A short essay-reasoning on literature for grade 10 on the topic: “War and Peace: Popular Thought”
The tragic war of 1812 brought many troubles, suffering and torment, L.N. Tolstoy did not remain indifferent to the turning point of his people and reflected it in the epic novel “War and Peace”, and its “grain”, according to L. Tolstoy, is Lermontov’s poem “Borodino”. The epic is also based on the idea of reflecting the national spirit. The writer admitted that in “War and Peace” he loved “popular thought.” Thus, Tolstoy reproduced the “swarm life”, proving that history is made not by one person, but by the whole people together.
According to Tolstoy, it is useless to resist the natural course of events, it is useless to try to play the role of the arbiter of the destinies of mankind. Otherwise, the participant in the war will fail, as was the case with Andrei Bolkonsky, who tried to take control of the course of events and conquer Toulon. Or fate will doom him to loneliness, as happened to Napoleon, who fell in love with power too much.
During the Battle of Borodino, on the outcome of which much depended for the Russians, Kutuzov “did not make any orders, but only agreed or disagreed with what was offered to him.” This seemingly passivity reveals the deep intelligence and wisdom of the commander. Kutuzov’s connection with the people was a victorious feature of his character; this connection made him the bearer of “people's thought.”
Tikhon Shcherbaty is also folk image in the novel he is also a hero of the Patriotic War, although he is a simple man not at all connected with military affairs. He himself voluntarily asked to join Vasily Denisov’s detachment, which confirms his dedication and willingness to sacrifice for the sake of the Fatherland. Tikhon fights off four Frenchmen with only one ax - according to Tolstoy, this is the image of the “club” people's war».
But the writer does not stop at the idea of heroism, regardless of rank, he goes further and wider, revealing the unity of all mankind in the War of 1812. In the face of death, all class, social, and national boundaries between people are erased. Everyone is afraid to kill; Everyone as one does not want to die. Petya Rostov is worried about the fate of the French boy who was captured: “It’s great for us, but what about him? Where did they take him? Did you feed him? Did you offend me?" And it seems like this is the enemy of the Russian soldier, but at the same time, even in war, you need to treat your enemies humanely. French or Russian - we are all people in need of mercy and kindness. In the War of 1812, such a thought mattered as never before. It was adhered to by many heroes of “War and Peace” and, first of all, L.N. himself. Tolstoy.
Thus, the Patriotic War of 1812 entered the history of Russia, its culture and literature as a significant and tragic event for the entire people. It showed true patriotism, love for the Motherland and the national spirit, which did not break under anything, but only grew stronger, giving impetus to the great victory, for which we still feel pride in our hearts.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!- a novel that gradually transformed from a once-conceived work about the Decembrist into a brilliant epic about courageous feat nation, about the victory of the Russian spirit in the battle with Napoleonic army. As a result, a masterpiece was born, where, as he himself wrote, the main idea was the idea of the people. Today, in an essay on the topic: “People's Thought,” we will try to prove this.
The author believed that the work would be good if the author fell in love main idea. Tolstoy was interested in popular thought in his work War and Peace, where he depicted not just the people and their way of life, but showed the fate of the nation. At the same time, the people for Tolstoy are not only peasants, soldiers and peasants, they are also nobles, officers, and generals. In a word, the people are all people taken together, all of humanity, driven by a common goal, one cause, one purpose.
In his work, the writer remembers that history is most often written as the history of individual individuals, but few people think about driving force in history, which is the people, the nation, the spirit and will of the people that unite together.
In the novel War and Peace, popular thought
For each hero, the war with the French became a test, where Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha, Petya Rostov, Dolokhov, Kutuzov, Tushin, and Timokhin all played their role the best way. And most importantly, they showed themselves ordinary people, who organized separate small partisan detachments and crushed the enemy. People who burned everything so that nothing would fall to the enemy. People who gave their last to Russian soldiers to support them.
The offensive of Napoleonic army revealed in people best qualities, where the men, forgetting about their grievances, fought side by side with their masters, defending their Motherland. It was the people's thought in the novel War and Peace that became the soul of the work, uniting the peasantry with the best part the nobility with one thing - the fight for the freedom of the Motherland.
Patriotic people, among whom were poor peasants, nobles, and merchants - this is the people. Their will clashed with the French will. Collided and showed real strength, because people fought for their land, which could not be given to the enemy. The people and the formed partisan detachments became the cudgel of the people's war, which did not give Napoleon and his army a single chance of victory. Tolstoy wrote about this in his brilliant novel War and Peace, where the main idea was the folk one.
To love a people means to see with complete clarity both their merits and their shortcomings, their great and small, their ups and downs. Writing for the people means helping them understand their strengths and weaknesses.
F.A. Abramov
In terms of genre, “War and Peace” is an epic of modern times, that is, it combines the features of a classical epic, the example of which is Homer’s “Iliad,” and the achievements of the European novel of the 18th-19th centuries. The subject of the epic is the national character, in other words, the people with their everyday life, a view of the world and a person, an assessment of good and bad, prejudices and misconceptions, with his behavior in critical situations.
The people, according to Tolstoy, are not only the men and soldiers who act in the novel, but also nobles who have a people's view of the world and spiritual values. Thus, a people is people united by one history, language, culture, living in the same territory. In the novel " Captain's daughter"Pushkin noted: the common people and the nobility are so divided in the process historical development Russia, that they cannot understand each other’s aspirations. In his epic novel War and Peace, Tolstoy argues that in the most important historical moments the people and the best nobles do not oppose each other, but act in concert: during the Patriotic War, the aristocrats Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Rostov felt the same “warmth of patriotism” as ordinary men and soldiers. Moreover, the very meaning of personal development, according to Tolstoy, lies in the search for a natural fusion of the individual with the people. The best nobles and people are together opposed to the ruling bureaucratic and military circles, who are not capable of high sacrifices and exploits for the sake of the fatherland, but are guided in all actions by selfish considerations.
War and Peace presents the bigger picture folk life both in peacetime and in wartime. The most important test event national character is the Patriotic War of 1812, when the Russian people most fully demonstrated their resilience, unostentatious (internal) patriotism and generosity. However, a description of folk scenes and individual heroes from the people appears already in the first two volumes, that is, one might say, in a huge exposition to the main historical events novel.
The crowd scenes of the first and second volumes make a sad impression. The writer depicts Russian soldiers on foreign campaigns, when the Russian army fulfills its allied duty. For ordinary soldiers, this duty is completely incomprehensible: they are fighting for someone else's interests on someone else's land. Therefore, the army is more like a faceless, submissive crowd, which at the slightest danger turns into a panicked flight. This is confirmed by the scene at Austerlitz: “... a naively frightened voice (...) shouted: “Well, brothers, the Sabbath!” And it was as if this voice was a command. At this voice, everything started to run. Mixed, ever-increasing crowds ran back to the place where they had passed the emperors five minutes earlier” (1, 3, XVI).
There is complete confusion among the allied forces. The Russian army is actually starving, since the Austrians do not deliver the promised food. Vasily Denisov's hussars pull out some edible roots from the ground and eat them, which makes everyone's stomachs hurt. As an honest officer, Denisov could not calmly look at this disgrace and decided to commit a crime of office: by force he recaptured part of the provisions from another regiment (1, 2, XV, XVI). This act had a bad impact on his military career: Denisov is put on trial for arbitrariness (2, 2, XX). Russian troops constantly find themselves in difficult situations due to the stupidity or betrayal of the Austrians. So, for example, near Shengraben, General Nostitz with his corps left their positions, believing the talk of peace, and left Bagration’s four-thousand-strong detachment without cover, which now stood face to face with Murat’s hundred-thousand-strong French army (1, 2, XIV). But at Shengraben, Russian soldiers do not flee, but fight calmly and skillfully, because they know that they are covering the retreat of the Russian army.
On the pages of the first two volumes, Tolstoy creates individual images of soldiers: Lavrushka, Denisov’s rogue orderly (2, 2, XVI); cheerful soldier Sidorov, who deftly imitates French speech(1,2, XV); Transfiguration Lazarev, who received the Order of the Legion of Honor from Napoleon in the scene of the Peace of Tilsit (2, 2, XXI). However, significantly more heroes from the people are shown in a peaceful setting. Tolstoy does not depict the hardships of serfdom, although he, being an honest artist, could not completely avoid this topic. The writer says that Pierre, while touring his estates, decided to make the life of the serfs easier, but nothing came of it, because the chief manager easily deceived the naive Count Bezukhov (2, 1, X). Or another example: old Bolkonsky gave the barman Philip as a soldier because he forgot the prince’s order and, according to an old habit, served coffee first to Princess Marya, and then to the companion Burien (2, 5, II).
The author skillfully, with just a few strokes, draws heroes from the people, their peaceful life, their work, worries, and all these heroes receive brightly individual portraits, just like the characters from the nobility. The Rostov Counts' traveller, Danila, takes part in a wolf hunt. He selflessly devotes himself to hunting and understands this fun no less than his masters. Therefore, without thinking about anything else but the wolf, he angrily cursed the old Count Rostov, who decided to “snack” during the rut (2.4, IV). Uncle Rostov's housekeeper Anisya Fedorovna, a fat, rosy-cheeked, beautiful housekeeper, lives with her. The writer notes her warm hospitality and homeliness (how many different treats were on the tray that she herself brought to the guests!), her kind attention to Natasha (2.4, VII). The image of Tikhon, the devoted valet of old Bolkonsky, is remarkable: the servant understands his paralyzed master without words (3, 2, VIII). Amazing character possesses the Bogucharovo elder Dron - a strong, cruel man, “whom the men feared more than the master” (3, 2, IX). Some vague ideas, dark dreams are wandering in his soul, incomprehensible neither to himself nor to his enlightened masters - the princes Bolkonsky. IN Peaceful time the best nobles and their serfs live common life understand each other, Tolstoy does not find any insoluble contradictions between them.
But then the Patriotic War begins, and the Russian nation faces a serious danger of losing its state independence. The writer shows how different heroes, familiar to the reader from the first two volumes or appearing only in the third volume, are united by one common feeling, which Pierre will call “the inner warmth of patriotism” (3, 2, XXV). This trait becomes not individual, but national, that is, inherent to many Russian people - peasants and aristocrats, soldiers and generals, merchants and urban bourgeoisie. The events of 1812 demonstrate the sacrifice of the Russians, incomprehensible to the French, and the determination of the Russians, against which the invaders can do nothing.
During the Patriotic War, the Russian army behaves completely differently than in Napoleonic Wars 1805-1807. Russians do not play war, this is especially noticeable when describing the Battle of Borodino. In the first volume, Princess Marya, in a letter to her friend Julie Karagina, talks about seeing off recruits for the war of 1805: mothers, wives, children, and the recruits themselves are crying (1.1, XXII). And on the eve of the Battle of Borodino, Pierre observes a different mood of the Russian soldiers: “The cavalrymen go to battle and meet the wounded, and do not think for a minute about what awaits them, but walk past and wink at the wounded” (3, 2, XX). Russian “people are calmly and seemingly frivolously preparing for death” (3, 2, XXV), since tomorrow they will “fight for Russian land” (ibid.). The feeling of the army is expressed by Prince Andrei in his last conversation with Pierre: “For me, for tomorrow this is this: a hundred thousand Russian and a hundred thousand French troops agreed to fight, and whoever fights angrier and feels less sorry for himself will win” (3.2, XXV). Timokhin and other junior officers agree with their colonel: “Here, your Excellency, the truth is the true truth. Why feel sorry for yourself now!” (ibid.). Prince Andrei's words came true. Towards the evening of the Battle of Borodino, an adjutant came to Napoleon and said that, on the orders of the emperor, two hundred guns were tirelessly firing at Russian positions, but that the Russians did not flinch, did not run, but “still stand as they did at the beginning of the battle” (3, 2, XXXVIII).
Tolstoy does not idealize the people and paints scenes showing inconsistency and spontaneity peasant sentiments. This is, first of all, the Bogucharov riot (3, 2, XI), when the men refused to give Princess Marya carts for her property and did not even want to let her out of the estate, because French leaflets (!) called not to leave. Obviously, the Bogucharov men were flattered by French money (fake, as it later turned out) for hay and food. The men show the same self-interest as the noble staff officers (like Berg and Boris Drubetsky), who see war as a means to make a career, to achieve material well-being and even home comfort. However, having decided at the meeting not to leave Bogucharovo, for some reason the men immediately went to a tavern and got drunk. And then the entire peasant gathering obeyed one decisive master - Nikolai Rostov, who shouted at the crowd in a wild voice and ordered the instigators to be tied up, which the peasants obediently did.
Starting from Smolensk, some kind of difficult-to-define, from the French point of view, feeling awakens in the Russians: “The people were carelessly waiting for the enemy... And as soon as the enemy approached, all the rich left, leaving their property, while the poor stayed and lit and destroyed what what remained” (3, 3, V). An illustration for this reasoning is the scene in Smolensk, when the merchant Ferapontov himself set fire to his shop and flour barn (3.2, IV). Tolstoy notes the difference in the behavior of “enlightened” Europeans and Russians. The Austrians and Germans, conquered by Napoleon several years ago, dance with the invaders at balls and are completely enchanted by French gallantry. They seem to forget that the French are enemies, but the Russians do not forget this. For Muscovites, “there could be no question: whether it would be good or bad under the rule of the French in Moscow. It was impossible to be under the control of the French: it was the worst of all” (3, 3, V).
In the irreconcilable struggle against the aggressor, the Russians maintained high human qualities, which indicates the mental health of the people. The greatness of a nation, according to Tolstoy, does not lie in the fact that it conquers everything by force of arms. neighboring peoples, but that the nation, even in its most brutal wars knows how to preserve a sense of justice and humanity in relation to the enemy. The scene that reveals the generosity of the Russians is the rescue of the boastful captain Rambal and his batman Morel. Rambal first appears on the pages of the novel when French troops enter Moscow after Borodin. He receives quarters in the house of the widow of the freemason Joseph Alekseevich Bazdeev, where Pierre has been living for several days, and Pierre saves the Frenchman from the bullet of the crazy old man Makar Alekseevich Bazdeev. In gratitude, the Frenchman invites Pierre to have dinner together; they talk quite peacefully over a bottle of wine, which the valiant captain, by right of the winner, had already grabbed in some Moscow house. The talkative Frenchman praises the courage of the Russian soldiers on the Borodino field, but the French, in his opinion, are still the bravest warriors, and Napoleon is “the most great person past and future centuries" (3, 3, XXIX). The second time Captain Rambal appears in the fourth volume, when he and his orderly, hungry, frostbitten, abandoned by their beloved emperor to the mercy of fate, came out of the forest to a soldier’s fire near the village of Krasny. The Russians fed both of them, and then took Rambal to the officer’s hut to warm up. Both Frenchmen were touched by this attitude of ordinary soldiers, and the captain, barely alive, kept repeating: “Here are the people! Oh my good friends!” (4, 4, IX).
In the fourth volume, two heroes appear who, according to Tolstoy, demonstrate opposite and interconnected sides of the Russian national character. This is Platon Karataev - a dreamy, complacent soldier, meekly submitting to fate, and Tikhon Shcherbaty - an active, skillful, decisive and courageous peasant who does not resign himself to fate, but actively intervenes in life. Tikhon came to Denisov’s detachment not on the orders of the landowner or military commander, but on his own initiative. He, more than anyone else in Denisov’s detachment, killed the French and brought the “tongues”. IN Patriotic War, as follows from the content of the novel, the “Shcherbatov” active character of the Russians was more manifested, although the “Karataev” wise patience and humility in the face of adversity also played a role. The self-sacrifice of the people, the courage and steadfastness of the army, the spontaneous partisan movement - this is what determined Russia’s victory over France, and not the mistakes of Napoleon, Cold winter, the genius of Alexander.
So, in War and Peace, folk scenes and characters occupy an important place, as they should in an epic. According to the philosophy of history that Tolstoy sets out in the second part of the epilogue, driving force any event is not an individual great person (king or hero), but the people directly participating in the event. The people are both the embodiment of national ideals and the bearer of prejudices; they are the beginning and the end of state life.
This truth was understood by Tolstoy’s favorite hero, Prince Andrei. At the beginning of the novel, he believed that a specific human hero could influence history with orders from army headquarters or a beautiful feat, so during foreign trip In 1805, he sought to serve on Kutuzov’s headquarters and looked everywhere for his “Toulon”. After analyzing the historical events in which he personally participated, Bolkonsky came to the conclusion that history is made not by headquarters orders, but by direct participants in the events. Prince Andrei tells Pierre about this on the eve of the Battle of Borodino: “... if anything depended on the orders of the headquarters, then I would be there and make orders, but instead I have the honor of serving here, in the regiment, with these gentlemen, and I believe that tomorrow will really depend on us, and not on them...” (3, 2, XXV).
The people, according to Tolstoy, have the most correct view of the world and man, since the people's view is not formed in the head of some sage, but is “polished” and tested in their heads huge amount people and only after that is established as a national (community) view. Goodness, simplicity, truth - these are the real truths that have been developed popular consciousness and to which Tolstoy’s favorite heroes strive.
According to Tolstoy himself, he loved “folk thought” in the novel most of all. Reflections on this topic became the most important thing for the writer that he wanted to convey to the reader. What did he mean?
“People's thought” in the novel is not in the depiction of the Russian people as a community and not in the abundance of crowd scenes, as it may seem to an inexperienced reader. It is in the point of view of the writer, the system of moral assessments that he gives to both historical events and his heroes. Don't confuse this!
- Crowd scenes in the novel are associated with the image battle scenes 1805, scenes of the Battle of Borodino, defense and abandonment of Smolensk, partisan war.
In the depiction of the War of 1805 Special attention devoted to two battles: Austerlitz and Schöngraben. Tolstoy's goal is to show why the army wins or loses. Shengraben is a “forced” battle, 4 thousand soldiers must cover the retreat of the forty thousand strong Russian army. The battle is observed by Kutuzov’s envoy, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. He sees how the soldiers show heroism, but not the way this quality was imagined by the prince: Captain Timokhin and his squad with skillful actions force the French to retreat, Captain Tushin, an inconspicuous, modest man, “does his job”, cheerfully and quickly, his battery smashes the main positions of the French, sets fire to the village and forces them to retreat, and they do not even suspect that they are “ordinary heroes.”
On the contrary, the Battle of Azsterlitz is a “battle of three emperors”, with unclear goals and an unclear plan. It is no coincidence that at the military council, Kutuzov dozed off like an old man to the measured muttering of the Austrian general. Kutuzov wants to save soldiers who do not understand what they are fighting for; it is not for nothing that the landscape of the beginning of the battle is symbolic: the fog covering the battlefield. The author comes to the conclusion: it is not the generals who win the battle, the soldiers win the battle, or rather, the spirit of the army, the understanding of what they are doing.
The same thing happens at Borodino: Kutuzov almost does not participate in the leadership of the battle, unlike Napoleon, who believes that the outcome depends on the will of the emperor. No, the outcome depends on the soldiers getting ready for the last battle, as if for a holiday, putting on clean shirts. According to Kutuzov, the Battle of Borodino was neither won nor lost in terms of consequences, but the Russians won, suppressing the French with fortitude and unprecedented unity of all against a single enemy.
So in crowd scenes“folk thought” appeared.
- The partisan war that spontaneously unfolded during the invasion also testifies to the unity of the Russian people. In different places under the French, landowners and peasants took up pitchforks and axes to drive out the enemy from native land. The “club of the people’s war” rose and “nailed ... the Frenchman until the invasion itself perished.” Drawing pictures of partisan warfare, Tolstoy depicts some peasant heroes. One of them is Tikhon Shcherbaty, like a wolf attacking the enemy, “the most useful person in the detachment", cruel and merciless. According to Tolstoy, this folk type, which manifests itself in difficult times for the Motherland. The second folk type is Platon Karataev, from whom Pierre learned to live simply and harmoniously, to accept everything that happens on a person’s path, he realized “that ballet shoes press just like peasant bast shoes,” and therefore a person needs little to be happy. So moral values for Tolstoy they become the measure of everything else: peace, war, people, actions.
- While in captivity, Pierre has a dream. In a dream, the globe appears to him as a ball of drops that tremble, shimmer, separate somewhere, merge somewhere. And every drop reflects God. This metaphor is Tolstoy’s own idea of the people’s life: a person lives his “swarm life”, is busy with his problems and thoughts, but he must “conjugate” (the writer’s word) his life with the lives of others. And if the desires and needs of many people coincide at one point, history makes its movement there. This is another aspect of “folk thought in the novel.”
- And Tolstoy “measures” his heroes with this yardstick. If they are far from common interests, common aspirations, if they do not understand what is common, they put their own interests above others or try to interfere with the natural course of life, then they sink lower and fall into spiritual crisis. This happens with Prince Andrey, when he raises soldiers in a senseless attack at Austerlitz, and with Pierre, trying to kill Napoleon. Some of the heroes never realize own life, more precisely, existence - such is Helen, Rostopchin with his “posters”, Napoleon. Pierre, trying to somehow help Russia, equips a regiment with his own money, Natasha gives carts to the wounded, without thinking about the well-being of the family, and Berg is trying to “buy a shelf that Verochka likes so much.” Which of them lives according to popular laws?
So, “People's Thought,” according to Tolstoy, is the thought of the need to connect one’s life with common interests, life according to the moral laws that have existed in the world for centuries, life together.
Here is a magnificent essay on Russian literature on the topic “PEOPLE’S THOUGHT” in L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “WAR AND PEACE”. The essay is intended for 10th grade students, but can also be used by students of other grades in preparation for Russian language and literature lessons.
“PEOPLE’S THOUGHT” in the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "WAR AND PEACE"
Tolstoy is one of greatest writers Russia. He lived during the peasant unrest, and therefore he was captured by everyone critical issues era: about the paths of development of Russia, about the fate of the people and their role in history, about the relationship between the people and the nobility. Tolstoy decided to look for answers to all these questions in the study of events early XIX century.
According to Tolstoy, main reason Russian victory in 1812 was this “ popular thought ", this is the unity of the people in the fight against the conqueror, its enormous, unshakable strength that has risen, dormant until time in the souls of people, which with its enormity overthrew the enemy and forced him to flee. The reason for the victory was the justice of the war against the conquerors, the readiness of every Russian to defend the Motherland, and the people's love for their fatherland. Historical figures and unnoticed participants in the war, the best people Russia and money-grubbing, careerists walk through the pages of the novel “ War and Peace". There are more than five hundred characters. Tolstoy created many unique characters and showed us a lot of people. But Tolstoy does not imagine these hundred people as a faceless mass. All this huge material is connected by a single thought, which Tolstoy defined as “ popular thought «.
The Rostov and Bolkonsky families differ from each other in their class status and in the atmosphere that reigned in their homes. But these families are united by a common love for Russia. Let us remember the death of old Prince Bolkonsky. Last words his were about Russia: “ Russia is dead! Ruined!". He worried about the fate of Russia and the fate of all Russian people. All his life he served only Russia, and when his death came, all his thoughts, of course, were turned to his Motherland.
Let's consider Petit's patriotism. Petya went to war very young and did not spare his life for his fatherland. Let us remember Natasha, who is ready to give up all her valuables just because she wants to help the wounded. In the same scene, Natasha’s aspirations are contrasted with the aspirations of the careerist Berg. Only the best people in Russia could perform feats during the war. Neither Helen, nor Anna Pavlovna Scherer, nor Boris, nor Berg could perform feats. These people did not experience patriotic feelings. All their motives were selfish. During the war, following fashion, they stopped speaking French. But does this prove their love for Russia?
Battle of Borodino - climax in Tolstoy's work. Tolstoy confronts almost all the heroes of the novel at the Battle of Borodino. Even if the characters are not on the Borodino field, their fates completely depend on the course of the War of 1812. The battle is shown through the eyes of a non-military man - Pierre. Bezukhov considers it his duty to be on the battlefield. Through his eyes we see the rallying of the army. He becomes convinced that the words of the old soldier are correct: “ All the people want to pile on ". Unlike the Battle of Austerlitz, the participants in the Battle of Borodino understood the goals of the war of 1812. The writer believes that the coincidence of millions of reasons helps victory. Thanks to the desires of ordinary soldiers, commanders, militias and all other participants in the battle, the moral victory of the Russian people became possible.
Tolstoy's favorite heroes - Pierre and Andrei - were also participants in the Battle of Borodino. Bezukhov feels deeply folk character war of 1812. The hero's patriotism is poured into very specific deeds: equipping the regiment, monetary donations. A turning point Pierre's life becomes his stay in captivity and his acquaintance with Platon Karataev. Communication with the old soldier leads Pierre to “ agree with yourself “, simplicity and integrity.
The War of 1812 is the most important milestone in the life of Andrei Bolkonsky. Andrei abandons his military career and becomes the commander of a Jaeger regiment. Andrei deeply understands Kutuzov, a commander who sought to avoid unnecessary casualties. During the Battle of Borodino, Prince Andrei takes care of his soldiers and tries to get them out of the fire. Andrei’s dying thoughts are imbued with a sense of humility:
“Love your neighbors, love your enemies. To love everything, to love God in all manifestations.”
As a result of his search for the meaning of life, Andrei was able to overcome his selfishness and vanity. Spiritual quests lead the hero to moral enlightenment, to natural simplicity, to the ability to love and forgive.
Leo Tolstoy paints the heroes of the partisan war with love and respect. And Tolstoy showed one of them more close-up. This man is Tikhon Shcherbaty, a typical Russian peasant, as a symbol of the avenging people fighting for their homeland. He was " the most helpful and brave person "in Denisov's detachment, " his weapons consisted of a blunderbuss, a pike and an ax, which he wielded like a wolf wields his teeth " In Denisov’s consolation, Tikhon occupied an exceptional place, “ when it was necessary to do something especially difficult and impossible - turn a cart out of the mud with your shoulder, pull a horse out of a swamp by the tail, saddle it and climb into the very middle of the French, walk fifty miles a day - everyone pointed, laughing, at Tikhon " Tikhon feels a strong hatred for the French, so strong that he can be very cruel. But we understand his feelings and sympathize with this hero. He is always busy, always in action, his speech is unusually fast, even his comrades talk about him with affectionate irony: “ Well, he's clever », « what a beast " The image of Tikhon Shcherbaty is close to Tolstoy, who loves this hero, loves all the people, highly values "people's thought" . In the novel War and Peace, Tolstoy showed us the Russian people in all their strength and beauty.