The people in the novel "War and Peace"
It is believed that wars are won and lost by generals and emperors, but in any war, a commander without an army is like a needle without a thread. After all, it is soldiers, officers, generals - people who serve in the army and take part in battles and battles - who become the very thread with which history is embroidered. If you try to sew with only one needle, the fabric will be pierced, perhaps even marks will remain, but there will be no result of the work. Likewise, a commander without his regiments is just a lonely needle, which is easily lost in the haystacks formed by time, if there is no string of his troops behind him. It is not sovereigns who fight, it is the people who fight. Sovereigns and generals are just needles. Tolstoy shows that the theme of the people in the novel “War and Peace” is main topic the entire work. The people of Russia are people of different classes, and elite both those who make up the middle class and ordinary people. They all love their homeland and are ready to give their lives for it.
The image of the people in the novel
Two main storylines The novel reveals to readers how the characters are formed and the destinies of two families - the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys. Using these examples, Tolstoy shows how the intelligentsia developed in Russia; some of its representatives came to the events of December 1825, when the Decembrist uprising occurred.
The Russian people are represented in "War and Peace" different characters. Tolstoy seemed to have collected the features inherent in ordinary people, and created several collective images, embodying them in specific characters.
In Platon Karataev, met by Pierre in captivity, they embodied character traits serf peasants. Kind, calm, hard-working Plato, talking about life, but not thinking about it: “He, apparently, never thought about what he said and what he would say...”. In the novel, Plato is the embodiment of a part of the Russian people of that time, wise, submissive to fate and the tsar, loving their Motherland, but going to fight for it only because they were caught and “given as soldiers.” His natural kindness and wisdom revive the “master” Pierre, who is constantly looking for the meaning of life and cannot find and comprehend it.
But at the same time, “When Pierre, sometimes amazed by the meaning of his speech, asked to repeat what was said, Plato could not remember what he said a minute ago.” All these searches and tossing are alien and incomprehensible to Karataev, he knows how to accept life as it is at this very moment, and he accepts death humbly and without grumbling.
The merchant Ferapontov, an acquaintance of Alpatych, is a typical representative of the merchant class, on the one hand stingy and cunning, but at the same time burning his property so that it does not fall to the enemy. And he doesn’t want to believe that Smolensk will be surrendered, and he even beats his wife for her requests to leave the city.
And the fact that Ferapontov and other merchants themselves set fire to their shops and houses is a manifestation of patriotism and love for Russia, and it already becomes clear that Napoleon will not be able to defeat the people who are ready to do anything to save their Motherland.
The collective image of the people in the novel “War and Peace” is created by many characters. These are partisans like Tikhon Shcherbaty, who fought the French in their own way, and, as if playfully, destroyed small detachments. These are wanderers, humble and religious, such as Pelageyushka, who walked to holy places. The militia men, dressed in simple white shirts, “to prepare for death,” “with loud talking and laughter,” were digging trenches on the Borodino field before the battle.
IN Hard times When the danger of being conquered by Napoleon loomed over the country, one main goal came to the fore for all these people - the salvation of Russia. Before her, all other matters turned out to be petty and unimportant. At such moments, people show their true face, and in “War and Peace” Tolstoy shows the difference between the common people, ready to die for their country, and other people, careerists and opportunists.
This is especially evident in the description of the preparations for the battle on the Borodino field. A simple soldier with the words: “The whole people want to attack...”, some officers, for whom the main thing is that “for tomorrow big rewards should have been given out and new people brought forward,” soldiers praying in front of the Smolensk icon Mother of God, Dolokhov asking Pierre for forgiveness - all these are brush strokes big picture, who stood in front of Pierre after a conversation with Bolkonsky. “He understood that hidden... warmth of patriotism that was in all those people he saw, and which explained to him why all these people were calmly and seemingly frivolously preparing for death” - this is how Tolstoy describes the general state of people before the Battle of Borodino.
But the author does not at all idealize the Russian people; in the episode where the Bogucharov men, trying to preserve their acquired wealth, do not let Princess Marya out of Bogucharov, he clearly shows the meanness and baseness of these people. In describing this scene, Tolstoy shows the behavior of the peasants as alien to Russian patriotism.
Conclusion
In an essay on the topic “The Russian people in the novel “War and Peace”” I wanted to show Lev Nikolaevich Tolstov’s attitude towards the Russian people as a “whole and unified” organism. And I want to end the essay with a quote from Tolstov: “... the reason for our triumph was not accidental, but lay in the essence of the character of the Russian people and troops, ... this character should have been expressed even more clearly in an era of failures and defeats...”
Work test
Image common people the author of War and Peace pays a lot of attention. The peasantry appears before us in the person of serfs, corvées and courtyard workers, and in the person of soldiers who retain their peasant traits, and in the person of partisans.
As Tolstoy's worldview changes, he is interested in different aspects of the external and inner life peasants, but he always draws them unusually truthfully and vividly. Amazing in their craftsmanship crowd scenes with their diversity of behavior and relationships of individual characters; speech characteristics amaze with their life truth.
When describing the campaign of 1805 in Austria, Russian peasants appear as living people, dressed in soldiers' greatcoats, but without losing their special peasant appearance. They go to fight, not knowing exactly why, with whom and where. On a hike, people show their usual endurance, simplicity, good nature, and cheerfulness - a sign of great physical and moral strength. Making a tedious transition, they exchange separate phrases among themselves. At the command of the captain, the songwriters ran forward, sang a song, and after that the soldier ran forward and began to dance. But here the soldiers are shown in battle, in action, in hard work in a year of mortal danger hanging over Russia, and one immediately feels new feature folk character- perseverance and courage.
During the heroic battle of Shengraben, the battery that was left without cover continued to fire and was not taken by the French. Within an hour, seventeen out of forty servants were killed,” but the soldiers, led by their officer, continued to courageously fight against the superior forces of the enemy. Over the course of several years of work on War and Peace, Tolstoy’s interest in the peasantry increased and the nature of his portrayal changed somewhat. The plight of the people is becoming increasingly clearer. On Bezukhov’s estates and after his “reforms,” “the peasants continue to give with work and money everything that they give from others, that is, everything they can date.
The old Prince Bolkonsky orders his servant to be handed over to the soldiers because he mistakenly served coffee first to the prince’s daughter, and not to the French woman who was enjoying it. given time the old man's disposition. Such manifestations of lordly tyranny were not isolated
phenomena, as is clear from Andrei Bolkonsky’s conversation with Pierre during their trip to Bald Mountains. Describing the Rostovs' hunt, Tolstoy introduces something new, cameo person- landowner Ilagin, owner of a wonderful hunting dog, for which the “representable, courteous gentleman” “a year ago gave three families of servants to his neighbor.”
The discontent of the peasants is manifested repeatedly in War and Peace. The dissatisfaction of the peasants with their position, the awareness of the injustice of the existing system is emphasized by such a small episode. When the wounded Prince Andrei was brought to the dressing station and the doctor ordered him to be immediately carried into the tent, “a murmur arose in the crowd of waiting wounded.
"It is seen. and in the next world the gentlemen will live alone. – said one.”
The proximity of the French shook the lordly power. and men begin to talk openly about it. that they have been sick for a long time. The hatred of the peasants for the landowners was so great. as well as “the last stay of Prince Andrei in Bogucharovo. with his innovations hospitals. schools and relief of rent. – did not soften their morals, but... against. strengthened those character traits in them. which the old prince called savagery."
Princess Marya’s promises to give them bread and care in new places did not inspire confidence in them either. where she suggested they move.
However, the nobles do not feel calm either. The meaning of this concern is clearly expressed by Pierre. speaking in the epilogue to Nikolai Rostov. that it is necessary to prevent possible Pugachevism. But. despite his difficult situation. the peasants do not want to give up their homeland to the power of the French invaders and at the same time show boundless courage and fortitude. Mobilized men -
Before the Battle of Borodino, the militia put on clean shirts: they prepared for death. but not to retreat.
The expression of this simple and sincere. alien...
I tried to write the history of the people.
L. Tolstoy
L.N. Tolstoy believed that the movement of the hands on the clock of history depends on the rotation of many wheels interlocking with each other, and these wheels turn out to be people with an infinite variety of characters.
In the novel "War and Peace" - greatest work not only Russian, but also world literature - Tolstoy managed not only to display major events in the history of the Russian people, but also to reveal the features of Russian national identity.
Having based the novel on “people's thought,” the writer tests the value and maturity of his characters by their attitude towards ordinary Russian men, towards soldiers. Observing the people, plunging into the thick of events, Tolstoy’s heroes make important discoveries for themselves, which often change their future lives.
Sincere, open, cheerful Natasha Rostova, one might say, is imbued with the Russian national spirit: “Where, how, when did this countess, raised by a French governess, suck into herself from the Russian air that she breathed, this spirit, where did she get these techniques from... But these spirits and techniques were the same, inimitable, unstudied, Russian.” That is why Natasha is close folk music, folk dances. But her love for the people is not limited to passive admiration, and in difficult times for the country, Natasha demands that their carts, where property has already been loaded, be given to the wounded. When communicating with Russian soldiers, Pierre Bezukhov finds the meaning and goals of life, realizing the falsity of his previous attitudes. He remains forever grateful to Platon Karataev, whom he met in captivity by the French, a Russian soldier who preached goodness and love of life.
The courage and dedication of the Russian people during the Battle of Austerlitz largely influenced the abandonment of the ambitious aspirations of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. And the prince devoted his entire life to this people when the Patriotic War of 1812 began - a time of terrible trials that brought huge changes to the life of the entire Russian people.
The French attack on Russia caused a colossal wave of anger among all people who were not indifferent to the fate of their homeland. The whole country rose up to fight the enemy. Many, including Andrei Bolkonsky, went into the active army. People like Pierre Bezukhov donated their money for military needs and equipped militias. Many merchants, for example Ferapontov, burned their shops or gave away property so that the French would not get anything. Civilians Before Napoleon's troops entered the city, Moscow left the city so as not to fall under the power of the invaders. Material from the site
The Russian people showed a high patriotic spirit during the Battle of Borodino, where they showed a high sense of camaraderie, a sense of duty, and the physical and moral strength of the soldiers. On the Borodino field, the French first encountered an enemy of such fortitude. That is why the Russian people won this war, because the flight of the French from Moscow and their final defeat were the result of joint actions regular army, partisan detachments and local residents, who refused to sell hay and food to the enemies, abandoned cities and villages captured by enemies, burned supplies and warehouses, dooming the French to starvation. The Russian people understood that the outcome of the war depended on each of them, and therefore did not need either convincing or urging. And they defended their lives. "Cudgel people's war rose with all her formidable and majestic strength and, without asking anyone’s tastes and rules, with stupid simplicity, but with expediency, without considering anything, she rose, fell and nailed the French until the entire invasion was destroyed.”
L.N. Tolstoy calls the Russian people “a wonderful, incomparable people,” admiring their courage, dedication, and fortitude of spirit, which helped defeat even Napoleon’s previously invincible army.
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1867 L. M. Tolstoy completed work on the epoch-making novel of his work, “War and Peace.” The author noted that in “War and Peace” he “loved the people’s thought,” poetizing the simplicity, kindness and morality of the Russian people. L. Tolstoy reveals this “folk thought” by depicting the events of the Patriotic War of 1812. It is no coincidence that L. Tolstoy describes the war of 1812 only on the territory of Russia. The historian and realist artist L. Tolstoy showed that the Patriotic War of 1812 was a just war. In defense, the Russians raised "the club of people's war, which would punish the French until the invasion was stopped." The war radically changed the life of the entire Russian people.
The author introduces into the novel many images of men, Soldiers, whose thoughts and considerations together constitute the people's worldview. Irresistible force of the Russian people is fully felt in the heroism and patriotism of Moscow residents who were forced to leave hometown, your treasure, but not conquered in the soul; peasants refuse to sell food and hay to enemies and create partisan detachments. L. Tolstoy showed real heroes, persistent and firm in fulfilling their military duties, in the images of Tushin and Timokhin. The theme of the people's element is revealed more expressively in the depiction of guerrilla warfare. Tolstoy creates bright image partisan Tikhon Shcherbatov, who arbitrarily joined Denisov’s detachment and was “the most useful person in the squad." Platon Karataev is a generalized image of a Russian peasant. In the novel, he appears on those pages where Pierre's stay in captivity is depicted. The meeting with Karataev changes a lot of things in Pierre's attitude towards life. Deep folk wisdom as if concentrated in the image of Plato. This is calm, sensible wisdom, without tricks and cruelty. From her, Pierre changes, begins to experience life in a new way, and is renewed in his soul.
Hatred of the enemy was felt equally by representatives of all layers of Russian society, and patriotism and closeness to the people were most inherent in Tolstoy’s favorite heroes - Pierre Bezukhov, Andrei Bolkonsky, Natasha Rostova. The simple Russian woman Vasilisa, the merchant Feropontov, and the family of Count Rostov feel unity in their desire to help the country. The spiritual strength that the Russian people showed in Patriotic War 1812, this is the same force that supported the activities of Kutuzov as a talented Russian and commander. He was elected commander-in-chief “against the will of the sovereign and in accordance with the will of the people.” That is why, Tolstoy believes, Kutuzov was able to fulfill his great historical mission, since each person is worth something not on his own, but only when he is part of his people. Thanks to unity, high patriotic enthusiasm and moral strength, the Russian people won the war.
"People's Thought" - main idea novel "War and Peace". Tolstoy knew that simple life people, with their “personal” destinies, vicissitudes, joy, make up the fate and history of the country. “I tried to write the history of the people,” said Tolstoy, of the people in the broad sense of the word. Therefore, “people's thought” plays a huge role for the author, affirming the place of the people as a decisive force in history.
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