The main characters of the novel are war and peace. The main characters of the novel War and Peace essay

The image of Pierre Bezukhov in the novel “War and Peace”. Essay based on Tolstoy's novel - War and Peace. Pierre Bezukhov, by his character and by his make-up, is predominantly an emotional person. His characteristic features are a mind prone to “dreamy philosophizing,” free-thinking, absent-mindedness, weakness of will, and lack of initiative. This does not mean that Prince Andrei is not capable of experiencing deep feelings, and Pierre is a weak thinker; both are complex natures. The terms “intellectual” and “emotional” mean in this case the predominant features of the spiritual forces of these extraordinary individuals. Pierre stands out sharply from the crowd of people in the Scherer salon, where we first meet him. This is “a massive, fat young man with a cropped head, glasses, light trousers in the fashion of the time, a high frill and a brown tailcoat.” His look is “intelligent and at the same time timid, observant and natural.” His main feature is the search for “calmness, agreement with oneself.” Pierre's entire life path is a constant search for the meaning of life, a search for a life that would be in harmony with the needs of his heart and would bring him moral satisfaction. In this he is similar to Andrei Bolkonsky.

Pierre's path, like the path of Prince Andrei, this is the way to the people. Even during the period of his passion for Freemasonry, he decides to devote his energies to the improvement of the peasants. He considers it necessary to set his serfs free; he is thinking about establishing hospitals, orphanages and schools in his villages. True, the cunning manager deceives Pierre and only creates the appearance of reforms. But Pierre is sincerely confident that his peasants are now living well. His real rapprochement with the common people begins in captivity, when he meets the soldiers and Karataev. Pierre begins to feel the desire to become simpler, to completely merge with the people. The lordly life, the social salons, the luxury of the tomyaga do not satisfy Pierre. He painfully feels his isolation from

Images of Natasha and Princess Marie in the novel “War and Peace”. But Natasha and Princess Marya also have common features.. Both of them are patriots. Natasha did not hesitate to sacrifice the wealth of the Moscow Rostov house to save the wounded. And Princess Marya abandons the estate to the mercy of fate as the French approach. When the homeland is in danger, family traits awaken in it - pride, courage, firmness. This is what happened in Bogucharovo, when her French companion invited her to stay on the estate and trust the mercy of the French general, the mercy of the enemies of Russia, her homeland. And “although it didn’t matter to Princess Marya no matter where she stayed and no matter what happened to her, she at the same time felt like a representative of her late father and Prince Andrei. She involuntarily thought with their thoughts and felt them with their feelings.” And there is one more feature that makes Natasha and Princess Marya similar. Princess Marya marries Nikolai Rostov, and Tolstoy, drawing them family life, speaks of the happiness that she, like Natasha, found in the family. This is how Tolstoy solves the question of the purpose of a woman, limiting her interests to the framework of family life.

Let us recall another episode of Nikolai Rostov’s meeting with Sonya, when he, having arrived on vacation, does not know how to behave with his beloved girl. “He kissed her hand and called her you - Sonya, but their eyes, having met, said “you” to each other and kissed tenderly.”

Tolstoy's favorite heroes are people with a complex spiritual world. In revealing such characters, Tolstoy resorts to different techniques: to direct characterization from the author, to self-characterization of the hero, to internal dialogues and reflections, etc. Internal monologues and internal dialogues allow the author to discover such innermost thoughts and moods of the characters, which could be conveyed in another way (for example, using direct authorial characterization) would be difficult without violating the laws of artistic realism. Tolstoy resorts to such monologues and dialogues very often. An example of an “internal monologue” with elements of dialogue can be the reflections of the wounded Prince Andrei in Chapter XXXII of the third volume of the novel. Here is another example of an “inner monologue” - the reflections of Natasha, childishly and spontaneously reasoning about herself: “What a charm this Natasha is!” - she said again to herself in the words of some third collective male person. “She’s good, she has a voice, she’s young, and she doesn’t bother anyone, just leave her alone” (Chapter XXIII of the second volume).

The image of Andrei Bolkonsky. The outside world with its things and phenomena is also skillfully used by Tolstoy to characterize the heroes. Thus, describing Natasha’s mood after the unexpected departure of Andrei Bolkonsky (before the matchmaking), Tolstoy reports that Natasha completely calmed down and “put on that old dress that she was especially known for the joy it brought in the morning.” Tolstoy is a brilliant landscape painter. He will note the young “green sticky leaves” of the birch, and the bush turning green somewhere, and the “juicy, dark green of the oak,” and the moonlight bursting into the room, and the freshness of the spring night. Let us remember the wonderfully described hunt in Otradnoye. Both people, animals, and nature appear here as indicators of the powerful force of life, its plethora. The landscape serves various functions in the novel. Most common feature Tolstoy's landscape is the correspondence of this landscape to the mood of the hero. The disappointment and gloomy mood of Prince Andrei after the break with Natasha colors the surrounding landscape in gloomy tones. “He looked at the strip of birch trees, with their motionless yellow, green and white bark, glistening in the sun. “To die... so that they would kill me, tomorrow, so that I wouldn’t exist... so that all this would happen, but I wouldn’t exist...” He is tormented by terrible premonitions and painful thoughts about death. And these birches with their light and shadow, and these curly clouds, and this smoke from the fires - all this around was transformed for him and seemed something terrible and threatening. And the poetry of Natasha’s nature, on the contrary, is revealed against the backdrop of a spring moonlit night in Otradnoye. In other cases, the landscape directly affects a person, enlightening and making him wise. Prince Andrei, wounded at Austerlitz, looks at the sky and thinks: “Yes! Everything is empty, everything is deception, except this endless sky.” The oak tree, which Prince Andrei meets twice on his way, reveals to him the “meaning of life” in completely different ways: in one case it seems to Prince Andrei the personification of hopelessness, in the other - a symbol of joyful faith in happiness.

Finally, Tolstoy uses landscape as a means of characterizing the real situation. Let us just remember the heavy fog that spread like a continuous milky-white sea over the outskirts of Austerlitz. Thanks to this fog, which covered the French positions, the Russian and Austrian troops were put in a worse position, since they did not see the enemy and unexpectedly came face to face with him. Napoleon, standing at a height where it was completely light, could accurately lead his troops.

The image of Napoleon in the novel "War and Peace". Napoleon confronts in the novel Napoleon. Tolstoy debunks this commander and outstanding historical figure. Drawing the appearance of Napoleon, the author of the novel says that he was a “little man” with an “unpleasantly feigned smile” on his face, with “fat breasts”, “a round belly” and “fat spoons of short legs”. Tolstoy shows Napoleon as a narcissistic and arrogant ruler of France, intoxicated with success, blinded by glory, attributing to his personality a driving role in the course of historical events. Even in small scenes, in the slightest gestures, one can feel, according to Tolstoy, the insane pride of Napoleon, his acting, the conceit of a man accustomed to believing that every movement of his hand scatters happiness or sows grief among thousands of people. The servility of those around him raised him to such a height that he truly believed in his ability to change the course of history and influence the destinies of nations.

In contrast to Kutuzov, who does not attach decisive importance to his personal will, Napoleon puts himself, his personality above all else, and considers himself a superman. “Only what happened in his soul was of interest to him. Everything that was outside of him did not matter to him, because everything in the world, as it seemed to him, depended only on his will.” The word "I" - favorite word Napoleon. Napoleon emphasizes selfishness, individualism and rationality - traits that are absent in Kutuzov, the people's commander, who thinks not about his own glory, but about the glory and freedom of the fatherland. Revealing the ideological content of the novel, we have already noted the originality of Tolstoy's interpretation of individual themes of the novel. Thus, we have already said that Tolstoy, going against the revolutionary peasant democracy, obscures in the novel the severity of the class contradictions between the peasantry and the landowners; revealing, for example, the restless thoughts of Pierre Bezukhov about the plight of the serf slaves, he at the same time paints pictures of the idyllic relationships between landowners and peasants on the Rostov estate and house. We also noted the features of idealization in the image of Karataev, the originality of the interpretation of the role of the individual in history, etc.

How can these features of the novel be explained? Their source must be sought in Tolstoy’s worldview, which reflected the contradictions of his time. Tolstoy was great artist. His novel “War and Peace” is one of greatest masterpieces world art, a brilliant work in which the breadth of epic scope was combined with an amazing depth of penetration into the spiritual life of people. But Tolstoy lived in Russia in a transitional era, in an era of disruption of the social and economic foundations of life, when the country was moving from a feudal-serf system to capitalist forms of life, violently protesting, in the words of Lenin, “against all class domination.” Tolstoy, landowner and aristocrat , found a way out for himself in the transition to the position of the patriarchal peasantry. Belinsky, in his articles about Tolstoy, revealed with remarkable depth all the contradictions that affected Tolstoy’s worldview and work in connection with his transition to the position of the patriarchal peasantry. These contradictions could not help but be reflected in the artistic structure of the novel War and Peace. Tolstoy, great realist and the Protestant ultimately triumphed over Tolstoy, the religious philosopher, and created a work that has no equal in world literature. But reading the novel, we still cannot help but feel the contradictions in the worldview of its author.

The image of Kutuzov in the novel "War and Peace". In the novel, Tolstoy ridicules the cult of “great personalities” created by bourgeois historians. He correctly believes that the course of history is decided by the masses. But the assessment of the role the masses takes on a religious connotation. He comes to the recognition of fatalism, arguing that all historical events are predetermined from above. Tolstoy makes the commander Kutuzov the exponent of his views in the novel. The basis of his view is the consciousness that the creator of history and historical events is the people, and not individuals (heroes), and that all sorts of rationalistically constructed theories, no matter how good they may seem, are nothing compared to the force that is the mood, the spirit of the masses.

"Long years of military experience“, Tolstoy writes about Kutuzov, “he knew and with his senile mind understood that it was impossible for one person to lead hundreds of thousands of people fighting death, and he knew that the fate of the battle is not decided by the orders of the commander-in-chief, not by the place where the troops stand, not by the number guns and killed people, and that elusive force called the spirit of the army, and he watched over this force and led it, as far as it was in his power.” Tolstoy also attributed to Kutuzov his erroneous fatalistic view of history, according to which the outcome of historical events was predetermined. Andrei Bolkonsky says about Kutuzov: “He won’t come up with anything, won’t do anything, but he will listen to everything, remember everything, put everything in its place, won’t interfere with anything useful and won’t allow anything harmful. He understands that there is something stronger and more significant than his will - this is the inevitable course of events - and he knows how to see them, knows how to understand their meaning and, in view of this meaning, knows how to renounce participation in these events, from his personal will aimed at other..."

Denying the role of personality in history, Tolstoy sought to make Kutuzov only a wise observer of historical events, only a passive contemplator of them. This, of course, was Tolstoy's mistake. It inevitably had to lead to a contradictory assessment of Kutuzov. And so it happened. The novel features a commander who extremely accurately assesses the course of military events and unerringly directs them. With the help of a well-thought-out plan of counter-offensives, Kutuzov destroys Napoleon and his army. Consequently, in a number of essential features, Kutuzov is shown historically correctly in the novel: he has great strategic skill, spends long nights thinking through the campaign plan, acts as an active figure, hiding enormous volitional tension behind external calm. This is how the realist artist overcame the philosophy of fatalism. A bearer of the people's spirit and people's will, Kutuzov deeply and correctly understood the course of things, in the midst of events he gave them the correct assessment, which was confirmed later. Thus, he correctly assessed the significance of the Battle of Borodino, saying that it was a victory. As a commander, Kutuzov stands above Napoleon. To wage a people's war, such as the war of 1812, such a commander was needed, says Tolstoy. With the expulsion of the French, Kutuzov's mission was completed. Transferring the war to Europe required a different commander in chief. “The representative of the Russian people, after the enemy was destroyed, Russia was liberated and placed on the highest level of its glory, the Russian person, as a Russian, had nothing more to do. The representative of the people's war had no choice but death. And he died."

Portraying Kutuzov as people's commander, as the embodiment of people's thoughts, will and feelings. Tolstoy never falls into schematism. Kutuzov is a living person. We get this impression primarily because Tolstoy clearly, vividly paints us a portrait of Kutuzov - his figure, gait and gestures, facial expressions, his eyes, now glowing with a pleasant, affectionate smile, now taking on a mocking expression. Tolstoy gives it to us either in the perception of persons of different character and social status, or draws it from himself, delving into the psychological analysis of his hero. What makes Kutuzov deeply human and alive are scenes and episodes depicting the commander in conversations with people close and pleasant to him, such as Bolkonsky, Denisov, Bagration, his behavior at military councils, in the battles of Austerlitz and Borodino. Kutuzov's speech is diverse in its lexical composition and syntactic structure. He is fluent in high society speech when speaking or writing to the tsar, generals and other representatives of aristocratic society. “I say only one thing, General,” says Kutuzov with a pleasant elegance of expressions and intonations, forcing you to listen carefully to every leisurely spoken word. “I only say one thing, General, that if the matter depended on my personal desire, then the will of His Majesty Emperor Franz would have been completed long ago." But he also has an excellent command of simple folk language. “Here’s what, brothers. I know it’s difficult for us, but what can we do! Be patient: there’s not long left... We’ll see the guests out, then we’ll rest,” he told the soldiers, meeting them on the road from Krasny to Dobroye. And in a letter to the old man Bolkonsky, he reveals the archaic features of the clerical style of this era: “I flatter myself and you with hope that your son is alive, for otherwise, among the officers found on the battlefield, about whom the list was submitted to me through parliamentarians, he would was named."

Anatol Kuragin

He is the son of Prince Vasily, brother of Helen and Hippolyte. Prince Vasily himself looks at his son as a “restless fool” who constantly needs to be rescued from various troubles. A. very handsome, dandy, impudent. He is frankly stupid, not resourceful, but popular in society because “he had both the ability of calm and unchangeable confidence, precious for the world.” A. Dolokhov’s friend, constantly participates in his revelries, looks at life as a constant flow of pleasures and pleasures. He doesn't care about other people, he is selfish. A. treats women with contempt, feeling his superiority. He was used to being liked by everyone without experiencing anything serious in return. A. became interested in Natasha Rostova and tried to take her away. After this incident, the hero was forced to flee Moscow and hide from Prince Andrei, who wanted to challenge the seducer of his bride to a duel. The last time they see each other is in the infirmary, after the Battle of Borodino. A. was wounded and his leg was amputated.

Andrey Bolkonsky

This is one of the main characters of the novel, the son of Prince Bolkonsky, brother Princess Marya. At the beginning of the novel we see B. as an intelligent, proud, but rather arrogant person. He despises people of high society, is unhappy in his marriage and does not respect his pretty wife. B. is very reserved, well educated, and has a strong will. This hero is experiencing great spiritual changes. First we see that his idol is Napoleon, whom he considers a great man. B. gets into war and is sent to the active army. There he fights along with all the soldiers, showing great courage, composure, and prudence. Participates in the Battle of Shengraben. B. was seriously wounded in the Battle of Austerlitz. This moment is extremely important, because it was then that the spiritual rebirth of the hero began. Lying motionless and seeing calm and eternal sky Austerlitz, B. understands all the pettiness and stupidity of everything that happens in the war. He realized that in fact there should be completely different values ​​in life than those that he had until now. All exploits and glory do not matter. There is only this vast and eternal sky. In the same episode, B. sees Napoleon and understands the insignificance of this man. B. returns home, where everyone thought he was dead. His wife dies in childbirth, but the child survives. The hero is shocked by the death of his wife and feels guilty towards her. He decides not to serve anymore, settles in Bogucharovo, takes care of the household, raising his son, and reads a lot of books. During a trip to St. Petersburg, B. meets Natasha Rostova for the second time. A deep feeling awakens in him, the heroes decide to get married. B.'s father does not agree with his son's choice, they postpone the wedding for a year, the hero goes abroad. After his fiancee betrays him, he returns to the army under the leadership of Kutuzov. During the Battle of Borodino, he was mortally wounded. By chance, he leaves Moscow in the Rostov convoy. Before his death, he forgives Natasha and understands the true meaning of love.

Anna Pavlovna Sherer

Maid of honor, close to Empress Maria Feodorovna. Sh. is the owner of a fashionable salon in St. Petersburg, the description of the evening in which opens the novel. A.P. 40 years old, she is artificial, like all the high society. Her attitude towards any person or event depends entirely on the latest political, courtly or secular considerations. She is friends with Prince Vasily. Sh. is “full of animation and impulse,” “being an enthusiast has become her social position.” In 1812, her salon demonstrates false patriotism by eating cabbage soup and fining her for speaking French.

Bagration

This is real historical figure, one of the most famous Russian military leaders, hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, bears the title of prince. Tolstoy says that B. is “short, with an oriental type of hard and motionless face, dry, not yet an old man.” In the novel, we mainly see him as the commander of the Battle of Shengraben, whom Kutuzov blessed to save the army. Just B.'s presence on the battlefield already helps the fighters. Everyone loves and respects him for his determination and courage. During the most decisive moment of the battle, B. does not give visible orders, but dismounts and goes into battle ahead of the entire army. During the Battle of Austerlitz, B. also showed his heroism. He alone repulsed the enemy, who was clearly twice as strong, and then, during the retreat, he led his column out of the battlefield undisturbed. Tolstoy notes that when a dinner was given in honor of B., in his person “honor was given to a fighting, simple, without connections or intrigue, Russian soldier...”.

German, first the groom, and then the husband of Vera Rostova. This is "a fresh, pink guards officer, immaculately washed, buttoned and combed." At the beginning of the work, B. is a lieutenant, and at the end of the work he becomes a colonel, from which one can see that B. has made a good career. He is precise, calm, courteous, but very selfish and stingy. He loves and can only talk about himself and his successes. Those around him laugh at him; he is a stranger in the Rostov house. They do not understand his prudence and stinginess. B. proposes to Vera and demands the promised dowry from the old count, despite the difficult financial situation of the Rostovs. This hero is clearly unpleasant and alien to Tolstoy himself.

Boris Drubetskoy

Son of Princess Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskaya. From childhood he was brought up and lived for a long time in the house of the Rostovs, to whom he was a relative. B. and Natasha were in love with each other. Outwardly, he is “a tall, blond young man with regular, delicate features of a calm and handsome face.” Since his youth, B. has dreamed of a military career and allows his mother to humiliate herself in front of her superiors if it helps him. So, Prince Vasily finds him a place in the guard. B. is going to make a brilliant career and makes many useful contacts. After a while he becomes Helen's lover. B. manages to be in the right place at the right time, and his career and position are especially firmly established. In 1809 he meets Natasha again and becomes interested in her, even thinking about marrying her. But this would hinder his career. Therefore, B. begins to look for a rich bride. He eventually marries Julie Karagina.

Vasily Kuragin

Prince, father of Helen, Anatole and Hippolyte. This is a very famous and quite influential person in society; he occupies an important court post. Prince V.'s attitude towards everyone around him is condescending and patronizing. The author shows his hero “in a courtly, embroidered uniform, in stockings, shoes, with stars, with a bright expression on a flat face,” with a “perfumed and shining bald head.” But when he smiled, there was “something unexpectedly rude and unpleasant” in his smile. Prince V. specifically does not wish harm on anyone. He simply uses people and circumstances to carry out his plans. V. always strives to get closer to people who are richer and higher in position than him. The hero considers himself an exemplary father; he does everything possible to arrange the future of his children. He is trying to marry his son Anatole to the rich princess Marya Bolkonskaya. After the death of the old Prince Bezukhov and Pierre receiving a huge inheritance, V. notices a rich groom and cunningly marries his daughter Helene to him. Prince V. is a great intriguer who knows how to live in society and make acquaintances with the right people.

Count Rostov

Rostov Ilya Andreevi - count, father of Natasha, Nikolai, Vera and Petya. A very good-natured, generous person who loves life and does not really know how to calculate his money. R. is capable of hosting a reception or a ball better than anyone; he is a hospitable host and an exemplary family man. The count is accustomed to living in grand style, and when his means no longer allow this, he gradually ruins his family, from which he suffers greatly. When leaving Moscow, it is R. who begins to give carts for the wounded. So he deals one of the last blows to the family budget. The death of Petya's son finally broke the count; he comes to life only when he prepares a wedding for Natasha and Pierre. In the same year, R. dies and leaves behind a good memory.

Countess of Rostov

The wife of Count Rostov, “a woman with an oriental type of thin face, about forty-five years old, apparently exhausted by children... The slowness of her movements and speech, resulting from weakness of strength, gave her a significant appearance that inspires respect.” R. creates an atmosphere of love and kindness in his family and is very concerned about the fate of his children. The news of the death of her youngest and beloved son Petya almost drives her crazy. She is accustomed to luxury and fulfillment of the slightest whims, and demands this after the death of her husband.

The author describes Fyodor Dolokhov as follows: “Dolokhov was a man of average height, curly haired and with light, blue eyes. He was about twenty-five years old. He did not wear a mustache, like all infantry officers, and his mouth, the most striking feature of his face, was all visible. The lines of this mouth were remarkably finely curved. In the middle, the upper lip energetically dropped onto the strong lower lip like a sharp wedge, and in the corners something like two smiles were constantly formed, one on each side; and all together, and especially in connection with the hard , with an insolent, intelligent look, made such an impression that it was impossible not to notice this face.” This hero is not rich, but he knows how to position himself in such a way that everyone around him respects and fears him. He loves to have fun, and in a rather strange and sometimes cruel way. For one case of bullying a policeman, D. was demoted to soldier. But during the hostilities he regained his rank of officer. He is a smart, brave and cold-blooded person. He is not afraid of death, he is reputed an evil person, hides his tender love for his mother. In fact, D. does not want to know anyone except those he really loves. He divides people into harmful and useful, sees mostly harmful people around him and is ready to get rid of them if they suddenly get in his way. D. was Helen's lover, he provokes Pierre into a duel, dishonestly beats Nikolai Rostov at cards, and helps Anatole arrange an escape with Natasha.

Captain Tushin

This is the staff captain, the hero of the Battle of Shengraben. T. is a short man with a thin voice; there was something “non-military, somewhat comical, but extremely attractive” about him. This hero is shy in front of his superiors, feels guilty and small. On the eve of the battle, T. talks about the fear of death and what awaits after it. But during the battle the hero is transformed. He feels like “a huge, powerful man who throws cannonballs at the French with both hands.” Battery T. was forgotten during the battle. During the battle, the staff captain is no longer afraid of death or injury, he becomes more and more cheerful, the soldiers obey him like children. The soldiers miraculously survive thanks to T.'s heroism.

Princess Marya

Daughter of old Prince Bolkonsky and sister of Andrei Bolkonsky. M. is ugly, sickly, but her whole face is transformed by her beautiful eyes: “... the princess’s eyes, large, deep and radiant (as if rays of warm light sometimes came out of them in sheaves), were so beautiful that very often, despite her ugliness the whole face, these eyes became more attractive than beauty." Princess M. is distinguished by her great religiosity. She often hosts all kinds of pilgrims and wanderers. She has no close friends, she lives under the yoke of her father, whom she loves but is incredibly afraid of. Old Prince Bolkonsky had a bad character, M. was absolutely overwhelmed by him and did not believe in her personal happiness at all. She gives all her love to her father, brother Andrei and his son, trying to replace little Nikolenka deceased mother. M.'s life changes after meeting Nikolai Rostov. It was he who saw all the wealth and beauty of her soul. They get married, M. becomes a devoted wife, completely sharing all the views of her husband.

Kuragina Elen

Kuragina Helen is the daughter of Prince Vasily, and then the wife of Pierre Bezukhov. A brilliant St. Petersburg beauty with an “unchanging smile”, white full shoulders, glossy hair and a beautiful figure. There was no noticeable coquetry in her, as if she was ashamed “of her undoubtedly and too powerfully and victoriously acting beauty.” E. is unperturbed, giving everyone the right to admire herself, which is why she feels like she has a gloss from many other people’s glances. She knows how to be silently dignified in the world, giving the impression of a tactful and intelligent woman, which, combined with beauty, ensures her constant success. Having married Pierre Bezukhov, the heroine reveals to her husband not only limited intelligence, coarseness of thought and vulgarity, but also cynical depravity. After breaking up with Pierre and receiving a large part of the fortune from him by proxy, she lives either in St. Petersburg, then abroad, or returns to her husband. Despite the family breakup, the constant change of lovers, including Dolokhov and Drubetskoy, E. continues to remain one of the most famous and favored ladies of St. Petersburg society. She is making very great progress in the world; Living alone, she becomes the mistress of a diplomatic and political salon and gains a reputation as an intelligent woman. Having decided to convert to Catholicism and considering the possibility of divorce and a new marriage, entangled between two very influential high-ranking lovers and patrons, E. dies in 1812.

A real historical figure, commander-in-chief of the Russian army. For Tolstoy, he is the ideal of a historical figure and the ideal of a person. “He will listen to everything, remember everything, put everything in its place, will not interfere with anything useful and will not allow anything harmful. He understands that there is something stronger and more significant than his will - this is the inevitable course of events, and he knows how to see them, knows how to understand their meaning and, in view of this meaning, knows how to renounce participation in these events, from his personal will aimed at something else.” K. knew that “the fate of the battle is decided not by the orders of the commander-in-chief, not by the place where the troops stand, not by the number of guns and killed people, but by that elusive force called the spirit of the army, and he followed this force and led it, as far as it was in his power." K. blends in with the people, he is always modest and simple. His behavior is natural; the author constantly emphasizes his heaviness and senile weakness. K. is the exponent of folk wisdom in the novel. His strength lies in the fact that he understands and knows well what worries the people, and acts in accordance with this. K. dies when he has fulfilled his duty. The enemy has been driven beyond the borders of Russia; this folk hero has nothing more to do.

Lisa Bolkonskaya

Prince Andrei's wife. She is the darling of the whole world, an attractive young woman whom everyone calls “the little princess.” “Her pretty upper lip, with a slightly blackened mustache, was short in the teeth, but the more sweetly it opened and sometimes stretched out even more sweetly and fell onto the lower one. As always happens with quite attractive women, her shortcoming - short lips and half-open mouth - seemed "Her special, actually her beauty. Everyone was happy to look at this pretty future mother, full of health and liveliness, who endured her situation so easily." L. was everyone’s favorite thanks to her constant liveliness and courtesy of a society woman; she could not imagine her life without high society. But Prince Andrei did not love his wife and felt unhappy in his marriage. L. does not understand her husband, his aspirations and ideals. After Andrei leaves for the war, L. lives in the Bald Mountains with the old Prince Bolkonsky, for whom he feels fear and hostility. L. has a presentiment of his imminent death and actually dies during childbirth.

Napoleon

This is a real historical figure french emperor. Tolstoy decided to debunk the legend of Napoleon from the standpoint of true humanism. At the beginning of the novel, this man is the idol of Andrei Bolkonsky; Pierre Bezukhov considers N. a Great Man. But gradually these best heroes of Tolstoy become disillusioned with their idol.

Description of work

Anatol Kuragin
He is the son of Prince Vasily, brother of Helen and Hippolyte. Prince Vasily himself looks at his son as a “restless fool” who constantly needs to be rescued from various troubles. A. very handsome, dandy, impudent. He is frankly stupid, not resourceful, but popular in society because “he had both the ability of calm and unchangeable confidence, precious for the world.” A. Dolokhov’s friend, constantly participates in his revelries, looks at life as a constant flow of pleasures and pleasures.

“War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy is not just a classic novel, but a real heroic epic, the literary value of which is incomparable to any other work. The writer himself considered it a poem in which a person’s private life is inseparable from the history of an entire country.

It took Leo Nikolaevich 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. Bersom. 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 to be the official beginning 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, which he thinks about as never before.

History of creation

The writer's original idea 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 supposed to be 1856. But then Tolstoy changed his plans, deciding to depict everything from the beginning of the Decembrist uprising of 1825. And this was not destined to come true: the writer’s third idea was the desire to describe the hero’s young years, 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 individuals who went through all the hardships of different historical periods in the life of the country.

The title of the novel had several variations. “Workers” was the name “Three Times”: 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 took place in the history of Russia - Crimean War, the passing of Nicholas I, the return of amnestied Decembrists from Siberia. In the final version, the writer decided to focus on the first stage, 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 this time, he tried more than once to quit his job, because in his opinion it was impossible to convey the entire plan on paper. Historians say that in the writer’s archive there were fifteen versions of the beginning of the epic. In the process of his work, Lev Nikolaevich tried to find answers for himself 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 everything information sources they assessed both Napoleon and Alexander I differently. Then Tolstoy decided to move away from the subjective statements of strangers and reflect in the novel his own assessment of events, based on true facts. From diverse sources he borrowed documentary materials, notes from contemporaries, newspaper and magazine articles, letters from generals, and archival documents of the Rumyantsev Museum.

(Prince Rostov and Akhrosimova Marya Dmitrievna)

Considering it necessary to visit the scene of events, Tolstoy spent two days in Borodino. It was important for him to personally travel 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 the opportunity to experience the spirit of history in a new way; became a kind of inspiration for further work. For seven years, the work proceeded with elation and “burning.” The manuscripts consisted of more than 5,200 sheets. Therefore, War and Peace is easy to read even after a century and a half.

Analysis of the novel

Description

(Napoleon is thoughtful before the battle)

The novel “War and Peace” touches on a sixteen-year period in Russian history. The starting date is 1805, the final date is 1821. The work contains more than 500 characters. These are both real-life people and those fictitious by the writer to add color to the description.

(Kutuzov, before the Battle of Borodino, considers 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 the Austerlitz, Shengraben, Borodino battles; capture of Smolensk and surrender of Moscow. More than 20 chapters are devoted specifically to the Battle of Borodino, as the main decisive event of 1812.

(The illustration shows an episode of Natasha Rostova's Ball from their 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, make peace, hate, suffer... In the confrontation between different characters, Tolstoy shows the difference in moral principles individuals. The writer is trying to tell that various events can change one’s worldview. One complete picture of the work consists of three hundred thirty-three chapters of 4 volumes and another twenty-eight chapters located in the epilogue.

First volume

The events of 1805 are described. The “peaceful” part touches on life in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The writer introduces the reader to the society of the main characters. The “military” part is the Battle of Austerlitz and Shengraben. Tolstoy concludes the first volume with a description of how military defeats affected the peaceful lives of the characters.

Second volume

(Natasha Rostova's first ball)

This is a completely “peaceful” part of the novel, which affected the lives of the heroes in the period 1806-1811: the birth of Andrei Bolkonsky’s love for Natasha Rostova; Freemasonry of Pierre Bezukhov, Karagin's kidnapping of Natasha Rostova, Bolkonsky's refusal to marry Natasha. The volume concludes with a description of a formidable omen: the appearance of a comet, which is a symbol of great upheaval.

Third volume

(The illustration shows an episode of Borodinsky's battle in the film "War and Peace" 1967.)

In this part of the epic, the writer turns to wartime: Napoleon's invasion, the surrender of Moscow, the Battle of Borodino. On the battlefield, the main male characters of the novel are forced to cross paths: Bolkonsky, Kuragin, Bezukhov, Dolokhov... The end of the volume is the capture of Pierre Bezukhov, who staged an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Napoleon.

Volume four

(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 on the period of partisan warfare after 1812. All this is intertwined with the “peaceful” destinies of the heroes: Andrei Bolkonsky and Helen pass away; love arises between Nikolai and Marya; Natasha Rostova and Pierre Bezukhov are thinking about living together. And the main character of the volume is the Russian soldier Platon Karataev, through 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; Nikolai and Marya found their happiness; Bolkonsky’s son Nikolenka has matured. In the epilogue, the author reflects on the role of individuals in the history of an entire country, and tries to show the historical relationships between 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 them with special features not only of character, but also of appearance:

Andrei Bolkonsky is a prince, the son of Nikolai Bolkonsky. Constantly searching 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 exactly 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 your 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 mentally.

Pierre Bezukhov is the son of Count Kirill Bezukhov. An awkward, massive figure, kind and at the same time strong character. He can be stern, or he can become a child. He is interested in Freemasonry. Tries to change the lives of peasants and influence large-scale events. Initially married to Helen Kuragina. At the end of the novel he takes Natasha Rostova as his wife.

Helen Kuragina is the daughter of Prince Kuragin. A beauty, a prominent socialite. She married Pierre Bezukhov. Changeable, cold. Died as a result of an abortion.

Nikolai Rostov is the son of Count Rostov and Natasha's brother. Successor of the family and defender of the Fatherland. He took part in military campaigns. He married Marya Bolkonskaya.

Fyodor Dolokhov is an officer, a participant in the partisan movement, as well as a big reveler and lover of ladies.

Countess of Rostov

Countess Rostov - parents of Nikolai, Natasha, Vera, Petya. A revered married couple, an example to follow.

Nikolai Bolkonsky is a prince, the 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 small, fat man with an unpleasantly fake 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 “ popular thought" Its essence is that everyone positive hero has its own connection with the nation.

Tolstoy moved away from the principle of telling a novel in the first person. The assessment of characters and events occurs through monologues and author's digressions. At the same time, the writer leaves the right to the reader to evaluate what is happening. A striking example 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, can serve as a similar example. 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 opportunity to understand that one must love, believe and live under any circumstances.

Like everything in the epic War and Peace, the character system is extremely complex and very simple at the same time.

It is complex because the composition of the book is multi-figured, dozens of plot lines, intertwining, form its dense artistic fabric. Simple because all the heterogeneous heroes belonging to incompatible class, cultural, and property circles are clearly divided into several groups. And we find this division at all levels, in all parts of the epic.

What kind of groups are these? And on what basis do we distinguish them? These are groups of heroes equally far from folk life, from the spontaneous movement of history, from the truth or equally close to them.

We have just said: Tolstoy’s novel epic is permeated by the end-to-end idea that the unknowable and objective historical process is controlled directly by God; what to choose the right path and in privacy, and in great history a person can not with the help of a proud mind, but with the help sensitive heart. The one who guessed, felt the mysterious course of history and the no less mysterious laws of everyday life, is wise and great, even if he is in his own way social status small Anyone who boasts of his power over the nature of things, who selfishly imposes his personal interests on life, is petty, even if he is great in his social position.

In accordance with this harsh opposition, Tolstoy’s heroes are “distributed” into several types, into several groups.

In order to understand exactly how these groups interact with each other, let's agree on the concepts that we will use when analyzing Tolstoy's multi-figure epic. These concepts are conventional, but they make it easier to understand the typology of heroes (remember what the word “typology” means; if you have forgotten, look up its meaning in the dictionary).

Those who, from the author’s point of view, are furthest from the correct understanding of the world order, we will agree to call life wasters. Those who, like Napoleon, think that they control history, we will call leaders. They are opposed by the sages who comprehended the main secret of life and understood that man must submit to the invisible will of Providence. We will call those who simply live, listening to the voice of their own heart, but do not particularly strive for anything, ordinary people. Those favorite Tolstoy heroes! - those who painfully search for the truth will be defined as truth-seekers. And finally, Natasha Rostova does not fit into any of these groups, and this is fundamental for Tolstoy, which we will also talk about.

So, who are they, Tolstoy’s heroes?

Livers. They are busy only with chatting, arranging their personal affairs, serving their petty whims, their egocentric desires. And at any cost, regardless of the fate of other people. This is the lowest of all ranks in Tolstoy's hierarchy. The heroes belonging to him are always of the same type; to characterize them, the narrator demonstratively uses the same detail over and over again.

The head of the capital's salon, Anna Pavlovna Sherer, appearing on the pages of War and Peace, each time with an unnatural smile moves from one circle to another and treats the guests to an interesting visitor. She is confident that she shapes public opinion and influences the course of things (although she herself changes her beliefs precisely in response to fashion).

The diplomat Bilibin is convinced that it is they, the diplomats, who control the historical process (but in fact he is busy with idle talk); from one scene to another, Bilibin gathers wrinkles on his forehead and utters a pre-prepared sharp word.

Drubetsky's mother, Anna Mikhailovna, who persistently promotes her son, accompanies all her conversations with a mournful smile. In Boris Drubetsky himself, as soon as he appears on the pages of the epic, the narrator always highlights one feature: his indifferent calm of an intelligent and proud careerist.

As soon as the narrator starts talking about the predatory Helen Kuragina, he certainly mentions her luxurious shoulders and bust. And whenever Andrei Bolkonsky’s young wife, the little princess, appears, the narrator will pay attention to her slightly open lip with a mustache. This monotony of narrative technique does not indicate a poverty of artistic arsenal, but, on the contrary, a deliberate goal set by the author. The playmakers themselves are monotonous and unchanging; only their views change, the being remains the same. They don't develop. And the immobility of their images, the resemblance to death masks is precisely emphasized stylistically.

The only one of the epic characters belonging to this group who is endowed with a moving, lively character is Fyodor Dolokhov. “Semyonovsky officer, famous gambler and buster,” he is distinguished by his extraordinary appearance - and this alone sets him apart from the general ranks of playmakers.

Moreover: Dolokhov is languishing, bored in that whirlpool of worldly life that sucks in the rest of the “burners.” That's why he indulges in all serious things, ends up in scandalous stories(the plot with the bear and the policeman in the first part, for which Dolokhov was demoted to private). In the battle scenes, we witness Dolokhov's fearlessness, then we see how tenderly he treats his mother... But his fearlessness is aimless, Dolokhov's tenderness is an exception to his own rules. And hatred and contempt for people becomes the rule.

It is fully manifested both in the episode with Pierre (having become Helen’s lover, Dolokhov provokes Bezukhov to a duel), and at the moment when Dolokhov helps Anatoly Kuragin prepare the kidnapping of Natasha. And especially in the card game scene: Fedor cruelly and dishonestly beats Nikolai Rostov, in a mean way taking out his anger on him for Sonya, who refused Dolokhov.

Dolokhov’s rebellion against the world (and this is also “the world”!) of wasters of life turns into the fact that he himself is wasting his life, letting it go to waste. And this is especially offensive for the narrator to realize, who, by singling out Dolokhov from the general crowd, seems to be giving him a chance to break out of the terrible circle.

And in the center of this circle, this funnel that sucks in human souls, is the Kuragin family.

The main “ancestral” quality of the entire family is cold selfishness. It is especially characteristic of his father, Prince Vasily, with his courtly self-awareness. It is not for nothing that for the first time the prince appears before the reader “in a courtly, embroidered uniform, in stockings, shoes, with the stars, with a bright expression on his flat face.” Prince Vasily himself does not calculate anything, does not plan ahead, one can say that instinct acts for him: when he tries to marry Anatole’s son to Princess Marya, and when he tries to deprive Pierre of his inheritance, and when, having suffered an involuntary defeat along the way, he imposes on Pierre his daughter Helen.

Helen, whose “unchanging smile” emphasizes the uniqueness, one-dimensionality of this heroine, seems to have been frozen for years in the same state: static deathly sculptural beauty. She, too, does not specifically plan anything, she also obeys almost animal instinct: bringing her husband closer and further away, taking lovers and intending to convert to Catholicism, preparing the ground for divorce and starting two novels at once, one of which (either) must culminate in marriage.

External beauty replaces Helen's inner content. This characteristic also applies to her brother, Anatoly Kuragin. A tall handsome man with “beautiful big eyes“, he is not gifted with intelligence (although not as stupid as his brother Hippolytus), but “but he also had the ability of calm and unchangeable confidence, precious for the world.” This confidence is akin to the instinct of profit that controls the souls of Prince Vasily and Helen. And although Anatole does not pursue personal gain, he hunts for pleasure with the same unquenchable passion and with the same readiness to sacrifice any neighbor. This is what he does to Natasha Rostova, making her fall in love with him, preparing to take her away and not thinking about her fate, about the fate of Andrei Bolkonsky, whom Natasha is going to marry...

Kuragins play in the vain dimension of the world the same role that Napoleon plays in the “military” dimension: they personify secular indifference to good and evil. At their whim, the Kuragins involve surrounding life into a terrible whirlpool. This family is like a pool. Having approached him at a dangerous distance, it is easy to die - only a miracle saves Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei Bolkonsky (who would certainly have challenged Anatole to a duel if not for the circumstances of the war).

Leaders. The lowest “category” of heroes - playmakers in Tolstoy's epic corresponds to the upper category of heroes - leaders. The method of depicting them is the same: the narrator draws attention to one single trait of the character’s character, behavior or appearance. And at every meeting of the reader with this hero, he persistently, almost insistently points out this trait.

The playmakers belong to the “world” in the worst of its meanings, nothing in history depends on them, they revolve in the emptiness of the salon. Leaders are inextricably linked with war (again in the bad sense of the word); they stand at the head of historical collisions, separated from mere mortals by an impenetrable veil of their own greatness. But if the Kuragins really involve the surrounding life in a worldly whirlpool, then the leaders of nations only think that they are dragging humanity into a historical whirlpool. In fact, they are just toys of chance, pathetic instruments in the invisible hands of Providence.

And here let's stop for a second to agree on one important rule. And once and for all. In fiction, you have already encountered and will encounter images of real historical figures more than once. In Tolstoy's epic, these are Emperor Alexander I, and Napoleon, and Barclay de Tolly, and Russian and French generals, and the Moscow Governor-General Rostopchin. But we should not, we have no right to confuse “real” historical figures with their conventional images that act in novels, stories, and poems. And the sovereign emperor, and Napoleon, and Rostopchin, and especially Barclay de Tolly, and other Tolstoy characters depicted in “War and Peace” are the same fictional heroes as Pierre Bezukhov, like Natasha Rostova or Anatol Kuragin.

The external outline of their biographies can be reproduced in a literary work with scrupulous, scientific accuracy - but the internal content is “put into” them by the writer, invented in accordance with the picture of life that he creates in his work. And therefore, they are not much more similar to real historical figures than Fyodor Dolokhov is to his prototype, the reveler and daredevil R.I. Dolokhov, and Vasily Denisov is to the partisan poet D.V. Davydov.

Only by mastering this iron and irrevocable rule can we move on.

So, discussing the lowest category of heroes in War and Peace, we came to the conclusion that it has its own mass (Anna Pavlovna Scherer or, for example, Berg), its own center (Kuragins) and its own periphery (Dolokhov). The highest level is organized and structured according to the same principle.

The main leader, and therefore the most dangerous, the most deceitful of them, is Napoleon.

There are two Napoleonic images in Tolstoy's epic. One lives in the legend of the great commander, which is retold to each other different characters and in which he appears either as a powerful genius or as an equally powerful villain. Not only visitors to Anna Pavlovna Scherer’s salon believe in this legend at different stages of their journey, but also Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov. At first we see Napoleon through their eyes, we imagine him in the light of their life ideal.

And another image is a character acting on the pages of the epic and shown through the eyes of the narrator and the heroes who suddenly encounter him on the battlefields. For the first time, Napoleon as a character in War and Peace appears in the chapters dedicated to the Battle of Austerlitz; first the narrator describes him, then we see him from the point of view of Prince Andrei.

The wounded Bolkonsky, who recently idolized the leader of the peoples, notices on the face of Napoleon, bending over him, “a radiance of complacency and happiness.” Having just experienced a spiritual upheaval, he looks into the eyes of his former idol and thinks “about the insignificance of greatness, about the insignificance of life, the meaning of which no one could understand.” And “his hero himself seemed so petty to him, with this petty vanity and joy of victory, in comparison with that high, fair and kind sky that he saw and understood.”

The narrator - both in Austerlitz's chapters, and in Tilsit's, and in Borodin's - invariably emphasizes the ordinariness and comic insignificance of the appearance of the man whom the whole world idolizes and hates. The “fat, short” figure, “with broad, thick shoulders and an involuntarily protruding belly and chest, had that representative, dignified appearance that forty-year-old people living in the hall have.”

In the novel's image of Napoleon there is not a trace of the power that is contained in his legendary image. For Tolstoy, only one thing matters: Napoleon, who imagined himself as the mover of history, is in fact pathetic and especially insignificant. Impersonal fate (or the unknowable will of Providence) made him an instrument of the historical process, and he imagined himself to be the creator of his victories. The words from the historiosophical ending of the book refer to Napoleon: “For us, with the measure of good and bad given to us by Christ, there is nothing immeasurable. And there is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.”

A smaller and worsened copy of Napoleon, a parody of him - the Moscow mayor Rostopchin. He fusses, fusses, hangs up posters, quarrels with Kutuzov, thinking that the fate of Muscovites, the fate of Russia, depends on his decisions. But the narrator sternly and unflinchingly explains to the reader that Moscow residents began to leave the capital not because someone called them to do so, but because they obeyed the will of Providence that they had guessed. And the fire broke out in Moscow not because Rostopchin wanted it (and especially not contrary to his orders), but because it could not help but burn down: in abandoned wooden houses where the invaders settled, sooner or later a fire inevitably breaks out.

Rostopchin has the same attitude towards the departure of Muscovites and the Moscow fires that Napoleon has towards the victory on the Field of Austerlitz or the flight of the valiant French army from Russia. The only thing that is truly in his power (as well as in the power of Napoleon) is to protect the lives of the townspeople and militias entrusted to him, or to throw them away out of whim or fear.

The key scene in which the narrator’s attitude to the “leaders” in general and to the image of Rostopchin in particular is concentrated is the lynching execution of the merchant son Vereshchagin (volume III, part three, chapters XXIV-XXV). In it, the ruler is revealed as a cruel and weak person, mortally afraid of an angry crowd and, out of horror of it, ready to shed blood without trial.

The narrator seems extremely objective; he does not show his personal attitude to the actions of the mayor, does not comment on them. But at the same time, he consistently contrasts the “metallic-ringing” indifference of the “leader” with the uniqueness of an individual human life. Vereshchagin is described in great detail, with obvious compassion (“bringing shackles... pressing the collar of his sheepskin coat... with a submissive gesture”). But Rostopchin doesn’t look at his future victim - the narrator specifically repeats several times, with emphasis: “Rostopchin didn’t look at him.”

Even the angry, gloomy crowd in the courtyard of the Rostopchin house does not want to rush at Vereshchagin, accused of treason. Rostopchin is forced to repeat several times, setting her against the merchant’s son: “Beat him!.. Let the traitor die and not disgrace the name of the Russian!” ...Ruby! I order!". But even after this direct call-order, “the crowd groaned and moved forward, but stopped again.” She still sees Vereshchagin as a man and does not dare to rush at him: “A tall fellow, with a petrified expression on his face and with a stopped raised hand, stood next to Vereshchagin.” Only after, obeying the officer’s order, the soldier “with a face distorted with anger hit Vereshchagin on the head with a blunt broadsword” and the merchant’s son in a fox sheepskin coat “shortly and in surprise” cried out - “the barrier of human feeling stretched to the highest degree, which still held the crowd , broke through instantly.” Leaders treat people not as living beings, but as instruments of their power. And therefore they are worse than the crowd, more terrible than it.

The images of Napoleon and Rostopchin stand at opposite poles of this group of heroes from War and Peace. And the main “mass” of leaders here are formed by various kinds of generals, chiefs of all stripes. All of them, as one, do not understand the inscrutable laws of history, they think that the outcome of the battle depends only on them, on their military talents or political abilities. It doesn’t matter which army they serve - French, Austrian or Russian. And the personification of this entire mass of generals in the epic is Barclay de Tolly, a dry German in Russian service. He understands nothing of the spirit of the people and, together with other Germans, believes in a scheme of correct disposition.

The real Russian commander Barclay de Tolly, unlike artistic image, created by Tolstoy, was not German (he came from a Scottish family that had been Russified a long time ago). And in his activities he never relied on a scheme. But here lies the line between a historical figure and his image, which is created by literature. In Tolstoy's picture of the world, the Germans are not real representatives of a real people, but a symbol of foreignness and cold rationalism, which only interferes with understanding the natural course of things. Therefore, Barclay de Tolly, as a novel hero, turns into a dry “German”, which he was not in reality.

And at the very edge of this group of heroes, on the border separating the false leaders from the sages (we’ll talk about them a little later), stands the image of the Russian Tsar Alexander I. He is so isolated from the general series that at first it even seems that his image is devoid of boring unambiguity, that it is complex and multi-component. Moreover: the image of Alexander I is invariably presented in an aura of admiration.

But let's ask ourselves a question: whose admiration is this, the narrator's or the heroes'? And then everything will immediately fall into place.

Here we see Alexander for the first time during a review of Austrian and Russian troops (volume I, part three, chapter VIII). At first, the narrator describes him neutrally: “The handsome, young Emperor Alexander... with his pleasant face and sonorous, quiet voice attracted all the attention.” Then we begin to look at the tsar through the eyes of Nikolai Rostov, who is in love with him: “Nicholas clearly, down to all the details, examined the beautiful, young and happy face of the emperor, he experienced a feeling of tenderness and delight, the likes of which he had never experienced before. Everything - every feature, every movement - seemed charming to him about the sovereign.” The narrator discovers ordinary traits in Alexander: beautiful, pleasant. But Nikolai Rostov discovers in them a completely different quality, a superlative degree: they seem beautiful, “lovely” to him.

But here is chapter XV of the same part; here the narrator and Prince Andrei, who is by no means in love with the sovereign, alternately look at Alexander I. This time there is no such internal gap in emotional assessments. The Emperor meets with Kutuzov, whom he clearly dislikes (and we do not yet know how highly the narrator values ​​Kutuzov).

It would seem that the narrator is again objective and neutral:

“An unpleasant impression, just like the remnants of fog on clear sky, ran across the young and happy face of the emperor and disappeared... the same charming combination of majesty and meekness was in his beautiful gray eyes, and on the thin lips there is the same possibility of varied expressions and the predominant expression of complacent, innocent youth.”

Again the “young and happy face”, again the charming appearance... And yet, pay attention: the narrator lifts the veil over his own attitude towards all these qualities of the king. He says directly: “on thin lips” there was “the possibility of a variety of expressions.” And “the expression of complacent, innocent youth” is only the predominant one, but by no means the only one. That is, Alexander I always wears masks, behind which his real face is hidden.

What kind of face is this? It's contradictory. There is kindness and sincerity in him - and falsity, lies. But the fact of the matter is that Alexander is opposed to Napoleon; Tolstoy does not want to belittle his image, but cannot exalt it. Therefore, he resorts to the only possible method: he shows the king primarily through the eyes of heroes devoted to him and worshiping his genius. It is they, blinded by their love and devotion, who pay attention only to the best manifestations of Alexander’s different face; it is they who recognize him as a real leader.

In Chapter XVIII (volume one, part three), Rostov again sees the Tsar: “The Tsar was pale, his cheeks were sunken and his eyes sunken; but there was even more charm and meekness in his features.” This is a typically Rostov look - the look of an honest but superficial officer in love with his sovereign. However, now Nikolai Rostov meets the Tsar far from the nobles, from thousands of eyes fixed on him; in front of him is a simple suffering mortal, gravely experiencing the defeat of the army: “Tolya said something for a long time and passionately to the sovereign,” and he, “apparently crying, closed his eyes with his hand and shook Tolya’s hand.” Then we will see the tsar through the eyes of the obligingly proud Drubetsky (volume III, part one, chapter III), the enthusiastic Petya Rostov (volume III, part one, chapter XXI), Pierre Bezukhov at the moment when he is captured by the general enthusiasm during the Moscow meeting of the sovereign with deputations of the nobility and merchants (volume III, part one, chapter XXIII)...

The narrator, with his attitude, remains for the time being in a deep shadow. He only says through clenched teeth at the beginning of the third volume: “The Tsar is a slave of history,” but he refrains from direct assessments of the personality of Alexander I until the end of the fourth volume, when the Tsar directly encounters Kutuzov (chapters X and XI, part four). Only here, and even then not for long, does the narrator show his restrained disapproval. After all we're talking about about the resignation of Kutuzov, who had just won a victory over Napoleon together with the entire Russian people!

And the result of the “Alexandrov’s” plot line will be summed up only in the Epilogue, where the narrator will try with all his might to maintain justice in relation to the tsar, bringing his image closer to the image of Kutuzov: the latter was necessary for the movement of peoples from west to east, and the former for the return movement peoples from east to west.

Ordinary people. Both the wasters and the leaders in the novel are contrasted with “ordinary people”, led by the lover of truth, the Moscow lady Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova. In their world, she plays the same role that the St. Petersburg lady Anna Pavlovna Sherer plays in the world of the Kuragins and Bilibins. Ordinary people have not risen above the general level of their time, their era, have not learned the truth of people's life, but instinctively live in conditional harmony with it. Although they sometimes act incorrectly, and human weaknesses are fully inherent in them.

This discrepancy, this difference in potential, the combination in one person of different qualities, good and not so good, distinguishes ordinary people from both the wasters of life and the leaders. Heroes classified in this category, as a rule, are shallow people, and yet their portraits are painted in different colors and are obviously devoid of unambiguity and uniformity.

This is, in general, the hospitable Moscow Rostov family, the mirror opposite of the St. Petersburg Kuragin clan.

The old Count Ilya Andreich, the father of Natasha, Nikolai, Petya, Vera, is a weak-willed man, he allows his managers to rob him, he suffers at the thought of ruining his children, but he can’t do anything about it. Going to the village for two years, trying to move to St. Petersburg and get a job changes little in the general state of affairs.

The count is not very smart, but at the same time he is fully endowed by God with heartfelt gifts - hospitality, cordiality, love for family and children. Two scenes characterize him from this side, and both are imbued with lyricism and rapture of delight: a description of a dinner in a Rostov house in honor of Bagration and a description of a dog hunt.

And one more scene is extremely important for understanding the image of the old count: the departure from burning Moscow. It is he who first gives the reckless (from the point of view of common sense) order to let the wounded into the carts. Having removed their acquired goods from the carts for the sake of Russian officers and soldiers, the Rostovs deal the last irreparable blow to their own condition... But they not only save several lives, but also, unexpectedly for themselves, give Natasha a chance to reconcile with Andrei.

Ilya Andreich's wife, Countess Rostova, is also not distinguished by any special intelligence - that abstract, scientific mind, which the narrator treats with obvious distrust. She is hopelessly behind modern life; and when the family is completely ruined, the countess is not even able to understand why they should abandon their own carriage and cannot send a carriage for one of her friends. Moreover, we see the injustice, sometimes cruelty of the Countess towards Sonya - who is completely innocent of the fact that she is without a dowry.

And yet, she also has a special gift of humanity, which separates her from the crowd of wasters and brings her closer to the truth of life. This is the gift of love for one's own children; instinctively wise, deep and selfless love. The decisions she makes in relation to children are dictated not simply by the desire for profit and saving the family from ruin (although also for her); they are aimed at arranging the lives of the children themselves in the best possible way. And when the countess learns about the death of her beloved in the war youngest son, her life is essentially ending; Having barely escaped insanity, she instantly ages and loses active interest in what is happening around her.

All the best Rostov qualities were passed on to the children, except for the dry, calculating and therefore unloved Vera. Having married Berg, she naturally moved from the category of “ordinary people” to the number of “wasters of life” and “Germans”. And also - except for the Rostovs’ pupil Sonya, who, despite all her kindness and sacrifice, turns out to be an “empty flower” and gradually, following Vera, slides from the rounded world of ordinary people into the plane of wasters of life.

Particularly touching is the youngest, Petya, who completely absorbed the atmosphere of the Rostov house. Like his father and mother, he is not very smart, but he is extremely sincere and sincere; this soulfulness in a special way expressed in his musicality. Petya instantly gives in to the impulse of his heart; therefore, it is from his point of view that we look from the Moscow patriotic crowd at Emperor Alexander I and share his genuine youthful delight. Although we feel: the narrator’s attitude towards the emperor is not as clear as the young character. Petya's death from an enemy bullet is one of the most poignant and most memorable episodes of Tolstoy's epic.

But just as the people who live their lives, the leaders, have their own center, so do the ordinary people who populate the pages of War and Peace. This center is Nikolai Rostov and Marya Bolkonskaya, whose life lines, separated over three volumes, eventually still intersect, obeying the unwritten law of affinity.

“A short, curly-haired young man with an open expression,” he is distinguished by “impetuousness and enthusiasm.” Nikolai, as usual, is shallow (“he had that common sense mediocrity, which told him what was due,” the narrator says bluntly). But he is very emotional, impetuous, warm-hearted, and therefore musical, like all the Rostovs.

One of key episodes Nikolai Rostov's storyline - crossing the Enns, and then being wounded in the arm during the Battle of Shengraben. Here the hero first encounters an insoluble contradiction in his soul; he, who considered himself a fearless patriot, suddenly discovers that he is afraid of death and that the very thought of death is absurd - him, whom “everyone loves so much.” This experience not only does not reduce the image of the hero, on the contrary: it is at that moment that his spiritual maturation occurs.

And yet it’s not for nothing that Nikolai likes it so much in the army and is so uncomfortable in everyday life. The regiment is a special world (another world in the middle of war), in which everything is arranged logically, simply, unambiguously. There are subordinates, there is a commander, and there is a commander of commanders - the Emperor, whom it is so natural and so pleasant to adore. And the life of civilians consists entirely of endless intricacies, of human sympathies and antipathies, clashes of private interests and common goals of the class. Arriving home on vacation, Rostov either gets confused in his relationship with Sonya, or loses completely to Dolokhov, which puts the family on the brink of financial disaster, and actually flees from ordinary life to the regiment, like a monk to his monastery. (He doesn’t seem to notice that the same rules apply in the army; when in the regiment he has to solve complex moral problems, for example, with officer Telyanin, who stole a wallet, Rostov is completely lost.)

Like any hero who claims an independent line in the novel space and Active participation in the development of the main intrigue, Nikolai is endowed love story. He is a kind fellow, an honest man, and therefore, having made a youthful promise to marry the dowryless Sonya, he considers himself bound for the rest of his life. And no amount of persuasion from his mother, no hints from his loved ones about the need to find a rich bride can sway him. Moreover, his feeling for Sonya goes through different stages, then completely fading away, then returning again, then disappearing again.

Therefore the most dramatic moment in Nikolai's fate begins after the meeting in Bogucharovo. Here, during the tragic events of the summer of 1812, he accidentally meets Princess Marya Bolkonskaya, one of the richest brides in Russia, whom he would dream of marrying. Rostov selflessly helps the Bolkonskys get out of Bogucharov, and both of them, Nikolai and Marya, suddenly feel mutual attraction. But what is considered the norm among “life-lovers” (and most “ordinary people” too) turns out to be an almost insurmountable obstacle for them: she is rich, he is poor.

Only Sonya’s refusal of the word given to her by Rostov, and the power of natural feeling are able to overcome this obstacle; Having gotten married, Rostov and Princess Marya live in perfect harmony, just as Kitty and Levin will live in Anna Karenina. However, this is the difference between honest mediocrity and the impulse of truth-seeking, that the former does not know development, does not recognize doubts. As we have already noted, in the first part of the Epilogue, an invisible conflict is brewing between Nikolai Rostov, on the one hand, and Pierre Bezukhov and Nikolenka Bolkonsky, on the other, the line of which stretches into the distance, beyond the boundaries of the plot action.

Pierre, at the cost of new moral torment, new mistakes and new quests, is drawn into another turn great history: he becomes a member of early pre-Decembrist organizations. Nikolenka is completely on his side; it is not difficult to calculate that by the time of the uprising in Senate Square he will be a young man, most likely an officer, and with such a heightened sense of morality he will be on the side of the rebels. And the sincere, respectable, narrow-minded Nikolai, who has once and for all stopped developing, knows in advance that if anything happens he will shoot at the opponents of the legitimate ruler, his beloved sovereign...

Truth seekers. This is the most important of the categories; without truth-seeking heroes, there would be no epic “War and Peace” at all. Only two characters, two close friends, Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov, have the right to claim this special title. They also cannot be called unconditionally positive; To create their images, the narrator uses a variety of colors, but it is precisely because of their ambiguity that they seem especially voluminous and bright.

Both of them, Prince Andrei and Count Pierre, are rich (Bolkonsky - initially, illegitimate Bezukhov - after sudden death father); smart, although in different ways. Bolkonsky's mind is cold and sharp; Bezukhov's mind is naive, but organic. Like many young people in the 1800s, they are in awe of Napoleon; a proud dream of a special role in world history, and therefore the conviction that it is the individual who controls the course of things, is equally inherent in both Bolkonsky and Bezukhov. From this common point, the narrator draws two very different storylines, which at first diverge very far, and then connect again, intersecting in the space of truth.

But this is where it turns out that they become truth-seekers against their will. Neither one nor the other is going to seek the truth, they do not strive for moral improvement, and at first they are sure that the truth is revealed to them in the form of Napoleon. They are pushed to an intense search for truth by external circumstances, and perhaps by Providence itself. It’s just that the spiritual qualities of Andrei and Pierre are such that each of them is able to answer the call of fate, to respond to its silent question; it is only because of this that they ultimately rise above the general level.

Prince Andrey. Bolkonsky is unhappy at the beginning of the book; he does not love his sweet but empty wife; is indifferent to the unborn child, and even after his birth does not show any special paternal feelings. The family “instinct” is as alien to him as the secular “instinct”; he cannot fall into the category of “ordinary” people for the same reasons that he cannot be among the “wasters of life.” But he not only could have broken into the number of elected “leaders,” but he would have really wanted to. Napoleon, we repeat again and again, is a life example and guide for him.

Having learned from Bilibin that the Russian army (this takes place in 1805) was in a hopeless situation, Prince Andrei was almost happy about the tragic news. “... It occurred to him that he was precisely destined to lead the Russian army out of this situation, that here he was, that Toulon, who would lead him out of the ranks of unknown officers and open for him the first path to glory!” (volume I, part two, chapter XII).

You already know how it ended; we analyzed the scene with the eternal sky of Austerlitz in detail. The truth reveals itself to Prince Andrey, without any effort on his part; he does not gradually come to the conclusion about the insignificance of all narcissistic heroes in the face of eternity - this conclusion appears to him immediately and in its entirety.

It would seem that Bolkonsky’s storyline is exhausted already at the end of the first volume, and the author has no choice but to declare the hero dead. And here, contrary to ordinary logic, the most important thing begins - the search for truth. Having accepted the truth immediately and in its entirety, Prince Andrei suddenly loses it and begins a painful, long search, taking a side road back to the feeling that once visited him on the field of Austerlitz.

Arriving home, where everyone thought he was dead, Andrei learns about the birth of his son and - soon - about the death of his wife: the little princess with a short upper lip disappears from his life horizon at the very moment when he is ready to finally open his heart to her! This news shocks the hero and awakens in him a feeling of guilt before deceased wife; throwing military service(along with a vain dream of personal greatness), Bolkonsky settles in Bogucharovo, takes care of the house, reads, and raises his son.

It would seem that he anticipates the path that Nikolai Rostov will take at the end of the fourth volume together with Andrei’s sister, Princess Marya. Compare for yourself the descriptions of the economic concerns of Bolkonsky in Bogucharovo and Rostov in Bald Mountains. You will be convinced of the non-random similarity and will discover another plot parallel. But this is the difference between the “ordinary” heroes of “War and Peace” and the truth-seekers, that the former stop where the latter continue their unstoppable movement.

Bolkonsky, having learned the truth of eternal heaven, thinks that it is enough to give up personal pride in order to find peace of mind. But really country life cannot contain his unspent energy. And the truth, received as if as a gift, not personally suffered, not acquired as a result of long searches, begins to elude him. Andrei is languishing in the village, his soul seems to be drying up. Pierre, who arrived in Bogucharovo, is amazed at the terrible change that has occurred in his friend. Only for a moment does the prince awaken to a happy feeling of belonging to the truth - when for the first time after being wounded he pays attention to the eternal sky. And then a veil of hopelessness again obscures his life horizon.

What happened? Why does the author “doom” his hero to inexplicable torment? First of all, because the hero must independently “ripen” to the truth that was revealed to him by the will of Providence. Prince Andrei will have to hard work, he will have to go through numerous trials before he regains his sense of unshakable truth. And from this moment on, Prince Andrei’s storyline becomes like a spiral: it goes to a new turn, repeating the previous stage of his fate at a more complex level. He is destined to fall in love again, again to indulge in ambitious thoughts, again to be disappointed in both love and thoughts. And finally, come to the truth again.

The third part of the second volume opens with a symbolic description of Prince Andrey's trip to the Ryazan estates. Spring is coming; When entering the forest, he notices an old oak tree on the edge of the road.

“Probably ten times older than the birches that made up the forest, it was ten times thicker and twice as tall as each birch. It was a huge oak tree, twice the girth, with branches that had been broken off for a long time and with broken bark overgrown with old sores. With his huge, clumsily, asymmetrically splayed, gnarled arms and fingers, he stood like an old, angry and contemptuous freak between the smiling birch trees. Only he alone did not want to submit to the charm of spring and did not want to see either spring or the sun.”

It is clear that in the image of this oak tree Prince Andrei himself is personified, whose soul does not respond to the eternal joy of renewed life, has become dead and extinguished. But on the affairs of the Ryazan estates, Bolkonsky must meet with Ilya Andreich Rostov - and, having spent the night in the Rostovs’ house, the prince again notices the bright, almost starless spring sky. And then he accidentally hears an excited conversation between Sonya and Natasha (volume II, part three, chapter II).

A feeling of love latently awakens in Andrei’s heart (although the hero himself does not understand this yet). Like a character in a folk tale, he seems to be sprinkled with living water - and on his way back, already in early June, the prince again sees an oak tree, personifying himself, and remembers the Austerlitz sky.

Returning to St. Petersburg, Bolkonsky joins with renewed vigor in social activities; he believes that he is now driven not by personal vanity, not by pride, not by “Napoleonism,” but by a selfless desire to serve people, to serve the Fatherland. The young energetic reformer Speransky becomes his new hero and idol. Bolkonsky is ready to follow Speransky, who dreams of transforming Russia, in the same way as before he was ready to imitate Napoleon in everything, who wanted to throw the entire Universe at his feet.

But Tolstoy constructs the plot in such a way that the reader feels from the very beginning that something is not entirely right; Andrei sees a hero in Speransky, and the narrator sees another leader.

The judgment about the “insignificant seminarian” who holds the fate of Russia in his hands, of course, expresses the position of the enchanted Bolkonsky, who himself does not notice how he transfers the features of Napoleon to Speransky. And the mocking clarification - “as Bolkonsky thought” - comes from the narrator. Speransky’s “disdainful calmness” is noticed by Prince Andrei, and the arrogance of the “leader” (“from an immeasurable height...”) is noticed by the narrator.

In other words, Prince Andrei, in a new round of his biography, repeats the mistake of his youth; he is again blinded by the false example of someone else's pride, in which his own pride finds food. But here a significant meeting takes place in Bolkonsky’s life - he meets the same Natasha Rostova, whose voice on a moonlit night in the Ryazan estate brought him back to life. Falling in love is inevitable; matchmaking is a foregone conclusion. But since his stern father, old Bolkonsky, does not give consent to a quick marriage, Andrei is forced to go abroad and stop collaborating with Speransky, which could seduce him and lead him back to his previous path. And the dramatic break with the bride after her failed escape with Kuragin completely pushes Prince Andrei, as it seems to him, to the margins of the historical process, to the outskirts of the empire. He is again under the command of Kutuzov.

But in fact, God continues to lead Bolkonsky in a special way, known to Him alone. Having passed the temptation by the example of Napoleon, having happily avoided the temptation by the example of Speransky, having again lost hope for family happiness, Prince Andrey repeats the “drawing” of his fate for the third time. Because, having fallen under the command of Kutuzov, he is imperceptibly charged with the quiet energy of the old wise commander, as before he was charged with the stormy energy of Napoleon and the cold energy of Speransky.

It is no coincidence that Tolstoy uses the folklore principle of testing the hero three times: after all, unlike Napoleon and Speransky, Kutuzov is truly close to the people and forms one whole with them. Until now, Bolkonsky was aware that he worshiped Napoleon, he guessed that he was secretly imitating Speransky. And the hero doesn’t even suspect that he follows Kutuzov’s example in everything. The spiritual work of self-education occurs in him hidden, latent.

Moreover, Bolkonsky is confident that the decision to leave Kutuzov’s headquarters and go to the front, to rush into the thick of the battles, comes to him spontaneously, of course. In fact, he adopts from the great commander a wise view of the purely popular nature of war, which is incompatible with court intrigues and the pride of the “leaders.” If the heroic desire to pick up the regimental banner on the field of Austerlitz was the “Toulon” of Prince Andrei, then the sacrificial decision to participate in the battles of the Patriotic War is, if you like, his “Borodino”, comparable on the small level of an individual human life with the great Battle of Borodino, morally won Kutuzov.

It is on the eve of the Battle of Borodino that Andrei meets Pierre; the third (again folklore number!) significant conversation takes place between them. The first took place in St. Petersburg (volume I, part one, chapter VI) - during it, Andrei for the first time dropped the mask of a contemptuous socialite and frankly told a friend that he was imitating Napoleon. During the second (volume II, part two, chapter XI), held in Bogucharovo, Pierre saw before him a man mournfully doubting the meaning of life, the existence of God, internally dead, having lost the incentive to move. This meeting with a friend became for Prince Andrei “the era from which, although in appearance it was the same, but in the inner world his new life began.”

And here is the third conversation (volume III, part two, chapter XXV). Having overcome involuntary alienation, on the eve of the day when, perhaps, both of them will die, friends again openly discuss the subtlest, most important topics. They do not philosophize - there is neither time nor energy for philosophizing; but every word they say, even a very unfair one (like Andrei’s opinion about the prisoners), is weighed on special scales. And Bolkonsky’s final passage sounds like a premonition of imminent death:

"Ah, my soul, Lately It became difficult for me to live. I see that I have begun to understand too much. But it is not good for a person to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil... Well, not for long! - he added.”

The wound on the Borodin field compositionally repeats the scene of Andrei's wound on the Austerlitz field; both there and here the truth is suddenly revealed to the hero. This truth is love, compassion, faith in God. (Here is another plot parallel.) But in the first volume we had a character to whom the truth appeared in spite of everything; Now we see Bolkonsky, who has managed to prepare himself to accept the truth at the cost of mental anguish and tossing. Please note: the last person Andrei sees on the Field of Austerlitz is the insignificant Napoleon, who seemed great to him; and the last person he sees on the Borodino field is his enemy, Anatol Kuragin, also seriously wounded... (This is another plot parallel that allows us to show how the hero has changed during the time that passed between three meetings.)

Andrey has a new date with Natasha ahead; last date. Moreover, the folklore principle of triple repetition “works” here too. For the first time Andrey hears Natasha (without seeing her) in Otradnoye. Then he falls in love with her during Natasha’s first ball (volume II, part three, chapter XVII), explains to her and proposes. And here is the wounded Bolkonsky in Moscow, near the Rostovs’ house, at the very moment when Natasha orders the carts to be given to the wounded. The meaning of this final meeting is forgiveness and reconciliation; having forgiven Natasha and reconciled with her, Andrei has finally comprehended the meaning of love and is therefore ready to part with earthly life... His death is depicted not as an irreparable tragedy, but as a solemnly sad result of his earthly career.

It is not for nothing that it is here that Tolstoy carefully introduces the theme of the Gospel into the fabric of his narrative.

We are already accustomed to the fact that the heroes of Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century often pick up this main book of Christianity, which tells about the earthly life, teaching and resurrection of Jesus Christ; Just remember Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment.” However, Dostoevsky wrote about his own time, while Tolstoy turned to the events of the beginning of the century, when educated people from high society turned to the Gospel much less often. For the most part, they read Church Slavonic poorly, and rarely resorted to the French version; Only after the Patriotic War did work begin on translating the Gospel into living Russian. It was headed by the future Metropolitan of Moscow Filaret (Drozdov); The publication of the Russian Gospel in 1819 influenced many writers, including Pushkin and Vyazemsky.

Prince Andrey is destined to die in 1812; nevertheless, Tolstoy decided to radically violate chronology, and in Bolkonsky’s dying thoughts he placed quotes from the Russian Gospel: “The birds of the air do not sow or reap, but your Father feeds them...” Why? Yes, for the simple reason that Tolstoy wants to show: the wisdom of the Gospel entered Andrei’s soul, it became part of his own thoughts, he reads the Gospel as an explanation of his own life and his own death. If the writer had “forced” the hero to quote the Gospel in French or even in Church Slavonic, this would have immediately separated Bolkonsky’s inner world from the Gospel world. (In general, in the novel, the heroes speak French more often, the further they are from the national truth; Natasha Rostova generally utters only one line in French over the course of four volumes!) But Tolstoy’s goal is exactly the opposite: he seeks to forever connect the image of Andrei, who found the truth , with a Gospel theme.

Pierre Bezukhov. If the storyline of Prince Andrei is spiral-shaped, and each subsequent stage of his life in a new turn repeats the previous stage, then the storyline of Pierre - right up to the Epilogue - is similar to a narrowing circle with the figure of the peasant Platon Karataev in the center.

This circle at the beginning of the epic is immensely wide, almost like Pierre himself - “a massive, fat young man with a cropped head and glasses.” Like Prince Andrei, Bezukhov does not feel like a truth-seeker; he, too, considers Napoleon a great man and is content with the common idea that history is controlled by great men, heroes.

We meet Pierre at the very moment when, from an excess of vitality, he takes part in carousing and almost robbery (the story with the policeman). Life force is his advantage over the dead light (Andrei says that Pierre is the only “living person”). And this is his main problem, since Bezukhov does not know what to apply his heroic strength, she is aimless, there is something Nozdrevsky about her. Pierre initially has special spiritual and mental needs (which is why he chooses Andrey as his friend), but they are scattered and do not take on a clear and distinct form.

Pierre is distinguished by energy, sensuality, reaching the point of passion, extreme artlessness and myopia (literally and figuratively); all this dooms Pierre to take rash steps. As soon as Bezukhov becomes the heir to a huge fortune, the “wasters of life” immediately entangle him in their networks, Prince Vasily marries Pierre to Helen. Of course, family life is not set; Pierre cannot accept the rules by which high-society “burners” live. And so, having parted ways with Helen, he for the first time consciously begins to look for the answer to the questions that torment him about the meaning of life, about the purpose of man.

“What’s wrong? What well? What should you love, what should you hate? Why live and what am I? What is life, what is death? What force controls everything? - he asked himself. And there was no answer to any of these questions, except one, not a logical answer, not to these questions at all. This answer was: “If you die, everything will end. You die and you’ll find out everything, or you’ll stop asking.” But it was scary to die” (volume II, part two, chapter I).

And then on his life’s path he meets the old Mason-mentor Osip Alekseevich. (Freemasons were members of religious and political organizations, “orders,” “lodges,” who set themselves the goal of moral self-improvement and intended to transform society and the state on this basis.) In the epic, the road along which Pierre travels serves as a metaphor for the path of life; Osip Alekseevich himself approaches Bezukhov at the postal station in Torzhok and starts a conversation with him about the mysterious destiny of man. From the genre shadow of the family-everyday novel we immediately move into the space of the novel of education; Tolstoy barely noticeably stylizes the “Masonic” chapters into novel prose of the late 18th - early 19th centuries. Thus, in the scene of Pierre’s acquaintance with Osip Alekseevich, much makes one remember the “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” by A. N. Radishchev.

In Masonic conversations, conversations, reading and reflections, the same truth is revealed to Pierre that appeared on the field of Austerlitz to Prince Andrei (who, perhaps, also at some point went through the “Masonic art”; in a conversation with Pierre, Bolkonsky mockingly mentions gloves, which Masons receive before marriage for their chosen one). The meaning of life is not in heroic deeds, not in becoming a leader like Napoleon, but in serving people, feeling involved in eternity...

But the truth is just revealed, it sounds dull, like a distant echo. And gradually Bezukhov feels more and more painfully the deceitfulness of the majority of Masons, the discrepancy between their petty social life with proclaimed universal human ideals. Yes, Osip Alekseevich forever remains a moral authority for him, but Freemasonry itself eventually ceases to meet Pierre’s spiritual needs. Moreover, the reconciliation with Helen, which he agreed to under Masonic influence, does not lead to anything good. And having taken a step in the social field in the direction set by the Freemasons, having started a reform in his estates, Pierre suffers an inevitable defeat: his impracticality, gullibility and lack of system doom the land experiment to failure.

The disappointed Bezukhov first turns into a good-natured shadow of his predatory wife; it seems that the pool of “life-lovers” is about to close over him. Then he again starts drinking, carousing, returns to the bachelor habits of his youth, and eventually moves from St. Petersburg to Moscow. You and I have noted more than once that in Russian XIX literature century, St. Petersburg was associated with the European center of official, political, and cultural life in Russia; Moscow - with a rustic, traditionally Russian habitat of retired nobles and lordly idlers. The transformation of Petersburger Pierre into a Muscovite is tantamount to his abandonment of any aspirations in life.

And here the tragic and Russia-cleansing events of the Patriotic War of 1812 are approaching. For Bezukhov they have a very special, personal meaning. After all, he has long been in love with Natasha Rostova, hopes of an alliance with whom were twice crossed out by his marriage to Helen and Natasha’s promise to Prince Andrei. Only after the story with Kuragin, in overcoming the consequences of which Pierre played a huge role, does he actually confess his love to Natasha (volume II, part five, chapter XXII).

It is no coincidence that immediately after the scene of explanation with Natasha Tolstaya, through the eyes of Pierre, he shows the famous comet of 1811, which foreshadowed the beginning of the war: “It seemed to Pierre that this star fully corresponded to what was in his blossoming to a new life, softened and encouraged soul.” The theme of national testing and the theme of personal salvation merge together in this episode.

Step by step, the stubborn author leads his beloved hero to comprehend two inextricably linked “truths”: the truth of sincere family life and the truth of national unity. Out of curiosity, Pierre goes to the Borodin field just on the eve of the great battle; observing, communicating with the soldiers, he prepares his mind and his heart to perceive the thought that Bolkonsky will express to him during their last Borodin conversation: the truth is where they are, ordinary soldiers, ordinary Russian people.

The views that Bezukhov professed at the beginning of War and Peace are turned upside down; before he saw in Napoleon the source historical movement, now he sees in him the source of transhistorical evil, the embodiment of the Antichrist. And he is ready to sacrifice himself to save humanity. The reader must understand: Pierre’s spiritual path has only been completed to the middle; the hero has not yet “grown up” to the point of view of the narrator, who is convinced (and convinces the reader) that the matter is not about Napoleon at all, that the French emperor is just a toy in the hands of Providence. But the experiences that befell Bezukhov in French captivity, and most importantly, his acquaintance with Platon Karataev, will complete the work that has already begun in him.

During the execution of prisoners (a scene that refutes Andrei’s cruel arguments during Borodin’s last conversation), Pierre himself recognizes himself as an instrument in the wrong hands; his life and his death do not really depend on him. And communication with a simple peasant, a “rounded” soldier of the Absheron regiment Platon Karataev, finally reveals to him the prospect of a new philosophy of life. The purpose of a person is not to become a bright personality, separate from all other personalities, but to reflect the people’s life in its entirety, to become a part of the universe. Only then can you feel truly immortal:

“Ha, ha, ha! - Pierre laughed. And he said out loud to himself: “The soldier didn’t let me in.” They caught me, they locked me up. They are holding me captive. Who me? Me? Me - my immortal soul! Ha, ha, ha!.. Ha, ha, ha!.. - he laughed with tears welling up in his eyes... Pierre looked into the sky, into the depths of the receding, playing stars. “And all this is mine, and all this is in me, and all this is me!..” (volume IV, part two, chapter XIV).

It is not for nothing that these reflections of Pierre sound almost like folk poetry; they emphasize and strengthen the internal, irregular rhythm:

The soldier didn't let me in.
They caught me, they locked me up.
They are holding me captive.
Who me? Me?

The truth sounds like a folk song, and the sky into which Pierre directs his gaze makes the attentive reader remember the ending of the third volume, the appearance of the comet, and, most importantly, the sky of Austerlitz. But the difference between the Austerlitz scene and the experience that visited Pierre in captivity is fundamental. Andrei, as we already know, at the end of the first volume comes face to face with the truth, contrary to his own intentions. He just has a long, roundabout way to get to her. And Pierre comprehends it for the first time as a result of painful quests.

But there is nothing final in Tolstoy’s epic. Remember when we said that Pierre’s storyline only seems circular, and that if you look at the Epilogue, the picture will change somewhat? Now read the episode of Bezukhov’s arrival from St. Petersburg and especially the scene of the conversation in the office with Nikolai Rostov, Denisov and Nikolenka Bolkonsky (Chapters XIV-XVI of the first Epilogue). Pierre, the same Pierre Bezukhov, who has already comprehended the fullness of the national truth, who has renounced personal ambitions, again starts talking about the need to correct social ills, about the need to counter the government’s mistakes. It is not difficult to guess that he became a member of the early Decembrist societies and that a new storm began to swell on the historical horizon of Russia.

Natasha, with her feminine instincts, guesses the question that the narrator himself would clearly like to ask Pierre:

“Do you know what I’m thinking about? - she said, - about Platon Karataev. How is he? Would he approve of you now?..

No, I wouldn’t approve,” Pierre said after thinking. - What he would approve of is our family life. He so wanted to see beauty, happiness, tranquility in everything, and I would be proud to show him us.”

What happens? Has the hero begun to evade the acquired and hard-won truth? And is the “average”, “ordinary” person Nikolai Rostov right, who speaks with disapproval of the plans of Pierre and his new comrades? Does this mean Nikolai is now closer to Platon Karataev than Pierre himself?

Yes and no. Yes, because Pierre, undoubtedly, deviates from the “rounded”, family-oriented, national peaceful ideal, and is ready to join the “war”. Yes, because he had already gone through the temptation of striving for the public good in his Masonic period, and through the temptation of personal ambitions - at the moment when he “counted” the number of the beast in the name of Napoleon and convinced himself that it was he, Pierre, who was destined to rid humanity of this villain. No, because the entire epic “War and Peace” is permeated with a thought that Rostov is unable to comprehend: we are not free in our desires, in our choice, to participate or not to participate in historical upheavals.

Pierre is much closer than Rostov to this nerve of history; among other things, Karataev taught him by his example to submit to circumstances, to accept them as they are. By joining a secret society, Pierre moves away from the ideal and, in a certain sense, returns several steps back in his development, but not because he wants it, but because he cannot evade the objective course of things. And, perhaps, having partially lost the truth, he will come to know it even more deeply at the end of his new path.

That is why the epic ends with a global historiosophical argument, the meaning of which is formulated in its last phrase: “it is necessary to abandon the perceived freedom and recognize the dependence that we do not feel.”

Sages. You and I talked about people who live their lives, about leaders, about ordinary people, about truth-seekers. But there is another category of heroes in War and Peace, the opposite of the leaders. These are the sages. That is, characters who have comprehended the truth of national life and set an example for other heroes, seeking the truth. These are, first of all, Staff Captain Tushin, Platon Karataev and Kutuzov.

Staff Captain Tushin first appears in the scene of the Battle of Shengraben; We see him first through the eyes of Prince Andrei - and this is no coincidence. If circumstances had turned out differently and Bolkonsky had been internally prepared for this meeting, it could have played the same role in his life as the meeting with Platon Karataev played in Pierre’s life. However, alas, Andrey is still blinded by the dream of his own Toulon. Having defended Tushin (volume I, part two, chapter XXI), when he guiltily remains silent in front of Bagration and does not want to betray his boss, Prince Andrei does not understand that behind this silence lies not servility, but an understanding of the hidden ethics of people's life. Bolkonsky is not yet ready to meet “his Karataev.”

“A small, stooped man,” commander of an artillery battery, Tushin makes a very favorable impression on the reader from the very beginning; external awkwardness only sets off his undoubted natural intelligence. No wonder, when characterizing Tushin, Tolstoy resorts to his favorite technique, drawing attention to the hero’s eyes, this is the mirror of the soul: “Silently and smiling, Tushin, stepping over bare feet on his leg, looking questioningly with big, smart and kind eyes...” (volume I, part two, chapter XV).

But why does the author pay attention to such an insignificant figure, and in a scene that immediately follows the chapter dedicated to Napoleon himself? The guess does not come to the reader right away. Only when he reaches Chapter XX does the image of the staff captain gradually begin to grow to symbolic proportions.

“Little Tushin with a straw bitten to one side”, along with his battery, was forgotten and left without cover; he practically does not notice this, because he is completely absorbed in the common cause and feels himself an integral part of the entire people. On the eve of the battle, this little awkward man spoke of the fear of death and complete uncertainty about eternal life; now he is transforming before our eyes.

The narrator shows this little man in close-up: “... He had his own fantastic world established in his head, which was his pleasure at that moment. The enemy’s guns in his imagination were not guns, but pipes, from which an invisible smoker released smoke in rare puffs.” At this second, it is not the Russian and French armies that are confronting each other; Opposing each other are little Napoleon, who imagines himself great, and little Tushin, who has risen to true greatness. The staff captain is not afraid of death, he is only afraid of his superiors, and immediately becomes timid when a staff colonel appears at the battery. Then (Chapter XXI) Tushin cordially helps all the wounded (including Nikolai Rostov).

In the second volume we will once again meet with Staff Captain Tushin, who lost his arm in the war.

Both Tushin and another Tolstoy sage, Platon Karataev, are endowed with the same physical properties: they are short in stature, they have similar characters: They are affectionate and good-natured. But Tushin feels himself an integral part of the general life of the people only in the midst of war, and in peaceful circumstances he is simple, kind, timid and very a common person. And Plato is always involved in this life, in any circumstances. And in war and especially in a state of peace. Because he carries peace in his soul.

Pierre meets Plato at a difficult moment in his life - in captivity, when his fate hangs by a thread and depends on many accidents. The first thing that catches his eye (and strangely calms him down) is Karataev’s roundness, the harmonious combination of external and internal appearance. In Plato, everything is round - the movements, the way of life that he creates around him, and even the homely smell. The narrator, with his characteristic persistence, repeats the words “round”, “rounded” as often as in the scene on the Field of Austerlitz he repeated the word “sky”.

During the Battle of Shengraben, Andrei Bolkonsky was not ready to meet “his Karataev,” staff captain Tushin. And Pierre, by the time of the Moscow events, had matured enough to learn a lot from Plato. And above all true attitude to life. That is why Karataev “remained forever in Pierre’s soul as the strongest and dearest memory and personification of everything Russian, kind and round.” After all, on the way back from Borodino to Moscow, Bezukhov had a dream, during which he heard a voice:

“War is the most difficult task of subordinating human freedom to the laws of God,” said the voice. - Simplicity is submission to God; you cannot escape Him. And they are simple. They don't talk, but they do. The spoken word is silver, and the unspoken word is golden. A person cannot own anything while he is afraid of death. And whoever is not afraid of her belongs to him everything... To unite everything? - Pierre said to himself. - No, don't connect. You cannot connect thoughts, but connecting all these thoughts is what you need! Yes, we need to mate, we need to mate!” (volume III, part three, chapter IX).

Platon Karataev is the embodiment of this dream; everything is connected in him, he is not afraid of death, he thinks in proverbs, which summarize centuries-old folk wisdom - it is not for nothing that Pierre hears in his dreams the proverb “The spoken word is silver, and the unspoken is golden.”

Can Platon Karataev be called a bright personality? No way. On the contrary: he is not a person at all, because he does not have his own special, separate from the people, spiritual needs, no aspirations and desires. For Tolstoy he is more than a person; he is a piece of the people's soul. Karataev does not remember his own words spoken a minute ago, since he does not think in the usual meaning of this word. That is, he does not organize his reasoning in logical chain. It’s just that, as modern people would say, his mind is connected to the general consciousness of the people, and Plato’s judgments reproduce the personal wisdom of the people.

Karataev does not have a “special” love for people - he treats all living beings equally lovingly. And to the master Pierre, and to the French soldier who ordered Plato to sew a shirt, and to the wobbly dog ​​that clung to him. Not being a person, he does not see the personalities around him; everyone he meets is the same particle of a single universe as he himself. Death or separation therefore has no meaning for him; Karataev is not upset when he learns that the person with whom he became close has suddenly disappeared - after all, nothing changes from this! The eternal life of the people continues, and its constant presence will be revealed in every new person they meet.

The main lesson that Bezukhov learns from his communication with Karataev, the main quality that he strives to adopt from his “teacher”, is voluntary dependence on the eternal life of the people. Only it gives a person a real sense of freedom. And when Karataev, having fallen ill, begins to lag behind the column of prisoners and is shot like a dog, Pierre is not too upset. Individual life Karataev’s life has ended, but the eternal, national one, in which he is involved, continues, and there will be no end to it. That is why Tolstoy completes Karataev’s storyline with the second dream of Pierre, who was seen by the captive Bezukhov in the village of Shamshevo:

And suddenly Pierre introduced himself to a living, long-forgotten, gentle old teacher who taught Pierre geography in Switzerland... he showed Pierre a globe. This globe was a living, oscillating ball that had no dimensions. The entire surface of the ball consisted of drops tightly compressed together. And these drops all moved, moved and then merged from several into one, then from one they were divided into many. Each drop sought to spread out, to capture the greatest possible space, but others, striving for the same thing, compressed it, sometimes destroyed it, sometimes merged with it.

This is life, said the old teacher...

In the middle is God, and every drop strives to expand in order to reflect Him in the greatest possible size... Here he is, Karataev, overflowed and disappeared” (volume IV, part three, chapter XV).

The metaphor of life as a “liquid oscillating ball” made up of individual drops combines all the symbolic images of “War and Peace” that we talked about above: the spindle, the clockwork, and the anthill; a circular movement connecting everything to everything - this is Tolstoy’s idea of ​​the people, of history, of the family. The meeting of Platon Karataev brings Pierre closer to understanding this truth.

From the image of Staff Captain Tushin we rose, as if a step up, to the image of Platon Karataev. But from Plato in the space of the epic one more step leads upward. The image of People's Field Marshal Kutuzov is raised here to an unattainable height. This old man, gray-haired, fat, walking heavily, with a face disfigured by a wound, towers over both Captain Tushin and even Platon Karataev. He consciously comprehended the truth of the nationality, which they perceived instinctively, and elevated it to the principle of his life and his military leadership.

The main thing for Kutuzov (unlike all the leaders led by Napoleon) is to deviate from a personal proud decision, to guess the correct course of events and not to interfere with their development according to God's will, in truth. We first meet him in the first volume, in the scene of the review near Brenau. Before us is an absent-minded and cunning old man, an old campaigner, who is distinguished by an “affection of respect.” We immediately understand that the mask of an unreasoning servant, which Kutuzov puts on when approaching the ruling people, especially the tsar, is just one of the many ways of his self-defense. After all, he cannot, must not allow these self-righteous persons to really interfere in the course of events, and therefore he is obliged to affectionately evade their will, without contradicting it in words. So he will avoid the battle with Napoleon during the Patriotic War.

Kutuzov, as he appears in the battle scenes of the third and fourth volumes, is not a doer, but a contemplator; he is convinced that victory requires not intelligence, not a scheme, but “something else, independent of intelligence and knowledge.” And above all, “it takes patience and time.” The old commander has both in abundance; he is endowed with the gift of “calm contemplation of the course of events” and sees his main purpose in not doing harm. That is, listen to all the reports, all the main considerations: support the useful ones (that is, those that agree with the natural course of things), reject the harmful ones.

A main secret, which Kutuzov comprehended, as he is depicted in “War and Peace,” is the secret of maintaining the national spirit, the main force in the fight against any enemy of the Fatherland.

That is why this old, weak, voluptuous man personifies Tolstoy’s idea of ​​an ideal politician who has comprehended the main wisdom: the individual cannot influence the course of historical events and must renounce the idea of ​​freedom in favor of the idea of ​​necessity. Tolstoy “instructs” Bolkonsky to express this thought: watching Kutuzov after his appointment as commander-in-chief, Prince Andrei reflects: “He will have nothing of his own... He understands that there is something stronger and more significant than his will - this is the inevitable course of events ... And the main thing ... is that he is Russian, despite the novel by Zhanlis and French sayings" (volume III, part two, chapter XVI).

Without the figure of Kutuzov, Tolstoy would not have solved one of the main artistic tasks of his epic: to contrast “the deceitful form of the European hero who allegedly controls people, which history has come up with,” “simple, modest and therefore truly majestic figure» folk hero, which will never settle into this “false form.”

Natasha Rostova. If we translate the typology of epic heroes into traditional language literary terms, then an internal pattern will reveal itself. The world of everyday life and the world of lies are opposed by dramatic and epic characters. The dramatic characters of Pierre and Andrey are full internal contradictions, are always in motion and development; the epic characters of Karataev and Kutuzov amaze with their integrity. But in the portrait gallery created by Tolstoy in War and Peace, there is a character that does not fit into any of the listed categories. This is the lyrical character of the main character of the epic, Natasha Rostova.

Does she belong to the “life-wasters”? It is impossible to even imagine this. With her sincerity, with her heightened sense of justice! Does she belong to “ordinary people”, like her relatives, the Rostovs? In many ways, yes; and yet it is not without reason that both Pierre and Andrei seek her love, are drawn to her, and stand out from the crowd. At the same time, you can’t call her a truth-seeker. No matter how much we re-read the scenes in which Natasha acts, we will not find anywhere a hint of the search for a moral ideal, truth, truth. And in the Epilogue, after marriage, she even loses the brightness of her temperament, the spirituality of her appearance; baby diapers replace what Pierre and Andrei give to reflection on the truth and the purpose of life.

Like the rest of the Rostovs, Natasha is not endowed sharp mind; when in chapter XVII of part four of the last volume, and then in the Epilogue we see her next to the emphatically intelligent woman Marya Bolkonskaya-Rostova, this difference is especially striking. Natasha, as the narrator emphasizes, simply “didn’t deign to be smart.” But she is endowed with something else, which for Tolstoy is more important than the abstract mind, more important even than truth-seeking: the instinct of knowing life through experience. It is this inexplicable quality that brings Natasha’s image very close to the “sages”, primarily to Kutuzov, despite the fact that in all other respects she is closer to ordinary people. It is simply impossible to “attribute” it to one particular category: it does not obey any classification, it breaks out beyond any definition.

Natasha, “black-eyed, with big mouth, ugly, but alive,” the most emotional of all the characters in the epic; That’s why she is the most musical of all Rostovs. The element of music lives not only in her singing, which everyone around recognizes as wonderful, but also in Natasha’s voice itself. Remember, Andrei’s heart trembled for the first time when he heard Natasha’s conversation with Sonya on a moonlit night, without seeing the girls talking. Natasha's singing heals brother Nikolai, who falls into despair after losing 43 thousand, which ruined the Rostov family.

From the same emotional, sensitive, intuitive root grow both her egoism, fully revealed in the story with Anatoly Kuragin, and her selflessness, which is manifested both in the scene with carts for the wounded in burning Moscow, and in the episodes where she is shown caring for a dying man Andrey, how he cares for his mother, shocked by the news of Petya’s death.

And the main gift that is given to her and which raises her above all other heroes of the epic, even the best, is a special gift of happiness. They all suffer, suffer, seek the truth, or, like the impersonal Platon Karataev, affectionately possess it. Only Natasha unselfishly enjoys life, feels its feverish pulse and generously shares her happiness with everyone around her. Her happiness is in her naturalness; That’s why the narrator so harshly contrasts the scene of Natasha Rostova’s first ball with the episode of her meeting and falling in love with Anatoly Kuragin. Please note: this acquaintance takes place in the theater (volume II, part five, chapter IX). That is, where play and pretense reign. This is not enough for Tolstoy; he forces the epic narrator to “descend” down the steps of emotions, use sarcasm in descriptions of what is happening, and strongly emphasize the idea of ​​​​the unnatural atmosphere in which Natasha’s feelings for Kuragin arise.

It is not without reason that the most famous comparison"War and Peace". At that moment when Pierre, after a long separation, meets Rostova together with Princess Marya, he does not recognize Natasha - and suddenly “the face, with attentive eyes, with difficulty, with effort, like a rusty door opening, - smiled, and from this open door suddenly it smelled and doused Pierre with forgotten happiness... It smelled, enveloped and absorbed him all” (volume IV, part four, chapter XV).

But Natasha’s true calling, as Tolstoy shows in the Epilogue (and unexpectedly for many readers), was revealed only in motherhood. Having gone into children, she realizes herself in them and through them; and this is no accident: after all, the family for Tolstoy is the same cosmos, the same holistic and saving world, like the Christian faith, like the life of the people.

To reveal the author's intention L.N. Tolstoy used more than 200 characters in his epic novel War and Peace. The main ones are Andrei Bolkonsky, Natasha Rostova and Pierre Bezukhov. They are often also called Tolstoy’s “favorite” heroes, and this is not for nothing. They are characterized by qualities that the author considers key in a person: the desire for self-improvement, the desire to be spiritually enlightened, as well as love for life and forgiveness.

These characters cannot be divided into only positive or only negative. They are ordinary people with both good and bad character traits. Unlike the unloved (Anatol Kuragin, Helen, Anna Pavlovna Sherer), they are primarily endowed with inner, spiritual beauty and may not have external attractiveness.

The first to appear on the pages of the work is Bolkonsky, a young aristocrat, a representative of the highest aristocratic circles. The reader is presented with an adult, already fully formed person, with his own principles and beliefs, which he will never change in his entire life. Tired and disappointed in everything, he will fall in love with life again, meeting his true love - Natasha.

The story of Natasha Rostova is an evolution from a 13-year-old girl, an ugly duckling, into a beautiful and interesting girl, and later into an intelligent woman, a loving wife and mother. She was given from birth what the other two main characters are so desperately looking for - sincerity, impetuosity of feelings, the desire to live with the heart. It was important for the author to show how, with the help of these qualities, a person can make many people around him happy.

The third main character of the novel is Pierre Bezukhov. This hero, like Bolkonsky, is looking for his calling in life. He is characterized by impetuosity and dramatic judgments. In his search, the hero goes to extremes: from the deification of Napoleon, he moves on to a passion for the Masonic, and all this in order to ultimately find himself.

Tolstoy's three main characters are three different characters, three different destinies, which are intertwined against the background of a large-scale historical event - the Patriotic War. And despite all the vicissitudes of their destinies, they retain their humanity and love for all living things.

Option No. 2

Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel “War and Peace” is the greatest work of Russian literature, and absolutely everyone knows the main characters of the work from school. One cannot remain indifferent to their similar friend on other characters. They all search for their meaning in life, make mistakes and gain bitter experiences.

The main characters of the novel are a young girl named Natasha Rostova, her close friend Pierre Bezukhov and future lover Andrei Bolkonsky. Each of them passed the hard way not only through the Great Patriotic War, but also in search of true happiness in life. At the beginning of the work, Bolkonsky regrets that he got married, since it is alien to him secular society, which his wife Lisa loves so much. Andrei is a very ambitious, and even somewhat vain, person: he dreams of becoming a hero in war, building a brilliant career in military affairs, and his idol is Napoleon. But, once on the real battlefield, the young man understands that war carries nothing but blood. And victory in it depends not on one person, but on the whole people. He shares his guesses with best friend Pierre. He has a completely different story: unexpectedly receiving an inheritance from his father, he immediately becomes one of the richest people in the capital and the most eligible bachelor.

Soon Pierre married the beautiful Helen, but this marriage turned out to be a mistake. The girl did not love her husband, she was only interested in his wealth. Soon the deceived Pierre begins to understand this and, like Bolkonsky, experiences a kind of spiritual crisis. Both men are connected by Natasha Rostova - they are both in love with her. After the death of his wife, Bolkonsky plunges into deep depression, but young Rostova was able to bring him back to life. She captivates people with her spontaneity, kindness of soul, and ease. But she, too, was destined for a difficult path: she became a victim of the famous heartthrob Kuragin, who promised to marry her, although he himself was married. Then Natasha refused Bolkonsky, but this was a serious mistake. Kuragin soon fled, and Andrei again lost the meaning of life.

Thus, in the novel, the main characters often make mistakes in their choices. Throughout the entire work, they grow up and gain, albeit bitter, but valuable experience. Only after going through all the trials of life will they understand that true happiness lies in a strong family, in love for their loved ones. And no career dreams, wealth, or intrigues can replace this.

Essay on the topic The main characters of the novel War and Peace

The epic novel by Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy occupies a special priority place in Russian literature of the nineteenth century. The work makes contemporaries argue and think.

The main characters of the novel cause controversial debate among both literary critics and ordinary readers.
Tolstoy's favorite heroine is Natasha Rostova. At the very beginning she is shown as a carefree and, at first glance, even a frivolous girl. But she's just looking true love. Natasha truly falls in love with Andrei Bolkonsky. And her fleeting infatuation with Anatoly Kuragin is subsequently very difficult for her. She understands that she has committed betrayal towards Andrei. She's re-evaluating life values. At the end of the novel, Natasha appears as a loving wife and caring mother, for whom family comes first. This is the ideal image of a woman in Tolstoy’s understanding.

Another main character, Andrei Bolkonsky, appears on the pages of the novel as an honest, faithful son of the Fatherland. He is a generous, decent young man. For him, Napoleon is an example of greatness. But while participating in military battles, Andrei is wounded. Lying wounded on a field under the sky of Austerlitz, he realizes how insignificant the ideal image of Bonaparte he had imagined is. Bolkonsky returns to the village and raises his son. But soon he meets Natasha Rostova. Life is changing again for Andrey. He falls in love with the young countess. But they are not destined to be together, as Andrei is mortally wounded and dies.

One of the most controversial images is Pierre Bezukhov. Portrayed by Tolstoy as such a lout. Just like Natasha, he went through many trials and obstacles in order to understand what is truly valuable and significant in life. His life had everything: marriage to the unfaithful Helen, a circle of Freemasons, drunkenness and a riotous lifestyle. Having been in the war, Pierre found his place in life and realized that the main thing is family and relatives and friends.

The work “War and Peace” is large-scale and great. The main characters amaze with their originality, originality and brightness. They true patriots of their homeland. Tolstoy created a novel that is striking in its exclusivity.

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