Historical figures in the image of Tolstoy. The image of historical persons in the novel by L.N.
Consider such an important problem of the novel as personality and history. "War and Peace" is a work in the center of which is the fate of two main characters, young Russian nobles. This is Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov. They are close friends. Both heroes are highly educated people, carriers of remarkable human qualities. Andrei and Pierre dream of doing something great and grandiose in their lives for the good of the Fatherland. However, it is precisely with these images and their life development that Tolstoy repeatedly inspires the reader with the futility of all the efforts and hopes of a proud personality to do some “great” deeds - first of all, “make history”, single-handedly influence the course of large-scale events.
How are personality and history related? "War and Peace" is a work in which the author gave his answer to this question. History is made by the people. However, in that “impersonal” interpretation, which is sometimes characteristic of the historical and philosophical reasoning of the author of the novel, the people, willy-nilly, sometimes begin to resemble a bee swarm. Tolstoy himself is hardly entirely consistent in his views. So, in the rearguard battle near Shengraben in 1805, the decisive role was nevertheless played by the actions of one specific person - Captain Tushin (Prince Andrei clearly states this at a meeting with Bagration), and not just a spontaneous "people's" impulse to win. In a similar way, leading the reader to his understanding of the people as the creator of history with the whole logic of the narrative, Tolstoy finally introduces the figure of Tikhon Shcherbaty as a real figure in the partisan war. It would be naive to believe that Tikhon, as a person, is capable of being a leader, since he is a peasant, “from the people”, and Prince Andrei is not capable because he is a nobleman. Finally, the repeated statements of the author of the novel that the commander in the heat of battle cannot know what is happening in another part of the battle, and therefore is allegedly objectively incapable of effectively leading it (hence the behavior of the wise Kutuzov in the novel), testify to some underestimation by Tolstoy of the importance of the professional intuition of talented military leaders.
The image of Prince Andrei helps us to better understand how personality and history are connected ("War and Peace"). This image is tragic. The example of the dizzying rise of a simple officer Bonaparte prompted Bolkonsky to dream that he would have “his own Toulon” in his life. But near Austerlitz, Andrei Bolkonsky, instead of great achievements, almost dies; his feat is futile. Soon he loses his wife who died from childbirth. Having gained new strength, Bolkonsky did not devote himself to raising his son - he again makes a mistake, intending to prove himself in state activity and becoming close to Speransky. When he then tries to find himself in love with Natasha Rostova, that is, to leave for family life, an impulse to that true calling, for which, according to Tolstoyan logic, man was created, seemed to dawn in his soul. However, due to Natasha's infatuation with Anatole Kuragin, their engagement with Andrei collapses. So, in the short life of Prince Andrei, full of failures and disappointments, disaster follows disaster.
In 1812, this man no longer goes to fight the French who attacked Russia as a noble ambitious man - he returns to military service from completely different, new considerations for himself. Before the battle of Borodino, Tolstoy forces Colonel Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov, who has come to the army, to see each other for the last time. In their conversation, through the lips of Prince Andrei, Tolstoy's favorite thoughts about the causes of military victories and defeats are expressed.
However, Tolstoy does not give the hero the opportunity to actively intervene in events. In a people's war, the people act, the people will win, and the personal participation in this of an individual, even the most courageous and most outstanding, does not change anything in the course of affairs. Bolkonsky dies without entering the battle. True, his heroic nature manifested itself at the time of the mortal wound. As a commander, he remains an example for his subordinates to the end.
And what about Pierre Bezukhov? How are his personality and history ("War and Peace") connected? Pierre Bezukhov in his youth participates in the violent antics of the noble youth of the 1800s, about which L.N. Tolstoy recalled in The Two Hussars. Some of them are portrayed by the writer in the first volume of War and Peace. In the future, Pierre will have to break up sharply with both friends and even shoot with Dolokhov, who will start an affair with his wife.
Pierre Bezukhov is a hero whose personality undergoes an impressive moral development on the pages of the novel. Like Prince Andrei, he hopes to accomplish something great in life. However, he is a more passive and contemplative nature than Bolkonsky, and does not take energetic actions aimed at realizing such hopes. After the short-term riots of youth, an extremely unsuccessful marriage follows, a passion for Freemasonry. Finally, in Volume III, Pierre, a purely civilian man, out of a sudden inner impulse, goes to the army preparing for the great battle on the Borodino field, and by the will of circumstances courageously fights in the very center - on the Raevsky battery. He unexpectedly found a place in the public cause (at the same time, this plot “trick” invented by Tolstoy allows the author to “see” the most important part of the battle through the eyes of one of the main characters.)
But dreams of a personal feat, a great accomplishment, and Pierre are pushed to false (in Tolstoy's understanding) impulses. So, Pierre remains in Moscow given to the French in order to kill Napoleon and thus stop the war. Only after meeting in French captivity with Karataev, Pierre will understand that Bonaparte is by no means the maker of history, and therefore his death would not have changed anything in the course of events. The "natural" Platon Karataev, who was clearly aware of the modest essence of his human role on earth, as if in time turned Pierre's soul upside down. As a result, he, having been in Moscow on the verge of death (the frenzied French wanted to shoot him on suspicion of "arson"), did not come to a tragic ending - unlike his friend Prince Andrei. Subsequently, Pierre became the husband of Natasha, the former bride of a deceased friend. Their happy family is shown in the epilogue to the novel, as is another prosperous noble family - the sisters of Prince Andrei Marya and Nikolai Rostov.
However, in the same epilogue, Tolstoy considered it necessary to remind the reader that Pierre, a family man, is now again eager for "great" deeds. He is fascinated by the compilation of a secret society (an obvious allusion to the Decembrists). If we transfer the collision to the plane of reality, one could state that his happy family will soon face severe trials, and he personally will face a complete collapse. But, of course, this is only a hypothetical “continuation”, and it is absent from the existing novel plot, which ends with the calm conversations of two kindred noble families gathered together in the Bald Mountains, the Bolkonsky estate.
Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy is a genius of world literature, a profound thinker, who already during his lifetime became a correspondence spiritual mentor of people in various parts of the world. His prose and dramaturgy, his philosophical journalism, his verbal and textual heritage in general constitute the greatest national spiritual heritage of Russia. In prose, Tolstoy created a powerful and fruitful tradition, which was continued to some extent in the 20th century. writers such as M.A. Sholokhov, A.A. Fadeev. S.N. Sergeev-Tsensky, K. S. Simonov. A.I. Solzhenitsyn and others.
The novel by L. N. Tolstoy is of great importance not only within the framework of Russian and foreign literature. It is also important for understanding many historical, social and philosophical categories. The main task of the author was to create such a work where the personality would not be revealed psychologically, in contrast to the works of F. M. Dostoevsky, but, so to speak, socially, that is, in comparison with the masses, the people. It was also important for Tolstoy to understand the power that can unite individuals into a people, the means to control and curb the elemental people's power.
The history of the writer is a special stream, the interaction of the minds of millions of people. A separate personality, even the most outstanding and extraordinary, according to the author, is not capable of subjugating the people. However, some historical figures are shown as standing outside the historical flow, and therefore unable to influence it, change it.
The novel shows many historical figures from the times of the Patriotic War. But they are presented as ordinary, ordinary people, with passions and fears, and the heroes of the novel build their opinion about them based on their human qualities. Of great importance for understanding the nature of this or that historical person is the opinion of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky in the novel. He manages to pass through himself, as through a filter, the attitude towards this or that high-ranking person and, discarding everything superfluous and superficial, sanctify the pure and truthful character of this person.
This hero manages to meet and communicate with many prominent historical figures: Napoleon, Alexander I, Kutuzov, Franz Joseph. Each of these gentlemen received a special, individual characteristic in the text of the novel.
First of all, it is necessary to consider the image of Kutuzov in the perception of the main character. This is a person well known to Prince Andrei, because it was to him that he was sent for military service. The old prince, Andrei's father, lets go of his son, fully trusting the commander in chief and "passing on the baton of paternity." Both for father Andrei and for his commander, the main task is to save the life and health of the hero, and both of them cannot influence his fate, the formation of his character, personality. Andrei loves Kutuzov, loves sincerely, like an uncle or grandfather, he is for him a close and dear person in his own way. And it is thanks to Kutuzov that Andrei manages to reunite with the people.
The image of Kutuzov in the novel echoes the biblical image of the Archangel Michael. The commander-in-chief of the Russian army leads the holy Russian army into battle to defend the homeland from the Antichrist - Napoleon. And like the Archangel, Kutuzov does not interfere with his actions against the enemy. He is sure that Napoleon will suffer repentance, which, in fact, happens.
Napoleon is not able to fight against the Russian army, just as the Antichrist is powerless against the holy host. Bonaparte himself understands his uselessness and powerlessness in the war he himself started. And he can only leave, admitting his defeat.
At the beginning of the novel, Andrei perceives Napoleon as a strong ruler of the world. This again is consistent with the biblical tradition of the image of the Antichrist coming to earth to rule and arouse the love of his slaves. So did Bonaparte, who wanted power. But you can't conquer the Russian people, you can't conquer Russia.
In this context, the Battle of Borodino has for Andrey the meaning of Armageddon. Here he is a symbol of angelic humility, opposed to the holy fury of Kutuzov, who is giving battle. It is necessary to note the differences in characters between Kutuzov and Napoleon, which lie largely in the views on the people and the philosophy of life. Kutuzov is close to Andrey and represents the eastern type of consciousness practicing the policy of non-intervention. Napoleon is the personification of the worldview of the West, alien to Russia.
The ruling persons, the emperors Alexander and Franz Joseph, look different through the perception of Andrei. These are all the same ordinary, ordinary people, elevated by fate to the throne. However, both cannot keep the power given to them from above.
For Andrei, both monarchs are unpleasant, just as people who are unable to bear responsibility for their actions are unpleasant to him. And if a person cannot bear the burden of power, then there is no need to take it on. Power is, first of all, responsibility, responsibility for subordinates, for one's people, one's army - for the whole people. Neither Alexander nor Franz Joseph can be responsible for their actions, and therefore cannot be at the head of the state. It is precisely because Alexander was able to admit his inability to command and agreed to the return of this position to Kutuzov that Prince Andrei treats this emperor with more sympathy than Franz Joseph.
The latter, from Andrey's point of view, turns out to be too stupid, he is unable to understand his mediocrity, impotence. He is disgusting to Andrei - against the background of his prince feels higher and more significant than the monarch's face. It is noticeable that in relation to the emperors, the hero has a feeling of an unforgiving angel, when, as for less significant persons - commanders and generals, Andrei feels undisguised sympathy and sympathy. For example, it is necessary to consider the attitude of the hero towards General Mack. Andrei sees him, defeated, humiliated, having lost his army, but at the same time, the hero does not have indignation or anger. He came to Kutuzov with his head uncovered, downcast and penitent to the leader of the holy Russian army, and the leader forgave him. Following this, the Apostle Andrei, in the person of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, also forgives him.
Prince Bagration, acting as a commander, Mikhail Kutuzov blesses for a feat: “I bless you, prince, for a great feat,” he says, and Prince Andrei decides to accompany Bagration in his righteous deeds for Russia.
Andrey's special attitude towards Mikhail Mikhailovich Speransky. The protagonist subconsciously refuses to perceive him as a person, in particular because of the constantly cold hands and metallic laughter. This suggests that Speransky is a machine created for the benefit of the state. His program is to reform and renew, but Andrei cannot work with a mechanism devoid of a soul, so he parted with it.
So, through the uncomplicated look of Prince Andrei, the author gives the reader the characteristics of the first persons of the state, the most important historical figures of the Patriotic War of 1812.
An important place in the plot is occupied by his original historical views and ideas. “War and Peace” is not just a historical novel, it is a novel about History. She - acts, and her actions have a direct impact on the fate of all heroes without exception. She is not a background or an attribute of the plot. History is the main thing that determines the smoothness or swiftness of its movement.
Let us recall the final phrase of the novel: "... in the present case... it is necessary to renounce non-existent freedom and recognize the dependence that we do not feel."
Any historical event is the result of the unconscious, “swarm” action of natural historical forces. A person is denied the role of a subject of social movement. “The subject of history is the life of peoples and mankind,” writes Tolstoy, assigning to her, history, the place of the acting subject and character. Its laws are objective and independent of the will and actions of people. Tolstoy believes: "If there is one free act of a person, then there is not a single historical law and no idea about historical events."
A person can do little. The wisdom of Kutuzov, like the wisdom of Platon Karataev, consists in unconscious obedience to the elements of life. History, according to the writer, acts in the world as a natural force. Its laws, like physical or chemical laws, exist independently of the desire, will and consciousness of thousands and millions of people. That is why, according to Tolstoy, it is impossible to explain anything in history based on these desires and wills. Every social cataclysm, every historical event is the result of the action of an impersonal non-spiritual character, somewhat reminiscent of Shchedrin's “It” from “The History of a City”.
Here is how Tolstoy assesses the role of the individual in history: "The historical personality is the essence of the label that history hangs on this or that event." And the logic of these arguments is such that, in the final analysis, not only the concept of free will disappears from history, but also God as its moral principle. On the pages of the novel, she appears as an absolute, impersonal, indifferent force, grinding human lives to powder. Any personal activity is ineffective and dramatic. As if in an ancient proverb about fate, which attracts the obedient, and drags the recalcitrant, it disposes of the human world. Here is what happens to a person, according to the writer: "A person consciously lives for himself, but serves as an unconscious tool for achieving historical universal goals." Therefore, fatalism is inevitable in history when explaining “illogical”, “unreasonable” phenomena. The more we, according to Tolstoy, try to rationally explain these phenomena in history, the more incomprehensible they become for us.
“What is the force that moves the nations?
Private biographical historians and historians of individual peoples understand this power as the power inherent in heroes and rulers. According to their descriptions, events are produced exclusively by the will of Napoleons, Alexanders, or in general those persons who are described by a private historian. The answers given by this kind of historians to the question of the force that drives events are satisfactory, but only as long as there is one historian for each event. Conclusion: the people "create" history.
The life of mankind does not depend on the will and intentions of individuals, therefore a historical event is the result of a coincidence of many causes.
- War and Peace is a novel about the greatness of the Russian people.
- Kutuzov - "representative of the people's war."
- Kutuzov is a man and Kutuzov is a commander.
- The role of personality in history according to Tolstoy.
- Philosophical and historical optimism of Tolstoy.
There is no other work in Russian literature where the power and greatness of the Russian people would be conveyed with such persuasiveness and strength, as in the novel "War and Peace". With the whole content of the novel, Tolstoy showed that it was the people who had risen to fight for independence that expelled the French and ensured victory. Tolstoy said that in every work the artist must love the main idea, and admitted that in "War and Peace" he loved "the thought of the people." This idea illuminates the development of the main events of the novel. "The thought of the people" also lies in the assessment of historical figures and all other heroes of the novel. Tolstoy in the image of Kutuzov combines historical grandeur and folk simplicity. The image of the great national commander Kutuzov occupies a significant place in the novel. Kutuzov's unity with the people is explained by the "people's feeling that he carried in himself in all its purity and strength." Thanks to this spiritual quality, Kutuzov is the "representative of the people's war."
For the first time Tolstoy shows Kutuzov in the military campaign of 1805-1807. at the review in Braunau. The Russian commander did not want to look at the dress uniform of the soldiers, but began to examine the regiment in the state in which it was, pointing out to the Austrian general the broken soldier's shoes: he did not reproach anyone for this, but he could not see how bad it was. Kutuzov's life behavior is, first of all, the behavior of a simple Russian person. He "always seemed to be a simple and ordinary person and spoke the most simple and ordinary speeches." Kutuzov is really very simple with those whom he has reason to consider comrades in the difficult and dangerous business of war, with those who are not busy with court intrigues, who love their homeland. But far from all Kutuzov is so simple. This is not a simpleton, but a skilled diplomat, a wise politician. He hates court intrigues, but understands their mechanics very well and with his folk cunning often takes precedence over experienced intriguers. At the same time, in a circle of people alien to the people, Kutuzov knows how to speak an exquisite language, so to speak, hitting the enemy with his own weapon.
In the battle of Borodino, the greatness of Kutuzov was manifested, which consisted in the fact that he led the spirit of the army. L. N. Tolstoy shows how much the Russian spirit in this people's war surpasses the cold prudence of foreign military leaders. So Kutuzov sends the Prince of Witembourg "to take command of the first army", but he, before reaching the army, asks for more troops, and immediately the commander recalls him and sends a Russian - Dokhturov, knowing that he will stand for the Motherland to the death. The writer shows that the noble Barclay de Tolly, seeing all the circumstances, decided that the battle was lost, while the Russian soldiers fought to the death and held back the onslaught of the French. Barclay de Tolly is a good commander, but there is no Russian spirit in him. But Kutuzov is close to the people, the national spirit, and the commander gives the order to attack, although the army could not attack in this state. This order proceeded "not from cunning considerations, but from a feeling that lay in the soul of every Russian person", and, having heard this order, "the exhausted and wavering people were comforted and encouraged."
Kutuzov the man and Kutuzov the commander in War and Peace are inseparable, and this has a deep meaning. In the human simplicity of Kutuzov, the same nationality is manifested, which played a decisive role in his military leadership. Commander Kutuzov calmly surrenders to the will of events. In essence, he leads the troops little, knowing that "the fate of battles" is decided by "an elusive force called the spirit of the army." Kutuzov, the commander-in-chief, is as unusual as the "people's war" is not like an ordinary war. The meaning of his military strategy is not to "kill and exterminate people", but to "save and spare them." This is his military and human feat.
The image of Kutuzov from beginning to end is built in accordance with Tolstoy's conviction that the cause of war went on, "never coinciding with what people thought up, but following from the essence of mass relations." Thus Tolstoy denies the role of the individual in history. He is sure that not a single person is able to turn the course of history according to his own will. The human mind cannot play a directing and organizing role in history, and military science, in particular, cannot have practical meaning in the live course of war. For Tolstoy, the greatest force of history is the element of the people, unstoppable, indomitable, not amenable to leadership and organization.
The role of personality in history, according to Leo Tolstoy, is negligible. Even the most brilliant person cannot direct the movement of history at will. It is created by the people, the masses, and not by an individual.
However, the writer denied only such a person who puts himself above the masses, does not want to reckon with the will of the people. If the actions of a person are historically conditioned, then it plays a certain role in the development of historical events.
Although Kutuzov does not attach decisive importance to his "I", however, Tolstoy is shown not as a passive, but as an active, wise and experienced commander, who, with his orders, helps the growth of popular resistance, strengthens the spirit of the army. Here is how Tolstoy assesses the role of the individual in history: “The historical personality is the essence of the label that history hangs on this or that event. Here is what happens to a person, according to the writer: "A person consciously lives for himself, but serves as an unconscious tool for achieving historical universal goals." Therefore, fatalism is inevitable in history when explaining "illogical", "unreasonable" phenomena. A person must learn the laws of historical development, but due to the weakness of the mind and the wrong, or rather, according to the writer, unscientific approach to history, the awareness of these laws has not yet come, but it must come. This is the peculiar philosophical and historical optimism of the writer.
"War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy is not just a classic novel, but a real heroic epic, the literary value of which is incomparable with any other work. The writer himself considered it a poem, where the private life of a person is inseparable from the history of the whole country.
It took Leo Tolstoy seven years to perfect his novel. Back in 1863, the writer more than once discussed plans to create a large-scale literary canvas with his father-in-law A.E. Bers. In September of the same year, the father of Tolstoy's wife sent a letter from Moscow, where he mentioned the writer's idea. Historians consider this date the official start of work on the epic. A month later, Tolstoy writes to his relative that all his time and attention is occupied by a new novel, over which he thinks like never before.
History of creation
The initial idea of the writer was to create a work about the Decembrists, who spent 30 years in exile and returned home. The starting point described in the novel was to be 1856. But then Tolstoy changed his plans, deciding to display everything from the beginning of the Decembrist uprising of 1825. And this was not destined to come true: the third idea of the writer was the desire to describe the young years of the hero, which coincided with large-scale historical events: the war of 1812. The final version was the period from 1805. The circle of heroes was also expanded: the events in the novel cover the history of many personalities who went through all the hardships of different historical periods in the life of the country.
The title of the novel also had several variants. The “working” name was “Three Pores”: the youth of the Decembrists during the Patriotic War of 1812; The Decembrist uprising of 1825 and the 50s of the 19th century, when several important events in the history of Russia took place at once - the Crimean War, the death of Nicholas I, the return of the amnestied Decembrists from Siberia. In the final version, the writer decided to focus on the first period, since writing a novel even on such a scale required a lot of effort and time. So instead of an ordinary work, a whole epic was born, which has no analogues in world literature.
Tolstoy devoted the entire autumn and early winter of 1856 to writing the beginning of War and Peace. Already at that time, he repeatedly tried to quit his job, because, in his opinion, it was not possible to convey the whole idea on paper. Historians say that in the writer's archive there were fifteen options for the beginning of the epic. In the process of work, Lev Nikolayevich tried for himself to find answers to questions about the role of man in history. He had to study many chronicles, documents, materials describing the events of 1812. The confusion in the writer’s head was caused by the fact that all information sources assessed both Napoleon and Alexander I in different ways. Then Tolstoy decided for himself to move away from the subjective statements of strangers and display in the novel his own assessment of events based on true facts. From diverse sources, he borrowed documentary materials, records of contemporaries, newspaper and magazine articles, letters from generals, archival documents of the Rumyantsev Museum.
(Prince Rostov and Akhrosimova Marya Dmitrievna)
Considering it necessary to go directly to the scene, Tolstoy spent two days in Borodino. It was important for him to personally go around the place where large-scale and tragic events unfolded. He even personally made sketches of the sun on the field during different periods of the day.
The trip gave the writer an opportunity to feel the spirit of history in a new way; became a kind of inspiration for further work. For seven years, the work was on a spiritual upsurge and "burning". The manuscripts consisted of more than 5200 sheets. Therefore, "War and Peace" is easy to read even after a century and a half.
Analysis of the novel
Description
(Napoleon before the battle in thought)
The novel "War and Peace" touches upon a sixteen-year period in the history of Russia. The starting date is 1805, the final date is 1821. More than 500 characters are “employed” in the work. These are both real-life people, and fictional writers to add color to the description.
(Kutuzov before the Battle of Borodino is considering a plan)
The novel intertwines two main storylines: historical events in Russia and the personal lives of the characters. Real historical figures are mentioned in the description of Austerlitz, Shengraben, Borodino battles; the capture of Smolensk and the surrender of Moscow. More than 20 chapters are devoted specifically to the Battle of Borodino, as the main decisive event of 1812.
(In the illustration, an episode of the Ball by Natasha Rostova from the film "War and Peace" 1967.)
In opposition to "wartime", the writer describes the personal world of people and everything that surrounds them. Heroes fall in love, quarrel, reconcile, hate, suffer... On the confrontation of various characters, Tolstoy shows the difference in the moral principles of individuals. The writer is trying to tell that various events can change the worldview. One complete picture of the work consists of three hundred and thirty-three chapters of 4 volumes and another twenty-eight chapters placed in the epilogue.
First volume
The events of 1805 are described. In the "peaceful" part, life in Moscow and St. Petersburg is affected. The writer introduces the reader to the society of the main characters. The “military” part is the battles of Austerlitz and Shengraben. Tolstoy concludes the first volume with a description of how military defeats affected the peaceful life of the characters.
Second volume
(The first ball of Natasha Rostova)
This is a completely "peaceful" part of the novel, which touched upon the life of the characters in the period 1806-1811: the birth of Andrei Bolkonsky's love for Natasha Rostova; freemasonry of Pierre Bezukhov, the kidnapping of Natasha Rostova by Karagin, Bolkonsky's refusal to marry Natasha Rostova. The end of the volume is a description of a formidable omen: the appearance of a comet, which is a symbol of great upheavals.
Third volume
(In the illustration, an episode of the Borodino battle of their film "War and Peace" 1967.)
In this part of the epic, the writer refers to wartime: the invasion of Napoleon, the surrender of Moscow, the battle of Borodino. On the battlefield, the main male characters of the novel are forced to intersect: Bolkonsky, Kuragin, Bezukhov, Dolokhov ... The end of the volume is the capture of Pierre Bezukhov, who made an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Napoleon.
Fourth volume
(After the battle, the wounded arrive in Moscow)
The “military” part is a description of the victory over Napoleon and the shameful retreat of the French army. The writer also touches upon the period of the partisan war after 1812. All this is intertwined with the “peaceful” fates of the heroes: Andrei Bolkonsky and Helen pass away; love is born between Nikolai and Marya; think about living together Natasha Rostova and Pierre Bezukhov. And the main character of the volume is the Russian soldier Platon Karataev, in whose words Tolstoy tries to convey all the wisdom of the common people.
Epilogue
This part is devoted to describing the changes in the lives of the heroes seven years after 1812. Natasha Rostova is married to Pierre Bezukhov; Nicholas and Marya found their happiness; the son of Bolkonsky, Nikolenka, grew up. In the epilogue, the author reflects on the role of individuals in the history of the whole country, and tries to show the historical interconnections of events and human destinies.
The main characters of the novel
More than 500 characters are mentioned in the novel. The author tried to describe the most important of them as accurately as possible, endowing with special features not only of character, but also of appearance:
Andrei Bolkonsky - Prince, son of Nikolai Bolkonsky. Constantly looking for the meaning of life. Tolstoy describes him as handsome, reserved, and with "dry" features. He has a strong will. Dies as a result of a wound received at Borodino.
Marya Bolkonskaya - Princess, sister of Andrei Bolkonsky. Inconspicuous appearance and radiant eyes; piety and concern for relatives. In the novel, she marries Nikolai Rostov.
Natasha Rostova is the daughter of Count Rostov. In the first volume of the novel, she is only 12 years old. Tolstoy describes her as a girl of not very beautiful appearance (black eyes, big mouth), but at the same time "alive". Her inner beauty attracts men. Even Andrei Bolkonsky is ready to fight for his hand and heart. At the end of the novel, she marries Pierre Bezukhov.
Sonya
Sonya is the niece of Count Rostov. In contrast to her cousin Natasha, she is beautiful in appearance, but much poorer in spirit.
Pierre Bezukhov is the son of Count Kirill Bezukhov. A clumsy massive figure, kind and at the same time strong character. He can be harsh, or he can become a child. Interested in Freemasonry. He is trying to change the life of the peasants and influence large-scale events. Initially married to Helen Kuragina. At the end of the novel, he marries Natasha Rostova.
Helen Kuragin is the daughter of Prince Kuragin. Beauty, a prominent society lady. She married Pierre Bezukhov. Changeable, cold. Dies as a result of an abortion.
Nikolai Rostov is the son of Count Rostov and Natasha's brother. The successor of the family and the defender of the Fatherland. He took part in military campaigns. He married Marya Bolkonskaya.
Fedor Dolokhov is an officer, a member of the partisan movement, as well as a great swashbuckler and lover of ladies.
Counts of Rostov
The Rostov counts are the parents of Nikolai, Natasha, Vera, and Petya. A revered married couple, an example to follow.
Nikolai Bolkonsky - Prince, father of Marya and Andrei. In Catherine's time, a significant personality.
The author pays much attention to the description of Kutuzov and Napoleon. The commander appears before us as smart, unfeigned, kind and philosophical. Napoleon is described as a little fat man with an unpleasantly feigned smile. At the same time, it is somewhat mysterious and theatrical.
Analysis and conclusion
In the novel "War and Peace" the writer tries to convey to the reader the "people's thought". Its essence is that each positive hero has his own connection with the nation.
Tolstoy departed from the principle of telling a story in a novel in the first person. Evaluation of characters and events goes through monologues and author's digressions. At the same time, the writer leaves the reader the right to assess what is happening. A vivid example of this is the scene of the Battle of Borodino, shown both from the side of historical facts and the subjective opinion of the hero of the novel, Pierre Bezukhov. The writer does not forget about the bright historical figure - General Kutuzov.
The main idea of the novel lies not only in the disclosure of historical events, but also in the ability to understand that one must love, believe and live under any circumstances.
