“To live honestly, you have to struggle, get confused, fight, make mistakes. “To live honestly, you have to rush, get confused, fight, make mistakes, start and quit, and start again and quit again, because peace is spiritual meanness. About family and relationships

What historical events was the writer a witness to? (A.S. Pushkin, 1837; M.Yu. Lermontov, 1841; N.V. Gogol, 1852; N.G. Chernyshevsky, 1854 employee of Sovremennik; Crimean War; death of Nicholas I, 1855; “Peasant Reform ", 1861; assassination attempt on Alexander II; the emergence of the "Land and Freedom" society, 1876; death of Alexander II, 1881; assassination attempt on Alexander III, 1887: Bloody Sunday, 1905 Which outstanding people did Tolstoy communicate with? (N.A. Nekrasov, I.S. Turgenev, A.I. Herzen, A.N. Ostrovsky, A.P. Chekhov, F.M. Tyutchev, T.G. Shevchenko and others)

Tolstoy's Rules and Program Whatever you are destined to do, do it, no matter what. Whatever you do, do it well. Never consult a book if you forgot something, but try to remember it yourself. Make your mind constantly act with all its possible strength. Read and think. always loud Don't be ashamed to tell people who are bothering you that they are bothering you

The moral and philosophical teaching, as it developed, was expounded by Tolstoy in works of a philosophical and journalistic nature (“Confession”, “About Life”, “So what should we do?”, “The Kingdom of God is within you”, “What is my faith?” , “What is religion and what is its essence?”, “Religion and morality”, “The law of violence and the law of love”, etc.), in pedagogical essays (“On education”, “On science”, “Conversations with children on moral issues"), in books of aphorisms ("Circle of Reading", "The Path of Life", "Thoughts of Wise People"), etc.

Love? What is love? Love prevents death. Love is life. Everything, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists only because I love. Everything is connected by one thing. Love is God... L.N. Tolstoy Love? What is love? Love prevents death. Love is life. Everything, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists only because I love. Everything is connected by one thing. Love is God... L.N. Tolstoy

1. The hero of the epic novel “War in Peace” is Pierre Bezukhov.
2. Bezukhov's moral quest.
3. Spiritual and moral formation of Pierre Bezukhov.

Human life is complex and multifaceted. At all times, there were moral values, overstepping which meant forever incurring shame and contempt. The dignity of a person is manifested in his desire for high goals. I would like to dedicate my essay to the hero of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy’s epic novel “War and Peace”, Pierre Bezukhov. This amazing person cannot but arouse interest. Pierre is focused on his personality, but he is not self-absorbed. He is keenly interested in life around him. For him, the question is very acute: “Why live and what am I?” This question is very important and decisive for him. Bezukhov thinks about the meaninglessness of life and death, about the fact that it is impossible to find the meaning of existence; about the relativity of all truths. Secular society is alien to Pierre; in empty and meaningless communication he cannot find his truth.

The questions that torment Pierre cannot be resolved through theoretical reasoning alone. Even reading books cannot help here. Pierre finds answers to his questions only in real life. Human suffering, contradictions, tragedies are all integral components of life itself. And Pierre is completely immersed in her. He gets closer to the truth, being in the epicenter of events, tragic and terrible. Bezukhov’s spiritual formation is, in one way or another, influenced by the war, the fire of Moscow, French captivity, and the suffering of people with whom he encounters very closely. Pierre has the opportunity to come into close contact with people's life. And this cannot leave him indifferent.

During the journey to Mozhaisk, Pierre is overcome by a special feeling: “the deeper he plunged into this sea of ​​troops, the more he was overcome by anxiety, anxiety and a new joyful feeling that he had not yet experienced... He now experienced a pleasant feeling of consciousness that everything that what constitutes people’s happiness, the comforts of life, wealth, even life itself, is nonsense that is nice to put aside in comparison with something...”

On the Borodino field, Pierre understood “... the whole meaning and the whole significance of this war and the upcoming battle... He understood that hidden (1a(en1e), as they say in physics, warmth of patriotism that was in all those people whom he saw , and which explained to him why all these people were calmly and seemingly frivolously preparing for death.”

After Pierre was close to the soldiers, imbued with their courage, it began to seem to him the most correct and wise thing to merge with them, with simple but wise people in their understanding of life. It is no coincidence that he says: “Be a soldier, a simple soldier!... Enter this common life with your whole being, be imbued with what makes them so.”

Throughout his life, Pierre had many hobbies and disappointments. There was a period when Pierre admired Napoleon; There was also a period of interest in Freemasonry. However, in the process of moral rebirth, Pierre abandons his former hobbies and comes to the ideas of Decembrism. His development was greatly influenced by communication with ordinary people. From the very first minutes of meeting Pierre, we understand that we have an extraordinary, sincere, open nature. Pierre feels awkward in secular society, and society does not accept him as one of their own, despite even the rich inheritance Bezukhov received from his father. He doesn't look like a regular at social salons. Pierre is too different from them to be his own.

In the process of communicating with soldiers, mainly with Platon Karataev, Pierre Bezukhov begins to understand life better. Now his thoughts are no longer abstract and speculative. He wants to direct his energies towards real actions that could help others. For example, Bezukhov strives to help those who suffered from the war. And in the epilogue he joins the secret society of the Decembrists. This decision was obviously influenced by everything he saw in the process of communicating with ordinary people. Now Bezukhov understands well all the contradictions of life, and, to the extent possible, wants to fight them. He says: “In the courts there is theft, in the army there is only one stick: shagistika, settlements - they torture the people, they stifle education. What’s young, honestly, is ruined!”

Pierre not only understands and condemns all the contradictions and shortcomings of life. He has already reached that moral and spiritual development when intentions to change the existing reality are obvious and necessary: ​​“let there be not only virtue, but independence and activity.”

The moral quest of Pierre Bezukhov makes his image especially interesting for us. It is known that Pierre’s very fate served as the basis for the concept of the novel “War and Peace.” The fact that the image of Pierre is shown in development speaks of the author’s special disposition towards him. In a novel, static images are those that do not evoke warm feelings in the writer.

Pierre cannot help but delight readers with his kindness, sincerity, and directness. There are moments when his abstract reasoning, isolation from life, seems incomprehensible. But in the process of his development, he overcomes the weaknesses of his nature and moves from the need for reflection to the need for action.

Problems of morality and spirituality have always been the most important in the literature of the 19th century. Writers and their heroes were constantly worried about the deepest and most serious questions: how to live, what is the meaning of human life, how to come to God, how to change for the better not only their lives, but also the lives of other people. It is precisely these thoughts that overwhelm one of the main characters of the novel L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace" by Pierre Bezukhov.

At the beginning of the novel, Pierre appears to us as a completely naive, inexperienced young man who lived his entire youth abroad. He doesn't know how to lead

Himself in secular society, in Anna Pavlovna Scherer’s salon, he arouses the hostess’s anxiety and fear: “Although indeed Pierre was somewhat larger than the other men in the room, this fear could only relate to that intelligent and at the same time timid, observant and natural look that distinguished him from everyone in this living room." Pierre behaves naturally, he is the only one in this environment who does not wear a mask of hypocrisy, he says what he thinks.

Having become the owner of a large inheritance, Pierre, with his honesty and faith in the kindness of people, falls into the net set by Prince Kuragin. The prince's attempts to take possession of the inheritance were unsuccessful

Success, so he decided to get money in another way: to marry Pierre to his daughter Helen. Pierre is attracted by her external beauty, but he cannot figure out whether she is smart or kind. For a long time he does not dare to propose to her, in fact he does not propose it, Prince Kuragin decides everything for him.

After marriage, there comes a turning point in the hero’s life, a period of comprehension of his entire life, its meaning. The culmination of these experiences of Pierre was a duel with Dolokhov, Helen's lover. In the good-natured and peace-loving Pierre, who learned about the arrogant and cynical attitude of Helen and Dolokhov towards him, anger began to boil, “something terrible and ugly rose in his soul.” The duel highlights all of Pierre's best qualities: his courage, the courage of a man who has nothing to lose, his philanthropy, his moral strength. Having wounded Dolokhov, he waits for his shot: “Pierre, with a meek smile of regret and repentance, helplessly spreading his legs and arms, stood straight in front of Dolokhov with his broad chest and looked sadly at him.”

The author compares Pierre with Dolokhov in this scene: Pierre does not want to harm him, much less kill him, and Dolokhov laments that he missed and did not hit Pierre. After the duel, Pierre was tormented by thoughts and experiences: “Such a storm of feelings, thoughts, memories suddenly arose in his soul that he not only could not sleep, but could not sit still and had to jump up from the sofa and walk quickly around the room.”

He analyzes everything that happened, his relationship with his wife, the duel and understands that he has lost all the values ​​in life, he does not know how to live further, he only blames himself for making this mistake - marrying Helen, he reflects on life and death: “Who is right, who is to blame? Nobody. But live and live: tomorrow you will die, just as I could have died an hour ago. And is it worth it to suffer when you only have one second to live compared to eternity? ...What's wrong? What's good? What should you love, what should you hate? Why live and what am I? What is life, what is death? What force controls everything? In this state of moral doubt, he meets the freemason Bazdeev at an inn in Torzhok, and this man’s “strict, intelligent and insightful expression of gaze” amazes Bezukhov.

Bazdeev sees the reason for Pierre’s misfortune in his lack of faith in God: “Pierre, with a sinking heart, looking into the Freemason’s face with shining eyes, listened to him, did not interrupt, did not ask him, but with all his soul believed what this stranger was telling him.” Pierre himself joins the Masonic lodge and tries to live according to the laws of goodness and justice. Having received life support in the form of Freemasonry, he gains self-confidence and purpose in life. Pierre travels through his estates, trying to make life easier for his serfs. He wants to build schools and hospitals for the peasants, but the cunning manager deceives Pierre, and there are no practical results from Pierre’s trip. But he himself is full of faith in himself, and during this period of his life he manages to help his friend, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who is raising his son after the death of his wife.

Prince Andrei experiences disappointment in life after Austerlitz, after the death of the little princess, and Pierre manages to stir him up, awaken interest in his surroundings: “If there is a 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 that we do not live now only on this piece of land, but have lived and will live forever there, in everything.”

Tolstoy shows us how a period of comprehension of one’s life can be replaced by complete disappointment and despair, which is what happens to his favorite hero. Pierre loses faith in the teachings of the Freemasons when he sees that they are all busy not with the order of the world, but with their own career, well-being, and the pursuit of power. He returns to secular society and again lives an empty, meaningless life. The only thing he has in life is love for Natasha, but an alliance between them is impossible.

The war with Napoleon gives meaning to Pierre's life: he is present at the Battle of Borodino, he sees the courage and heroism of Russian soldiers, he is next to them at the Raevsky battery, brings them shells, helps in any way he can. Despite his awkward appearance for battle (he arrived in a green tailcoat and white hat), the soldiers took a liking to Pierre for his courage and even gave him the nickname “our master.”

The terrible picture of the battle struck Pierre. When he sees that almost everyone at the battery died, he thinks: “No, now they will leave it, now they will be horrified by what they did!” After the battle, Pierre reflects on the courage of the Russian soldiers: “To be a soldier, just a soldier! To enter this common life with your whole being, to be imbued with what makes them so... The most difficult thing is to be able to unite in your soul the meaning of everything... No, not to unite. You cannot connect thoughts, but connecting all these thoughts is what you need! Yes, we need to mate, we need to mate!”

To connect his life with the life of the people - this is the idea Pierre comes to. Further events in Pierre's life only confirm this idea. An attempt to kill Napoleon in burning Moscow results in saving the life of a French officer, and rescuing a girl from a burning house and helping a woman results in being taken prisoner. In Moscow, Pierre accomplishes his feat, but for him this is natural human behavior, since he is brave and noble. Probably the most important events in Pierre's life take place in captivity.

Acquaintance with Platon Karataev taught Pierre the necessary life wisdom that he lacked. The ability to adapt to any conditions and not lose humanity and kindness at the same time - this was revealed to Pierre by a simple Russian man. “For Pierre, as he presented himself on the first night, an incomprehensible, round and eternal personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth, that is how he remained forever,” writes Tolstoy about Platon Karataev. In captivity, Pierre begins to feel his unity with the world: “Pierre looked into the sky, into the depths of the receding, playing stars. “And all this is mine, and all this is in me, and all this is me!”

When Pierre is released, when a completely different life begins, full of new problems, everything that he suffered and experienced is preserved in his soul. Everything Pierre experienced did not pass without a trace, he became a person who knows the meaning of life, its purpose. A happy family life did not make him forget about his purpose. The fact that Pierre joins a secret society, that he is a future Decembrist, is natural for Pierre. All his life he earned the right to fight for the rights of other people.

Describing the life of his hero, Tolstoy shows us a vivid illustration of the words that he once wrote in his diary: “To live honestly, you have to rush, get confused, fight, make mistakes, start and quit, and start again, and quit again, and forever struggle and lose. And calmness is spiritual meanness.”

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“It’s been six days since I entered the clinic, and it’s been six days since I’m almost satisfied with myself” - this is how the first diary entry began, which was made on March 30 (March 17, old style), 1847 by the future great writer and publicist, and then 19-year-old student of the Faculty of Law of the Imperial Kazan University Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

In his first entry, the young Tolstoy reflects mainly on the benefits of solitude. “It is easier to write 10 volumes of philosophy than to apply one principle to practice,” he concludes his reasoning, perhaps the first of his diary aphorisms.

Having compiled a whole block of rules in that first notebook, which included taking notes of all the books read and important events, Leo Tolstoy continued to keep diaries until the end of his life and he himself considered them the most valuable of all that he had written. The writer’s favorite diary topics will be religion, family, moral education and love.

Izvestia selected several striking quotes from his diaries over the years.

About life

“To live honestly, you have to struggle, get confused, make mistakes, start and quit... and always struggle and lose. And calmness is spiritual meanness.”

“Our good qualities harm us more in life than bad ones.”

“Nothing weakens a person’s strength so much as the hope of finding salvation and good in something other than one’s own effort.”

“Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one thinks about how to change themselves.”

“The point of life is not to be great, rich, famous, but to keep the soul.”

Oh happiness

“There are two kinds of happiness: the happiness of virtuous people and the happiness of vain people. The first comes from virtue, the second from fate.”

“Happiness comes more willingly into a house where a good mood always reigns.”

“Happiness does not lie in always doing what you want, but in always wanting what you do.”

"Unhappiness makes you virtuous - virtue makes you happy - happiness makes you vicious."

About me

“When I was looking for pleasure, it ran away from me, and I fell into a difficult state of boredom - a state from which you can move on to everything - good and bad; and rather to the latter. Now that I just try to avoid boredom, I find pleasure in everything.”

“It’s strange that I have to be silent with the people living around me and speak only with those distant in time and place who will hear me.”

“The secret is that every minute I am different and still the same. The fact that I am still the same is made by my consciousness; the fact that I am different every minute makes space and time.”

About knowledge

“The point is not to know a lot, but to know the most necessary of all that can be known.”

“Knowledge is a tool, not a goal.”

About the case

“For the common good, it is probably better for everyone to do what he is told, and not what seems good to him.”

“Do not put off what you have proposed to do under the pretext of distraction or entertainment; but immediately, although outwardly, get down to business. Thoughts will come."

“It’s better to try and ruin (a thing that can be remade) than to do nothing.”

“Try to do your duty, and you will immediately know what you are worth.”

About dreams

“There is a side to a dream that is better than reality; in reality there is a better side than the dream. Complete happiness would be a combination of both.”

“I don’t know how others dream, no matter how much I’ve heard and read, it’s not at all like me<...>Others say that the mountains seemed to be saying this, and the leaves were saying this, and the trees were calling there. How can such a thought come? You have to try hard to get such nonsense into your head.”

About peoples

“The life of all peoples is the same everywhere. More cruel, inhumane, walking people feed on violence, war, softer, meek, hardworking people prefer to endure. History is the history of these violences and the struggle against them.”

“If the Russian people are uncivilized barbarians, then we have a future. Western peoples are civilized barbarians, and they have nothing to look forward to.”

“Western peoples have abandoned agriculture and everyone wants to rule. You can’t control yourself, so they are looking for colonies and markets.”

About family and relationships

“There are moments when a man tells a woman more than she should know about him. He said it and forgot, but she remembers.”

“There is a strange, deep-rooted misconception that cooking, sewing, washing, and babysitting are exclusively women’s work, and that doing this for a man is even shameful. Meanwhile, the opposite is offensive: it is a shame for a man, often unoccupied, to spend time on trifles or do nothing while a tired, often weak, pregnant woman cooks, washes, or nurses a sick child through force.”

“If how many heads there are so many minds, then how many hearts there are so many kinds of love.”

About old age

“Old age is the biggest surprise in life.”

“In deep old age, life is the most precious, necessary, both for oneself and for others. The value of life is inversely proportional to the squares of the distance from death.”

The Last Diary

On August 16, 1910 (August 29, old style) - less than two months before his death - Lev Nikolaevich will begin his last diary notebook, entitled “A Diary for Himself.”

“It’s the same, even worse. Just not to sin. And have no evil. Now it’s gone,” Leo Tolstoy wrote in it two months later, on October 16, 1910.

On November 7, 1910, Leo Tolstoy died in the village of Astapovo, Ryazan province. After him, about 4.7 thousand pages of diary entries remained, making up 13 of the 22 volumes of the writer’s complete works.