"Peter the First"

English writer early XIX century, Walter Scott, the founder of the historical novel genre, created a type of novel depicting “ historical era, developed in fictional narrative" A.S. Pushkin in the novel " Captain's daughter” gives the story in a “homely way”, making the main character a fictitious person and exploring the history of his private life against the backdrop of historical events.

A.N. Tolstoy wrote historical novel, which he called “Peter the Great”. Thus, he placed a historical figure at the center of the story. This is a man whose fate is inseparable from the history of Russia. For him, turning to the Peter the Great era means turning to the personality of the country's transformer.

In the 1920s and 1930s, historical novels were dominated, on the one hand, by “research novels,” in which social analysis was in the foreground, and artistry was considered only an addition to it; on the other hand - naturalistic works, in which they tried to recreate the era through very detailed description everyday life, a jumble of archaisms.

The author of Peter the Great avoided both extremes. The descriptions in the novel are based on the use of relatively few, but expressive, characteristic details. Social analysis, undoubtedly very important for a writer, does not subjugate the artistic fabric of the work.

Compositionally real and fictional characters equal rights. It is easier for the author to show his understanding of events through fictional characters.

"Peter the Great" is a historical novel of a new type, which can be called heroic. At the center of the narrative in such a work is a heroic personality. The first book largely retains the features of a novel in its infancy, traditional in world literature. It is dedicated to the childhood and early youth of Peter the Great. Tolstoy chose precisely this period of future life Russian Emperor, to emphasize the scale, grandeur of his personality, the uniqueness of the path he has traversed.

However, even the first book is not built according to the traditional novel principle. Until the moment when it appears main character(Chapter 19), the main storylines and details with the help of which the image of the country is created. The characters in the novel are representatives of different social strata: relatives of the king, boyars, merchants, peasants, archers, Old Believers, many foreigners. The novel shows Russia on the eve of change. The formation of a hero ends the moment he realizes that the country needs him as a reformer. (Remember what ways of depicting the hero’s personality are characteristic of a traditional novel.)

The heroic type of historical novel requires unconventional methods of depicting the main character. Love line, the most important for the classical novel, is poorly developed in Peter the Great. The character of the hero is manifested not in love affairs, but in the field of building a new state. Friendly relations are based on unity of goals and interests. Lefort and Menshikov are close and dear to Peter because they fully support his transformative activities.

Gradually, the author narrows the time periods of the narrative, shortens the plot lines (the first book covers the period from 1682 to 1698, the second - about five years, the third - six months). At the same time, more and more attention is paid to Peter’s inner world and his surroundings. The need for change is already obvious; now it is important to understand what the personality of the one who makes them is, and at what cost he achieves the goal.

Peter's path appears as a series of tests that require the utmost effort. These are tests of a personal nature: the death of the mother, misunderstanding on the part of the wife, the betrayal of Anna Monet, the death of Lefort, the constant theft of Menshikov. In grief, Peter is always alone: ​​his wife does not share his grief for his mother, those around him are secretly happy about Lefort’s death. But the main thing is the failures of the state: the defeat at Azov, the Streltsy riot, the so-called “embarrassment,” the resistance of the people who do not want to live by the new laws. Victories come to Peter at the cost of incredible efforts; he literally “grabs” fortune by the hair. It is precisely this interpretation of the image that gives it heroic character. Tolstoy asserts the omnipotence of man, his ability to change himself and the world, thereby indirectly confirming the thesis of his time about the “new man.”

While working on the novel, A. Tolstoy undoubtedly fulfilled a social order. By creating a heroic image of Peter leading the country along the path of change, he thereby justified the incredible cruelties with which his reforms were associated. It is no coincidence that one of the main ideas of the novel is that the path of European development is necessary for Russia and “the end justifies the means.”

In "Peter the Great" there is a lot characters and storylines. With so many characters, a mosaic of the image is inevitable. The traditional plot becomes impossible. And the author’s desire to explore the processes that took place in Russia during the time of Peter the Great requires a different compositional solution. Therefore, the basis of the composition is the chapters, each of which, dedicated to one event, is structurally and meaningfully completed. The chapters are loosely connected to each other. The characters for the most part have no backstory, their appearance is not motivated by plot. Even if the author constantly monitors the fate of his heroes (which does not always happen), their fragmentation is still noticeable.

The organizing point of the novel “Peter the Great” is not the plot, but the system of characters. Peter is at the center of the story, all the other characters are grouped around him. Tolstoy believed that composition is “the establishment of a goal, a central figure, and then the establishment of the main characters, who are located in a descending ladder around this figure.” Therefore, the most detailed storylines of the characters located at the very top steps of the “ladder”, that is, those close to Peter. When characters lose touch with the main character, they disappear from the pages of the novel. This happens with Sophia, Vasily Golitsyn, Anna Monet and others.

The character system represents those who are comparable to Peter. These are either rulers: Sophia, Augustus, Charles the Twelfth, the Turkish Sultan, or reformers: Golitsyn, Natalya. Crown bearers are needed not only to depict the historical situation, but also as artistic images. Each of them represents a certain character and type of government. In the novel, not a single autocrat can compare with Peter in terms of personality scale and breadth of views, for whom concern for the state is above all. He becomes the image of the most progressive ruler.

The contrast between Peter and Golitsyn is carried out due to plot parallels (Golitsyn’s campaign in the Crimea - Peter’s campaigns, the struggle for power, plans for reforms). This allows us to imagine two types of reformers.

Peter's sister Natalya is not opposed to the main character, but compared with him. She carries out reforms in everyday life, supports her brother in his endeavors, which is especially difficult for a woman. It operates in the cultural sphere.

Back at the end of 1916, as we remember, while working on the story “The Day of Peter,” A. Tolstoy read historical documents of the late 16th - early 17th centuries. The language of that time, and most often the “mean” speech, is used by Tolstoy in the novel. In the first book, the author's language is stylistically combined with the speech of the characters, and the “joints” between them are almost not felt. In the third and partly in the second book, the author deliberately contrasts himself with the characters. He evaluates Peter's actions, so the narrator's speech differs from the characters' language.

Creating images of historical and fictional persons, Tolstoy achieved a special effect of authenticity thanks to the “theory of gesture” used. Instead of internal monologues and self-analysis of characters, the author resorts to constant recording of gestures, facial expressions, details of costume and appearance, indicating state of mind. In this case, the observer is most often not the author, but the characters surrounding the hero.

Besides creative work A. Tolstoy studied and social activities: “I spoke abroad five times at anti-fascist congresses. He was elected a member of the Leningrad City Council, then a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, then a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.”

In the first days of the Great Patriotic War the writer completed the novel “Gloomy Morning” - the third part of the epic “Walking in Torment”: “The trilogy was written over the course of twenty-two years. Its theme is returning home, the path to the homeland. And the fact that the last lines, the last pages of “Gloomy Morning” were written on the day when our homeland was on fire, convinces me that the path of this novel is the right one.”

During the Great Patriotic War, A. Tolstoy wrote a number of articles, but he considered the drama “Ivan the Terrible” to be his most important work. It is no coincidence that during the days of the war he again turns to historical theme. The drama, he later wrote, was his “response to the humiliations inflicted on my homeland by the Germans. I called the great passionate Russian soul, Ivan the Terrible, from oblivion to life in order to arm my “furious conscience.”

Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy did not live just a few months before the Victory. He died on February 23, 1945.

Sanka jumped off the stove and hit the jammed door with her back. Yashka, Gavrilka and Artamoshka quickly climbed down behind Sanka: suddenly everyone was thirsty, and they jumped into the dark entryway following a cloud of steam and smoke from the sour hut. A slightly bluish light shone through the window through the snow. Studeno. A tub of water became iced over, and a wooden ladle became iced over.

The children were jumping from foot to foot - everyone was barefoot, Sanka had a scarf tied around her head, Gavrilka and Artamoshka were wearing only shirts, up to their navels.

- The door, the catechumens! - the mother shouted from the hut.

Mother stood by the stove. The torches on the pole lit up brightly. The mother's wrinkled face lit up with fire. Most terribly of all, from under the torn cloth, the tear-stained eyes flashed, like on an icon. For some reason Sanka got scared and slammed the door with all her might. Then she scooped up the fragrant water, took a sip, bit into an ice cube and gave it to her brothers to drink. She whispered:

- Are you cold? Otherwise, we’ll run into the yard and see – Dad is harnessing the horse...

Outside, my father was harnessing the sleigh. A quiet snow was falling, the sky was snowy, jackdaws were sitting on the high tyne, and it was not as cold here as in the entryway. On the bat, Ivan Artemich - that’s what his mother called him, and people and he himself in public - Ivashka, nicknamed Brovkin - a high cap pulled down over his angry eyebrows. The red beard was not combed from the very cover... The mittens stuck out behind the bosom of the homespun caftan, belted with a low bast, the bast shoes squealed angrily in the dung snow: the father had trouble with the harness... The harness was rotten, only knots. Out of frustration, he shouted at the black horse, the same as his father, short-legged, with a swollen belly:

- Pamper, unclean spirit!

The children relieved themselves at the porch and huddled on the icy threshold, although the frost was biting. Artamoshka, the smallest one, barely said:

- Never mind, we’ll warm up on the stove...

Ivan Artemich harnessed and began to water the horse from the tub. The horse drank for a long time, puffing out his shaggy sides: “Well, feed me from hand to mouth, I’ll drink plenty”... Dad put on his mittens and took a whip from the sleigh, from under the straw.

- Run to the hut, I’ll get you! - he shouted to the children. He fell sideways onto the sleigh and, rolling outside the gate, trotted past tall spruce trees covered with snow to the estate of the son of the nobleman Volkov.

“Oh, it’s cold, bitterly cold,” said Sanka.

The children rushed into the dark hut, climbed onto the stove, chattering their teeth. Warm, dry smoke curled under the black ceiling and escaped through the little window above the door: the hut was heated in black. Mother was making dough. The yard was still prosperous - a horse, a cow, four chickens. They said about Ivashka Brovkin: strong. The embers of the splinters fell from the light into the water, hissing. Sanka pulled a sheepskin coat over herself and her brothers, and under the sheepskin coat she again began to whisper about various passions: about those, never mind, who rustle underground at night...

- Just now, my eyes burst out, I got scared... There is rubbish at the threshold, and on the rubbish there is a broom... I look from the stove - the power of the cross is with us! From under the broom - shaggy, with a cat's mustache...

“Oh, oh, oh,” the little ones were afraid under the sheepskin coat.

The slightly beaten path led through the forest. Centuries-old pines covered the sky. Windbreaks and thickets are difficult places. The year before last, Vasily, the son of Volkov, was seized from this land by his father, a Moscow serving nobleman. The local order imposed four hundred and fifty dessiatines on Vasily, and thirty-seven souls and families were assigned to them as peasants.

Vasily set up an estate, but he wasted money; half of the land had to be mortgaged to the monastery. The monks gave me money at a high rate - twenty kopecks per ruble. But according to the layout, it was necessary to be in the sovereign service on a good horse, in armor, with a saber, with a arquebus, and to lead with him warriors, three men, on horses, in tegileys, in sabers, in saadaks... I barely raised it with monastic money He's such a weapon. How about living on your own? How about feeding the servants? What about the increase in pay to the monks?

The royal treasury knows no mercy. Every year there is a new order, new money - feed, travel, tribute and quitrents. Will you lose too much? And everyone asks the landowner why he is so lazy to extract rent. But you can’t take more than one skin off a man. The state under the late Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was exhausted from wars, from unrest and riots. As the anathema thief Stenka Razin walked the earth, the peasants forgot God. If you press a little tighter, they bare their teeth like a wolf. Out of hardship they flee to the Don, where they can’t be obtained with either a letter or a saber.

The horse trudged along at a road trot and was completely covered with frost. The branches touched the arc and sprinkled snow dust. Clinging to the trunks, fluffy-tailed squirrels looked at the passerby - this squirrel was dying in the forests. Ivan Artemich lay in the sleigh and thought - the peasant had only one thing to do: think...

“Well, okay... Give me this, give me that... Pay this, pay that... But - a breakthrough - such a state! -Will you feed it? We don’t run away from work, we endure. And in Moscow, the boyars began to ride in golden carts. Give it to him for the cart, the well-fed devil. Well, okay... You force it, take what you need, but don’t be mischievous... And this, guys, is to tear two skins - mischief. The sovereign's people are now divorced - spit, and there is a clerk, or a clerk, or a kisser, sitting, writing... And there is only one man... Oh, guys, I'd better run away, the beast will break me in the forest, death is sooner than this mischief... So you'll be with us for a long time don't feed yourself..."

Ivashka Brovkin thought, maybe so, maybe not so. A Gypsy (by his nickname), a Volkovsky peasant, a black, gray-haired man, rode out of the forest onto the road, kneeling in a sleigh. For fifteen years he was on the run, wandering around the yard. But a decree was issued: to return all fugitives to the landowners without a statute of limitations. The gypsy was taken near Voronezh, where he was a peasant, and returned to Volkov Sr. He was about to sharpen his bast shoes again - they caught him, and they ordered Gypsy to be beaten with a whip without mercy and kept in prison - on Volkov's estate - and when the skin healed, he was taken out, in another row they were to beat him with a whip without mercy and again throw him into prison, so that he, the rogue, the thief, would not be allowed to run around in the future. The only way the gypsy got out was that he was sent to Vasilyev’s dacha.

“Great,” said the Gypsy to Ivan and got into his sleigh.

- Great.

– Have you heard anything?

– It’s as if we haven’t heard anything good...

The gypsy took off his mitten, unfolded his mustache and beard, hiding his slyness:

– I met a man in the forest: the king, he said, was dying.

Ivan Artemich stood up in the sleigh. It’s creepy... “Whoa”... He pulled off his cap and crossed himself:

-Who will they say is king now?

“Apart from that,” he says, there is no one like the boy, Pyotr Alekseevich. And he barely dropped a tit...

- Well, boy! – Ivan pulled his cap down, his eyes turned white. - Well, guy... Now wait for the boyar kingdom. We'll all fall apart...

– We’ll disappear, or maybe nothing – that’s it. – The gypsy stuck his head in close. Winked. - This man said - there will be turmoil... Maybe we’ll live a little longer, chew bread, tea - we’ll be experienced. - The gypsy bared his lesh teeth and laughed, coughing for the whole forest to hear.

The squirrel rushed from the trunk, flew across the road, snow began to fall, and sparkled with a column of needles in the slanting light. A large crimson sun hung at the end of the road over a hillock, above the high palisades, steep roofs and smoke of the Volkov estate...

Ivashka and Gypsy left their horses near the high gate. Above them, under a gable roof, is an image of the Holy Cross. Further on, a non-climbable tyn stretched around the entire estate. At least meet the Tatars... The men took off their hats. Ivashka took hold of the ring in the gate and said as expected:

- Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on us...

Averyan, the watchman, came out of the gate, creaking his bast shoes, and looked through the crack - his own. He said: Amen, and began to open the gate.

The men brought the horses into the yard. They stood without hats, looking askance at the mica windows of the boyars' hut. A porch with a steep staircase led there to the mansion. Beautiful carved wood porch with onion roof. Above the porch there is a roof with a hipped roof, with two half-barrels, and a gilded ridge. The lower housing of the hut - the basement - is made of mighty logs. It was prepared by Vasily Volkov as a storage room for winter and summer supplies - bread, corned beef, pickles, and various pickles. But, the men knew, he had only mice in his pantries. And the porch - God forbid another prince: a rich porch...

"Peter 1" - historical novel

The historical novel "Peter 1" is an inexhaustible source of detailed and very interesting information about Peter's time, about social conflicts, government and cultural reforms, about life, customs and people of that turbulent era. And most importantly, it is a source of imaginative ideas about a long-gone life, revived by generous and cheerful talent. The stamp of the writer’s unique talent lies on the entire narrative of the era of Peter, therefore, together with historical knowledge and direct artistic impressions of the novel, we develop a vivid idea of ​​the writer himself, his creative personality, about the features of his approach to life.

Continuing the traditions of the great realistic literature, Alexei Tolstoy creates a historical novel that organically combines historical truth/facts, events, true heroes of stories/ with fiction. The fate of a fictional hero, an ordinary person of the depicted era, expresses its main conflicts, the spirit of social struggle, and the content of ideological life.

Depicting life behavior and inner world of this hero, the writer most fully and reliably conveys the spirit of the times.

Historical truth and the powerful imagination of the writer, when combined, create the illusion of the full life of a long-past time. Peter's personality turned out to be extraordinary and in itself began to influence the era. Peter becomes the center of the application active forces finds himself at the head of the class struggle between local nobility and the emerging bourgeoisie. The era needs a man like Peter, and he himself sought the use of his powers. There was interaction here.

Of course, he alone could not do anything; forces were accumulating around him. The action of the novel unfolds over a vast space: this is Russia from Arkhangelsk to the Black Sea, from the western borders to the Urals, this is European cities, where Peter visited. The narrative covers an entire era, limited by the activities of the main character of the novel, Peter. The writer shows Peter for 25 years. The novel depicts the main events of that time: the uprising in Moscow in 1682, the reign of Sophia, the campaign of the Russian army in the Crimea, Peter's flight to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, the fall of Sophia, the fight for Azov, Peter's journey abroad, the Streltsy riot, the war with the Swedes, foundation of St. Petersburg. The historical fate of the main character determined the structure of the novel. However, even before the appearance of Peter, we peer into pictures of life in pre-Petrine Rus'. The historical inevitability of transformations is obvious. Everyone is waiting for fundamental changes in life. This is felt primarily in the deep discontent of the peasants, the small nobility, the boyars, and the streltsy detachments. The question arises about who will be able to budge the centuries-old foundations of Russian antiquity. Neither Sophia, nor Tsarevich Ivan, nor Vasily Golitsyn are capable of this. Especially significant, from the point of view of artistic disclosure of the role of the individual in history, is the opposition of Vasily Golitsin to Peter. An enlightened dreamer, Golitsyn, in his works about the ideal state and social structure, anticipated many of Peter's ideas. In constant contrast to Golitsyn and Sophia, the writer depicts Peter, growing up and maturing in the games of an amusing regiment in a remote corner of the suburban Preobrazhensky Palace. The writer shows how history “chooses” Peter, how historical circumstances shape those qualities of his personality that are necessary for a figure influencing the course of historical events.

The writer reproduces the vital connections and contradictions of all classes of society. Peasants, boyars, merchants, opposition archers, schismatics and soldiers, clergy and courtiers of Peter's time live under the pen wonderful artist. The center of a kind of attraction is Peter and his closest associates: Prince Romodanovsky, merchants Brovkin, Elgulin, Admiral Golovnin, Alexander Menshikov, Lefort and others. But the ordinary person, the working man, does not escape the writer’s field of vision. The writer shows the creative genius of the Russian people, without which no transformations would be possible. Reproducing the living appearance of Peter the Great's era, the writer does not limit himself to generalizing pictures of the life of work and suffering of the people. The role of the people in Peter's transformations is revealed in the novel in a much deeper and more multifaceted way. In the crowd of numerous characters, the images of ordinary people from the people, craftsmen, and workers are not lost. Their golden hands, ingenuity, and subtle artistic flair created miracles of technology and art, driving the first piles for the future Russian capital.

Alexei Tolstoy shows the love of freedom of a Russian man who honors the memory of Stepan Razin and does not bow his head to the oppressors.

The oppressed peasants grumbled against Peter, gathered into bandits of robbers and went into the forests, joined the schismatics, and went to the Don in search of freedom. But there is something else in the attitude of the people towards the king: grumbling and condemning the king as a “world-eater”, “Antichrist”, ordinary people They see in him an extraordinary king-reformer, not like a king, hardworking, inquisitive, easy to use, and brave in battle. It is no coincidence that the writer brings his heroes from the people together with Peter. These meetings and conversations of the tsar with working people reveal his attitude towards his own people. The voice of the people, their judgment on history, is heard in the author’s speech. In the broad epic scope of the narrative about Russia in the era of Peter the Great, one can feel the position of a writer-storyteller who speaks on behalf of the people, evaluates the past from the point of view of the people.

It is this position that eloquently demonstrates that the story about Peter and his time in the novel is a fair and objective judgment of the people over history. A truthful portrayal of the role of the people in the radical transformations of Russian life under Peter 1 and memorable portraits of heroes, numerous episodes and crowd scenes create a unique picture of the Peter the Great era. Thanks to the artistic skill of the writer and the originality of his talent, the novel has won the widest recognition in our country.

Alexey Tolstoy

Peter the Great

Novel

Book one

Chapter one

1

Sanka jumped off the stove and hit the jammed door with her back. Yashka, Gavrilka and Artamoshka quickly climbed down behind Sanka: suddenly everyone was thirsty, and they jumped into the dark entryway following a cloud of steam and smoke from the sour hut. A slightly bluish light shone through the window through the snow. Studeno. A tub of water became iced over, and a wooden ladle became iced over. The children were jumping from foot to foot - everyone was barefoot, Sanka had a scarf tied around her head, Gavrilka and Artamoshka were wearing only their shirts up to their navel. - The door, the catechumens! - the mother shouted from the hut. Mother stood by the stove. The torches on the pole lit up brightly. The mother's wrinkled face lit up with fire. Most terribly of all, from under the torn cloth, the tear-stained eyes flashed, like on an icon. For some reason Sanka got scared and slammed the door with all her might. Then she scooped up the fragrant water, took a sip, bit into an ice cube and gave it to her brothers to drink. She whispered: — Are you cold? Otherwise we’ll run into the yard and see if Dad is harnessing the horse... Outside, my father was harnessing the sleigh. A quiet snow was falling, the sky was snowy, jackdaws were sitting on the high tyne, and it was not as cold here as in the entryway. On the bat, Ivan Artemyich - that’s what his mother called him, and people and he called himself in public - Ivashka, nicknamed Brovkin, - a high cap pulled down over his angry eyebrows. The red beard had not been combed since the Intercession... The mittens stuck out behind the bosom of the homespun caftan, belted with a low bast, the bast shoes squealed angrily in the dung snow: the father’s harness was not going well... The harness was rotten, just knots. Out of frustration, he shouted at the black horse, the same as his father, short-legged, with a swollen belly. - Pamper, unclean spirit! The children relieved themselves at the porch and huddled on the icy threshold, although the frost was biting. Artamoshka, the smallest one, barely said: - Never mind, we’ll warm up on the stove... Ivan Artemyich harnessed and began to water the horse from the tub. The horse drank for a long time, puffing out his shaggy sides: “Well, feed me from hand to mouth, I’ll drink plenty...” Dad put on his mittens and took a whip from the sleigh, from under the straw. - Run to the hut, I’ll get you! - he shouted to the children. He fell sideways onto the sleigh and, rolling outside the gate, trotted past tall spruce trees covered with snow to the estate of the son of the nobleman Volkov. “Oh, it’s cold, it’s bitter,” said Sanka. The children rushed into the dark hut, climbed onto the stove, chattering their teeth. Warm, dry smoke curled under the black ceiling and escaped through the little window above the door: the hut was heated in black. Mother was making dough. The yard was still prosperous: a horse, a cow, four chickens. They said about Ivashka Brovkin: strong. The embers of the splinters fell from the light into the water, hissing. Sanka pulled a sheepskin coat over herself and her brothers, and under the sheepskin coat she again began to whisper about various passions: about those, never mind, who rustle in the underground at night... - Just now, my eyes burst out, I got scared... There is rubbish at the threshold, and on the rubbish there is a broom... I look from the stove - the power of the cross is with us! From under the broom - shaggy, with a cat's whiskers... “Oh, oh, oh,” the little ones were afraid under the sheepskin coat.

The era of Peter I attracted A. Tolstoy with its direct echo of the era of revolutionary transformations in post-October Russia. The author was convinced that the Russian people cannot be studied without their history, without their eventful past. The background to the creation of the great novel were the stories “Obsession”, “The First Terrorists. Extracts from the cases of the Preobrazhensky Order”, “Peter’s Day”, “Martha Rabe”, the play “On the Rack”, etc. The stories, in comparison with the novel, depicted Peter as a lone hero, opposed to the people. In addition, in the stories Peter appeared before the reader as a formed hero – a fanatically cruel ruler who achieves his goal at all costs. The novel allowed the author to rethink and refine his view of the events of Peter the Great’s time.

"Peter the Great" was created in the 1930s. – years of heyday of Marxist ideology; It is no coincidence that A. Tolstoy admitted that he was creating his novel through the prism of modernity. Second half of the 30s. was marked by the strengthening of authoritarian power, violence against the individual, restriction of freedom, repressive transformational methods, etc. To justify the historical expediency of such measures, it was necessary to find an analogy in history. Peter I and his era became such an analogy. Note that the image of Peter I in Tolstoy’s view has undergone some changes, because the author set himself the goal first of all show the transformative, reformative activities of Peter.

A. Tolstoy's novel became innovative in genre: During the trend in writing a documentary novel, the author creates a historical novel, where documentary information is passed through the imagination of the artist. Thanks to this, events appear alive, imaginative, and an entire era is clearly revealed in details and specific cases. The novel features both historical and fictional persons, which allowed the author to express in the novel not only an established historical point of view, but also his own point of view. The author pays tribute to authenticity by depicting the objective realities of Peter the Great's era: architecture, food, clothing, farming in their ethnographic accuracy. Tolstoy did not ignore language of Peter's time: almost without using archaisms, the author conveyed the historical coloring of the speech of the heroes, the element of the folk language.

Interesting and unconventional himself method of transferring epoch in rhomane- not only through the objective realities of time, but also through the action of a strong personality. Every event and character, not excluding the main character, of course, is shown as contradictory; The author, while expressing his point of view, does not impose it, thereby making the novel relevant and easy to understand. An important role in the novel is played by collective image of the Russian people, and the images of its individual representatives.

Feature of the novel also lies in the fact that the author does not present the Petrine era in isolation; on the contrary, Peter’s transformative activity is perceived by A. Tolstoy as a natural phenomenon, prepared by previous eras. In addition, while recreating Peter’s transformations, the author, although he pays tribute to the merits and achievements of Western sciences and cultures, still pays main attention to the development of the national.

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