War and peace entertainment of secular youth briefly. Critical depiction of high society in Tolstoy's novel War and Peace
Questions about the novel "War and Peace" 1. Which of the heroes of the novel "War and Peace" is the bearer of the theory of non-resistance?2. Who from the Rostov family in the novel "War and Peace" wanted to give carts for the wounded?
3. With what does the author compare the evening in the salon of Anna Pavlovna Sherer in the novel "War and Peace"?
4. Who is in the family of Prince Vasily Kuragin in the novel "War and Peace"?
5. Returning home from captivity, Prince Andrei comes to the conclusion that “happiness is only the absence of these two evils.” Which ones?
called war and peace. Tolstoy's views on war. (3 sentences approximately)
2) the main part (the main image of the war of 1812, the thoughts of the heroes, war and nature, the participation in the war of the main characters (Rostov, Bezukhov, Bolkonsky), the role of commanders in the war, how the army behaves.
3) conclusion, conclusion.
Please help, I just read for a long time, but now there was no time to read. PLEASE HELP
URGENT!!!
IF ANYONE FORGOT HOW SINKWINE IS COMPILED
1) the title in which the keyword is entered
2) 2 adjectives
3) 3 verbs
4) a phrase that carries a certain meaning
5) summary, conclusion
EXAMPLE:
SINQWINE ALL OVER THE NOVEL "WAR AND PEACE"
1. epic novel
2.historical, world
3. convinces, teaches, narrates
4. learned a lot (me)
5, encyclopedia of life
Help me please! War and Peace! Answer questions about the Battle of Shengraben:1. To trace the contrast between the behavior of Dolokhov and Timokhin in battle. What is the difference? (part 2, ch.20-21)
2. Tell us about the behavior of officer Zherkov in battle? (ch.19)
3. Tell us about Tushin's battery. What is her role in combat? (ch.20-21)
4. The name of Prince Andrei is also correlated with the problem of heroism. Remember, with what thoughts he went to war? How have they changed? (part 2, ch.3,12,20-21).
2) What is the point of comparing the salon of A.P. Scherer with a spinning workshop (ch. 2)? What words would you use to describe the communication between the hostess and her guests? Is it possible to say from them: “they are all different and all the same”? Why?
3) Re-read the portrait description of Ippolit Kuragin (ch. 3). As one of the researchers noted, “his cretinism in the novel is not accidental” (A.A. Saburov “War and Peace of L. Tolstoy”). Why do you think? What is the meaning of the striking resemblance between Hippolyte and Helen?
4) What stood out among the guests of the salon Pierre and A. Bolkonsky? Is it possible to say that Pierre's speech in defense of Napoleon and the French Revolution, partly supported by Bolkonsky, creates in A.P. Sherer the situation of "woe from wit" (A.A. Saburov)?
5) Episode "Salon A.P. Scherer" is "linked" (using the word of Tolstoy himself, denoting the internal connection of individual paintings) with a description (Ch. 6) of the entertainment of the St. Petersburg "golden" youth. Her "joint rampage" is "salon stiffness upside down". Do you agree with this assessment?
6) Episode "Salon A.P. Scherer" is linked in contrast (a characteristic compositional device in the novel) with the episode "Name Day at the Rostovs".
7) And the episode “Salon A.P. Scherer" and the episode "Name Day at the Rostovs" are, in turn, linked to chapters depicting the Bolkonsky family nest.
8) Can you name the goals of different visitors coming to the salon?
9) But at the same time, a foreign element is found in the cabin. Someone clearly does not want to be a faceless "spindle"? Who is this?
10) What do we learn about Pierre Bezukhov and Andrei Bolkonsky, barely crossing the threshold of the salon of Her Majesty's maid of honor A.P. Scherer?
11) Are they their own in the high-society living room, judging only by the portraits and demeanor of the heroes?
12) Compare the portrait of Pierre and Prince Vasily and their demeanor.
13) What are the details that reveal the spiritual closeness of Pierre Bezukhov and Andrei Bolkonsky.
The age of the cavalry guard is not long ...
(Bulat Okudzhava)
I often heard the rhetorical question: who was the prototype of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky in the epic "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy and the most diverse attempts to answer this question. Naturally, due to the consonance of the surname, numerous representatives of the family of the Volkonsky princes, who heroically fought in the wars with Napoleon, claim this honorary role. Last but not least, Prince Sergei Volkonsky is also tipped into the prototypes of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky - by consonance with both the surname and the name.
Indeed, in favor of the candidacy of Prince Sergei is evidenced by Lev Nikolayevich's keen interest in the topic of "Decembristism", and his personal meetings in Florence in 1860 with Prince Sergei, who had returned from exile, and his admiration and respect for the personality of the "Decembrist". And it doesn’t matter that, unlike Andrei Bolkonsky, Sergei Volkonsky was too young (in 1805 he was only 16 years old) to participate in the Battle of Austerlitz, in which his older brother Nikolai Repnin distinguished himself and was wounded, as well as Andrei Bolkonsky. In the opinion of many, the logic of the development of the image would certainly have led Prince Andrei to the ranks of the "conspirators", had he not laid down his head on the battlefield. In the drafts for the novel War and Peace, Lev Nikolaevich planned to place the accents somewhat differently - around the theme of the "rebellious reformers", the epic of their tragic trajectory from the fields of heroic battles to the Nerchinsk mines. When the logic of the narrative took Lev Nikolaevich away from this line, he conceived another, unfinished, novel - The Decembrists, which, according to many, was really based on the life path of Sergei Volkonsky, who returned from exile with his family. However, this novel remained unfinished. I will not allow myself to speculate about Lev Nikolayevich's double failure with the topic of "Decembristism", and I want to approach this issue from a completely different angle.
The fact is that, in my opinion, the life, fate and personality of Prince Sergei served as the prototype for three characters in the most famous novel by the great writer. And this is not surprising, so many things fit into the life line of our hero. Both the unfinished novel The Decembrists and the first drafts of War and Peace appeared around the time of Sergei Volkonsky's return from Siberia and his meetings with Tolstoy. At the same time, Sergei Grigorievich was working on his own Notes, and it would not be surprising to assume that the memories of the "Decembrist" served as the main subject of his conversations with the writer. I read "War and Peace" at the age of 14, and the Notes of Sergei Grigorievich - relatively recently, and was struck by the recognition of some episodes of the prince's memoirs, which were reflected in the great novel. So who did Sergei Volkonsky appear in the creative imagination of Leo Tolstoy?
His feats of arms, nobility and skepticism towards secular life - in the form of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky; kindness, gentleness, reformist ideas for arranging life in Russia - in the image of Count Pierre Bezukhov; recklessness, youth and "pranks" - in the image of Anatole Kuragin. Immediately make a reservation that the "pranks" of Serge Volkonsky wore a much softer and more noble form.
We have already talked about the feats of arms of Prince Sergei in the essay "Battle Awards", we have yet to talk about the "Conspiracy of the Reformers", and now I would like to draw your attention to a completely different segment of the life line of Prince Sergei - his cavalry guard amusements. It is interesting that although Sergey Grigorievich describes them in his Notes with humor, in conclusion he issues a harsh and irreconcilable verdict to the “pranks” of youth.
“Having pulled on my uniform, I imagined that I was already a man,” the prince recalls with self-irony. Nevertheless, it is surprising how childish and good-natured, even childish, many of the "youthful antics" of Serge Volkonsky and his friends from our cynical far away seem. Of course, young, strong and cheerful cavalry guards "amused themselves" not during military campaigns and battles, but languishing from the boredom of the barracks and adjutant wing of life. But even then there was a certain sense in their antics.
The "golden youth" adored the wife of Emperor Alexander Pavlovich, Elizaveta Alekseevna, nee Louise Maria Augusta, Princess von Baden, who converted to Orthodoxy, learned the Russian language and fought for her new homeland with all her heart. Among them, it was believed that the emperor unfairly treated a young, noble and impeccably behaving wife, constantly cheating on her. Young officers, in defiance of the emperor, create the "Society of Friends of Elizabeth Alekseevna" - the first sign of the "secret society", in the depths of which the idea of deposing the emperor subsequently arose. However, in its very beginning, this society remained an innocent occasion for an ardent expression of love for the empress.
Then the angry young people decided on a more desperate "crime". They knew that in the corner living room of the house occupied by the French envoy, a portrait of Napoleon was exhibited, and under it, as it were, a throne chair. So, one dark night, Serge Volkonsky, Michel Lunin and Co. drove along the Palace Embankment in a sleigh, taking with them "convenient throwing stones", broke all the mirrored glass in the windows of Caulaincourt's house, and successfully retired after this "military sortie". Despite the complaint of Caulaincourt and the subsequent inquiry, the "culprits" were not found, and the news of who was in those sleighs reached the descendants many years later in the stories of the "pranksters" themselves.
The "golden youth" wanted to convey their independence and dissatisfaction with "fraternization with the usurper" to the emperor himself. To do this, the cavalry guards chose the following tactics. At certain times of the day, all secular Petersburg strolls along the so-called Tsar's Circle, that is, along the Palace Embankment past the Summer Garden, along the Fontanka to Anichkov Bridge and along Nevsky Prospekt again to Zimny. The emperor himself also participated in this secular exercise, on foot or in a sleigh, and this route attracted Petersburgers. The ladies hoped to show off their beauty and outfits, and maybe even draw the highest attention to their “charms”, there were enough examples of this, while the gentlemen were an eyesore to the emperor in the hope of career advancement and other favors, or at least a nod of the head.
Serge occupied an apartment on the first floor "at the entrance to the gate from Pushchino's house", and his neighbor turned out to be a certain Frenchwoman, the mistress of Ivan Aleksandrovich Naryshkin, the chief master of ceremonies of the emperor, who stole his lap dog from his wife and presented it to his mistress. Prince Sergei, without thinking twice, hid the dog at home in order to return it to its rightful owner and laugh at the unlucky high-ranking lover. There was a scandal, Naryshkin filed a complaint with the Governor-General Balashov, and Serge Volkonsky was punished with three days of room arrest. It was only thanks to the intercession of the family that a "greater penalty" did not happen, and he was released after three days of arrest.
Nevertheless, the fun and pranks of the "golden youth" continued.
“Stanislav Pototsky called many people to a restaurant for dinner, under a drunken hand we went to Krestovsky. It was in winter, it was a festive day, and heaps of Germans were there and had fun. We got the idea to play a trick on them. , pushed the sled from under them with their feet - skiing lovers went down the hill no longer on a sled, but on a goose":
Well, isn’t it childish, what kind of childish fun is that?! the reader will exclaim. So they were boys!
“The Germans fled and probably filed a complaint,” continues Prince Sergei, “there was a decent gang of us, but, as always, the penalty was cut off on me alone, and Balashov, the then governor-general of St. Petersburg and the senior adjutant general, demanded me and announced to me on behalf of the sovereign the highest reprimand. Nobody else got hurt.
Pay attention to a very important detail, which the author of the Notes himself did not attach much importance to: "on me alone, as always, the penalty ended." In the same way, the penalty ended on Sergei Volkonsky, when, despite incredible internal tension, threats and pressure from the investigating commission in the case of the "Decembrists", his own family, his wife's family and their intrigues, he withstood and did not betray two very important persons, whom the investigators were hunting for - their friend the chief of staff of the 2nd division, General Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev and General Alexei Petrovich Yermolov. Kiselev was well aware of the Southern society, warned Prince Sergei of the danger, but despite confrontations and evidence of this awareness of the conspiracy provided by retired Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Viktorovich Poggio, Prince Sergei survived and did not betray his friends. “Be ashamed, general, the ensigns show more than you!”, General Chernyshov, who loved powdering so much, shouted to him during interrogation. So after all, Serge Volkonsky was not used to betraying friends - neither in small things, nor in big things.
But let us return to the year 1811. "All these occasions were not handy for me in the opinion of the sovereign about me," Prince Sergei admits, but no doubt they made the young officer very popular among the "golden youth."
And here I cannot fail to mention again one of the modern "historical" hypotheses, which I already referred to in my comment on this site. For some reason, the idea took root that Sergei Volkonsky continued his "pranks" and "pranks" even at a more mature age, which ruined his career prospects. This is fundamentally wrong. Firstly, Prince Sergei did not consider his military service a career, but served for the glory of the Fatherland. Secondly, there is no evidence of any "pranks" and boyish antics of Sergei Volkonsky after 1811, when he was only 22 years old. After the Patriotic War of 1812-1814. and foreign campaigns and private trips to European countries, Sergei Volkonsky returned to Russia as a completely different person, inspired by the impressions of the advanced European democracies, especially the English combination of constitutional monarchy and parliamentarism, with an ardent desire to participate in radical reforms of the state system of the Russian Empire, for the opportunity and for the need for which both in private conversations and in public speeches was repeatedly referred to by Emperor Alexander himself. Unfortunately, we already know what and how deplorably these hopes of the inspired "golden youth" ended, and we will talk about this next time. And here I would like to emphasize that, unlike some bullies, such as his friend and classmate Michel Lunin, Prince Sergei was no longer interested in "leprosy".
The fact is that Serge Volkonsky, by his own admission, was distinguished by exceptional amorousness, which caused a lot of trouble and grief to his caring mother.
Of course, Alexandra Nikolaevna was not so much concerned about the adventures of the young rake, but about how he would inadvertently marry an unsuitable bride. And Prince Sergei, being an honest and noble man, was very inclined to this. Of course, he was not going to woo the ladies of the demimonde. But in secular society, young Serge Volkonsky always fell in love with dowry women for some reason, and was ready to marry immediately "and always not according to my mother's calculation," so that she had to find ways to dare these most unwanted brides.
Alexandra Nikolaevna was especially worried during truces, and, paradoxical as it may sound, she calmly sighed only with the start of a new military campaign, when the loving youngest son went to the front.
The very first lover of the very young 18-year-old Serge Volkonsky was his second cousin, 17-year-old Princess Maria Yakovlevna Lobanova-Rostovskaya, maid of honor and daughter of the Little Russian governor Ya. I. Lobanov-Rostovsky, because of which Serge challenged his rival Kirill Naryshkin to a duel . She was so beautiful that they called her "Guido's head."
Maria Yakovlevna Lobanova-Rostovskaya. George Doe, 1922
It seems that the opponent was afraid of a duel with a young cavalry guard and instead resorted to cunning. He swore to Serge that he was not looking for the hand of his "Dulcinea", waited for Volkonsky to leave for the front - and married her.
Sergei Grigorievich continues: “My unsuccessful courtship did not enlighten my flaming young heart to a new love enthusiasm, and frequent meetings with one of my relatives and at general congresses of the selective Petersburg public ignited my heart, especially since I found an echo in the heart of the one that was the subject my application." Prince Sergei in his memoirs gallantly does not name the name of his next chosen one, citing the fact that she got married.
However, the son of Prince Sergei Mikhail Sergeevich, when publishing his father's memoirs in 1903, after many years, "declassified" this name. She turned out to be Countess Sofya Petrovna Tolstaya, who later married V.S. Apraksina. The feeling turned out to be mutual: “just recently, after 35 years, she confessed to me that she had love for me and always retained a feeling of friendship,” 70-year-old Sergei Grigorievich fondly recalled in his Notes.
Sofia Petrovna Apraksina, nee Tolstaya. Painter Henri-Francois Riesener, 1818
However, the young Countess Tolstaya "did not have a financial fortune" and Alexandra Nikolaevna publicly spoke out against this marriage, which offended the parents of a young girl, and the union did not take place, they were not ready to give "daughter to another family, where she would not be welcomed." The girl's mother asked the young lover to stop courtship. Volkonsky was very upset, in his Notes he admitted that "struck by this, like a thunderous blow, I fulfilled her will in the purity of my feelings, but in my heart I kept the same feeling."
A very important circumstance is that for all his wild cavalry life, Sergei Volkonsky followed an impeccable and noble code of honor: never in his life did he allow himself to show signs of attention to a married lady. In his mind, this was the height of meanness and dishonor, and he followed this rule all his life. We must pay tribute to the prince, such rules of conduct among his contemporaries were very rare!
So, "the marriage of the object of my love gave me the freedom of my heart, and because of my amorousness, it was not free for long," - we read further. The prince's heart "fired up again, and again with success to the lovely E. F. L." So far, no one has been able to decipher the new beautiful "Dulcinea" hiding behind these initials. But alas, despite the mutual disposition of the young lovers, Alexandra Nikolaevna again with a firm hand averted the threat of misalliance from her son.
At the end of the Napoleonic campaign, a real hunt was announced for the young, handsome, rich and noble prince Sergei, a descendant of Rurikovich both on the paternal and maternal lines. If he left St. Petersburg on business to Moscow or to the provinces, he was vying with each other to invite the parents of potential brides to stay. Maria Ivanovna Rimskaya-Korsakova wrote to her son Grigory from Moscow that Sergei Volkonsky was staying with the Bibikovs in the wing, but Marya Ivanovna herself suggested that he move in with her and ordered him to take a room; "I have sinned; it seems to me that Bibikov let him in, perhaps he will not fall in love with which sister-in-law. Today the people are agile, you can't do much with a good manner, you have to use cunning and catch."
I don’t know if Sergei Grigorievich recalled this visit to Moscow with humor in his Notes: he arrived in Moscow for only nine days “and did not have time to fall in love, which I myself am now surprised at.”
But on January 11, 1825, 36-year-old Prince Sergei Volkonsky married a dowry, 19-year-old Maria Nikolaevna Raevskaya, who did not belong to the Petersburg nobility and had neither a title nor a fortune, whose mother was the granddaughter of Mikhail Lomonosov, that is, from Pomeranian peasants . In other words, Sergei Volkonsky married much lower than himself. Alexandra Nikolaevna was always afraid of this, but she could no longer exert any influence on the adult son-general.
Perhaps I will upset some readers with the message that contemporaries did not consider Masha Raevskaya a beauty at all. She was a dark-skinned girl, and then white-skinned beauties were valued.
Maria Nikolaevna Raevskaya. Unknown artist, early 1820s
A month before her wedding with Prince Sergei on December 5, 1824, the poet Vasily Ivanovich Tumansky wrote to his wife from Odessa "Maria: ugly, but very attractive with the sharpness of her conversations and the tenderness of her address." Two years later, on December 27, 1826, another poet, Dmitry Vladimirovich Venevitinov, wrote in his diary "she is not pretty, but her eyes express a lot" (December, 1826, his diary after visiting Maria Nikolaevna's farewell to Siberia, arranged by Princess Zinaida Volkonskaya in Moscow). Princess Volkonskaya also seemed ugly to Polish exiles in Irkutsk: “Princess Volkonskaya was a big lady in the full sense of the word. Tall, swarthy brunette, ugly, but pleasant-looking” (Vincent Migursky, Notes from Siberia, 1844).
Before Prince Sergei Volkonsky, only one person wooed Masha Raevskaya - the Polish Count Gustav Olizar, who was a widower and with two children. Nevertheless, one of the best grooms in Russia, Prince Sergei Volkonsky, fell in love with Masha Raevskaya immediately and for life.
Sergei Grigoryevich's mother did not come to the wedding; only Sergei Grigoryevich Repnin's elder brother, from the entire vast Volkonsky family, was present at her as a planted father. Alexandra Nikolaevna later regretted that she had not been able to meet her younger daughter-in-law earlier, for the first time they met only in April 1826, when Maria Volkonskaya arrived from Little Russia in St. Petersburg and stopped at her mother-in-law to seek a meeting with her husband, who was kept in Alekseevsky Ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The old and young princesses Volkonsky liked each other very much, both of them were now united by an ardent love for the prisoner. Alexandra Nikolaevna, in letters to her son, calls her none other than "your wonderful wife." Maria Nikolaevna describes her meeting with her mother-in-law in a letter to her husband in the Peter and Paul Fortress on April 10, 1826: “Dear friend, for three days now I have been living with your beautiful and kind mother. she showed me, not about that tenderness, truly motherly, which she shows to me. You know her much better than I do, so you could imagine in advance how she would treat me. " For a young woman who had just been practically abandoned by her own mother, such attention and warmth were especially valuable. The union of these two women - mother and wife, in fact, saved Sergei Volkonsky from death, who was grieving the misfortune and grief that he brought to his family.
In his declining years, Sergei Grigorievich gave an uncompromising and harsh verdict to his young "pranks" and criticized the lack of morality among the officers of the cavalry regiment. Here are some quotes from his Notes:
“In all my comrades, not excluding squadron commanders, there was a lot of secular scrupulousness, which the French call point d” honneur, but it is unlikely that anyone would have withstood the analysis of their own conscience. There was no religiosity at all in anyone, I would even say, godlessness in many. A general propensity for drunkenness, for a wild life, for youthfulness ... Questions were scathingly sorted out, past facts, future ones, our day-to-day life with the impressions of everyone, a general verdict about the best beauty; and during this friendly conversation, punch was poured, they loaded their heads a little - and went home.
"There was no morality in them, very false concepts of honor, very little education, and in almost all the predominance of stupid youth, which I now call purely vicious."
"My official, public life was similar to the life of my colleagues, the same age: a lot of empty, nothing sensible ... Forgotten books did not leave the shelves."
"In one thing I approve of them - this is a close comradely friendship and the preservation of the decency of the public of that time."
Unlike Michel Lunin, who was never able to "calm down", Sergei Volkonsky judged strictly the lack of morality of the "golden youth" and brought up his son Mikhail in a completely different way.
We already know from the essay The Abbot's Disciple how Sergei Grigoryevich discussed in detail and in detail the main provisions of the educational program of the eleven-year-old Misha with the Polish exiled nobleman Julian Sabinsky. According to the story of Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Volkonsky, his grandfather, "when his son, a fifteen-year-old boy (Misha - N.P.) wanted to read "Eugene Onegin", marked with a pencil on the side all the verses that he considered subject to censorship exclusion ".
Returning from exile, he did a lot of educating the nephew of his wife Maria Nikolaevna, Nikolai Raevsky, whose father Nikolai Nikolaevich Raevsky, Jr., who died of illness in 1844, was his brother-in-law. 17-year-old Nicolas fell in love with Uncle Serge very much and spent a lot of time in his company. In all his letters to his mother, Anna Mikhailovna, Sergei Grigoryevich emphasized that she should pay the most important attention in raising her son to high morality and moral purity.
Creating the image of Pierre Bezukhov, L. N. Tolstoy started from specific life observations. People like Pierre were often encountered in the Russian life of that time. This is Alexander Muravyov, and Wilhelm Küchelbecker, to whom Pierre is close with his eccentricity and absent-mindedness and directness. Contemporaries believed that Tolstoy endowed Pierre with the features of his own personality. One of the features of the depiction of Pierre in the novel is his opposition to the environment of the nobility. It is no coincidence that he is the illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov; it is no coincidence that his bulky, clumsy figure stands out sharply against the general background. When Pierre finds himself in the salon of Anna Pavlovna Scherer, he causes her anxiety by the inconsistency of his manners with the etiquette of the living room. He is significantly different from all visitors to the salon and with his smart, natural look. By contrast, the author presents Pierre's judgments and Hippolyte's vulgar chatter. Contrasting his hero with the environment, Tolstoy reveals his high spiritual qualities: sincerity, spontaneity, high conviction and noticeable softness. Anna Pavlovna's evening ends with Pierre, to the displeasure of the audience, defending the ideas of the French Revolution, admiring Napoleon as the head of revolutionary France, defending the ideas of the republic and freedom, showing the independence of his views.
Leo Tolstoy draws the appearance of his hero: this is "a massive, fat young man, with a cropped head, glasses, light trousers, a high frill and a brown tailcoat." The writer pays special attention to Pierre's smile, which makes his face childish, kind, stupid and as if asking for forgiveness. She seems to say: "Opinions are opinions, and you see what a kind and nice fellow I am."
Pierre is sharply opposed to those around him in the episode of the death of the old man Bezukhov. Here he is very different from the careerist Boris Drubetskoy, who, at the instigation of his mother, is playing a game, trying to get his share in the inheritance. Pierre, on the other hand, is embarrassed and ashamed of Boris.
And now he is the heir to an immensely rich father. Having received the title of count, Pierre immediately finds himself in the center of attention of secular society, where he was pleased, caressed and, as it seemed to him, loved. And he plunges into the stream of new life, obeying the atmosphere of great light. So he finds himself in the company of "golden youth" - Anatole Kuragin and Dolokhov. Under the influence of Anatole, he spends his days in revelry, unable to break out of this cycle. Pierre wastes his vitality, showing his characteristic lack of will. Prince Andrei tries to convince him that this dissolute life does not suit him very much. But it is not so easy to pull him out of this "whirlpool". However, I note that Pierre is immersed in him more in body than in soul.
Pierre's marriage to Helen Kuragina dates back to this time. He perfectly understands her insignificance, outright stupidity. "There is something nasty in that feeling," he thought, "that she aroused in me, something forbidden." However, Pierre's feelings are influenced by her beauty and unconditional feminine charm, although Tolstoy's hero does not experience true, deep love. Time will pass, and the "twisted" Pierre will hate Helen and feel her depravity with all his heart.
In this regard, an important moment was the duel with Dolokhov, which took place after Pierre received an anonymous letter at a dinner in honor of Bagration that his wife was cheating on him with his former friend. Pierre does not want to believe this because of the purity and nobility of his nature, but at the same time he believes the letter, because he knows Helen and her lover well. Dolokhov's brazen trick at the table unbalances Pierre and leads to a duel. It is quite obvious to him that now he hates Helen and is ready to break with her forever, and at the same time break with the world in which she lived.
The attitude of Dolokhov and Pierre to the duel is different. The first goes to the duel with the firm intention of killing, and the second suffers from the fact that he needs to shoot a person. In addition, Pierre never held a pistol in his hands and, in order to quickly end this heinous deed, somehow pulls the trigger, and when he injures the enemy, barely holding back his sobs, rushes to him. "Stupid!.. Death... Lies..." he repeated, walking through the snow into the forest. So a separate episode, a quarrel with Dolokhov, becomes a frontier for Pierre, opening up a world of lies in front of him, in which he was destined to be for some time.
A new stage of Pierre's spiritual quest begins when, in a state of deep moral crisis, he meets the freemason Bazdeev on his way from Moscow. Striving for the high meaning of life, believing in the possibility of achieving brotherly love, Pierre enters the religious and philosophical society of Masons. Here he seeks spiritual and moral renewal, hopes for a rebirth to a new life, longs for personal improvement. He also wants to correct the imperfection of life, and this matter seems to him not at all difficult. “How easy, how little effort is needed to do so much Good,” thought Pierre, “and how little we care about it!”
And so, under the influence of Masonic ideas, Pierre decides to free the peasants belonging to him from serfdom. He follows the same path that Onegin walked, although he also takes new steps in this direction. But unlike Pushkin's hero, he has huge estates in the Kyiv province, which is why he has to act through the chief manager.
Possessing childish purity and gullibility, Pierre does not assume that he will have to face the meanness, deceit and devilish resourcefulness of businessmen. He takes the construction of schools, hospitals, shelters for a radical improvement in the life of the peasants, while all this was ostentatious and burdensome for them. Pierre's undertakings not only did not alleviate the hard fate of the peasants, but also worsened their situation, because the predation of the rich from the trading village and the robbery of the peasants, hidden from Pierre, were connected here.
Neither the transformations in the countryside nor Freemasonry justified the hopes that Pierre had placed on them. He is disappointed in the goals of the Masonic organization, which now seems to him deceitful, vicious and hypocritical, where everyone is primarily concerned with a career. In addition, the ritual procedures characteristic of Masons now seem to him an absurd and ridiculous performance. "Where am I?" he thinks, "what am I doing? Are they laughing at me? Won't I be ashamed to remember this?" Feeling the futility of Masonic ideas, which did not change his own life at all, Pierre "suddenly felt the impossibility of continuing his former life."
Tolstoy's hero goes through a new moral test. They became a real, great love for Natasha Rostova. At first, Pierre did not think about his new feeling, but it grew and became more and more powerful; a special sensitivity arose, intense attention to everything that concerned Natasha. And he leaves for a while from public interests to the world of personal, intimate experiences that Natasha opened for him.
Pierre is convinced that Natasha loves Andrei Bolkonsky. She is animated only because Prince Andrei enters, that he hears his voice. "Something very important is going on between them," Pierre thinks. The difficult feeling does not leave him. He carefully and tenderly loves Natasha, but at the same time he is faithfully and devotedly friends with Andrei. Pierre sincerely wishes them happiness, and at the same time their love becomes a great grief for him.
The aggravation of spiritual loneliness chains Pierre to the most important issues of our time. He sees before him "a tangled, terrible knot of life." On the one hand, he reflects, people erected forty forty churches in Moscow, confessing the Christian law of love and forgiveness, and on the other hand, yesterday they whipped a soldier and the priest let him kiss the cross before execution. Thus grows a crisis in Pierre's soul.
Natasha, refusing Prince Andrei, showed friendly spiritual sympathy for Pierre. And a huge, disinterested happiness swept over him. Natasha, overwhelmed with grief and remorse, evokes such a flash of ardent love in Pierre’s soul that, unexpectedly for himself, he makes a kind of confession to her: “If I were not me, but the most beautiful, smartest and best person in the world ... I would this minute on my knees I asked for your hand and your love. In this new enthusiastic state, Pierre forgets about the social and other issues that bothered him so much. Personal happiness and boundless feeling overwhelms him, gradually letting him feel some kind of incompleteness of life, deeply and broadly understood by him.
The events of the war of 1812 produce a sharp change in Pierre's worldview. They gave him the opportunity to get out of the state of egoistic isolation. He begins to be seized by a restlessness that is incomprehensible to him, and although he does not know how to understand the events that are taking place, he inevitably joins the stream of reality and thinks about his participation in the fate of the Fatherland. And it's not just thinking. He prepares the militia, and then goes to Mozhaisk, on the field of the Battle of Borodino, where a new, unfamiliar world of ordinary people opens before him.
Borodino becomes a new stage in the development of Pierre. Seeing for the first time the militia men dressed in white shirts, Pierre caught the spirit of spontaneous patriotism emanating from them, expressed in a clear determination to steadfastly defend their native land. Pierre realized that this is the force that drives events - the people. With all his heart he understood the secret meaning of the soldier's words: "They want to pile on all the people, one word - Moscow."
Pierre now not only observes what is happening, but reflects, analyzes. Here he managed to feel that "hidden warmth of patriotism" that made the Russian people invincible. True, in battle, on the Raevsky battery, Pierre experiences a moment of panic fear, but it was this horror "that allowed him to especially deeply understand the power of national courage. After all, these gunners all the time, until the very end, were firm and calm, and now I want to Pierre to be a soldier, just a soldier, in order to "enter this common life" with his whole being.
Under the influence of people from the people, Pierre decides to participate in the defense of Moscow, for which it is necessary to stay in the city. Wanting to accomplish a feat, he intends to kill Napoleon in order to save the peoples of Europe from the one who brought them so much suffering and evil. Naturally, he dramatically changes his attitude towards the personality of Napoleon, the former sympathy is replaced by hatred for the despot. However, many obstacles, as well as a meeting with the French captain Rumbel, change his plans, and he abandons the plan to assassinate the French emperor.
A new stage in Pierre's quest was his stay in French captivity, where he ends up after a fight with French soldiers. This new period of the hero's life becomes a further step towards rapprochement with the people. Here, in captivity, Pierre had a chance to see the true bearers of evil, the creators of the new "order", to feel the inhumanity of the morals of Napoleonic France, relations built on domination and submission. He saw the massacres and tried to get to the bottom of their causes.
He experiences an unusual shock when he is present at the execution of people accused of arson. “In his soul,” writes Tolstoy, “it is as if the spring on which everything was held up has suddenly been pulled out.” And only a meeting with Platon Karataev in captivity allowed Pierre to find peace of mind. Pierre became close to Karataev, fell under his influence and began to look at life as a spontaneous and natural process. Faith in goodness and truth arises again, inner independence and freedom was born. Under the influence of Karataev, Pierre's spiritual revival takes place. Like this simple peasant, Pierre begins to love life in all its manifestations, despite all the vicissitudes of fate.
Close rapprochement with the people after his release from captivity leads Pierre to Decembristism. Tolstoy talks about this in the epilogue of his novel. Over the past seven years, the old mood of passivity, contemplation has been replaced by a thirst for action and active participation in public life. Now, in 1820, Pierre's wrath and indignation are causing social orders and political oppression in his native Russia. He says to Nikolai Rostov: "There is theft in the courts, in the army there is only one stick, shagistika, settlements - they torment the people, they stifle enlightenment. What is young, honestly, is ruined!"
Pierre is convinced that the duty of all honest people is to to counteract this. It is no coincidence that Pierre becomes a member of a secret organization and even one of the main organizers of a secret political society. The association of "honest people," he believes, should play a significant role in eliminating social evil.
Personal happiness now enters Pierre's life. Now he is married to Natasha, experiences a deep love for her and his children. Happiness with an even and calm light illuminates his whole life. The main conviction that Pierre took out of his long life searches and which is close to Tolstoy himself is: "As long as there is life, there is happiness."
In the novel "War and Peace" L.N. Tolstoy presents us with different types of people, different social strata, different worlds. This is the world of the people, the world of ordinary soldiers, partisans, with their simplicity of morals, "hidden warmth of patriotism." This is also the world of the old patriarchal nobility, with its unchanging life values, represented in the novel by the Rostov and Bolkonsky families. This is also the world of high society, the world of metropolitan aristocrats, indifferent to the fate of Russia and concerned only with their own well-being, arrangement of personal affairs, career and entertainment.
One of the characteristic pictures of the life of high society, presented at the beginning of the novel, is an evening at Anna Pavlovna Sherer's. All the nobility of St. Petersburg gathers at this evening: Prince Vasily Kuragin, his daughter Helen, son Ippolit, Abbot Morio, Viscount Mortemar, Princess Drubetskaya, Princess Bolkonskaya ... What are these people talking about, what is their interests? Gossip, spicy stories, stupid jokes.
Tolstoy emphasizes the "ritual", ceremonial nature of the life of the aristocracy - the cult of empty conventions accepted in this society replaces real human relationships, feelings, real human life. The organizer of the evening, Anna Pavlovna Sherer, launches it like a big machine, and then makes sure that “all the mechanisms” in it “work” smoothly and smoothly. Most of all, Anna Pavlovna is concerned about the observance of the regulations, the necessary conventions. Therefore, she is frightened by the too loud, excited conversation of Pierre Bezukhov, his intelligent and observant look, the naturalness of behavior. The people gathered in Scherer's salon are accustomed to hiding their true thoughts, hiding them under a mask of even, non-committal courtesy. Therefore, Pierre is so strikingly different from all the guests of Anna Pavlovna. He does not have secular manners, cannot support an easy conversation, does not know how to "enter the salon."
Andrey Bolkonsky frankly misses this evening. Living rooms and balls are associated with stupidity, vanity and insignificance. Bolkonsky is also disappointed in secular women: “If only you could know what these decent women are ...,” he says bitterly to Pierre.
One of these "decent women" is in the novel "enthusiast" Anna Pavlovna Sherer. She has in stock many different options for facial expressions, gestures, in order to then apply each of them in the most suitable case. She is characterized by courtly dexterity and speed of tact, she knows how to maintain an easy, secular, “decent” conversation, knows how to “enter the salon at the right time” and “quietly leave at the right moment.” Anna Pavlovna understands perfectly well with which of the guests she can speak mockingly, with whom she can tolerate a condescending tone, with whom she must be obsequious and respectful. She treats Prince Vasily almost like a relative, offering her help in arranging the fate of his youngest son Anatole.
Another "decent" woman at the Sherer evening is Princess Drubetskaya. She came to this social event only to "proceed a definition in the guards for her only son." She smiles sweetly at those around her, is friendly and kind to everyone, listens with interest to the history of the viscount, but all her behavior is nothing more than a pretense. In reality, Anna Mikhailovna thinks only about her own business. When the conversation with Prince Vasily took place, she returns to her circle in the living room and pretends to be listening, "waiting for the time" when she can go home.
Manners, "worldly tact," exaggerated courtesy in conversation, and a complete opposite in thought - these are the "norms" of behavior in this society. Tolstoy all the time emphasizes the artificiality of secular life, its falsity. Empty, meaningless conversations, intrigues, gossip, the arrangement of personal affairs - these are the main occupations of secular lions, important bureaucratic princes, persons close to the emperor.
One of such important princes in the novel is Vasily Kuragin. As M. B. Khrapchenko notes, the main thing in this hero is “arrangement”, “constant thirst for prosperity”, which has become his second nature. “Prince Vasily did not think about his plans ... He constantly, depending on the circumstances, on rapprochement with people, drew up various plans and considerations in which he himself did not fully realize, but which constituted the whole interest of his life ... What something attracted him constantly to people stronger or richer than him, and he was gifted with a rare art of catching exactly the moment when it was necessary and possible to use people.
Prince Vasily is attracted to people not by a thirst for human communication, but by ordinary self-interest. Here the theme of Napoleon arises, with the image of which almost every character in the novel corresponds. Prince Vasily in his behavior comically reduces, even somewhere vulgarizes the image of the “great commander”. Like Napoleon, he skillfully maneuvers, makes plans, uses people for his own purposes. However, these goals, according to Tolstoy, are petty, insignificant, based on the same “thirst for prosperity”.
So, in the immediate plans of Prince Vasily - the arrangement of the destinies of his children. He marries the beautiful Helene to the "rich" Pierre, the "restless fool" Anatole dreams of marrying the wealthy Princess Bolkonskaya. All this creates the illusion of caring hero in relation to the family. However, in reality, there is no true love and cordiality in relation to Prince Vasily for children - he is simply not capable of this. His indifference to people extends to family relationships. So, with his daughter Helen, he speaks "with that careless tone of habitual tenderness, which is acquired by parents who caress their children from childhood, but which Prince Vasily was only guessed by imitating other parents."
The year 1812 does not change the way of life of the St. Petersburg aristocracy at all. Anna Pavlovna Sherer still receives guests in her chic salon. Helen Bezukhova's salon, which claims to be a kind of intellectual elitism, also enjoys great success. The French are considered a great nation here and Bonaparte is admired.
Visitors to both salons are essentially indifferent to the fate of Russia. Their life flows calmly and unhurriedly, and the invasion of the French does not seem to worry them too much. With bitter irony, Tolstoy notes this indifference, the inner emptiness of the St. Petersburg nobility: “Since 1805, we have been reconciled and quarreled with Bonaparte, we have been making constitutions and butchering them, and Anna Pavlovna’s salon and Helen’s salon were exactly the same as they had been one for seven years, another five years ago.
The inhabitants of the salons, the statesmen of the older generation, are quite consistent in the novel with the golden youth, aimlessly burning their lives in card games, dubious entertainment, revelry.
Among these people is the son of Prince Vasily, Anatole, a cynical, empty and useless young man. It is Anatole who upsets Natasha's marriage to Andrei Bolkonsky. In this circle and Dol okhov. He almost openly courts Pierre's wife, Helene, cynically talks about his victories. He practically forces Pierre to have a duel. Considering Nikolai Rostov to be his lucky rival and wanting revenge, Dolokhov draws him into a card game that literally ruins Nikolai.
Thus, depicting great light in the novel, Tolstoy exposes the falseness and unnatural behavior of the aristocracy, pettiness, narrowness of interests and "aspirations" of these people, the vulgarity of their way of life, the degradation of their human qualities and family relations, their indifference to the fate of Russia. The author contrasts this world of disunity and individualism with the world of folk life, where everything is based on human unity and the world of the old patriarchal nobility, where the concepts of “honor” and “nobility” are not replaced by conventions.
The gallery of noble types in the novel "War and Peace" is rich and varied. "Light" and society are depicted by Tolstoy with generous colors. The high society appears in the novel as a force ruling the country. If the people live in misery, then the top of society, despite the losses caused by the war, still prosper.
The center around which they are grouped is the royal court, and above all the emperor Alexander. Alexander, according to Tolstoy, is just a puppet. The fate of Russia is decided by numerous advisers, favorites, temporary workers, ministers, courtiers. The ordinary nature of the emperor lies in the fact that he does not have his own opinion, under the influence of certain persons he makes different decisions. Alexander as a person is not only weak, he is hypocritical and false, he likes to take poses. Tolstoy believes that luxury does not contribute to the development of the mind, and the habit of living in idleness devastates the personality. Around Alexander, the struggle of "parties" for influence does not stop, intrigues are constantly woven. The yard, the headquarters, the ministries are filled with a crowd of mediocre, greedy people striving for power. The government and the generals are losing one war after another. The army, robbed by quartermasters, starves, perishes from epidemics and in senseless battles. Russia enters the war of 1812 unprepared. Throughout the war, Alexander did not commit a single reasonable act, limiting himself to stupid orders and spectacular poses.
One of the representatives of high society was Prince Vasily Kuragin, a minister. His desire for enrichment knows no bounds. Sighing, he tells Scherer, "My children are a burden to my existence." His son Ippolit holds the position of a diplomat, but he speaks Russian with difficulty, he is not able to connect three words, his jokes are always stupid and meaningless. Prince Vasily catches a rich groom for his daughter Helen Kuragina. Pierre gets into his network due to naivety and natural kindness. Later, he will tell Helen: "Where you are - there is debauchery and evil."
Anatole Kuragin, another son of Prince Vasily, lives an idle life. Anatole is a guards officer who does not know which regiment he is in, he made "a trip to pleasures" the main meaning of his life. His actions are guided by animal instincts. The satisfaction of these instincts is the main engine of his life. Wine and women, carelessness and indifference to everything except their desires, become the basis of his existence. Pierre Bezukhov says about him: "Here is a true sage. Always happy, cheerful." Experienced in love affairs, Helen Kuragina helps her brother hide his inner emptiness and worthlessness. Helen herself is depraved, stupid and deceitful. But, despite this, she enjoys great success in the world, the emperor notices her, admirers are constantly spinning in the house of the countess: the best aristocrats of Russia, poets dedicate poems to her, diplomats excel in wit, the most prominent statesmen dedicate treatises. The brilliant position of the stupid and depraved Helene is a murderous exposure of noble morals.
The image of Prince Boris Drubetskoy created by Tolstoy deserves special attention. This young man going to glory and honors is "called" to replace the older generation of Russia. Already by his first steps, one can understand that Boris "will go far." He gives birth, has a cold mind, is free from conscience, outwardly very attractive. His mother, a hypocrite and a hypocrite, helps him take the first steps towards a brilliant career. The Drubetskoys owe a lot to the Rostov family, but they quickly forget about it, because the Rostovs are ruined, not so influential, and indeed, people of a different circle. Boris is a careerist. His moral code is not very complicated: the end justifies the means.
Profitable marriage, useful connections open the doors to the most powerful society for him. The end of his life is clear: Boris will reach high positions and become a "worthy" replacement for the older generation, the rulers of Russia. He will be the true support of autocratic power. The image of an adventurer, a nobleman Dolokhov, is vividly drawn by Tolstoy. Duels, drinking parties, "pranks" in the company of "golden youth", playing with one's own and other people's lives become an end in itself for him. His courage has nothing to do with the heroism of people like Denisov, Rostov, Timokhin, Bolkonsky. The image of Dolokhov is an example of adventurous militancy of the nobility.
The image of the Moscow governor Rostopchin is also quite remarkable. It is revealed with all its brightness in the scenes preceding the entry of the French into Moscow. "Rastopchin," writes Tolstoy, "had not the slightest idea of the people he was supposed to govern." The leaflets he distributes are vulgar, his orders to organize the people's defense of Moscow are harmful. Rastopchin is cruel, proud. With one stroke of the pen, he exiles innocent people suspected of treason, executes the innocent young man Vereshchagin, betraying him to an angry crowd. Links and executions of the innocent are needed in order to divert popular anger from the true culprits of the disasters in the country. The artistic expression of Tolstoy's view of the people as the creator of history, the belief that the people harbor an inexhaustible source of strength and talent, the recognition as legitimate of all forms of struggle that the people resort to to defend the Fatherland - all this puts Tolstoy's great epic in the category of the best works of world literature. This is the enduring significance of the great epic.
