No school curriculum is complete without studying the epic novel L.N. Tolstoy"War and Peace". How many volumes there are in this work will be discussed in today’s article.
The novel "War and Peace" consists of 4 volumes.
- Volume 1 consists of 3 parts.
- Volume 2 consists of 5 parts.
- Volume 3 consists of 3 parts.
- Volume 4 consists of 4 parts.
- The epilogue consists of 2 parts.
War and Peace tells about the life of Russian society in the period from 1805 to 1812, i.e. during the era of the Napoleonic wars.
The work was based on the author’s personal interest in the history of that time, political events and the life of the country. Tolstoy decided to start work after repeated conversations with relatives about his intention.
- In the 1st volume the author talks about the military events of 1805-1807, during the period of the alliance between Russia and Austria to fight the Napoleonic invasion.
- In the 2nd volume describes the peacetime of 1806-1812. Here, descriptions of the characters’ experiences, their personal relationships, searches for the meaning of life and the theme of love prevail.
- In volume 3 The military events of 1812 are given: the attack of Napoleon and his troops on Russia, the Battle of Borodino, the capture of Moscow.
- In the 4th volume the author talks about the 2nd half of 1812: the liberation of Moscow, the Battle of Tarutino and a large number of scenes related to the partisan war.
- In the 1st part of the epilogue Leo Tolstoy describes the fate of his heroes.
- In the 2nd part of the epilogue tells about the cause-and-effect relationships between the events that took place between Europe and Russia in 1805-1812.
In each of the volumes, L.N. Tolstoy conveyed a realistic picture of the era, and also expressed his opinion about its enormous significance in the life of society. Instead of abstract reasoning (which still has its place in the novel), the transmission of information was used through visual and detailed descriptions of the military events of those years.
- Number of characters in the novel – 569 (main and secondary). Of these, about 200 – real historical figures: Kutuzov, Napoleon, Alexander I, Bagration, Arakcheev, Speransky. The fictional characters - Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova - are nevertheless vital and realistic, and they are the main focus of the novel.
- In Soviet times (1918-1986), “War and Peace” was the most published work of fiction. 36,085,000 copies– this was the circulation of 312 publications. The novel was created in 6 years, while Tolstoy rewrote the epic by hand 8 times, individual fragments more than 26 times. The writer's works number approximately 5,200 sheets written in his own hand, where the history of the appearance of each volume is fully shown.
- Before writing the novel, Leo Tolstoy read a lot of historical and memoir literature. In Tolstoy’s “list of used literature” there were such publications as: the multi-volume “Description of the Patriotic War in 1812”, the history of M. I. Bogdanovich, “The Life of Count Speransky” by M. Korf, “Biography of Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov” by M. P. Shcherbinin. The writer also used materials from French historians Thiers, A. Dumas Sr., Georges Chambray, Maximelin Foix, Pierre Lanfré.
- Based on the novel, a large number of films (at least 10) were made, both Russian and foreign.
Original title: War & Peace
Genre: drama, melodrama, military, history
Director: Tom Harper
Cast Stars: Paul Dano, James Norton, Lily James, Adrienne Edmondson, Ashlyn Loftus, Greta Scacchi, Jack Lowden, Tuppence Middleton, Aneurin Barnard, Jessie Buckley
About the series: Screen adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s immortal novel “War and Peace” in eight episodes. The mini-series was produced by the BBC channel, known for such popular historical television projects as “Rome”, “The Musketeers”, “Sherlock”, etc.
Natasha Rostova, Pierre Bezukhov and Andrei Bolkonsky - old literary heroes are returning to world television screens, now in a film adaptation by the BBC, a British channel that produces high-quality series with serious budgets. The plot of the mini-series covers Russia in the 19th century.
The year is 1805, Napoleon invades Austria and confidently wins one victory after another, threatening Russia. Pierre Bezukhov admires the French emperor, while the Moscow high society does not accept the count. His friend Andrei Bolkonsky, on the contrary, strives to participate in battles against Napoleon’s army. Natasha Rostova is just entering high society and is full of optimism.
These are the three central characters around whom the main action of the British mini-series (as well as the books) is centered. The director managed to very accurately and skillfully convey the atmosphere of the 19th century, those times when the aristocracy flourished in Russia, basking in luxury and festivities, breaking away from the common people, copying the manners of the European high society and studying the French language. All three main characters of the series belong to high society, but have their own point of view on everything that happens in the country.
Young Natasha is full of bright plans, which are destroyed by the outbreak of the war with Napoleon. It completely changes the carefree life and way of life of the nobles. The path to happiness for the young countess lies through tragedy and military losses. The screenwriter of the mini-series "War and Peace", voiced by the LostFilm studio, focused on the relationships between the main characters, spectacular battle scenes and palace interiors, and also paid attention to the beautiful and detailed display of Russian nature.
If the BBC TV channel undertakes to reproduce a historical era, it does it efficiently, sparing no expense on costumes, interiors, and training actors in the manners of the times described. Many critics have already called “War and Peace” in the British version one of the best adaptations of Leo Tolstoy’s monumental work, which amazes with the accuracy of the conveyed atmosphere of Tsarist Russia, deep history and excellent acting. The film shows not only the nobility, but also the life of ordinary people of different social structures, describing historical events in detail. Intrigue, love, large-scale battle scenes - you will see all this in the new mini-series “War and Peace” translated by LostFilm.
Once, during a literature lesson, the teacher told us that in the old spelling, when the Russian alphabet had 35 letters (see V.I. Dal, “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language”), some words that were pronounced the same had different spellings, and this changed the meaning. So, the word “peace”, written as it is written now, really meant a time of peace, without war. And written through “and with a dot” (“i”) - the world in the sense of the universe and human society.
At that time, we were studying L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace,” and, continuing to discuss “and” with a period, the teacher told us that Lev Nikolaevich called his novel “War and Peace,” since he contrasted war and society, war and people.
This story struck my imagination so much that I remembered it, and all my life I was sure that it was so. And recently, wanting to get involved in a dispute to defend my point of view, I began to look for supporting facts on the Internet.
What was found there? A lot of abstracts that copy the above from each other (of course, great, but unreliable), chatter in forums (the opinion of the laity versus the civilians in relation to 10:1), a certificate on gramota.ru that changes its opinion, and - no facts! Well, purely opinions, that's all!
On one forum they wrote that it turns out that this novel is a study of the influence of war on human actions and destinies. On the other hand, they were indignant that “the world” is not human society, but a rural community, and Tolstoy could not call his novel “War and Peace”, since he was writing not about a rural community, but about high society.
I found the only reliable message on this topic from Artemy Lebedev with an image of the first page of the 1874 edition, commented with the words: “Well, what could be simpler than just taking it and seeing how it was?”
Let's follow this advice.
Firstly, let's look at V. I. Dahl's "Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language": what do the words “mir” and “mir” actually mean?
WORLD (written with i) (m.) universe; matter in space and force in time (Khomyakov). || One of the lands of the universe; esp. || our earth, globe, light; || all people, the whole world, the human race; || community, society of peasants; || gathering. In the last meaning The world is rural and volost. Lay down on the world, give a verdict at the meeting; in the rural world there is a man from every smoke, in the volost world or circle there are two owners from a hundred. Worlds, lands, planets. In ancient times, they counted the years from the creation of the world, our earth. To go into the world or in the world, with a bag. Death is red in the world, in people. Live in the world, in worldly worries, in vanity; in general in the world; prtvop. spiritual life, monastic life. Peace, God help! the call of barge haulers, along the Volga, when ships meet; answer: God help you! Peace wave. The world is a golden mountain. In the world that is at sea. In a world that is in a pool (no bottom, no tire). The world is in evil (in lies). No matter what the world hates, it also hates, about envy. A stupid mind lets you go around the world. Rich for the feast, poor for the world (throughout the world). We don’t go around the world and don’t give to the poor. She settled the children: she sent one around the world, and gave the other to a swineherd in science. To go into the world (around the world) and take it as dough. The baptized world, but a canvas bag: beg under one window, eat under another. The world is thin and long. The world has thin stomachs and debts. What the world does not fall on, the world will not lift up. You can’t bake a pie about the world; you can't get enough of the world of wine. You can't please the whole world (everyone). In a world that is at a drunken feast. from the world by thread, naked shirt. One cannot eat the world. The world is like a feast: there is a lot of everything (both good and bad). Both in the feast and in the world, all in one (about clothing). Neither in the feast, nor in the world, nor in good people. To live in the world is to live with the world. (full text of the article, image 1.2 MB.)
To reconcile someone, with whom, to reconcile, to agree, to eliminate a quarrel, to settle disagreement, enmity, forcing things to become amicable. Why put up with someone who doesn’t know how to swear! Going to make peace yourself is not good; If you send an ambassador, people will know. The mare made peace with the wolf but did not return home.<…>Peace is the absence of quarrel, hostility, disagreement, war; harmony, agreement, unanimity, affection, friendship, goodwill; silence, peace, tranquility. The world is concluded and signed. There is peace and grace in their home. Receive someone in peace, see them off in peace. Peace be with you! From greetings to the poor: peace to this house. Peace be with you, and I am with you! Good people scold the world. In the day there is a feast, and in the night there is peace with walls and thresholds. The neighbor doesn't want it, so the world won't. Peace to the deceased, and a feast to the doctor. Chernyshevsky (violent) peace (among the Kaluga residents, whose strife was stopped by Chernyshev, under Peter I). (full text of the article, image 0.6 Mb.)
Secondly- encyclopedias, as well as links and lists of works by L. N. Tolstoy, compiled by pre-revolutionary researchers of his work.
1. Encyclopedic Dictionary, volume XXXIII, publishers F. A. Brockhaus and I. A. Efron, St. Petersburg, 1901
The article about Count L.N. Tolstoy begins on page 448, and there the only time the title “War and Peace” appears, written with an “i”:
Brockhaus and Efron. L.N. Tolstoy, “War and Peace”
Notice that the second reference to the novel that appears at the end of the quote is typed with the letter “i.”
2. Bodnarsky B. S. “Bibliography of the works of Leo Tolstoy”, 1912, Moscow, p. 11:
3. ibid., page 18:
4. Bibliographic index of the works of L. N. Tolstoy, compiled by A. L. Bem, 1926 (started by typesetting in 1913 - finished printing in September 1926), p. 13:
5. Count L.N. Tolstoy in literature and art. Compiled by Yuri Bitovt. Moscow, 1903:
Please note on page 120:
In comparison with other references (full text pp. 116-125, image 0.8Mb) this looks like a typo.
Thirdly, title pages of pre-revolutionary editions of the novel:
I First edition: printing house T. Rees, at the Myasnitskie Gate, Voeikov’s house, Moscow, 1869:
II Edition for the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Borodino: published by I. D. Sytin, Moscow, 1912:
III Publishing house I. P. Ladyzhnikov, Berlin, 1920:
IV Edition of Vinnitsky, Odessa, 1915:
V PETROGRAD. Type. Peter. T-va Pech. and Ed. case “Trud”, Kavalergardskaya, 40. 1915:
It is easy to notice the difference in the spelling of the novel's title on the cover and on the first page.
And in conclusion, a quote from “Descriptions of manuscripts of artistic works of L. N. Tolstoy”, Moscow, 1955, (compiled by V. A. Zhdanov, E. E. Zaidenshnur, E. S. Serebrovskaya):
“The idea of “War and Peace” is connected with the story about the Decembrist, begun in 1860. In a draft of the preface to the magazine publication of the first part of the future novel “War and Peace,” Tolstoy wrote that when he began the story about the Decembrist, in order to understand his hero, he needed to “be transported” to his youth, and “his youth coincided with the glorious for Russia in the era of 1812." Having begun to create a novel from the era of 1812, Tolstoy once again pushed back the action of his novel, starting it from 1805.”
To sum it up
L.N. Tolstoy called the novel “War and Peace”, the other version is beautiful, but - alas! - a legend generated by an unfortunate typo.
Other Internet sources:
My comment.
I would not so categorically declare that Leo Tolstoy, a Jew, did not know his own Hebrew language in order to make a mistake with the title of his book. We were told at school that a publisher's mistake had crept into modern publications. Because the original version was called: “War and Peace.” War and Society. That is: Mir.
Because I saw live books on the Internet, where the title of the novel was written: “War and Peace.”
In another Jewish book, I read a phrase from a Jew to his fellow villagers:
Where are you driving me, World?
That is, the later modified spelling of “Mir”, as “Society”, began to be written with an error, as “World”. The followers and publishers of Leo Tolstoy were mistaken, but not Tolstoy himself, with the writing of the second word in the title of the novel: “War and Peace” - “War and Society” (State).
But... the Hebrew word: “Mir” has another interpretation, which in no way fits with the History of the Army (World) rewritten by the Cossacks (intelligentsia). It does not fit into the picture of the World (Army) that writers with their literary mystifications created for us. By the way, Leo Tolstoy was one of these literary hoaxers.
As I have already proven, in order to describe the stay of the Russian (Jewish) Cossacks in Paris with Alexander I Baron von Holstein, Leo Tolstoy had to write his novel after 1896, when power in Germany was seized by the Jews (London) group and the protege of this The London (Coburg) group, in St. Petersburg captured by the Cossacks, Nikolai Holstein (Kolya Pitersky) first appeared.
Yes, Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya rewrote the novel “War and Peace” eight (!) times. Of the eight versions of the novel “War and Peace,” the author of which is considered to be Leo Tolstoy, there was not a single page written by Tolstoy himself. All eight options are written by Sofia Andreevna’s hand.
Further, in the novel, dates are given according to three different Chronologies. According to the Army (Kondrusskaya), in which the war took place in 512 AD. According to the Elston (Cossack) Chronology, in which the war took place in 812, and according to the Jewish (Coburg) Chronology, when the war of 512 moved to 1812. Although Tolstoy says that he is writing about the war of 1864-1869. That is, the war dates back to 512 years.
And the Cossacks captured Paris from the Kondruses only during the next Kondrus-Cossack war of 1870-1871.
That is, we see reissues of books where the publication dates are indicated retroactively. Books were published after 1896, and the dates were set as if they were published in 1808, 1848, 1868, and so on.
We should not blindly trust our Slavic Jewish Christian Soviet brothers, the old red (Prussian) guard of the Hohenzollerns, Holstein, Bronstein and Blank, lads, when they invent new and new stories for us about the St. Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad (Holstein) they captured. Are our Red Army soldiers extremely criminally interested in ensuring that no one in occupied Russia learns the truth about what happened throughout occupied Russia up to 1922 inclusive?
We don’t even know the truth about what happened when Stalin was alive. And you are talking about the 19th century, which after the Bolsheviks was completely closed as a state secret.
The novel “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy devoted six years of intense and persistent work. September 5, 1863 A.E. Bers, the father of Sophia Andreevna, Tolstoy's wife, sent a letter from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana with the following remark: “Yesterday we talked a lot about 1812 on the occasion of your intention to write a novel relating to this era.” It is this letter that researchers consider “the first accurate evidence” dating the beginning of Tolstoy’s work on War and Peace. In October of the same year, Tolstoy wrote to his relative: “I have never felt my mental and even all my moral powers so free and so capable of work. And I have this job. This work is a novel from the time of 1810 and 20s, which has been occupying me completely since the fall... I am now a writer with all the strength of my soul, and I write and think about it as I have never written or thought about it before.”
The manuscripts of “War and Peace” testify to how one of the world’s largest works was created: over 5,200 finely written sheets have been preserved in the writer’s archive. From them you can trace the entire history of the creation of the novel.
Initially, Tolstoy conceived a novel about a Decembrist who returned after a 30-year exile in Siberia. The novel began in 1856, shortly before the abolition of serfdom. But then the writer revised his plan and moved on to 1825 - the era of the Decembrist uprising. Soon the writer abandoned this beginning and decided to show the youth of his hero, which coincided with the formidable and glorious times of the Patriotic War of 1812. But Tolstoy did not stop there either, and since the war of 1812 was inextricably linked with 1805, he began his entire work from that time. Having moved the beginning of the action of his novel half a century deeper into history, Tolstoy decided to take not one, but many heroes through the most important events for Russia.
Tolstoy called his plan to capture the half-century history of the country in artistic form “Three Times.” The first time is the beginning of the century, its first decade and a half, the time of youth of the first Decembrists who went through the Patriotic War of 1812. The second time is the 20s with their main event - the uprising of December 14, 1825. The third time is the 50s, the unsuccessful end of the Crimean War for the Russian army, the sudden death of Nicholas I, the amnesty of the Decembrists, their return from exile and the time of waiting for changes in the life of Russia. However, in the process of working on the work, the writer narrowed the scope of his initial plan and focused on the first period, touching only on the beginning of the second period in the epilogue of the novel. But even in this form, the concept of the work remained global in scope and required the writer to exert all his strength. At the beginning of his work, Tolstoy realized that the usual framework of the novel and historical story would not be able to accommodate all the richness of the content he had planned, and began to persistently search for a new artistic form; he wanted to create a literary work of a completely unusual type. And he succeeded. “War and Peace”, according to L.N. Tolstoy is not a novel, not a poem, not a historical chronicle, it is an epic novel, a new genre of prose, which after Tolstoy became widespread in Russian and world literature.
“I LOVE PEOPLE’S THOUGHT”
“For a work to be good, you must love the main idea in it. So in “Anna Karenina” I loved the family thought, in “War and Peace” I love the people’s thought as a result of the war of 1812” (Tolstoy). The war, which resolved the issue of national independence, revealed to the writer the source of the nation's strength - the social and spiritual power of the people. The people make history. This thought illuminated all events and faces. “War and Peace” became a historical novel and received the majestic form of an epic...
The appearance of “War and Peace” in the press caused the most controversial criticism. Radical democratic magazines of the 60s. The novel was greeted with fierce attacks. In Iskra for 1869, M. Znamensky’s “Literary and Drawing Medley” appears [V. Kurochkin], parodying the novel. N. Shelgunov speaks of him: “an apology for a well-fed nobility.” T. is attacked for idealizing the lordly environment, for the fact that the position of the serf peasantry was bypassed. But the novel did not receive recognition in the reactionary-noble camp. Some of his representatives agreed to accuse Tolstoy of anti-patriotic tendencies (see P. Vyazemsky, A. Narov, etc.). A special place is occupied by N. Strakhov’s article, which emphasized the incriminating side of “War and Peace”. A very interesting article by Tolstoy himself, “A few words about “War and Peace” (1868). Tolstoy seemed to justify himself in some accusations when he wrote: “In those days, they also loved, envied, sought truth, virtue, were carried away by passions; it was the same complex mental and moral life...”
"WAR AND PEACE" FROM A MILITARY POINT OF VIEW
Roman gr. Tolstoy is interesting for a military man in a double sense: for his description of scenes of military and military life and for his desire to draw some conclusions regarding the theory of military affairs. The first, that is, the scenes, are inimitable and, in our extreme conviction, can constitute one of the most useful additions to any course in the theory of military art; the second, that is, the conclusions, do not withstand the most lenient criticism due to their one-sidedness, although they are interesting as a transitional stage in the development of the author’s views on military affairs.
HEROES ABOUT LOVE
Andrei Bolkonsky: “I wouldn’t believe anyone who told me that I could love like that. This is not the same feeling I had before. The whole world is divided for me into two halves: one - she and there is all the happiness, hope, light; the other half is everything where it is not there, there is all despondency and darkness... I cannot help but love the light, I am not to blame for this. And I am very happy...”
Pierre Bezukhov: “If there is God and there is a future life, then there is truth, there is virtue; and man's highest happiness consists in striving to achieve them. We must live, we must love, we must believe...”
"MOTHER HUMANITY"
Already during the years of Soviet power, Lenin more than once expressed his feeling of great pride in the genius of Tolstoy; he knew and loved his works well. Gorky recalled how on one of his visits to Lenin he saw a volume of “War and Peace” on his table. Vladimir Ilyich immediately started talking about Tolstoy: “What a lump, huh? What a seasoned little man! Here, my friend, this is an artist... And, you know what else is amazing? Before this count, there was no real man in literature.
Who in Europe can be placed next to him?
He answered himself:
No one"
"MIRROR OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION"
On the one hand, a brilliant artist who gave not only incomparable pictures of Russian life, but also first-class works of world literature. On the other hand, there is a landowner who is a fool in Christ.
On the one hand, a remarkably strong, direct and sincere protest against social lies and falsehood, - on the other hand, a “Tolstoyan,” that is, a worn-out, hysterical wimp, called a Russian intellectual, who, publicly beating his chest, says: “ I am bad, I am disgusting, but I am engaged in moral self-improvement; I don’t eat meat anymore and now eat rice cutlets.”
On the one hand, a merciless critique of capitalist exploitation, exposure of government violence, the comedy of court and government, revealing the full depth of the contradictions between the growth of wealth and the gains of civilization and the growth of poverty, savagery and torment of the working masses; on the other hand, the holy fool’s preaching of “non-resistance to evil” through violence.
REVALUATION
“In January 1871, Tolstoy sent a letter to Fet: “How happy I am... that I will never write verbose rubbish like “War” again.”
On December 6, 1908, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “People love me for those trifles - “War and Peace”, etc., which seem very important to them.”
“In the summer of 1909, one of the visitors to Yasnaya Polyana expressed his delight and gratitude for the creation of War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Tolstoy replied: “It’s the same as if someone came to Edison and said: “I respect you very much because you dance the mazurka well.” I attribute meaning to completely different books.”
TOLSTOY AND THE AMERICANS
The Americans declared the four-volume work of Leo Tolstoy “War and Peace” to be the main novel of all times. Experts from Newsweek magazine have compiled a list of one hundred books that the publication has declared to be the best ever written. As a result of the selection, the top ten, in addition to the novel by Leo Tolstoy, included: “1984” by George Orwell, “Ulysses” by James Joyce, “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov, “The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner, “The Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, “On The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, The Iliad and Odyssey by Homer, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.
© Gulin A.V., introductory article, 2003
© Nikolaev A.V., illustrations, 2003
© Design of the series. Publishing house "Children's Literature", 2003
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
From 1863 to 1869, not far from ancient Tula, in the silence of the Russian province, perhaps the most unusual work in the entire history of Russian literature was created. Already a well-known writer by that time, a prosperous landowner, owner of the Yasnaya Polyana estate, Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, was working on a huge fiction book about the events of half a century ago, about the War of 1812.
Russian literature has previously known stories and novels inspired by the people's victory over Napoleon. Their authors were often participants and eyewitnesses of those events. But Tolstoy - a man of the post-war generation, the grandson of a general of Catherine's era and the son of a Russian officer at the beginning of the century - as he himself believed, was not writing a story, not a novel, not a historical chronicle. He sought to take in, as it were, the entire past era, to show it through the experiences of hundreds of characters: fictional and real. Moreover, when starting this work, he did not at all think of limiting himself to any one time period and admitted that he intended to take many, many of his heroes through the historical events of 1805, 1807, 1812, 1825 and 1856. “I don’t foresee a resolution of the relationship between these individuals,” he said, “in any of these eras.” The story of the past, in his opinion, should have ended in the present.
At that time, Tolstoy more than once, including to himself, tried to explain the inner nature of his year-by-year growing book. He sketched out versions of the preface to it and finally, in 1868, published an article in which he answered, as it seemed to him, the questions that his almost incredible work might raise in readers. And yet the spiritual core of this titanic work remained not fully named. “That’s why a good work of art is important,” the writer noted many years later, “that its main content in its entirety can be expressed only by it.” It seems that only once did he manage to reveal the very essence of his plan. “The goal of the artist,” Tolstoy said in 1865, “is not to undeniably resolve the question, but to make people love life in its countless, never-exhaustive manifestations. If they had told me that I could write a novel in which I would undeniably establish what seems to me to be the correct view of all social issues, I would not have devoted even two hours of work to such a novel, but if I had been told that what I will write, today’s children will read it in 20 years and will cry and laugh over it and love life, I would devote my whole life and all my strength to it.”
Exceptional completeness and joyful power of worldview were characteristic of Tolstoy throughout the six years when he was creating a new work. He loved his heroes, these “young and old people, both men and women of that time,” he loved in their family life and events of universal scope, in the silence of home and the thunder of battles, idleness and labor, falls and ups... He loved the historical era , to which he dedicated his book, he loved the country that he inherited from his ancestors, he loved the Russian people.
In all this, he never tired of seeing earthly, as he believed - divine, reality with its eternal movement, with its peace and passions. One of the main characters of the work, Andrei Bolkonsky, at the moment of his mortal wound on the Borodino field, experienced a feeling of the last burning attachment to everything that surrounds a person in the world: “I can’t, I don’t want to die, I love life, I love this grass, earth, air..." These thoughts were not just an emotional outburst of a person who saw death face to face. They largely belonged not only to Tolstoy’s hero, but also to his creator. In the same way, he himself endlessly valued every moment of his earthly existence at that time. His grandiose creation of the 1860s was permeated from beginning to end with a peculiar faith in life. This very concept - life - became truly religious for him and acquired a special meaning.
The spiritual world of the future writer took shape in the post-Decembrist era in an environment that gave Russia an overwhelming number of outstanding figures in all areas of its life. At the same time, they were passionately interested in the philosophical teachings of the West, and adopted new, very shaky ideals under various guises. While remaining apparently Orthodox, representatives of the chosen class were often already very far from primordially Russian Christianity. Baptized in childhood and raised in the Orthodox faith, Tolstoy respected the shrines of his fathers for many years. But his personal views were very different from those professed by Holy Rus' and the ordinary people of his era.
From a young age, he believed with all his soul in some impersonal, foggy deity, goodness without boundaries, which penetrates the universe. Man by nature seemed to him sinless and beautiful, created for joy and happiness on earth. Not the least role here was played by the works of his beloved French novelist and thinker of the 18th century, Jean Jacques Rousseau, although Tolstoy perceived them on Russian soil and in a completely Russian way. The internal disorder of the individual, wars, disagreements in society, and more - suffering as such looked from this point of view as a fatal mistake, the creation of the main enemy of primitive bliss - civilization.
But, in his opinion, Tolstoy did not consider this lost perfection to be lost once and for all. It seemed to him that it continued to be present in the world, and that it was very close, nearby. He probably would not have been able to clearly name his god at that time; he found it difficult to do so much later, already definitely considering himself the founder of a new religion. Meanwhile, even then, wild nature and the emotional sphere in the human soul, which is part of the natural principle, became his real idols. A palpable heart shudder, his own pleasure or disgust seemed to him an infallible measure of good and evil. They, the writer believed, were echoes of the same earthly deity for all living people - the source of love and happiness. He idolized direct feeling, experience, reflex - the highest physiological manifestations of life. It was in them that, in his opinion, the only true life lay. Everything else related to civilization - another, lifeless pole of existence. And he dreamed that sooner or later humanity would forget its civilized past and find boundless harmony. Perhaps then a completely different “civilization of feeling” will appear.
The era when the new book was created was alarming. It is often said that in the 60s of the 19th century, Russia was faced with choosing a historical path. In fact, the country made such a choice almost a thousand years earlier, with the adoption of Orthodoxy. Now the question was being decided whether she would survive this choice, whether she would survive as such. The abolition of serfdom and other government reforms resonated in Russian society with real spiritual battles. The spirit of doubt and discord visited the once united people. The European principle “how many people, so many truths”, penetrating everywhere, gave rise to endless disputes. “New people” appeared in large numbers, ready to completely rebuild the life of the country at their own whim. Tolstoy's book contained a kind of response to such Napoleonic plans.
The Russian world during the Patriotic War with Napoleon was, according to the writer, the complete opposite of modernity, poisoned by the spirit of discord. This clear, stable world concealed within itself the strong spiritual guidelines necessary for the new Russia, which were largely forgotten. But Tolstoy himself was inclined to see in the national celebration of 1812 the victory of the religious values of “living life” that were dear to him. It seemed to the writer that his own ideal was the ideal of the Russian people.
He sought to cover the events of the past with unprecedented breadth. As a rule, he also made sure that everything he said strictly corresponded to the facts of actual history down to the smallest detail. In the sense of documentary, factual authenticity, his book noticeably expanded the previously known boundaries of literary creativity. It included hundreds of non-fictional situations, real statements of historical figures and details of their behavior; many of the original documents of the era were placed in the artistic text. Tolstoy knew the works of historians well, read notes, memoirs, and diaries of people from the early 19th century.
Family legends and childhood impressions also meant a lot to him. He once said that he was writing “about that time, the smell and sound of which are still audible and dear to us.” The writer remembered how, in response to his childhood questions about his own grandfather, the old housekeeper Praskovya Isaevna would sometimes take out fragrant incense - tar - “out of the closet”; it was probably incense. “According to her, it turned out,” he said, “that grandfather brought this tar from near Ochakov. He lights the paper near the icons and lights the tar, and it smokes with a pleasant smell.” On the pages of the book about the past, a retired general, a participant in the war with Turkey in 1787-1791, the old Prince Bolkonsky in many ways resembled this relative of Tolstoy - his grandfather, N. S. Volkonsky. In the same way, the old Count of Rostov resembled the writer’s other grandfather, Ilya Andreevich. Princess Marya Bolkonskaya and Nikolai Rostov, with their characters and some life circumstances, brought to mind his parents - nee Princess M.N. Volkonskaya and N.I. Tolstoy.
Other characters, be it the modest artilleryman Captain Tushin, the diplomat Bilibin, the desperate soul Dolokhov, or the Rostovs’ relative Sonya, the little princess Liza Bolkonskaya, also, as a rule, also had not one, but several real prototypes. What can we say about the hussar Vaska Denisov, who is so similar (the writer, it seems, did not hide this) to the famous poet and partisan Denis Davydov! The thoughts and aspirations of really existing people, some features of their behavior and life turns were not difficult to discern in the destinies of Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov. But still, it turned out to be completely impossible to equate the real person with the literary character. Tolstoy brilliantly knew how to create artistic types characteristic of his time, environment, and Russian life as such. And each of them, to one degree or another, obeyed the author’s religious ideal hidden in the very depths of the work.
A year before starting work on the book, at thirty-four years of age, Tolstoy married a girl from a prosperous Moscow family, the daughter of the court physician Sofya Andreevna Bers. He was happy with his new position. In the 1860s, the Tolstoys had sons Sergei, Ilya, Lev, and daughter Tatyana. The relationship with his wife brought him previously unknown strength and fullness of feeling in its most subtle, changeable, and sometimes dramatic shades. “Before I thought,” Tolstoy remarked six months after the wedding, “and now, married, I am even more convinced that in life, in all human relationships, the basis of everything is the drama of feeling, and reasoning, thought not only does not lead feeling and action , but is counterfeited by feeling.” In his diary dated March 3, 1863, he continued to develop these new thoughts for him: “The ideal is harmony. Art alone feels this. And only the present, which takes as its motto: there are no guilty people in the world. He who is happy is right!” His large-scale work in subsequent years became a comprehensive statement of these thoughts.
Even in his youth, Tolstoy amazed many who happened to know him with his sharp hostility towards any abstract concepts. An idea not trusted by feeling, unable to plunge a person into tears and laughter, seemed to him stillborn. He called a judgment free from direct experience a “phrase.” He ironically called general problems posed outside of everyday, sensually discernible specifics “questions.” He liked to “catch phrases” in a friendly conversation or on the pages of printed publications of his famous contemporaries: Turgenev, Nekrasov. He was also merciless to himself in this regard.
Now, in the 1860s, starting a new work, he made sure that there were no “civilized abstractions” in his story about the past. That’s why Tolstoy at that time spoke with such irritation about the works of historians (among them were, for example, the works of A.I. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Kutuzov’s adjutant in 1812 and a brilliant military writer), because, in his opinion, they distorted their “ scientific" tone, too "general" assessments of the true picture of existence. He himself sought to see long-ago affairs and days from the side of a tangible private life, no matter - a general or a simple peasant, to show the people of 1812 in that only environment dear to him, where the “shrine of feeling” lives and manifests itself. Everything else looked far-fetched and non-existent in Tolstoy’s eyes. He created, based on the material of genuine events, a kind of new reality, which had its own deity, its own universal laws. And he believed that the artistic world of his book was the most complete, finally acquired truth of Russian history. “I believe,” said the writer, completing his titanic work, “that I have discovered a new truth. This conviction is confirmed by the painful and joyful perseverance and excitement, independent of me, with which I worked for seven years, step by step discovering what I consider to be the truth.”
The title “War and Peace” appeared from Tolstoy in 1867. It was featured on the cover of six separate books that were published over the next two years (1868–1869). Initially, the work, according to the will of the writer, later revised by him, was divided into six volumes.
The meaning of this title is not immediately and not completely revealed to a person of our time. The new spelling, introduced by the revolutionary decree of 1918, disrupted much of the spiritual nature of Russian writing and made it difficult to understand. Before the revolution in Russia there were two words “peace”, although related, but still different in meaning. One of them is "Mipъ"- corresponded to material, objective concepts, meant certain phenomena: the Universe, the Galaxy, the Earth, the globe, the whole world, society, community. Other – "World"– covered moral concepts: absence of war, harmony, harmony, friendship, goodness, calm, silence. Tolstoy used this second word in the title.
The Orthodox tradition has long seen in the concepts of peace and war a reflection of eternally irreconcilable spiritual principles: God - the source of life, creation, love, truth, and His hater, the fallen angel Satan - the source of death, destruction, hatred, lies. However, war for the glory of God, to protect oneself and one’s neighbors from God-fighting aggression, no matter what guises this aggression takes, has always been understood as a righteous war. The words on the cover of Tolstoy’s work could also be read as “harmony and enmity,” “unity and disunity,” “harmony and discord,” and ultimately, “God and the enemy of man—the devil.” They apparently reflected the great universal struggle that was predetermined in its outcome (Satan is only allowed to act in the world for the time being). But Tolstoy still had his own deity and his own hostile force.
The words in the title of the book reflected precisely the earthly faith of its creator. "World" And "Mipъ" for him, in fact, they were one and the same. The great poet of earthly happiness, Tolstoy wrote about life as if it had never known the Fall - life, which itself, in his conviction, concealed within itself the resolution of all contradictions and gave man eternal, undoubted good. “Wonderful are Your works, O Lord!” - generations of Christians have said for centuries. And they prayerfully repeated: “Lord, have mercy!” “Long live the whole world! (Die ganze Welt hoch!),” Nikolai Rostov exclaimed after the enthusiastic Austrian in the novel. It was difficult to express more precisely the writer’s innermost thought: “There are no guilty people in the world.” Man and the earth, he believed, are by nature perfect and sinless.
From the angle of such concepts, the second word received a different meaning: “war”. It began to sound like a “misunderstanding”, “mistake”, “absurdity”. The book about the most general paths of the universe seems to have reflected in its entirety the spiritual laws of true existence. And yet it was a problem, largely generated by the great creator’s own faith. The words on the cover of the work in the most general terms meant: “civilization and natural life.” Such faith could only inspire a very complex artistic whole. His attitude to reality was complex. His secret philosophy hid great internal contradictions. But, as often happens in art, these complexities and paradoxes became the key to creative discoveries of the highest standard and formed the basis of unparalleled realism in everything that concerned the emotionally and psychologically distinguishable aspects of Russian life.
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There is hardly another work in world literature that so broadly covers all the circumstances of human existence on earth. At the same time, Tolstoy always knew how not only to show changing life situations, but also to imagine in these situations to the last degree truthfully the “work” of feelings and reason in people of all ages, nationalities, ranks and positions, always unique in their nervous structure. Not only waking experiences, but the unstable realm of dreams, daydreams, and half-oblivion were depicted in “War and Peace” with unsurpassed skill. This gigantic “cast of existence” was distinguished by some exceptional, hitherto unprecedented verisimilitude. Whatever the writer talked about, everything seemed alive. And one of the main reasons for this authenticity, this gift of “clairvoyance of the flesh,” as the philosopher and writer D. S. Merezhkovsky once put it, was the constant poetic unity on the pages of “War and Peace” of internal and external life.
The mental world of Tolstoy's heroes, as a rule, came into motion under the influence of external impressions, even stimuli, which gave rise to the most intense activity of feeling and the thought that follows it. The sky of Austerlitz, seen by the wounded Bolkonsky, the sounds and colors of the Borodino field, which so amazed Pierre Bezukhov at the beginning of the battle, the hole on the chin of the French officer captured by Nikolai Rostov - large and small, even the smallest details seemed to fall into the soul of this or that character, became “active” facts of his innermost life. In War and Peace there were almost no objective pictures of nature shown from the outside. She also looked like an “accomplice” in the experiences of the book’s characters.
In the same way, the inner life of any of the characters, through unmistakably found traits, echoed in the external, as if returning to the world. And then the reader (usually from the point of view of another hero) followed the changes in Natasha Rostova’s face, distinguished the shades of Prince Andrei’s voice, saw - and this seems to be the most striking example - the eyes of Princess Marya Bolkonskaya during her farewell to her brother, who was leaving for the war , her meetings with Nikolai Rostov. Thus, a picture of the Universe appeared, as if illuminated from within, eternally permeated with feeling, based only on feeling. This unity of the emotional world, reflected and perceived, Tolstoy looked like the inexhaustible light of an earthly deity - the source of life and morality in War and Peace.
The writer believed: the ability of one person to be “infected” by the feelings of another, his ability to listen to the voice of nature are direct echoes of all-pervading love and goodness. With his art, he also wanted to “awaken” the emotional, as he believed, divine, sensitivity of the reader. Creativity was a truly religious activity for him.
Affirming the “shrine of feeling” with almost every description of “War and Peace,” Tolstoy could not ignore the most difficult, painful topic of his entire life - the topic of death. Neither in Russian nor in world literature, perhaps, is there another artist who would so constantly, persistently think about the earthly end of all things, so intensely peer into death and show it in different guises. It was not only the experience of early losses of family and friends that forced him again and again to try to lift the veil over the most significant moment in the fate of all living people. And not only a passionate interest in living matter in all its manifestations without exception, including its pre-mortem manifestations. If the basis of life is feeling, then what happens to a person at that hour when his sensory abilities die along with his body?
The horror of death, which Tolstoy, both before and after War and Peace, certainly had to experience with extraordinary, overwhelming force, was obviously rooted precisely in his earthly religion. This was not the fear for the future fate in the afterlife that is characteristic of every Christian. Nor can it be explained by such an understandable fear of dying suffering, sadness from the inevitable parting with the world, with dear and loved ones, with the short joys allotted to man on earth. Here we inevitably have to remember Tolstoy, the ruler of the world, the creator of the “new reality,” for whom his own death ultimately had to mean nothing less than the collapse of the whole world.
The religion of feeling in its origins did not know “the resurrection of the dead and the life of the next century.” The expectation of personal existence beyond the grave, from the point of view of Tolstoy's pantheism (this word has long been used to describe any deification of earthly, sensory existence), should have seemed inappropriate. That's what he thought then, and that's what he thought in his dying days. It remained to believe that a feeling, dying in one person, does not disappear completely, but merges with its absolute beginning, finds continuation in the feelings of those who remained alive, in all of nature.