Tolstoy "War and Peace". Mini-essay on the topic “The image of Andrei Bolkonsky in the novel by L.N.

After reading L.N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace,” readers encounter some images of heroes who are morally strong and set a life example for us. We see heroes who go through a difficult path to find their truth in life. This is how the image of Andrei Bolkonsky is presented in the novel “War and Peace”. The image is multifaceted, ambiguous, complex, but understandable to the reader.

Portrait of Andrei Bolkonsky

We meet Bolkonsky at the evening of Anna Pavlovna Scherer. L.N. Tolstoy gives him the following description: “...short stature, a very handsome young man with certain dry features.” We see that the prince’s presence at the evening is very passive. He came there because it was supposed to: his wife Lisa was at the evening, and he had to be next to her. But Bolkonsky is clearly bored, the author shows this in everything “... from a tired, bored look to a quiet, measured step.”

In the image of Bolkonsky in the novel “War and Peace,” Tolstoy shows an educated, intelligent, noble secular man who knows how to think rationally and be worthy of his title. Andrei loved his family very much, respected his father, the old Prince Bolkonsky, called him “You, father...” As Tolstoy writes, “... cheerfully endured his father’s ridicule of new people and with visible joy called his father to a conversation and listened to him.”

He was kind and caring, although he may not seem like that to us.

Heroes of the novel about Andrei Bolkonsky

Lisa, the wife of Prince Andrei, was somewhat afraid of her strict husband. Before leaving for the war, she told him: “...Andrey, you have changed so much, you have changed so much...”

Pierre Bezukhov “...considered Prince Andrei an example of all perfections...” His attitude towards Bolkonsky was sincerely kind and gentle. Their friendship remained faithful to the end.

Marya Bolkonskaya, Andrei’s sister, said: “You are good to everyone, Andre, but you have some kind of pride in thought.” By this she emphasized her brother’s special dignity, his nobility, intelligence, and high ideals.

Old Prince Bolkonsky had high hopes for his son, but he loved him like a father. “Remember one thing, if they kill you, it will hurt me, an old man... And if I find out that you did not behave like the son of Nikolai Bolkonsky, I will be... ashamed!” - the father said goodbye.

Kutuzov, the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, treated Bolkonsky in a fatherly manner. He received him cordially and made him his adjutant. “I need good officers myself...” said Kutuzov when Andrei asked to be released into Bagration’s detachment.

Prince Bolkonsky and the war

In a conversation with Pierre Bezukhov, Bolkonsky expressed the thought: “Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, insignificance - this is a vicious circle from which I cannot get out. Now I’m going to war, to the greatest war that has ever happened, but I don’t know anything and I’m no good.”

But Andrei’s craving for fame, for his greatest destiny was strong, he was heading towards “his Toulon” - here he is, the hero of Tolstoy’s novel. “...we are officers who serve our Tsar and Fatherland...” Bolkonsky said with true patriotism.

At the request of his father, Andrei ended up at Kutuzov’s headquarters. In the army, Andrei had two reputations, very different from each other. Some “listened to him, admired him and imitated him,” others “considered him a pompous, cold and unpleasant person.” But he made them love and respect him, some were even afraid of him.

Bolkonsky considered Napoleon Bonaparte a “great commander.” He recognized his genius and admired his talent for warfare. When Bolkonsky was assigned the mission to report to the Austrian Emperor Franz about the successful battle of Krems, Bolkonsky was proud and glad that he was the one going. He felt like a hero. But having arrived in Brunne, he learned that Vienna was occupied by the French, that there was “the Prussian Union, betrayal of Austria, a new triumph of Bonaparte...” and no longer thought about his glory. He thought about how to save the Russian army.

In the Battle of Austerlitz, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky in the novel War and Peace is at the peak of his glory. Without expecting it, he grabbed the thrown banner and shouted “Guys, go ahead!” ran towards the enemy, and the whole battalion ran after him. Andrei was wounded and fell on the field, there was only the sky above him: “... there is nothing but silence, calm. And thank God!..” Andrei’s fate after the Battle of Austrelitz was unknown. Kutuzov wrote to Bolkonsky’s father: “Your son, in my eyes, with a banner in his hands, in front of the regiment, fell as a hero worthy of his father and his fatherland... it is still unknown whether he is alive or not.” But soon Andrei returned home and decided not to participate in any military operations anymore. His life acquired apparent calm and indifference. The meeting with Natasha Rostova turned his life upside down: “Suddenly such an unexpected confusion of young thoughts and hopes, contradictory to his whole life, arose in his soul...”

Bolkonsky and love

At the very beginning of the novel, in a conversation with Pierre Bezukhov, Bolkonsky said the phrase: “Never, never get married, my friend!” Andrei seemed to love his wife Lisa, but his judgments about women speak of his arrogance: “Egoism, vanity, stupidity, insignificance in everything - these are women when they show themselves as they are. If you look at them in the light, it seems like there is something, but there’s nothing, nothing, nothing!” When he first saw Rostova, she seemed to him like a joyful, eccentric girl who only knew how to run, sing, dance and have fun. But gradually a feeling of love came to him. Natasha gave him lightness, joy, a sense of life, something Bolkonsky had long forgotten. There was no more melancholy, contempt for life, disappointment, he felt a completely different, new life. Andrei told Pierre about his love and became convinced of the idea of ​​marrying Rostova.

Prince Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova were matched. Separating for a whole year was torment for Natasha, and a test of feelings for Andrei. Having been carried away by Anatoly Kuragin, Rostova did not keep her word to Bolkonsky. But by the will of fate, Anatol and Andrei ended up together on their deathbed. Bolkonsky forgave him and Natasha. After being wounded on the Borodino field, Andrei dies. Natasha spends his last days of life with him. She looks after him very carefully, understanding and guessing with her eyes what exactly Bolkonsky wants.

Andrei Bolkonsky and death

Bolkonsky was not afraid to die. He had experienced this feeling twice already. Lying under the Austerlitz sky, he thought that death had come to him. And now, next to Natasha, he was absolutely sure that he had not lived this life in vain. Prince Andrei's last thoughts were about love, about life. He died in complete peace, because he knew and understood what love is, and what he loves: “Love? What is love?... Love interferes with death. Love is life..."

But still, in the novel “War and Peace” Andrei Bolkonsky deserves special attention. That is why, after reading Tolstoy’s novel, I decided to write an essay on the topic “Andrei Bolkonsky - the hero of the novel “War and Peace.” Although there are enough worthy heroes in this work, Pierre, Natasha, and Marya.

Work test

THE IMAGE OF ANDREY BOLKONSKY IN THE NOVEL BY L. N. TOLSTOY
"WAR AND PEACE"

“At this time a new face entered the living room. The new face was the young Prince Andrei Bolkonsky” - this is how the main, although not the author’s most beloved, hero of the novel appears in the swirl of faces in Anna Pavlovna Scherer’s salon. Prince Andrey is impeccable and fashionable. His French is impeccable. He even pronounces the name Kutuzov with emphasis on the last syllable, like a Frenchman. The dry features of his face, his adjutant uniform and his quiet, slow, old man’s step are impeccable. The picture is completed by universal boredom in the eyes.

Prince Andrei is a secular man. In this sense, he is subject to all movements and changes in fashion, not only in clothing, but above all in behavior and lifestyle.

And the quiet gait, and the boredom in his gaze, and the manner of deporting himself to those around him - everything reveals in him a follower of dandyism who is beginning to enter the secular European and Russian everyday life. Indeed, Prince Andrei is extremely distant from the visitors of the salon. His face is spoiled by a grimace, Tolstoy notes. Everything and everyone is tired and boring. Everything around us is lower and therefore worse.

But such an attitude towards the world does not affect people he likes. He is transformed when he meets Pierre. Prince Andrei's smile becomes “unexpectedly kind and pleasant.” And their further conversation is a conversation between two good comrades, and, despite the fact that Pierre is younger than Bolkonsky, a conversation between equal people who immensely respect each other.

Prince Andrei is given to us in the novel as a fully formed, complete person, in contrast to Pierre Bezukhov, whose formation takes place throughout the seven years of his novel life. Thus formed and ready, Tolstoy guides the prince through the main events of European and Russian history, through love and death. All his trials, all plot movements come down to the search for the moment of truth,” the point or event in which the personality appears behind the mask, the spiritual and, most importantly, the spiritual behind the physical.

Prince Andrei is closed, mysterious, unpredictable.

What is his matchmaking with Natasha Rostova worth? The prince fell in love with a sixteen-year-old girl. He proposed to her and received consent to marriage. After this, he calmly announces to the young bride his decision to go abroad for a year. Travel. However, it doesn’t fit here either, being absent more than necessary. The love of an innocent black-eyed girl did not awaken Bolkonsky. His soul is still sleeping.

And throughout the seven years of his novel existence, the prince is haunted by the most beautiful dream of his life. Sky of Austerlitz. Some of the best pages of the novel. At the same time, a tribute to the Byronic romance of the era. “A beautiful death,” Napoleon says, looking at Prince Andrei. There's a lot of theater and posturing here, despite a landscape filled with dead and dying people. Awakening does not come either here, or later, or even on the “glorious day of Borodin.” Everything was not real: death, love and, as a result, life itself.

The image of any person crystallizes in his relationships with others. Prince Andrei has no relationship. His movements in the plot are subject to patterns hidden from view.

Borodino. Bolkonsky's regiment is in reserve. Half of the reserve soldiers have already been knocked out. To reduce losses, the soldiers are ordered to sit down. But the officers walk under gunfire. A nobleman should not bow to bullets. A bomb falls nearby. Looking at her burning wick, the prince feels something. This something is a vital impulse. Biological origin. The desire to live. They shout to him: “Get down!” To bow to death is contrary to the internal code of honor.

Only at the end of the book, in the middle of the fourth volume, does Tolstoy reveal the secret of the soul of Prince Andrei, and perhaps the secret of the meaning of the entire book.

This applies to those one and a half pages of the book where “Prince Andrei died. But at the same moment as he died, Prince Andrei remembered that he was sleeping, and at the same moment as he died, he, making an effort on himself, woke up.” Undoubtedly the main place. For from this day begins Bolkonsky’s awakening “from life.”

According to the feeling of Prince Andrei, death released a previously dormant bright and powerful force in him, and a lightness appeared in his soul, which no longer left him.

Andrei Bolkonsky died. But there was no room for tragedy in this event. His death became the “moment of truth” of his life. The heroes of the novel say goodbye to him. But these lines are written too lightly, calmly and solemnly. There is no sorrow in them. Unless the question is: “Where is he now?”

On the pages of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy’s epic novel “War and Peace” you can meet many diverse and interesting characters from a literary point of view. Positive and negative, with their own strengths and weaknesses, in a word - the most ordinary people, of whom there are many in any city and in any country in the world. However, I would like to highlight one hero of the novel separately - of course, Andrei Bolkonsky.

Bolkonsky is a deep, extremely intelligent, proud and purposeful person. He is not afraid to openly express his opinion and is able to defend it, and when he decides to do something, he always goes to the end, without putting it off halfway. Bolkonsky is reasonable and rational, he is not prone to rash acts or inappropriate actions, and this integrity of his image certainly attracts and delights both readers and many other heroes of the work.

During military operations, Andrei Bolkonsky reveals himself not only as an educated and intelligent person with a sober mind, but also as a wise fighter, capable of showing composure and going to certain death without fearing for the safety of his own life. Bolkonsky returns from the battlefield changed - disappointed in his idol, Napoleon, aware of the need not only for constant self-development, but also in the desire to help his homeland win the war - even at the cost of his own death. True patriotism awakens in the hero, which lies precisely in love for his homeland and an unbridled desire to help it, without creating for himself either idols or human ideals.

In my opinion, Andrei Bolkonsky combines all the best qualities that can be imagined in a wise man, a brave fighter, and a loving person. He is ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of a great goal, has a philosophical attitude towards life, and at the same time is capable of deeply loving, and sincere friendship, and admitting his mistakes, and forgiving other people, which reveals him as a person of extraordinary generosity and kindness.

I believe that in his novel Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy sought to show readers what a real hero should be. Of course, the image of Andrei Bolkonsky cannot be called idealized - he is the same person as each of us, prone to introspection, and to some uncertainty, and to mental torment, but he has an inner core that can be called both willpower and strong character and iron will. This is what allows Bolkonsky to go his own way, delighting and inspiring other people, showing how important and how correct it is to be a good person, living in harmony with his conscience and his heart.

Option 2

Bolkonsky is one of the main characters of the work, through whose example the writer introduces readers to the fate of Russian people during the Russian-French war.

Going to a military battle, Bolkonsky dreams of gaining military glory and human love, since social life seems empty and worthless to him, and officer service opens up bright prospects for him and the opportunity to realize his ambitions.

Having served as Kutuzov's adjutant and been wounded, Andrei rethinks his own life and priorities in it; he is severely disappointed in Napoleon, whom he previously considered a great commander and admired for his military exploits, but now sees as a petty, insignificant, worthless person. Having recovered from his wound, Bolkonsky decides to leave the service and devote his life to his family, but the sad news awaits him that his wife died in childbirth.

With the help of a friend, Pierre Bezukhov, who convinces Andrei to continue to live on and fight excruciating suffering, Bolkonsky recovers from a life blow and meets his true love in the person of the pure, young and purposeful Natasha Rostova. The lovers get engaged, but Natasha's accidental flirtation, which Bolkonsky cannot understand and forgive, leads to their separation and dissolution of the engagement.

Andrei returns to the scene of hostilities again, no longer having any ambitious plans for his military honors; his main desire is to protect his native land and Russian people from the French invaders. At the front, Bolkonsky does not shy away from ordinary people, he cares about his colleagues, people are proud of their officer, admire and love him.

During the Battle of Borodino, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky is seriously wounded, which becomes fatal for him. Andrei accepts death calmly; it did not frighten him. The prince dies with the consciousness of fulfilling his duty to his homeland, thoughts of a life not lived in vain and true sincere love experienced. Seeing his beloved again before his death and forgiving her for betrayal, Bolkonsky feels again that enthusiastic feeling of revived love, which no longer has a future, but Andrei is still happy, because he has a road to eternity ahead of him.

Essay Image of Andrei Bolkonsky

The work of Lev Nikolaevich is the greatest value in world literature. His rare gift of writing allows him to guide the reader through joy and sorrow, through love and betrayal, through war and peace, and to show in the smallest detail the development of the inner world of each of his heroes. By reading Tolstoy, you begin to better understand the dual nature of the human soul and learn to realize the consequences of your actions in advance. One careless word can destroy someone's life, and for a moment of weakness you will have to pay for many years.

My most valuable literary image is the noble Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. He is a man of his word, a man of honor and a man of action. Tolstoy honored him with a short but bright life. By right of birth, Prince Andrei belonged to the elite of society. He was handsome, smart, educated, had a beautiful wife and all the accompanying benefits of high society. But this did not please young Bolkonsky; he considered such a life boring and meaningless. He dreamed of great things that could benefit the whole country, so at the first opportunity he went to war.

Military everyday life, devoid of secular hypocrisy and idle tinsel, allows us to consider Prince Andrei as a real person with a strong character and an integral nature. He is a hero, he is a patriot. But the prince’s extremely integral worldview, built over many years, collapses in an instant. The sky destroys it. The eternal sky above the battlefield, the serene sky above the wounded hero. And all logical structures break down, forcing Andrei Bolkonsky to build a new theory of his existence. It’s so Tolstoyan, to take and destroy all the hero’s previous life guidelines in one shot. And then, after the war, there will be peace.

A wonderful world in which there is hope, love and young Natasha. She is so young that she has not yet seen either a war or a ball. It is a logical continuation of the blue sky, which told the prince about a new life, about a new world, where there are other simple human meanings. Not only the aristocratic public, but also ordinary people. Bolkonsky is interested in reform activities, but the bureaucratic machine quickly disappoints the big-thinking prince. In addition, the peaceful utopia of Andrei Bolkonsky is destroyed by the innocent Natasha Rostova.

This betrayal hurt the noble prince. The last peace of mind was given to Prince Andrei at the highest price. On his deathbed, he comes to a whole armful of new feelings that allow him to learn to forgive. Natasha, who has grown up and became familiar with betrayal and war, is caring for the terminally ill Andrei.

Why Tolstoy decided to kill my favorite hero remains a mystery to me. Apparently, to emphasize that a person cannot live in a too contrasting world of black and white thinking. Because life is precisely in the intervals between war and peace, where you need to be able to forgive, find compromises or answer for your thoughts to the fullest extent.

The figure of Prince Andrei is one of the most controversial in the novel. The hero’s self-awareness and worldview go through a long and complex evolutionary path throughout the entire work. The character's values ​​change, as well as his idea of ​​family, love, war and peace.

For the first time, the reader meets the prince surrounded by people from secular society and a young pregnant wife who fits perfectly into this circle. The clearest contrast is between Andrei and Lisa: she is soft, round, open and friendly, he is prickly, angular, withdrawn and somewhat arrogant. She prefers the noise of social salons, and he is close only to the thunder of military operations; in peacetime, Bolkonsky would choose village silence and solitude. They are too different and are doomed to a complete misunderstanding of each other's worldviews. The little princess is alien to Andrei’s tossing and turning, his thorny path of finding himself, and he, fixated on introspection, notices only the external lightness of his wife’s character, which he mistakenly interprets as the emptiness of the inner world. The hero does not know what to do with his young family; he is too vague about the responsibilities of a husband and father and does not want to understand them. The example given to him by his parent also cannot positively influence the situation. Nikolai Bolkonsky raises his children in strictness; he is stingy with communication and, even more so, with affection.

Andrei Bolkonsky is very similar to his father. Perhaps that is why he has such a strong desire for military glory. He better understands the realities of war, feels needed and applicable in this area, and therefore strives in every possible way to protect himself from the environment of an inactive, eternally idle light. He hurries to the front, leaving his family behind, like some kind of ballast holding him back on his way to the heights looming before him. Prince Andrei still realizes what he has deprived himself of, but it will be too late. The death of his wife will make him take a new look at the people around him. Bolkonsky will feel guilty before the little princess for the inattention that he always bestowed on her. He will try to build his relationship with his father, sister, and later with his growing son differently.

Many significant events will happen in the life of this person, which will one way or another influence his worldview. Even before the tragic death of Princess Lisa, the “immeasurably high” sky of Austerlitz appears to Andrey. This will be Bolkonsky's first encounter with death. He will see the world around him as quiet and calm, the way the prince’s relatives and friends accept and love him. He will feel happy.

His soul will never calm down, and will forever demand something unattainable. He would feel in his element again when he returned to the front, but by then his days would be numbered. Having received a mortal wound in the Battle of Borodino, Andrei Bolkonsky will end his journey in the arms of Natasha Rostova and Princess Marya.

Bolkonsky's sister always tried to soften her brother and reconcile him with life. Princess Marya, accompanying Andrei on his last journey, helps him accept death and return to God without fear. Perhaps only there his soul can find peace.

One of the heroes close to the author is undoubtedly Andrei Bolkonsky. From the first pages of the novel, Andrei Bolkonsky stands out not only for his external smartness and composure, but also for the fact that, like no one else, he is aware of his personal capabilities and wants to realize them. It is not promotion in rank or awards, but precisely the fulfillment of oneself as an individual that the younger Bolkonsky desires and therefore refuses a career that can be achieved through connections, and not at the expense of personal merit.

It is no coincidence that Napoleon is an idol for Prince Andrei: an unknown Corsican nobleman who became the ruler of all of Europe, for the young Bolkonsky he is, first of all, a model of what he could achieve himself. An exaggerated idea of ​​the self-worth of the individual became one of the reasons for the moral collapse that Prince Andrei suffered on the Field of Austerlitz, when he realized the insignificance of fame, for the sake of which he could abandon even the people closest and dearest to him. His idea of ​​heroism completely changes after being wounded. The disappointment in his idol, Napoleon, who seemed to him a small, forty-year-old man in a gray frock coat, was severe. And the debunking of his hero was completed with the thought that this man could be happy through the misfortune of others. Only a sincerely honest and thinking person could see such an anti-human essence of his hero.

The War of 1812 causes an upsurge of spiritual strength in Bolkonsky. Prince Andrei serves as an ordinary regimental commander, whom the soldiers love and call “our prince.” Bolkonsky’s views, developed over years of hard thought, are revealed in a conversation with Pierre Bezukhov before the battle. The prince realized that the outcome of the battle depended primarily on the “spirit of the army,” his confidence in victory and the desire to be stronger than the enemy.

According to the author's plan, Prince Andrei was killed. Why did he die anyway? In a dying dream, in which the prince saw all the futility of his lived life and all the futility of his hope for happiness, which eluded him every time as soon as he approached him at arm's length. This is what happened near Austerlitz, when it seemed to him that he had reached his “Toulon”; this was the case in St. Petersburg, when he found himself almost at the pinnacle of power together with Speransky. So it was later, when, hurrying to Russia, to Natasha, he did not know that her letter had already been written, in which she refused him; this could happen now, when the possibility of happiness dawned on him in the form of gospel all-forgiving love. But would Prince Andrei be able to live in such a way as to “love his enemies”?

He dreamed of all this in that strange prophetic dream, which was only a repetition of the prince’s thoughts on the eve of the Battle of Borodino, when everything “that had previously tormented and occupied him was suddenly illuminated by a cold white light, without shadows, without perspective, without distinction of outlines.” He died tired of his ups and downs, hopes and disappointments. He died, tired of life, not wanting to survive.

If Prince Andrei had not died, he would inevitably have ended up on Senate Square on December 14, 1825. The poems of A. Gorodnitsky speak about the fate of the Decembrists, as about the fate of the prince himself, if he had remained alive:

The candle is running out, running out.

The night twilight is long,

Your friends are swinging in a loop

At the Peter and Paul Wall.

Your friends are covered in stage dust

They wander, bending down dejectedly

How timely they killed you. Prince!