Tolstoy's war and peace, French speech. “War and Peace of Languages ​​and Cultures” Issues in the theory and practice of interlingual and intercultural communication Textbook

LE FRANCAIS. From the first lines of Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" we find ourselves in a not entirely normal situation, since they are forced to begin reading the novel with a footnote, which provides a translation of the French text that opens the book.

Throughout the novel we constantly encounter French words and expressions. Of course, the French text makes it difficult to read the novel, as it distracts from storyline, however, of course, the French language in the novel is not accidental.

What importance did Tolstoy attach to French speech in the text of his work?

Neither in the letters nor in the articles written by Tolstoy, I could not find the answer to this question. At the same time, it is known that even during Tolstoy’s lifetime, from edition to edition, the French text was either removed from the novel or restored. This suggests that Tolstoy was quite free with his text and, under the influence of criticism, could make significant changes. It is known that some critics opposed the French text. Eikhenbaum reviews unknown critic, published in the Book Bulletin in 1866: “The language... of Tolstoy’s novel is good, but due to some inexplicable whim, half of its characters speak French, and entire pages (for example, 140 to 148, Part I) are entirely printed in French text (though with interlinear translation)…

If he wanted to prove that the ancestors of our aristocracy at the beginning of this century, the various Bolkonskys and Drubetskys, spoke a clear and good language, then one of his testimonies, perhaps two or three phrases per book, would be enough for this, and everyone would willingly believe him, since hardly anyone doubted it.” The question arises: why did Tolstoy allow the text of the finished work to be changed, then removed, then reinserted French speech into it?

Two assumptions can be made: the first is due to the fact that Tolstoy, as a writer, was constantly “growing” and “changing.” This trait was noted by Fet, other contemporaries of Tolstoy, as well as researchers of his work (Eikhenbaum). Perhaps Tolstoy, having finished work on “War and Peace,” seemed to “outgrow” his novel and lost interest in it, so he did not attach any importance to it. of great importance alterations that were proposed by critics and publishers, given that Tolstoy himself did not engage in these alterations, and the reissues were prepared by his wife, Tolstaya (Bers). The second assumption is that the French text was used only to create a certain historical flavor, as the mentioned Eikhenbaum believed... and did not have any serious significance for Tolstoy as an artistic device.

Most often, French speech is found in dialogues, especially when the author describes the small talk of noble circles. For example, evenings in the salon of Scherer, Julie Karagina, etc. In the family circle, the French language is used much less often. It is also interesting to note that in small talk there is a certain range of topics, discussing which people spoke in French - politics, primarily issues related to Bonaparte, secular gossip, etc. Individual statements or individual words in French are quite common in dialogues even on everyday topics. As an example, we can cite a fragment from the dialogue between Scherer and Prince Vasily. “What should I do? - he said finally. “You know, I did everything a father could to raise them, and both turned out to be desimbieles (fools).” This example<также>It is also interesting because it shows how a Russian aristocrat is trying, as it were, to “cultivate” his speech. It seems to me that in this example the French word is used in order to avoid the rude, colloquial Russian word.

Let's look at another example from the same dialogue. It is interesting because it mixes Russian and French speech.

Je suis votre (I am your) faithful slave, et a’vous seule je puis l’a-vouer (I can only confess to you). My children are the sont les en-traves de mon existence (the burden of my existence). This is my cross. This is how I explain it to myself. Que voulez vous? (What to do?) He paused, expressing his submission with a gesture cruel fate" This manner of speaking was called by Tolstoy’s contemporaries “a mixture of French and Great Russian.” It can be assumed that the characters speak two languages, alternately, in order to accurately express their thoughts in cases where it is difficult to express themselves clearly and clearly in one language. Or maybe Tolstoy wanted to show the laziness of the mind of the Russian aristocracy, which did not want to bother searching for the right words speaking any one language. French speech is most often found in addresses. Almost all proper names are also pronounced in the French manner, and it is interesting that in the dialogues the names are written in French, and in the author’s speech - in Russian and only reproduce the French pronunciation: Helen, Anatole, Pierre... It can be assumed that Tolstoy is in the majority cases in the narrative avoids the use of French words, using Russian letters when writing French names, and in dialogues these names are written in French, because they are surrounded by other French words. In some cases, Tolstoy is ironic, it seems to me, about the French speech of his characters. This is especially evident where Tolstoy seems to transfer individual parts from the dialogues into the narrative. For example: “You haven’t seen it yet,” or: “you’re not familiar with that tante?” - Anna Pavlovna said to the arriving guests and very seriously led them to a little old woman in high bows, who floated out of the room as soon as the guests began to arrive, called them by name, slowly moving her eyes from the guest to the cha tante, and then walked away.”

French words are used by Tolstoy in the names of dishes characteristic of that time (“sante an madere from hazel grouse* or soup a’ la tortue (turtle), dance figures(entrechat - entrechat), which helps the author convey the flavor of the historical era.

French speech also serves Tolstoy as a means of conveying the hero’s state of mind. Tolstoy often conveys insincerity and falsity of feelings using French. For example, in the scene of the death of the old Count Bezukhov, the French speech of Drubetskaya, who did not feel sincere compassion for the old Count, encounters Pierre's misunderstanding. At this moment he is so confused that he simply does not perceive French speech. Or even remembering his insincere declaration of love to Helen, Pierre, in his internal monologue, pronounces the words “I love you” in French, exactly as it really was. “Why did I associate myself with her, why did I tell her this: “Je vois aie,” which was a lie, and even worse than a lie,” he said to himself.”

The French language helps Tolstoy more subtly reveal the characters of his characters. It is interesting that Kutuzov speaks almost no French, although the author shows in certain episodes that Kutuzov is fluent in French and German languages(reads Archduke Ferdinand, and addresses Bolkonsky in French in the presence of the Austrian general). With this technique, Tolstoy, who clearly sympathizes with Kutuzov, shows, on the one hand, an educated, well-mannered man, and on the other, emphasizes his original Russian nature, closeness to the Russian people, that is, he portrays him as a Russian hero. Or, for example, Tolstoy shows the disdain of the old Prince Bolkonsky for everything French. He calls the French “Frenchies,” and this disdain is emphasized by the use of French speech: the old prince deliberately distorts French words, falsely humming a song about Malbrook in front of Prince Andrei, and in the next episode the old prince in the purest French, as Tolstoy notes, addresses Mademoiselle Bourien . This contrast allows the writer to show the attitude of the old Prince Bolkonsky to the ongoing events in which the French participate. French speech characterizes Bilibin completely differently. Tolstoy writes about him: “He continued in the same way in French, pronouncing in Russian only those words that he contemptuously wants to emphasize (the conversation between Bilibin and Prince Andrei about the situation of the Russian troops). With this one phrase, Tolstoy emphasizes Bilibin’s distrust of Russian weapons and Russian commanders. Sometimes French words also serve a compositional function in Tolstoy. For example, the dialogue between Princess Marya and Prince Andrei is structured like this. In the first phrase of the dialogue, Princess Marya addresses her brother, calling him “Andryusha,” as if inviting Prince Andrei to an intimate, sincere conversation between close people, but Prince Andrei does not accept his sister’s tone, and Princess Marya switches to French, calling her brother Andre, that is, French language serves as a kind of “veil” for them, allowing them to hide their true feelings, which they are ashamed of. And at the very end of the dialogue, Prince Andrei, as if trying to overcome this alienation, calls his sister “Masha.”

And finally, Tolstoy’s Napoleon mostly speaks Russian, and Tolstoy quotes only a few phrases belonging to him in French. Moreover, in a number of cases, in one phrase, individual Russian words are repeated in French, and French words in Russian. “Lift up this young man, se jeune homme (young man) and carry him to the dressing station” or “- et vous, juene homme? (Well, what about you, young man?) Well, what about you, young man? - he turned to him.”

This suggests, firstly, that the novel does not have a rigid structure, the translation is not always in the footnote in the text, and secondly, Tolstoy does not strive to mirror reality, where Napoleon always spoke French, the Austrians always spoke German

For Tolstoy, it seems to me, the French language is an important means of solving many artistic problems, namely: characterizing characters, conveying the hero’s state of mind, reflecting a historical era, performing a compositional function, etc.

Probably, the role of the French language as an artistic device for Tolstoy is even more significant, but in order to understand this, a deep and multifaceted analysis of the text of the novel is needed.

Leo Tolstoy's famous novel “War and Peace” has been translated into many foreign languages. The abundance of translations, their multiplicity, even within the same language, speaks not only of the enormous popularity of the novel by L.N. Tolstoy, but also that the novel itself is extremely difficult to translate. Who was the first to risk bringing the brilliant creation of a Russian writer to a foreign reader?

The first foreign country in which they became acquainted with “War and Peace” in translation was the Czech Republic. There's a romance here L.N. Tolstoy was published in 1873, but the name of the translator still remains unknown 1. Six years later, in 1879, the first translation of War and Peace into French appeared in Paris. The three-volume edition of Tolstoy's work, printed in St. Petersburg, was put on sale in France under the publishing house Hachette and subsequently went through a number of re-editions. The last time the novel “War and Peace” in the version of its very first translation was published in France in 1956 with a preface A. Maurois 2. On the title page of the novel, which appeared in Paris at the end of 1879, there was not the name of the translator, but a pseudonym - “Une Russe” (“One Russian”). From the French text of the translation performed by a Russian translator, translations of “War and Peace” were made into English, Hungarian, Dutch, Polish and Turkish.

“One Russian” who hid her name, presented to the French reader the only one before the beginning of the twentieth century. French text of “War and Peace”, lived a very long life - 90 years. And although she was born in St. Petersburg, fate decreed that from 1921 until her death, for almost 70 years, this woman was inextricably linked with the city of Gomel. Residents of the pre-revolutionary city called her “our Irina”, “our princess” and invariably spoke of her with extraordinary respect and warmth.

IN Soviet time it was not customary to talk about Princess Irina. There is not a single line about it in the modern multi-volume Encyclopedia of History of Belarus, famous for its comprehensive objectivity. Meanwhile, not only the residents of Gomel can be proud of this figure, who went down in the history of literature with his translation into French of Leo Tolstoy’s outstanding epic.

In 1853, a wedding was held in St. Petersburg, which did not leave any of the representatives of the capital's highest society indifferent. The daughter of the chief master of ceremonies, the actual privy councilor of the count, got married Ivan Illarionovich Vorontsov-Dashkov - Irina Ivanovna. In the St. Petersburg salon of the Vorontsov-Dashkovs, the owner of which was one of the first beauties of the Russian capital and a very influential lady, Alexandra Kirillovna, Irina’s mother, not only the most magnificent balls were held, but they knew how to value intelligence and talent. Getting into this brilliant and most fashionable salon was considered a great honor.

Eighteen-year-old Countess Irina, who inherited external and internal attractiveness from her mother, was the subject of universal adoration. One of the regulars of the salon, the thirty-year-old son of the famous Field Marshal Ivan, could not help but pay attention to her. Fedorovich Paskevich-Erivansky Fedor Ivanovich.

Paskevich Sr. in St. Petersburg and Moscow at higher education. in the world they called him an upstart and perceived him as a arrogant, domineering and vain person. The surname Paskevich was indeed not originally “noble”, associated with rich genealogies. In the dignity of count, this “descendant of a nobleman” of the 17th century. Pasikrates Tsalogo, colloquially Pasko Tsalogo, or Chaly (hence the family nickname Paskevich, Paskevich), was erected for the brilliant victories of Russian troops in the war with Persia in 1827-1828. Then I.F. Paskevich received the honorary name of Erivan (from the name of the Erivan Khanate conquered from Persia) and a million rubles in banknotes. For victories over Turkish troops in the Caucasus in September 1829, Count Paskevich was awarded the rank of field marshal general.

In 1853, Field Marshal Paskevich was 71 years old, and he was still participating in military operations against Turkey on the Danube. His son, Fyodor Ivanovich, who also traveled to the Caucasus twice in the active army, inherited his father’s ranks and titles and, thanks to him, had the opportunity to move in the highest capital society. Fate destined to bring him together with the daughter of the Vorontsov-Dashkovs.

A young married couple settled in the Paskevichs’ house on the Promenade des Anglais. The life of Princess Irina in St. Petersburg can be judged by the memoirs of an English diplomat Horace Rumbold, which were published half a century after the events described (“Historical Bulletin”, 1900. No. 8). From the memoirs it follows that the Paskevich couple “for many reasons” led a rather secluded lifestyle, although their luxurious mansion, decorated by Paskevich the father with various objects of art and a collection of weapons, was visited by a select circle of relatives and close friends. The young princess set up a home theater hall and performed various roles on the stage.

On January 20, 1856, three years after his son’s marriage, old Field Marshal Paskevich died. Paskevich Jr., Prince Fyodor Ivanovich, took possession of his father's inheritance, including his father's most important, luxurious estate - Gomel. The Paskevichs owned half of the city (the old part), which included palace and park ensemble. In the Gomel district, more than 90 dachas, farmsteads, estates, forest guardhouses, and farmsteads with arable and forest land were considered the property of the Paskevichs.

In 1856, Irina Ivanovna Paskevich came to Gomel with her husband and found here a real “royal residence” that corresponded to the ambitions of Field Marshal Paskevich, the governor of Emperor Nicholas I in Poland 3 .

The first two or three decades life together The Paskevich couple lived either in Gomel or in the capital. The townspeople learned about the appearance of the prince and princess in Gomel by the waving flag on the palace tower. By the second half of the 80s. XIX century Prince Fyodor Ivanovich rose to the rank of adjutant general. For some time he served as Assistant Inspector of the Armed Forces. Princess Irina Ivanovna took up charitable activities in Gomel, and free time completely devoted herself to literary studies: composing short fiction stories and translations from Russian into foreign languages ​​(mainly French) and from foreign languages into Russian of various works of modern writers.

The translation activity of Irina Ivanovna Paskevich was an amateur activity. Nevertheless, her translations, which embodied an innate artistic and aristocratic gift, attracted attention, they were known in literary circles. In the capital's society, Princess Paskevich had creative contacts with famous writers and poets.

I.I. Paskevich was one of the first who understood and highly appreciated the talent of Count L.N. Tolstoy, who became popular in the second half of the 19th century, in the 50-60s. In the 70s The princess was already working on the translation of War and Peace. It is unknown how she came up with the idea to take on such a grandiose task, especially since at that time there was no thoroughly developed theory of translation and the stylistics of the novel in general were not theoretically comprehended. However, judging by the fact that the French translation of the novel “War and Peace” was published with the indication “Translated with the permission of the author,” it was not just a literature-loving princess who undertook the translation, but a skilled translation master. Apparently, Leo Tolstoy himself was confident in the success of Irina Ivanovna Paskevich, and the princess, before proceeding to translate a large literary canvas into French, conducted a kind of “rehearsal”, presenting a French translation of the novel in St. Petersburg in 1877 L.N. Tolstoy’s “Family Happiness” called “Masha”.

The poet Ya. P. Polonsky provided enormous assistance to Irina Paskevich in translating “War and Peace” into French, and it is possible that one of her inspirations for such painstaking and responsible work was Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. It was Turgenev who contributed to the dissemination of the translation of “War and Peace” made by I. I. Paskevich in Paris, although he considered this translation “somewhat weak,” nevertheless “done with zeal and love” 4. notice, that I.S. Turgenev generally spared neither money nor effort to promote the European fame of Leo Tolstoy. Thanks to the efforts of Turgenev, the leading French writers of that time - Zola, Flaubert, Maupassant and others - became acquainted with the translation of the novel “War and Peace”.

For the translation, Irina Ivanovna Paskevich chose the Russian edition of “War and Peace” from 1868-1869, which contained Tolstoy’s philosophical and historical arguments, which he then excluded when reprinting the novel in 1873 and combined in the form of an appendix to the novel entitled “Articles on campaign of 1812." In this edition there were also inclusions of foreign speech (French and German) in the dialogues of the characters, which were an integral part of the artistic structure of the work (the modern Russian editions of War and Peace are based on the edition of 1868-1869).

I.I. Paskevich generally strictly adhered to the text of the novel, however, in the last parts of the epic, mainly in those places where there are historical and philosophical reflections of the author, containing criticism of official historical science and characterization of Napoleon as an aggressor, changes to the text were made. In acting in this way, the princess, as one might assume, proceeded from her personal ideological convictions. When making other minor changes In the text of the novel, the translator, apparently, was guided by her own literary taste 6 .

The translator is always, in a certain sense, the author’s rival, and in this regard, I. I. Paskevich showed sincere modesty, pointing out French translation Leo Tolstoy's novel is not his own true name, but a pseudonym. While translating, the princess did not think about the translator's fame, but simply realized her artistic talent and sought to convey to foreign readers the work of a talented writer that excited and delighted her.

In 1903, when Prince Fyodor Paskevich died, Irina Ivanovna was 68 years old, and she was very worried about her loneliness. The princess had no children; in addition, life was complicated by the fact that she began to lose her eyesight early, which is why she had to stop doing literary translations. Trips to the capitals stopped long ago, and only in the summer did the princess and her husband (when he was still alive) leave Gomel for a short time and live in one of their country estates.

On November 12, 1917, power in Gomel passed to local council workers' and soldiers' deputies. Three days after this, the elderly Princess Paskevich, having collected lists of all movable and immovable property, sent a deed of gift to the new authorities. Then she left her palace forever. She was given a room in one of the houses in the city, where the princess lived until her death, having only a nanny-maid who brought food and looked after the old woman. There is information that for some time the princess was supported by her pupil, the eye doctor Brooke, and she lived in an eye hospital.

Princess Paskevich died on April 14, 1925. The funeral was poor; suffice it to say that Irina Ivanovna was buried in a simple black coffin and not in the family crypt, next to her husband, but right in the park under a birch tree, near the wall of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. In the 30s The princess's grave was destroyed, and her remains were reburied in an Orthodox peasant cemetery, on the very outskirts of the city, where over time her new grave was lost.

1. See: Motyleva T. L. “War and Peace” abroad: Translations. Criticism. Influence. M., 1978. S. 133 - 134.
2. See: Ibid. P. 133.
3. The following facts from the life of the Paskevichs in Gomel are contained in greater detail in the book: Rogalev A.F. From Gomeyuk to Gomel: City antiquity in facts, names, faces. Gomel, 1993.
4. See: Turgenev I.S. Complete. collection op. and letters. Letters. L., 1967. T. XII, book. 2. P. 197.
5. See: Priima F. Ya. Russian literature in the West: Articles and research. L., 1970. S. 144-148.
6. For more details, see the book: Motyleva T. L. Decree. op. pp. 133 et seq.

Tolstoy's style represents a further development of the Russian literary language, developed in the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol and their successors. It is nourished, on the one hand, by the language of fiction and scientific literature (Russian and European), on the other - colloquial speech noble intelligentsia, with the third - the speech of the people, mainly peasants. The language of War and Peace is unusually rich and varied. Here we encounter, firstly, the speech style of historical documents, memoirs of the early 19th century, which convey the features of the language of the depicted era. This is, for example, the speech of the Freemasonic rhetorician upon Pierre's entry into the Freemasons. It is painted in the official clerical and Church Slavonic flavor characteristic of that era: “Not only in words, but by other means that, perhaps, have a stronger effect on the true seeker of wisdom and virtue than verbal explanations alone”; “to make them capable of perceiving it”, etc. But at the same time, Tolstoy’s language contains a lot of everyday Russian speech, features of regional dialects: “THE THREAM”, “greenery”, “it began to rejuvenate in the evening”, “in defiance of the wolf” … Simple vernacular appears clearly in Tolstoy in those places where he talks about the people. Talking about the partisan war, Tolstoy writes: “... the club of the people’s war rose with all its formidable and majestic strength and... fell and nailed the French until the entire invasion was destroyed.”

The main direction in Tolstoy’s work on language was the axis of the writer’s desire to create a language that could truthfully, with the utmost completeness express the author’s thoughts and would be accurate and flexible in depicting complex philosophical quests and deep states of the soul
his heroes. This is where some of the cumbersomeness of Tolstoy’s speech sometimes results. This heaviness is quite natural, since it reflects the complexity of those states of mind which Tolstoy described.

In the field of language, as in all of its artistic work, Tolstoy fights for truth and simplicity, for realism, for the merciless exposure of verbal cliches, current phrases, for an accurate, unvarnished portrayal of life in artistic and journalistic words. Tolstoy creates such a word, relying on the language of the people, who do not cover up their real thoughts and feelings with a phrase, like secular society, but come to the word from life, from deeds, from a living phenomenon, which is why there are such marks for its definition. “In Russia,” Tolstoy wrote in his article “On Public Education,” “we often speak in bad language, but the people always speak in good language.”
For about this time good language people - accurate, realistic - and Tolstoy fought. This is where the author’s persistent denunciation of the conventional wisdom adopted in “War and Peace” comes from. romantic literature and in secular circles, a language full of vague, “beautiful” phrases, verbal and book cliches. Vivid examples This is why we present Nikolai Rostov's story about
The Battle of Shengraben and the author’s own explanations of it, as well as Tolstoy’s description of Natasha Rostova’s visit to the opera. According to the idea that permeates the entire novel, affirming the people's truth, the epic "War and Peace" is truly folk work, a great patriotic poem glorifying the heroism of the Russian people in one of the most significant eras of its glorious history.
Source: According to A. Zerchaninov, D. Raikhin, V. Strazhev

The language of War and Peace is bright, simple, expressive, colorful and strictly logical. In this great historical epic, according to V. Vinogradov, the “echo” of the voices of the depicted era should have sounded dully and through the living hum of modernity in the 1860s. And Tolstoy managed to bring this “echo” to his readers. The reader's attention is also drawn to the abundance of French speech. French was considered compulsory at that time
belonging noble society, especially the highest, although they FOUGHT against this foreign language dominance advanced people of its time. In War and Peace, French is spoken mainly by those characters who are alien to the Russian people. At the same time, Pierre, who recently arrived from abroad, where he was delighted to speak Russian. He resorts to French only in those cases when he expresses something other than what he feels (Helen’s declaration of love), or expresses himself artificially (a conversation with Anatoly Kuragin regarding the attempted abduction of Rostova). “The French phrase is disgusting to him,” Turgenev wrote about Tolstoy. In cases where representatives of the highest nobility turn to the Russian language, it differs in some ways. Characteristic here is the inclusion of popular expressions in refined French speech. So, for example, Shinshin introduces peasant proverbs into his French language: “Erema, Erema, you should sit at home, sharpening spindles.” Or: “A German is threshing a loaf of bread on a butt,” etc. Prince Vasily, who always speaks French (and always lies) in order to express his “sincere” affection for the old man Bolkonsky and show his “simplicity,” also turns to the people speech: “For my dear friend, seven miles is not a suburb.” Introducing his son to the owner of the house, he says: “I ask you to love and favor him.”
When, during the French invasion of Russia, the capital's nobles found it necessary to abandon the French language and switch to Russian, which they had forgotten (some even hired Russian language teachers), the general style of their speech was not entirely Russian in nature. Here, in large quantities there are Gallicisms: “you do no favors to anyone”; “What pleasure is it to be so caustique [evil-tongued]?”;
“We in Moscow are all enthusiastic through enthusiasm”; “I have hatred for all French people”; “makes wonderful conversations over lint”; “although the enemy was twice as strong as us, we did not hesitate,” etc. Tolstoy skillfully creates a special flavor of the era and classes by introducing some archaisms (ball gown, powder man), as well as terminology and phraseology characteristic of the military environment of the early 19th century: battle, retreat and make a retreat in perfect order, etc.

The features of the Freemasons’ speech are also important in this regard: “to resist the evil that reigns in the world”; “put chains on your feelings and seek bliss not in passions, but in your heart.” The vocabulary of the Freemasons includes many words characteristic of the one depicted in the novel.
era: wisdom, virtue, sacrament, bliss, preparation, explanation, good morals, temple, etc. Here we also encounter Slavicisms: only, this, etc.

Since Tolstoy also shows peasant Rus', living folk speech, as well as elements of oral folk art, flow into the narrative in a wide wave. Let us recall the conversation of the soldiers after the inspection of the regiment by Kutuzov:

“What did they say, crooked Kutuzov, about one eye?
- Otherwise, no! Totally crooked.
- No... brother, he has a bigger eye than you. He looked at all the boots and collars.
- How can he, my brother, look at my feet... well! Think … "
And here is the conversation between the Bogucharov men and the elder Dran:

“- How many years have you been eating the world? - Karp shouted at him. —
It's all the same for you! You dig up a little box, take it away, what do you want, ruin our
at home or not?

- It was said that there should be order, don’t leave anyone’s house, no matter what
It’s time not to take out the blue, that’s all! - shouted another.”

And vocabulary, and phraseology, and syntax - everything is here, as in a number of other
from many places, reproduces the speech of the peasants with exceptional truthfulness.

Peasant vernacular also occupies a large place in the language of the local nobility (old man Bolkonsky, Rostov] and partially
Moscow (Akhrosimova).

Bolkonsky convinces his daughter to study mathematics: “If you endure it, you will fall in love... The nonsense will jump out of your head.”

He greets his son, who has decided to go to war, with these words: “Ah! Warrior! Do you want to conquer Bonaparte? .. At least take good care of him, otherwise he will soon make us his subjects
will write it down. Ztsoroao!”; and further: “The house is ready for your wife. Princess Marya will take her and show her and talk a lot about her. This is their woman's business."

Old Count Rostov, wanting to praise Natasha, says: “Yes, gunpowder! ... It hit me!” He speaks of his manager like this: “What gold I have, this Mitenka... There is no way that it is impossible...” Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova always spoke in Russian: “Dear birthday girl
with the children... What, you old sinner,” she turned to the count who was kissing her hand, “tea, are you bored in Moscow?” Is there anywhere to run the dogs? But what should we do, father, this is how these birds will grow up...” she pointed to the girls, “whether you like it or not, we have to look for suitors.”

There is a lot of peasant speech in the language of officers close to the peasant masses - Tushin, Timokhin and others. When Tushin was caught by senior officers without boots, in order to get out of an awkward situation, he tries to switch to a humorous tone: “The soldiers say: when you are smarter, you are smarter.” During the battle, he says: “Crush it, guys,” and, looking at the results of his battery’s firing, notes: “Look, I puffed again.” His favorite addresses: darling, dear soul. But the language of each of the characters has its own individual characteristics.

The speech of each soldier and peasant has its own characteristic features, starting with Karataev, Lavrushka and ending with fleeting, episodic images. Thus, Karataev’s speech is always quite verbose and instructive. Even in the episode with his attempt to appropriate
the remnant of a canvas that belonged to a French soldier, after the Frenchman gives him this remnant, Karataev finds an instructive maxim: “Unchrist, but also a soul. That's what the old people used to say: a sweaty hand is tarnished, a dry hand is stubborn. He himself is hollow, but he gave it away.”

The speech of Tikhon Shcherbaty, an intelligent, firm, decisive, fearless man, has a completely different character. Clear, precise and at the same time imaginative and not without humor, it consists of short, sometimes incomplete sentences in which the predominant place belongs to the verb, which gives it a touch of energy.
“Well, where have you been? - Denisov said.
- Where had you been? “I followed the French,” Tikhon answered boldly and hastily...
-...Well, don’t vaip>.
“He took it,” said Tikhon.
-Where is Dezhon?
- Yes, I took him first at dawn... and took him into the forest. I see it's not okay. I think, let me go, I’ll take another more careful one... I went after another... I crawled into the forest in this manner, and then lay down. “Tikhon suddenly and flexibly lay down on his belly, imagining in their faces how he did it. - One and turn around... I’ll grab him in this manner. - Tikhon quickly and easily jumped up. “Let’s go, I say, to the colonel.” How loud he will be. And there are four of them here. They rushed at me with skewers. I hit them with an ax in such a manner: what are you saying, Christ is with you.”

The speech of the peasants contains a lot folklore elements. Karataev constantly uses wise proverbs created by the people: “Yes, the worm smoothes the cabbage, but before that you disappear”; “Our happiness, my friend, is like Water in delirium: if you pull it, it’s inflated, but if you pull it out, there’s nothing”; “A persuader is a brother to a cause,” etc. Sometimes they express their own with the help of proverbs
thoughts and other characters: “And wormwood grows on its root.”

The soldiers sing folk songs: “Oh, it’s gone... yes, the hedgehog’s head... Yes, we are tenacious on the other side”; “Oh, you, my canopy, my canopy!” etc. Speech diversity is also visible among the nobility. The precise, clear, often laconic speech of Andrei Bolkonsky, with his sometimes bitter irony, differs sharply in character from the statements of the dreamy, absent-minded, good-natured, and sometimes enthusiastic Pierre.
The deceit of Prince Vasily is emphasized by the hyperbolic epithets he uses.

Natasha Rostova’s speech is also unique.

It is distinguished by complete artlessness and simplicity, but is complemented more than any of Tolstoy’s other positive heroes by rich intonation, the expression of the eyes of the entire face, and body movements.
V. Vinogradov in his work “On Tolstoy’s Language” points out that this mimic conversation is also conveyed by the writer in the form of oral dialogue. So, for example, to Bolkonsky’s question whether Natasha could be his wife, she did not answer anything in words, but “her face said: “Why ask? Why doubt what you can’t help but know? Why talk when you can’t express in words what you feel.”

The synonyms with which the forest is depicted at the beginning of summer are bright, full-voiced and colorful: “The bells rang even more muffled in the forest than a month ago; everything was full, shady and dense...”

The epithetics also testify to the vocabulary richness of the language of War and Peace, its remarkable accuracy and expressiveness. Boris Drubetskoy is characterized by few epithets, but revealing the most basic features of the high-society Molchalin: quiet, decent, not fast (steps). But Andrey's complex nature
Bolkonsky demanded a lot of color from the writer (see the description of Andrei Bolkonsky). The word lives only in the context, and the richness of the writer’s language is most manifested in the skill of combining words.

History of the development of the novel

The novel "War and Peace" received big success. An excerpt from the novel entitled “1805” appeared in the Russian Bulletin; three of its parts were published in the city, which were soon followed by the remaining two (four volumes in total).

Recognized by critics around the world as the greatest epic work of the new European literature, “War and Peace” amazes from a purely technical point of view with the size of its fictional canvas. Only in painting can one find some parallel in the huge paintings of Paolo Veronese in the Venetian Doge's Palace, where hundreds of faces are also painted with amazing clarity and individual expression. In Tolstoy's novel all classes of society are represented, from emperors and kings to the last soldier, all ages, all temperaments and throughout the entire reign of Alexander I. What further enhances its dignity as an epic is the psychology of the Russian people it gives. With amazing penetration, Tolstoy depicted the mood of the crowd, both the highest and the most base and brutal (for example, in the famous scene of the murder of Vereshchagin).

Everywhere Tolstoy tries to capture the spontaneous, unconscious beginning human life. The whole philosophy of the novel boils down to the fact that success and failure in historical life does not depend on will and talents individuals, but on the extent to which they reflect in their activities the spontaneous background of historical events. Hence his loving attitude towards Kutuzov, who was strong not in strategic knowledge or heroism, but in the fact that he understood that purely Russian, not spectacular and not bright, but the only true way by which it was possible to cope with Napoleon. Hence Tolstoy’s dislike for Napoleon, who so highly valued his personal talents; hence, finally, exponentiation the greatest sage the most modest soldier Platon Karataev for the fact that he recognizes himself exclusively as a part of the whole, without the slightest claims to individual significance. Tolstoy’s philosophical or, rather, historiosophical thought for the most part permeates his great novel - and this is what makes it great - not in the form of reasoning, but in brilliantly captured details and whole paintings, true meaning which are not difficult for any thoughtful reader to understand.

In the first edition of War and Peace there was a long series of purely theoretical pages that interfered with the integrity of the artistic impression; in later editions these discussions were highlighted and formed a special part. However, in “War and Peace” Tolstoy the thinker was far from being reflected in all of his aspects and not in his most characteristic aspects. There is nothing here that passes red thread through all of Tolstoy’s works, both those written before “War and Peace” and those later, there is no deeply pessimistic mood. And in “War and Peace” there are horrors and death, but here they are somehow, so to speak, normal. The death, for example, of Prince Bolkonsky belongs to the most stunning pages world literature, but there is nothing disappointing or demeaning about it; this is not like the death of the hussar in “Kholstomer” or the death of Ivan Ilyich. After War and Peace, the reader wants to live, because even an ordinary, average, drab existence is illuminated by that bright, joyful light that illuminated the author’s personal existence in the era of the creation of the great novel.

In Tolstoy's later works, the transformation of the graceful, gracefully flirtatious, charming Natasha into a blurry, sloppily dressed landowner, completely absorbed in caring for her home and children, would have made a sad impression; but in the era of his enjoyment of family happiness, Tolstoy elevated all this to the pearl of creation.

Tolstoy later became skeptical of his novels. In January 1871, Tolstoy sent a letter to Fet: “How happy I am... that I will never write verbose rubbish like “War” again.”

On December 6, 1908, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “People love me for those trifles - “War and Peace”, etc., which seem very important to them.”

In the summer of 1909, one of the visitors to Yasnaya Polyana expressed his delight and gratitude for the creation of War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Tolstoy replied: “It’s the same as if someone came to Edison and said: “I really respect you because you dance the mazurka well.” I attribute meaning to completely different books.”

The central characters of the book and their prototypes

Rostov

• Count Ilya Andreevich Rostov.
• Countess Natalya Rostova (nee Shinshina) is the wife of Ilya Rostov.
• Count Nikolai Ilyich Rostov is the eldest son of Ilya and Natalya Rostov.
• Vera Ilyinichna Rostova - eldest daughter Ilya and Natalia Rostov.
• Count Pyotr Ilyich Rostov is the youngest son of Ilya and Natalya Rostov.
• Natasha Rostova (Natalie) - youngest daughter Ilya and Natalya Rostov, married Countess Bezukhova, Pierre's second wife.
• Sonya is the niece of Count Rostov.
• Andryusha Rostov is the son of Nikolai Rostov.

Bolkonsky

• Prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky is an old prince, according to the plot - a prominent figure in Catherine's era. The prototype is L. N. Tolstoy’s maternal grandfather, a representative ancient family Volkonskikh
• Prince Andrei Nikolaevich Bolkonsky is the son of the old prince.
• Princess Maria Nikolaevna (Marie) is the daughter of the old prince, the sister of Prince Andrei, in marriage the princess of Rostov. The prototype can be called Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya (married Tolstoy), mother of L. N. Tolstoy
• Lisa is the wife of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky.
• Young Prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky is the son of Prince Andrei.

Ryzhova Maria Andreevna

Bezukhovs

• Count Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhov is Pierre's father.
• Count Pierre (Peter Kirillovich) Bezukhov is an illegitimate son.

Other characters

• Princess Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskaya, and her son Boris Drubetskoy.
• Platon Karataev is a soldier of the Absheron regiment who met Pierre Bezukhov in captivity.
• Captain Tushin is a captain of the artillery corps who distinguished himself during the Battle of Shengraben. Its prototype was artillery staff captain Ya. I. Sudakov.
• Dolokhov - at the beginning of the novel - a hussar - the ringleader, later one of the leaders of the partisan movement. The prototype was Ivan Dorokhov.
• Vasily Dmitrievich Denisov is a friend of Nikolai Rostov. Denisov's prototype was Denis Davydov.
• Maria Dmitrievna Akhrosimova is a friend of the Rostov family. The prototype of Akhrosimova was the widow of Major General Ofrosimova Nastasya Dmitrievna. A. S. Griboyedov almost portraiturely depicted her in his comedy Woe from Wit.

Name controversy

Cover of the 1873 edition

In modern Russian, the word “world” has two different meanings, “peace” is an antonym to the word “war” and “peace” - in the sense of planet, community, society, the surrounding world, habitat. (cf. “In the world and death is red”). Before the spelling reform of 1918, these two concepts had different spellings: in the first sense it was written “mir”, in the second - “mir”. There is a legend that Tolstoy allegedly used the word “mir” (Universe, society) in the title. However, all editions of Tolstoy’s novel during his lifetime were published under the title “War and Peace,” and he himself wrote the title of the novel in French as "La guerre et la paix". There are different versions of the origin of this legend.

It should be noted that the title of Mayakovsky’s “almost the same name” poem “War and Peace” () deliberately uses a play on words, which was possible before the spelling reform, but is not caught by today’s reader. Support for the legend was provided in the city when in the popular television program “What? Where? When? " a question was asked on this topic and the "wrong" answer was given. On December 23, 2000, in the anniversary game dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the program, the same retro question was repeated again. And again, the experts gave the wrong answer - none of the organizers bothered to check the question on its merits. See also: , .

Notes

Links

• Text of the novel in the Komarov Library

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

• War over Jenkins' ear
• War and Peace

See what “War and Peace (novel)” is in other dictionaries:

War in the Air (novel)- War in the Air The War in the Air Author: H.G. Wells Genre: Science fiction Original language: English Original published: 1908 ... Wikipedia

War and Peace- War and Peace... Wikipedia

War and Peace- War and Peace Literary album. "War and Peace", novel gr. L. N. Tolstoy. Painting by P. O. Kovalsky, engraving. Schubler. Genre: novel epic

War and Peace (book)- War and Peace War and Peace Literary album. "War and Peace", novel gr. L. N. Tolstoy. Painting by P. O. Kovalsky, engraving. Schubler. Genre: novel epic

The language of L. Tolstoy in the novel “War and Peace”

What do we know about Leo Tolstoy's language?

The fact that there are many liberties in it (the language) (both in word usage and in grammar), for example:

““He’ll give it to him!” “This crowd of pronouns could be considered,” K. Fedin testified, “a slip of the tongue for any writer.” But with Tolstoy this is not negligence... This is what they say in life when they don’t find the form..."

Tolstoy has a complex periodic syntax, the longest sentences are blocks, like ice drifting in the spring. Although this has become commonplace the statement is by no means absolute.

“Natasha needed a husband. A husband was given to her. And her husband gave her a family. The phrase is choppy, telegraphic (almost like Hemingway’s). But it is prepared with a long dialogue (in the first completed edition of the novel; manuscript):

What do you want? - asked the mother.

I need a husband. Give me a husband, mother, give me a husband,” she shouted in her chesty voice through a barely noticeable smile, exactly in the same voice in which she demanded cake at lunch as a child! At the first second, everyone was puzzled and frightened by these words, but the doubt lasted only one second. It was funny, and everyone, even the footman and the jester Nastasya Ivanovich, laughed...

Mom, give me a husband. “Everyone has a husband,” she repeated, “everyone has a husband, but I don’t.”

But the most paradoxical stereotype of philological (linguistic) judgments about Tolstoy’s language consists in attributing to him someone else’s word, the so-called improper direct speech:

Rostov looked at Pierre unkindly, firstly, because Pierre, in his hussar eyes, was a rich civilian, the husband of a beauty, generally a woman...

From that first evening, when Natasha, after Pierre’s departure, told Princess Marya with a joyfully mocking smile that he was definitely, well, definitely from the bathhouse, and in a frock coat, and with a haircut...

And yet, no matter how many examples we give, it will not be possible to confirm the linguistic definition of improperly direct speech: “The author is hiding behind the hero” (Sh. Bally). In improperly direct speech, cunning, “on your own,” cunning, irony, and humor are formalized. Tolstoy’s language is demanding and categorical. Tolstoy's author quotes not words, but the thoughts and feelings of the characters (it turns out something like an “improperly direct thought”). And in order to convey the original (without verbal mediation) thought of the hero, the author sometimes “forgets” about speech etiquette, even if it concerns such a tender (according to the Karamzin tradition) subject in literature as women, young ladies.

Her tone was already grumbling, her lip lifted, giving her face not a welcoming, but a brutal, squirrel-like expression.

According to the Dictionary of 1847, bestial is “fierce, ferocious, bestial,” i.e., characteristic of animals. We understand that the squirrel is not a fierce animal. And yet brutal is an adjective in itself that is terrifying for our perception.

Tolstoy “everywhere speaks affirmatively... and cannot speak otherwise,” noted the first critics of “War and Peace” (P.V. Annenkov), speaks “with naivety, which in all fairness can be called genius” (N.N. . Fears). Tolstoy's author-narrator needs only his own and direct speech. He is absolutely accurate in conveying the hero’s direct speech, in every possible way protects its inviolable integrity and character, but, on the other hand, if the hero’s direct speech itself is not reproduced, the writer is extremely scrupulous in conveying the character’s thoughts and feelings in words, the language of either the narrator or the author, direct quotes from the character's speech.

Both women cared quite sincerely about making her beautiful. She was so bad that not one of them could think of competing with her...

It wasn’t the dress that was bad, but the princess’s face and whole figure... They forgot that the frightened face and figure could not be changed...

Retelling is also used as a literal transmission of direct speech. Compare with the narrator:

In her imagination, she [Princess Marya] already saw herself with Fedosyushka in rough rags, walking with a stick and a wallet along a dusty road... where there is no sadness, no sighing, but eternal joy and bliss.

From Princess Marya herself:

I will finally come to that eternal, quiet haven, where there is neither sadness nor sighing.

The Gospel quote is not exact, but a vital role always remains with direct speech.

By the way, the speech of Tolstoy himself also does not allow one to “suspect” an improperly direct one, because it is maximalist, uncompromising. This speech is brought to us by many testimonies, including the testimony of D. P. Makovitsky, L. N. Tolstoy’s family doctor (their first meeting took place in 1894), who collected - like Eckermann (“Conversations with Goethe”) -- conversations with Tolstoy: “Yasnaya Polyana Notes” in four books (Lit. inheritance.-- T. 90: In Tolstoy, 1904--1910).

[Lev Nikolaevich] Oh, Dostoevsky has it strange manner, strange language! All faces express themselves in the same language... He throws out the most serious questions at random, mixing them with romantic ones. In my opinion, the days of novels are over. Describe “how she let her hair down...”, interpret human (love) relationships...

[Sofya Andreevna] When love relationships are the interests of the first importance.

[L. N.] Like the first! They are 1018th importance. Among the people this is in its present place. Work life comes first.

[L. N.] I was happy that from a young age I loved the Russian people and admired the people... They are growing spiritually, moving forward, only slowly; he knows; we can learn from him.

[WITH. A.] I absolutely love it when people praise me. You are not?

[L. N.] I was completely freed from this. Precious serious attitude to a person when they scold you, scold you.

But two weeks after his departure, she, just as unexpectedly for those around her, woke up from her moral illness, became the same as before, but only with a changed moral physiognomy...

“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...

Pierre's questions coincide with Tolstoy's diary entries: “I was thinking all night about the meaning of life.”

“My tongue is my enemy,” Pierre wrote in his diary. It is known that Pierre's speech did not always adequately express his thoughts and feelings. Let us remember his unsuccessful speeches: at the end of the Masonic meeting, where Pierre spoke, “ Great master with hostility and irony he made a remark to Bezukhov about his ardor.” Shocked by the failure, the speaker “for three days after delivering his speech in the box, he lay at home on the sofa, not receiving anyone and not going anywhere.” In the Assembly of the Nobility, where “the sovereign’s manifesto was read, which aroused delight,” and Pierre spoke out, “occasionally breaking through in French words and bookishly expressing himself in Russian,” his speech was perceived as “nonsense”:

Not only was Pierre unable to speak, but he was rudely interrupted, pushed away, and turned away from him as if from a common enemy.

Pierre reproached his tongue for expressing the wrong words, weak, unnecessary, inaccurate, not “universally meaningful, not consonant.”

“You cannot connect thoughts, but connecting all these thoughts is what is needed! Yes, we need to mate, we need to mate!” - Pierre repeated to himself with inner delight...

He gravitated towards perceiving and expressing a thought formalized by a word in the function of a sentence (predicative unit):

He remembered the honeymoon and blushed at this memory... the whole solution was in that terrible word that she was a depraved woman: he said this to himself scary word, and everything became clear!

While gravitating toward the only true words, Pierre stood closest to the semantics of science:

Don't I feel that I am in this huge countless number of beings in which divinity is manifested... high power, as you wish, - that I constitute one link, one step from lower beings to higher ones? If I see, clearly see this staircase that leads from a plant to a person, then why should I assume that this staircase breaks with me, and does not lead further and further...

Bezukhov seemed to personify the main motives of science: “finding the general”, “the main thought in everything”.

Another thing is Andrei Bolkonsky.

Prince Andrei “expressed his thoughts so clearly and distinctly that it was clear that he had thought about this more than once...”; “...he could be... dry, strictly decisive and especially unpleasantly logical.” Let us pay attention to this series of definitions. What functional style of practical stylistics of the Russian language are they telling us about?

Nikolushka can’t go for a walk today: it’s very cold.

If it were warm,” at such moments Prince Andrei answered his sister especially dryly, “then he would go in only a shirt, but since it’s cold, we need to put it on him.” warm clothes, which was invented for this purpose. That’s what follows from this, that it’s cold, not to say stay at home when the child needs air,” he said with particular logic, as if punishing someone for all this secret, illogical inner work taking place within him. Princess Marya thought in these cases about how this mental work dries out men.

The formal business style seems ideal for the formation and expression of cause-and-effect meaning. And the young prince “had in highest degree... practical tenacity,” tenacity of “business literature” (or, as we would say today, practical stylistics). Prince Andrey is characterized, as A.V. Chicherin noted, by “a constant movement of thought.”

Having finished his visits at five o'clock in the evening, mentally composing a letter to his father about the battle and about his trip to Brunn, Prince Andrei returned home to Bilibin.

The diplomat Bilibin can also be called a stylist (practical!): “despite his laziness, he sometimes spent nights at his desk” in order to “draft a circular, memorandum or report skillfully, accurately and gracefully.” But Prince Andrei’s view of style is more dialectical, deeper, as is the meaning that he was looking for and striving for: “... nothing happens forever.” We also understand that “forever” is anti-causal (and therefore not logical). The young Bolkonsky perfected the art of the business - causal - style when he “concernedly translated articles of the Roman and French code into Russian ...”, when he served on the commission of Speransky, the famous editor of the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire, “the businesslike Karamzin.” “Nikolai Pavlovich, having ascended the throne, said to Karamzin, who was dying at that time: “Imagine that around me no one knows how to write two pages in Russian, except for one Speransky...”. Prince Andrei's father - old Prince Bolkonsky - was brought up on the “organic” cause-and-effect phrase of the Lomonosov tradition, loved this “phrase” and himself resorted to the cause-and-effect method of expressing thought as universal logic business style:

The father accepted his son's message with outward calm, but with inner anger...

Firstly, the marriage was not brilliant in terms of kinship, wealth and nobility. Secondly, Prince Andrei was not in his first youth and was in poor health (the old man was especially careful about this), and she was very young. Thirdly, there was a son whom it was a pity to give to the girl. Fourthly, finally, the father said, looking mockingly at his son, “I beg you, postpone the matter for a year...”.

An example of a business style - conditional, causal and effectual meanings - both in their clear, logical and in the same unpleasantly logical following that was noted in the young prince. This “organic” superphrase is colored by the speech expression of the 18th century. - irony and wit. Let us recall that the military officer was asked to postpone the matter, and in the word business (in the Dictionary of 1847) the meaning of “battle” was updated:

However, today, probably, there will be no business,” said Bagration...

The officer, Tushin's comrade, was killed at the beginning of the case...

Anyone can answer the question, an example of which style is given below:

I want fame, I want to be famous people, I want to be loved by them... for this alone I live. Yes, for this alone!.. And no matter how dear or dear many people are to me - father, sister, wife - the most dear people to me - but, no matter how scary and unnatural it seems, I will give them all up now for a moment of glory, triumph over people...

This style is romantic. We could expand his “space.”

Prince Andrei was the first, tangling his hair on the muslin canopy, to move away from the crib. “Yes, this is the only thing left for me now,” he said with a sigh.

What is the difference between style and language? Usually this question is answered like this: style belongs to art, the language of communication (means of communication). Style is monologue, language is dialogue: two levels of a single hierarchical system. However, the main, deep (and even profound) difference between style and language is that every style formalizes cause-and-effect relationships. Each means both functional and historical-literary.

In the novel “War and Peace” the era of literary sentimentalism itself, with its “general secretary” - Karamzin’s elegance, appeared - in a single, unique copy. And the accents of the sentimentalist style are focused on Nikolai Rostov (“there is so much poetry in him,” according to Julie Karagina):

Nikolai sang the song he had learned again:

On a pleasant night, in the moonlight,

Imagine yourself happily

That there is still someone in the world,

Who thinks about you too!

“Dear friend of my soul,” he wrote. “Nothing but honor could keep me from returning to the village.”

Of course, it is difficult to agree with the enthusiastic Julie about the “poetry” in Nikolai:

“....all this is poetry and women’s tales... We need rigor... That’s what!” - he said, clenching his sanguine fist.

But we also cannot agree with Nikolai’s criticism regarding his “calmness,” supposedly “epigonian, replete with romantic cliches” and exposing him as an epistolary graphomaniac.

Firstly, his cliches are sentimentalist, and the difference between sentimentalism and romanticism is very significant. Secondly, the matter is not at all a matter of personal preferences - it is, so to speak, a historical inclination towards the epistolary, i.e., towards the sentimentalist (these definitions were synonymous), style.

As for Natasha as an epistolary author, it should be noted that she was distinguished by blatant illiteracy. The countess corrected her letters to Prince Andrei (one can assume: both spelling and stylistically) according to drafts (“brullions”).

The writer created a causal (cause-and-effect) phrase. Tolstoy the teacher was already approaching it - the “organic phrase”. He spoke about the method of building cause-and-effect relationships using examples of student essays in the article “Who should learn to write from whom, the peasant children from us or from the peasant children?” He recalls how the children “composed”: at first “... many smart and talented students wrote nonsense, wrote: “the fire caught fire, they began to drag it, and I went outside” - and nothing came of it, despite the fact that the plot The composition was rich and what was described left a deep impression on the child.” Then masterpieces appeared, pearls of cause-and-effect meaning: “... the side feature that the godfather put on a woman’s fur coat, I remember, struck me to such an extent that I asked: why exactly a woman’s fur coat?.. And in fact, the trait this one is extraordinary... The godfather, in a woman's fur coat, involuntarily seems to you to be a puny, narrow-chested man; which is obviously what it should be. The woman's fur coat, lying on the bench and the first one that came to his hand, also represents to you the whole winter and evening life of a peasant. You can’t help but imagine... all this external disorder of peasant life, where not a single person has clearly defined clothes and not a single thing has its own specific place (...). It seemed so strange to me that a peasant, semi-literate boy suddenly showed such conscious strength as an artist, which Goethe, at all his immense heights of development, could not achieve.”

Tolstoy's texts are filled with the words purification, renewal, phrases internal struggle, inner man and the like, illustrating Tolstoy’s principle of “the unity of the original moral attitude of the author to the subject.” It is the appeal of the Tolstoy author-narrator directly to the direct speech of the heroes that predetermines and conditions the development of the all-powerful Tolstoy voice.

But the fact that a functional style suddenly appeared in the Epilogue (in the 2nd part) was a complete surprise. How did his sentimentalist style dissolve and where did it disappear from the novel?

According to the law of energy transformation, style could not disappear, at least according to the law of inertia (conservatism) of the linguistic consciousness of people.

The "immobility of the earth" - according to Ptolemy - dictated "non-existent immobility in space." Man abandoned the consciousness of this “immobility” in order to recognize “the movement that is imperceptible to us,” says Tolstoy in the final paragraphs of the Epilogue. And he states that after this refusal and recognition will follow as inevitable and irreversible for history: “In the same way, it is necessary to abandon the perceived freedom and recognize the dependence that we do not feel.” The pressure of Tolstoy’s thought seems to break on a linguistic cliff: man really refused “non-existent freedom”, but in his language he did not recognize “unfelt dependence”; he continues, despite the discoveries of Copernicus, to speak in the language of Ptolemy’s geocentric system: sunrise, sunset, sunset , the sun has risen, the sun has risen, the sun is going down, the sun is going down - this is how the “non-existent stillness” was deposited in movement. And the matter is not saved by the so-called “reason” - this highest prerogative of man: Lobachevsky, recognizing intelligence in animals, denied them reason. L. Tolstoy denied it even to man.

In the Epilogue, free will does not at all mean a straightforward choice between good and evil. By the way, Tolstoy, who so loved these words in his everyday and journalistic speech, is very careful and restrained in the Epilogue.

The more clear to us a person’s connection with the outside world in general, the more unreliable his freedom, his economic, state, religious, universal connection with the outside world, the clearer it is to us, the more unreliable his freedom.

How “unreliable” is the stylistic (aesthetic-speech) freedom of a person! Style - the wings of a person or the sarcophagus in which he is imprisoned forever?

But human free will, but arbitrariness for good and evil? Here it is, a great word standing in the way of truth.

These biblically majestic lines were not included in the canonical edition; they will later unfold in the writer’s confessions, treatises and philippics.

But the second part of the Epilogue emanates the same ineradicable anxiety as “ Dead souls"Gogol or from Chaadaev's Philosophical Letters. On the one hand, we feel how the spirit reaches a higher peak of activity, breaks out of the circle of “writing.” On the other hand, we are frightened by the infinite number of meanings contained in magic words, their “innermost secret”, and most importantly, hopelessness from an axiological perspective: “science makes scientists, but not people.”

The epilogue in its second part is anti-poetic. Its twelve chapters can be recognized as twelve lectures - a semester-long university course on the topic “Differential of History” (without particularly delving into the aesthetic, and most importantly, the epic potential that personifies the image of Russia: “Russian peasant” - according to Sechenov, “ Russian forces" and "Russian voices" - according to Mendeleev, "Russian man" - according to Timiryazev, "Russian black soil" - according to Dokuchaev).

The epilogue in the second part is rhetorical - like a monologue addressed to the listeners (one of its secrets is hidden here: the reader has become a listener); it contains features of oratorical genres: diatribes (conversations with an absent interlocutor), soliloquy (conversations with oneself) and even menipea (intercalated episodes).

A set of rhetorical features is organized into a lecture.

Linguists will say: “I am distributed by predicates”, different in meaning, phase (I begin, proceed, etc.) -- character traits university lecture.

There was no “I” in the novel War and Peace itself. It appeared only in the Epilogue, and in it the “colossal, thousand-year-old “I” of literature” (V. Rozanov), the formidable “I” in the “Life” of Avvakum, the shocked “I” in “The Journey” somehow dialectically broke and disappeared. .”, the stupidly cunning “I” in “What is to be done?”, the Jesuit “I” in “The Brothers Karamazov”. And if we add to them other “I”s, scientific - emphatically polite to the point of courtesy - Sechenov, elegant to the point of sophistication - Timiryazev, skeptical to the point of shocking - Mechnikov, impressive to the point of preaching - Stoletov, open to the point of sincerity - Dokuchaev, then the epilogue “I” is the most unique subject in literature.

The researchers did not stop at the Epilogue not only because Leo Tolstoy himself asked them to do so (as he “begged” ordinary readers). The fact is that the so-called science of the language (styles) of fiction has generally bypassed the reader. She recorded those phenomena and facts that could come exclusively from their demiurge, the writer.

For literary studies, the Epilogue is lost because in it literature disappeared (it doesn’t matter whether it drowned or evaporated).

For linguistics, the Epilogue is too monotonous in its syntactic construction with non-literary, non-verbal “lexical content”.

Only A. A. Shakhmatov decided to take several sentences from there (Epilogue-1) for his “Syntax of the Russian Language.”

What language is Epilogue 2 written in?

Here is Bakhtin’s opinion: “By the end of the novel, cognitive philosophical and historical judgments completely break their connection with the ethical event and are organized into a theoretical treatise.” And here is the opinion of V.V. Vinogradov: “The main linguistic background of the novel is Russian narrative, scientific-descriptive and philosophical-journalistic.” In the last chapters, the image of the author “rises above the spheres of consciousness of the characters and above the world of the depicted reality. The author appears here as a preacher, seeker and “otherworldly” contemplator of the true simple, unvarnished truth.”

According to Bakhtin, the Epilogue “completely breaks”, according to Vinogradov it “ascends” and “otherworldly”, but Bakhtin, in addition to “breaks”, has an equally remarkable judgment: “The author must be on the border of the world he creates as its active creator, for his intrusion into this world destroys its aesthetic stability.” It turns out that Bakhtin’s separation cannot be taken literally - in its terminological meaning. Let's not forget that Bakhtin loved metaphors. What is important for us is the idea of ​​the boundaries between the author and the hero, or rather, the “ghostliness” of these demarcations: “Any strict consistency of the genre, in addition to the artistic will of the author, begins to respond with stylization, or even parodic stylization.” “Tolstoy speaks scientific language...” believed Lev Shestov. But the opposition of the “I” itself is expressed in Tolstoy by the opposition of the spiritual “I” (New Testament) “I” to the scientific as a perverted “I”, which Berdyaev qualified as Tolstoy’s “rebellion” against history and civilization. We end the section on Tolstoy’s language with an analysis of Epilogue-2, because we distinguish in it an epilogue of the 20th century. Tolstoy's Epilogue-2 is inexpressibly relevant, let us remember his paradoxes: “he killed many people because he was very brilliant”; “the most powerful weapon of ignorance is the spread of printing” (you can read television); “advanced people, that is, a crowd of ignoramuses”; something that seemed or seems funny to many young people at the end of the 20th century. appears to be Holy Scripture.

Of course, Epilogue 2 is written in super Tolstoyan language - that is, with the highest tension of his principle of “the original moral attitude of the author to the subject,” a language that is heavy and not always understandable.

But we set ourselves the task of showing the process of formation of such a language.

It is a mistake to see equality between the Epilogue of the novel and Tolstoy. In any case, the “I” in the Epilogue is not at all a synonym and not a substitute (substitute) for the “I” of Tolstoy proper.

We tried to show that Epilogue-2 (its language) was prepared by like-minded people - confidantes of the author-narrator: Pierre and Andrey, the word of the first, the sentence of the second. In a word - in the sense in which Pushkin’s Lensky has a spouse (“come, come...”) - the highest conjugation of meaning: “all is good...”. A sentence - in the sense of the practical compatibility of cause and effect. And the fact that non-direct speech cannot be attributed to Tolstoy’s language (as is almost unconditionally done) is what convinces most of all is the Epilogue - the embodiment of Tolstoy’s voice.