care is an important part of the code of honour; any nobleman that violates this trust will be exposed and punished by his peers.
In fact, this code of conduct controls almost every aspect of upper-class life. It dictates how a gentleman should act in any given situation; to deviate from it invites the censure of one’s peers. After the drunken revellers at a poker party throw a policeman in the canal, the act is derided as improper for well-bred gentlemen: And to think it is Count Vladomirovich Bezukhov’s son who amuses himself in this sensible manner!
And he was said to be so educated and clever. That is all that his foreign education has done for him!
Later, Bezukhov undergoes a series of transformations that raise his sense of social responsibility. He joins the Freemasons with the idea of working among society’s elite to help the poor.
He visits the army at the Battle of Borondino and tours the field; half-crazed, he decides he should take a gun and shoot Napoleon. In peacetime, he works with a secret organization to rearrange the social order and free the serfs from their oppression.
Art and Experience
Any historical novel such as War and Peace raises questions about the interplay between fiction and reality. The battle scenes in the novel have been commended for their realism, but Tolstoy did not actually experience them himself; instead, they are drawn from his exhaustive research of the war against France and his own experiences in the Crimean War.
At the end of War and Peace, Tolstoy dispenses with the fictional story altogether and talks directly to the reader about how historians influence history. Reality is too large and complex for humans to comprehend, Tolstoy contends, and so historians cannot cover all of the diverse aspects of historical events.
Success and Failure
A large part of what drives Tolstoy in War and Peace is his rejection of conventional historical perceptions of the war. Today, Napoleon, who eventually lost in Russia, is viewed as a shrewd commander, while the Russian commander, Kutuzov, is dismissed as a blunderer.
As Tolstoy perceived the situation, those detractors who considered the Russians to be failures because they did not destroy Napoleon’s army were not accounting for the army’s weakened condition. Moreover, those who credited Napoleon with brilliant strategy were not taking into consideration his good luck.
Ultimately, Tolstoy reminds readers of the role of chance, and that sometimes the line between success and failure is a fine one.
Literary Technique
Structure
Since War and Peace was first published, critics have discussed the ambiguous structure of the novel. Some contend that Tolstoy raced through the book, putting down ideas as they came to him; therefore, any structure in the story is accidental.
They point to the final chapters as evidence that the author’s attention was distracted and that he followed his own interests rather than attending to the needs of the story. Some critics consider the free-floating structure to be the appropriate device for the ideas that Tolstoy was trying to convey about free will, and they credit him with utilizing a structure that permitted him to balance necessity with chance.
Some critics perceive a clear pattern to the overall book: in the alternation of chapters about war with chapters about peace; the symmetry and repetition in the amount of time spent on the march to Moscow and the march from it; in the scenes of blithe society and of existential angst; and in the scenes about love and death.
The question of whether or not Tolstoy planned the patterns that can be found in the book is an issue of ongoing debate.
Setting
In the early 19th century Russia was going through a tumultuous and transitional time. The old feudal system was disappearing. Conventional ideas of honour were losing ground to pragmatic ideas from the Enlightenment. Military victories were seen as a result of luck.
Tolstoy took advantage of these unique circumstances as the context in which to set his sprawling tale of love, war, and changing political and social ideas.
Hero
Prince Andrew is a hero in the conventional sense. He overcomes initial fear in battle to ride bravely against the enemy, and he has a beautiful woman waiting for him at home, dreaming of his return. He has qualities, however, that are less than heroic, such as the fear of commitment.
He is all too willing to accept his father’s demand that he put off his marriage for a year. During that time, Natasha is drawn to another man, Anatole, who almost ruins her socially.
In the end, Andrew remains an idealized hero by dying a soldier’s death after he has been reunited with his beloved.
Conversely, Pierre is a modern hero. He is not a warrior, but a thinker. The struggle he fights is with his conscience, after he is made rich with an unexpected inheritance.He is not a dashing figure, and he bears his love for Natasha silently instead of declaring it. Yet in the end, he is the one who wins her hand.
Narrator
Towards the end of the story, Tolstoy increasingly addresses the reader directly, stepping out from behind the persona of the third-person narrator who has told the characters’ stories.
Throughout War and Peace, there are breaks from the action where the theoretical aspects of war are discussed. Sometimes these are written in the style of a textbook, detailing troop movements; sometimes the important figures of the war are discussed as characters, describing their specific movements and thoughts.
At the end, the narration directly addresses the reader, presenting the author’s thoughts in the first person, and apparently abandoning the structure of the story to talk about philosophical theories such as historical truth.
Historical And Social Context
The Napoleonic Wars
In 1789 the French Revolution swept through France. The Revolution was a protest against the widespread abuses of the French aristocracy, who lived in decadence while the lower classes had to endure higher taxes and economic restrictions.
When the peasants realized that the French government was going to use force against protesters, they became violent. The violence escalated as the people systematically began to eliminate anyone of aristocratic lineage.
After a long fight, King Louis XVI was beheaded in Paris in 1793. There followed a two-year period called the Reign of Terror, during which the revolutionary leaders executed more than 17,000 people.
During this time, France’s enemies tried to take advantage of the situation. As a result, France was constantly at war. Out of all of this confusion, conservative elements in the government supported the rise of the military commander Napoleon Bonaparte, whose solution to the government’s instability was to take control. He was appointed First Consul by the constitution of 1799, and in 1802 he appointed himself to the position for life.
In 1804 a new constitution appointed him Emperor, a title that was to pass down to his heirs.
Napoleon’s influence was seen in almost all aspects of French social life. However, his true interest was in waging war.
As England and France had always been enemies, he aimed to conquer England; but since England was the most powerful and important country in the world at that time, his plans were foiled. He turned his attention to Russia. The Treaty of Tilsit, which he signed with Russia’s emperor Alexander I in 1807, divided Europe in half, giving the French control of the Netherlands, Westphalia, Spain, and Italy.
By 1809 Napoleon was the ruler of most of Europe, except for Russia and England. In 1812 he invaded Russia with 500,000 troops, an event depicted in War and Peace.
Emancipation of the Serfs
From the 1600s until the middle of the 19th century, the Russian economy had been based on the economic principle of serfdom. Serfs were agricultural labourers, legally bound to work on large estates and farms.
Moreover, serfs were owned by the people who owned the land they worked on. The serf could buy his freedom or work towards it, but this happened rarely (serfs were always males; female peasants were attached to spouses or parents and, likewise, were the property of the landowners). Landowners had a responsibility to take care of their serfs, and in hard times they may have had to incur losses to make sure that their serfs were all adequately fed.
This social system was always fraught with tension. As in War and Peace, when war broke up society and forced landlords to flee their land, open rebellion was only avoided by those serfs who felt loyalty to the tradition. There was no justification for one human having the right to rule over another, and many members of the aristocracy realized this.
In the years after the Napoleonic Wars they banded together to form the secret societies that would lead the Decembrist uprising.
The Decembrist uprising was the first real revolution of modern Russia. In 1817 landowners started forming secret societies, patterned on societies such as the Masonic Order.
These societies, such as the Society of Russian Knights and the Union of Welfare, started as gentlemen’s clubs; but as they grew in number their rhetoric became more revolutionary. When Tsar Alexander I died unexpectedly in December 1825, there was confusion about who would assume power, and amid this disorder the members of the uprising were able to gather 3,000 soldiers to their cause. Alexander’s successor, Tsar Nicholas, gathered 15,000 soldiers; the result was a massacre in Senate Square.
Members of the secret societies were arrested, and after trials, the leaders were executed and over 100 men received jail sentences. Since then revolutionaries in Russia have acted in the names of the Decembrists.
Not surprisingly, Nicholas’s reign was conservative in its nature and intolerant of dissent, but even he realized that the days of the old aristocracy were disappearing. He appointed commissions to study the question of serfdom. In 1855, when his son Alexander II came to power, it was clear that the country was heading for chaos and that the serf system would not survive. Alexander ordered for a committee to plan how Russia could evolve beyond the serf structure with the least change.
The system that Alexander announced with his Imperial Manifesto Emancipating the Serfs arranged for land to be divided.
Landlords were to keep half of their land, and communes, or mirs, were to distribute the other half equally between the serfs. The peasants had a 49-year period to pay back the cost of their land. This proclamation was read at churches throughout Russia in February 1861, just a few years before Tolstoy began writing War and Peace. These reforms still left the former serfs, now peasants, under the control of a government ruled by an aristocracy.
The issues of freedom and of class continued to boil in Russia, and eventually led to the Russian Revolution in 1917.
Excerpt from War and Peace
“Seen a lot o’ trouble, sir, eh?” said the little man suddenly.
And there was so much kindliness and simplicity in the sing-song voice that Pierre felt his jaw tremble and the tears rise to his eyes as he tried to reply. At the same second, giving Pierre no time to betray his confusion, the little fellow continued in the same pleasant tones:
“Eh, lad, don’t fret now,” said he in the tender, sing-song, caressing voice in which old Russian peasant-women talk. “Don’t fret, my friend: suffering lasts an hour but life goes on for ever! That’s the way it is, lad. And we get on here fine, thank God, there’s no offence. They’re men too, with good ones among ‘em as well as bad,” he said, and, while still speaking, twisted agilely on to his knees, got up, cleared his throat and walked off to another part of the shed.
“Hi, you’ve come back again, have you?” Pierre heard the same soft voice from the far end of the hut. “So you remember me, do you? There, there, that’ll do!” And pushing away a little dog that was jumping up at him the soldier returned to his place and sat down. In his hands he held something wrapped in a bit of cloth.
“Here, you have a taste of this, sir,” said he, resuming the respectful tone he had used at first, and unwrapping and passing Pierre some baked potatoes. “We had soup for dinner. But these potatoes are a treat!”
Pierre had not eaten all day and the smell of the potatoes struck him as extraordinarily good. He thanked the soldier and began to eat.
“What do you eat ‘em like that for?” inquired the soldier with a smile. “You should try ‘em like this.”
He took a potato, got out his clasp-knife, cut the potato in the palm of his hand into two equal halves, sprinkled them with salt from the rag and offered them to Pierre.
“The potatoes are a treat,” he reiterated. “You try ‘em like that!”
Pierre thought he had never tasted anything more delicious.
“Oh, I’m right enough,” said he, “but why did they shoot those poor fellows?... The last was a lad of barely twenty.”
“Tst, tst...” said the little man. “What a sin, what a sin...” he added quickly, and just as though the words were always waiting ready in his mouth and flew out by chance he went on: “And how was it, sir, you stayed in Moscow?”
“I didn’t think they would come so soon. I stayed by accident,” replied Pierre.
“And how came they to arrest you, friend? Was it in your own house?
“No, I went out to look at the fire, and it was then they took me up and tried me for being an incendiary.”
“Where there’s law there’s injustice,” put in the little man.
“And have you been here long?” asked Pierre, chewing the last of the potato.
“Me? It was last Sunday they fetched me out of hospital in Moscow.”
“Why, are you a soldier then?”
“Yes, we were all from the Apsheron regiment. Dying of fever, I was. We were never told nothing. There were twenty or more of us lying sick. And we had no idea—we never guessed nothing.”
“And are you cut up at being here?” asked Pierre.
“To be sure, friend. My name’s Platon—Platon Karatayev,” he added, evidently to make it easier for Pierre to address him. “In the regiment they called me the little falcon. How can a man help feeling cut up? Moscow—she’s the mother of cities.
How can us look on at all this and not feel sick at ‘eart? But the worm that gnaws the cabbage is the first to die: that’s what the old folk used to tell us,” he added quickly.
“What? What did you say?” asked Pierre.
“Who? Me?” said Karatayev. “Man proposes, God disposes, I say,” he replied, supposing that he was repeating what he had said at first, and immediately went on: “And you, you must have a family estate? And a house of your own? Your cup must be full. And a wife maybe? And your old parents living?” he asked.
And though it was too dark for Pierre to see, he felt that the soldier’s lips were twisted into a restrained smile of kindliness as he put these questions. He seemed grieved to learn that Pierre had no parents, especially no mother.
“A wife for good sense, a mother-in-law for kind welcome, but there’s none so dear as a man’s own mother!” said he. “Well, and have you little ones ?” he went on to ask.
Again Pierre’s negative answer seemed to distress him, and he hastened to add:
“Never mind, you’re young, and please God there’ll be bairns yet. The great thing is to live on good terms....”
“But it makes no difference now,” Pierre could not help saying.
“Ah, my good man,” rejoined Platon, “you can’t be sure a beggar’s sack or the prison-house will never fall to your lot!”
He settled himself more comfortably and cleared his throat, evidently preparatory to a long story. “For instance, my dear friend, I was still living at home,” he began. “We had a nice place with no end of land. Peasants we were, and we lived well, our house was one to thank God for. When father and we went out mowing there were seven of us. Lived well, we did, like proper Christians. But one day…”
And Platon Karatayev told a long story of how he had gone into someone else’s copse after wood, how he had been caught by the keeper, had been tried, flogged and sent to serve in the army.
“Well, lad,” and a smile changed the tone of his voice, “we thought it was a misfortune but it turned out to be a blessing. If I ‘adn’t done wrong it would have been my brother for the army, and him—my younger brother, with five, little ones, but me, you see, I only left a wife behind. We had a little girl once but the good Lord took her before I went for a soldier. I comes home on leave, and what do you think—I finds ‘em all better off than they was before.
Yard full of livestock, the women-folk at home, two brothers out earning wages. Only Mihailo, the youngest, at home. My old dad says to me, 'A bairn’s a bairn to me,” he says. “No matter which finger gets nipped, it hurts just the same. And if they hadn’t shaved Platon for a soldier, then Mihailo would’ve had to go.” He gathered us all together and if you’ll believe me, he stands us all up in front of the holy icons. “Mihailo,” he says, “come you here and kneel down before him; and you, woman, kneel; and all you grandchillun, kneel at his feet. Understand?” he says.
And that’s the way it is, my good sir. There’s no escaping fate. But we are always findin’ fault and complanin’: this ain’t right, and the other don’t suit us. Happiness, friend, is like water in a drag-net—pull it along and it bulges: take it out and it’s empty! Yes, that’s the way of it.”
And Platon shifted his seat on the straw.
After a short pause he got up.
“Well, I dare say you’re sleepy?” said he, and began rapidly crossing himself and repeating:
“Lord Jesus Christ, holy St Nikola, Frola and Lavra ! Lord Jesus Christ, holy St Nikola, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and save us!” he concluded, then touched the ground with his forehead, got up, straightened himself, sighed and sat down again on the straw. “That’s the way of it. Lay me down like a stone, O God, and raise me up like new bread,” he muttered as he lay down. pulling his coat over him.
“What prayer was that you were saying?” asked Pierre.
“Eh?” murmured Platon, who was already half asleep. “What was I saying? I was saying me prayers. Don’t you say your prayers?”
“To be sure I do,” said Pierre “But what was that about Frola and Lavra?”
“Why,” replied Platon quickly, “they’re the horses saints. We mustn’t forget the poor dumb creatures. See the little rascal—she’s curled up and warm all right,” he said, stroking the dog that lay at his feet; and turning over again he fell asleep at once.
Sounds of crying and screaming came from somewhere in the distance outside and the glare of fire was visible through the cracks in the walls, but inside the shed it was quiet and dark.
It was a long time before Pierre got to sleep: he lay in the darkness with wide open eyes, listening to the rhythmical snoring of Platon at his side, and he felt that the world that had been shattered was once more stirring to life in his soul, in new beauty and on new and steadfast foundations.
10 Important Lessons from War and Peace
1. The Illusion of Control in History
Tolstoy dismantles the idea that history is shaped by great individuals. He critiques the "great man" theory, stating that "the causes of historical events when they take place cannot be grasped by our intelligence" (Book Four, Part Two, Chapter 1). Instead, he presents history as an organic process driven by countless small actions.
2. The Futility of War
The novel starkly portrays the chaos and suffering of war. Kutuzov’s refusal to engage Napoleon prematurely reflects Tolstoy’s belief in the futility of aggressive strategy: "The battle of Borodino, with the occupation of Moscow that followed it and the flight of the French without further conflicts, is one of the most instructive phenomena in history" (Book Four, Part Three, Chapter 1).
3. The Search for Meaning in Life
Pierre Bezukhov’s spiritual journey represents the human quest for purpose. His epiphany in a French prison camp—"life is everything" (Book Four, Part Four, Chapter 10)—demonstrates Tolstoy’s existential philosophy.
4. The Power of Forgiveness
Natasha Rostova’s ability to forgive Anatole and later, to rebuild her life with Pierre, highlights the novel’s advocacy of compassion. "She wept, and the tears she shed were tears of joy" (Book Four, Part Four, Chapter 13).
5. Love as a Transformative Force
Andrei Bolkonsky’s evolution from a cynical aristocrat to a man who values love shows how human connection can reshape identity. "Love hinders death. Love is life. All, all that I understand, I understand only because I love" (Book Four, Part Four, Chapter 16).
6. The Importance of Family
The Rostovs, despite financial ruin, remain emotionally rich. The closing scenes emphasize the warmth of familial bonds: "In Pierre and Natasha’s house, all was happiness, simplicity, and peace" (Epilogue, Part Two, Chapter 10).
7. The Inevitability of Change
Russia’s transformation is mirrored in individual arcs. Pierre, initially lost, finds purpose in political and philosophical engagement. Tolstoy suggests that personal and societal change are both inevitable and necessary.
8. Humility in Leadership
Unlike Napoleon, who craves glory, Kutuzov understands his role as merely a participant in fate’s unfolding: "Kutuzov alone understood this" (Book Four, Part Two, Chapter 3).
9. The Transience of Glory
Napoleon’s downfall demonstrates how power is fleeting. The contrast between his grandeur and eventual exile reflects Tolstoy’s disdain for militaristic ambition.
10. The Beauty of the Ordinary
The novel ends not with war, but with domestic life. Natasha breastfeeding her baby is described with as much reverence as any battle scene, reinforcing Tolstoy’s message that true fulfillment lies in everyday moments.
The Role of Women in War and Peace
Women in War and Peace are not mere spectators but active participants in the emotional and moral fabric of the novel.
Natasha Rostova: Natasha is central to the novel’s emotional depth. Her personal growth—from a naïve girl to a devoted wife and mother—mirrors Russia’s transformation. She exhibits immense compassion, as seen in her sacrifice for wounded soldiers (Book Four, Part Three).
Princess Marya Bolkonskaya: Initially bound by her father’s control, Marya evolves into a woman of independence and moral strength. Her resilience reflects the quiet power of women in patriarchal societies.
Hélène Kuragina: In contrast, Hélène represents vanity and manipulation, using marriage as a social ladder. Her empty pursuits contrast sharply with Natasha and Marya’s genuine emotional depth.
Tolstoy’s portrayal of women is complex—sometimes progressive, sometimes bound by 19th-century ideals. Yet, through characters like Natasha and Marya, he acknowledges the indispensable role of women in shaping both families and nations.
Why War and Peace is One of the 10 Most Influential Novels in English Literature
1. Historical Depth
Tolstoy integrates real historical figures and events into the novel, offering a rich tapestry of the Napoleonic Wars.
2. Philosophical Insight
The book is as much an exploration of free will and determinism as it is a novel, challenging readers to question historical narratives.
3. Psychological Realism
Tolstoy’s deep character exploration—through Pierre’s existential crisis or Andrei’s moments of clarity—sets a precedent for modern psychological fiction.
4. Revolutionary Narrative Form
The novel blends fiction, philosophy, and historical analysis, defying traditional genre constraints.
5. Influence on Literature
Writers from Virginia Woolf to James Joyce have praised War and Peace for its narrative innovation.
6. Timeless Themes
The novel’s exploration of war, love, fate, and individual purpose remains relevant today.
7. Linguistic Experimentation
Tolstoy’s use of French and Russian underscores themes of identity and cultural conflict.
8. Social Commentary
The depiction of aristocracy, serfdom, and military life offers a detailed critique of Russian society.
9. Emotional Resonance
The novel captures the full spectrum of human experience—from despair to profound joy—with unparalleled sensitivity.
10. Enduring Popularity
Its continued readership and countless adaptations in film, theater, and television solidify its place as a cornerstone of world literature.
Famous Quotations and Notable Passages
1. On War and Power:
“Yes, if having obtained power, without availing himself of it to commit murder he had restored it to the rightful king, I should have called him a great man.”
2. On Fate and History:
“The cause of such an event, in which millions of people fought one another and killed half a million men, cannot be the will of one man.”
3. On Love and Youth:
“How plainly all these young people wear their hearts on their sleeves!”
4. On Napoleon and Leadership:
“Napoleon is great because he rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed its abuses, preserved all that was good in it—equality of citizenship and freedom of speech and of the press—and only for that reason did he obtain power.”
5. On the Complexity of Human Nature:
“He would often say the exact opposite of what he had said on a previous occasion, yet both would be right.”
6. On Destiny and Free Will:
“The Emperor Alexander declared that he will leave it to the French people themselves to choose their own form of government.”
7. On Vanity and Society:
“To be received in the Countess Bezukhova’s salon was regarded as a diploma of intellect.”
8. On War and Strategy:
“A lump of snow cannot be melted instantaneously. There is a certain limit of time in less than which no amount of heat can melt the snow. On the contrary, the greater the heat, the more solidified the remaining snow becomes.”
9. On Fate and Free Will:
“Things happen not as we plan but as God judges.”
10. On Power and History:
“The battle of Borodino, with the occupation of Moscow that followed it and the flight of the French without further conflicts, is one of the most instructive phenomena in history.”
11. On Love and Destiny:
“There is something so enchanting in the smile of melancholy! It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness and despair, showing the possibility of consolation.”
12. **On the Inevitability of War:
“An army gains a victory, and at once the rights of the conquering nation have increased to the detriment of the defeated.”
13. On Courage in Battle:
“The horses’ croups began to sway in the front line. Rook pulled at the reins and started of his own accord. Before him on the right Rostov saw the front lines of his hussars, and still farther ahead a dark line, which he could not see distinctly but took to be the enemy.”
14. On Death and Tranquillity:
“La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille. Ah! contre les douleurs il n’y a pas d’autre asile.” (“Death is redemptive and death is tranquil. Ah! against sorrow there is no other recourse.”)
15. Love And War:
“Your only fight for what you love.”
Adaptation and Reception of War and Peace
Few works of literature have possessed the ability to transcend the written word and find their way into the consciousness of multiple generations across vastly different cultures and artistic forms. War and Peace, the magnum opus of Leo Tolstoy, is one such creation—an epic that has defied temporal and spatial limitations, breathing new life through adaptations in cinema, television, theatre, and even opera.
Its reception, too, has been marked by both fervent admiration and critical scrutiny, reflecting the intellectual and philosophical currents of each era in which it has been read and interpreted.
Adaptation
To adapt War and Peace is to engage in an audacious artistic endeavor, one that requires balancing the novel’s philosophical depth with its dramatic storytelling.
The narrative, interwoven with historical analysis and existential musings, does not easily lend itself to visual or theatrical representation. Yet, directors, screenwriters, and dramatists have repeatedly risen to the challenge, each bringing their own artistic sensibilities to Tolstoy’s world.
One of the earliest cinematic adaptations was the 1915 Russian silent film Voyna i mir, directed by Vladimir Gardin. A product of its time, this adaptation relied heavily on intertitles and stylized acting to convey the grandeur of Tolstoy’s work.
However, it was the later filmic interpretations that truly captured international attention.
In 1956, Hollywood attempted to bring War and Peace to a global audience with King Vidor’s ambitious adaptation starring Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, and Mel Ferrer.
While visually stunning and featuring remarkable performances, the film was constrained by its runtime and Westernized narrative approach, reducing much of Tolstoy’s philosophical discourse in favor of dramatic storytelling.
The most celebrated cinematic adaptation remains Sergei Bondarchuk’s 1966–67 Soviet epic Voyna i mir. This monumental work, spanning over seven hours and produced with state support, is regarded as one of the most historically and artistically faithful renditions of the novel.
Bondarchuk employed innovative cinematographic techniques, including handheld cameras in battle scenes, to immerse audiences in the chaos of war. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and remains a touchstone for literary adaptations.
Television has also embraced War and Peace, with adaptations like the BBC’s 1972 series starring Anthony Hopkins as Pierre Bezukhov and the 2016 BBC/Weinstein Company miniseries featuring Lily James and Paul Dano.
These adaptations provided the luxury of time, allowing for greater character development and a closer adherence to the novel’s intricate narrative.
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| War and Peace (2016) TV Series |
Beyond film and television, War and Peace has found expression in the world of opera, most notably in Sergei Prokofiev’s Voyna i mir, a composition that brings the novel’s emotional and philosophical weight into the realm of grand music.
Reception
The reception of War and Peace has been as complex as its narrative. Upon its publication in 1869, it was met with a mixture of awe and confusion. Critics struggled to categorize it—was it a novel, a historical chronicle, or a philosophical treatise?
The Russian press was initially hesitant, with some commentators critiquing Tolstoy for his rejection of conventional storytelling norms.
Yet, the novel quickly became a cornerstone of Russian literature. Figures such as Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoevsky acknowledged its grandeur, with Dostoevsky declaring it “the last word of the landlord’s literature and the brilliant one at that.”
Over time, War and Peace grew beyond national borders, aided by its translations into English, French, German, and numerous other languages.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, literary scholars and historians have continued to dissect War and Peace, viewing it as not merely a novel but a discourse on human existence. It has been praised for its psychological realism, its philosophical explorations of free will and historical determinism, and its grand narrative scope.
Writers such as Virginia Woolf and Thomas Mann have hailed Tolstoy’s ability to craft characters that transcend their fictional existence, while Ernest Hemingway admired the novel’s unflinching portrayal of war.
However, War and Peace has not been without its detractors. Some have found Tolstoy’s philosophical digressions cumbersome, interrupting the momentum of the story. Others have critiqued the novel’s portrayal of war, arguing that its emphasis on individual experience at times neglects the broader geopolitical forces at play.
Nevertheless, the novel’s endurance is indisputable. Today, War and Peace is not merely a literary relic of the 19th century but a living, breathing work that continues to inspire debate, interpretation, and adaptation.
It remains a text through which each new generation seeks to understand war, peace, love, destiny, and the vast, unpredictable tide of history.
About Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy was born to an upper-class Russian family on September 9, 1828, at the family’s estate in Tula province, Russia. His father was Count Nikolay Tolstoy, a nobleman and prestigious landowner. Tolstoy’s mother died when he was two years old and his father when he was nine, leaving the young boy to be raised in the home of his aunts.
When he was 16, he went to the University of Kazan, where he studied Oriental languages and then law, but he left in 1847 without completing his degree.
In 1851 he went to the Caucasus to live with his brother, and began writing his first novel Childhood. Published in 1852, it was followed by Boyhood (1854) and Youth (1856). During this time he served in the army at Sevastopol, fighting the Crimean War, and he drew extensively on his experiences as a soldier in the writing of War and Peace.
After the war, Tolstoy returned to his family estate. In 1859 he started a school there for peasant children. In 1861, after the emancipation of the serfs, Tolstoy served as Arbiter of the Peace, a temporary local judiciary position.
The following year, after the deaths of two of his brothers, he married Sofya Bers, the daughter of a Moscow physician, and began an educational magazine, Yasnaya Polyana, which I. S. Aksakov called a “remarkable literary phenomenon” and “an extraordinarily important phenomenon in our social life”. Tolstoy edited the journal for a little more than a year.
After that a second phase of his literary career began, the phase that produced his two greatest masterpieces, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. He retired to his estate with his new wife, wrote, hunted, farmed, and socialized with his country neighbours. At the end of the 1860s, however, he found himself in a spiritual crisis, brought about by the deaths of several of his children and other relatives.
He questioned the meaning of life and whether he could or should go on living. He drifted away from the Russian Orthodox Christianity in which he had been raised and focused on a more rational world view that did away with the need for the Church’s intervention between humanity and God. This change of spiritual direction left him at odds with many members of his family, especially his wife.
Influenced by his evolving philosophical outlook, his later works of fiction were less ornamental and more direct. They include the short stories “The Death of Ivan Ilych”, “Master and Man”, and “Memoirs of a Madman”. Tolstoy also produced many philosophical works and religious tracts. His 1898 essay What Is Art? is still considered an important treatise on art and morality. Tolstoy died on November 20, 1910, of pneumonia.
Conclusion
At its core, War and Peace is a masterful blend of history and fiction, weaving together the lives of aristocrats, soldiers, and peasants against the backdrop of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in the early 19th century.
Tolstoy’s meticulous attention to detail and his ability to breathe life into hundreds of characters make the novel a rich tapestry of human experience.
Yet, what truly sets War and Peace apart is its exploration of free will versus determinism, a theme that resonates deeply in a world still grappling with questions of individual agency and the forces that shape our lives.