Heroes of the work War and Peace list. Characteristics of the main characters of the novel

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, with his pure Russian pen, gave life to a whole world of characters in the novel “War and Peace.” His fictional characters, who are intertwined into entire noble families or family ties between families, show the modern reader a real reflection of those people who lived in the times described by the author. One of greatest books"War and Peace" of world significance with the confidence of a professional historian, but at the same time, as if in a mirror, presents to the whole world that Russian spirit, those characters of secular society, those historical events that were invariably present at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries.
And against the backdrop of these events, it is shown in all its power and diversity.

L.N. Tolstoy and the heroes of the novel “War and Peace” experience the events of the past nineteenth century, but Lev Nikolaevich begins to describe the events of 1805. The coming war with the French, the growing greatness of Napoleon decisively approaching the whole world, turmoil in Moscow social circles and demonstrable calm in St. Petersburg secular society- all this can be called a kind of background against which, like a brilliant artist, the author drew his characters. There are quite a lot of heroes - about 550 or 600. There are main and central figures, and there are others or just mentioned ones. In total, the heroes of War and Peace can be divided into three groups: central, secondary and mentioned characters. Among all of them, there are both fictional characters, both prototypes of people who surrounded the writer at that time, and those who really existed historical figures. Let's consider the main characters of the novel.

Quotes from the novel “War and Peace”

- ... I often think how unfairly the happiness of life is sometimes distributed.

A person cannot own anything while he is afraid of death. And whoever is not afraid of her, everything belongs to him.

Until now, thank God, I have been a friend of my children and enjoy their complete trust,” said the countess, repeating the misconception of many parents who believe that their children have no secrets from them.

Everything, from napkins to silver, earthenware and crystal, bore that special imprint of novelty that happens in the household of young spouses.

If everyone fought only according to their convictions, there would be no war.

Being an enthusiast became her social position, and sometimes, when she didn’t even want to, she, in order not to deceive the expectations of people who knew her, became an enthusiast.

Everything, to love everyone, to always sacrifice oneself for love, meant not loving anyone, meant not living this earthly life.

Never, never marry, my friend; Here's my advice to you: don't get married until you tell yourself that you did everything you could, and until you stop loving the woman you chose, until you see her clearly; otherwise you will make a cruel and irreparable mistake. Marry an old man who is worthless...

The central figures of the novel "War and Peace"

Rostov - counts and countesses

Rostov Ilya Andreevich

Count, father of four children: Natasha, Vera, Nikolai and Petya. A very kind and generous person who loved life very much. His exorbitant generosity ultimately led him to wastefulness. Loving husband and father. A very good organizer of various balls and receptions. However, his life on a grand scale, and selfless assistance to the wounded during the war with the French and the departure of the Russians from Moscow, dealt fatal blows to his condition. His conscience constantly tormented him because of the impending poverty of his family, but he could not help himself. After the death of his youngest son Petya, the count was broken, but nevertheless revived during the preparations for the wedding of Natasha and Pierre Bezukhov. Literally a few months pass after the Bezukhovs’ wedding when Count Rostov dies.

Rostova Natalya (wife of Ilya Andreevich Rostov)

The wife of Count Rostov and the mother of four children, this woman, aged forty-five, had oriental features. The concentration of slowness and sedateness in her was regarded by those around her as solidity and the high importance of her personality for the family. But the real reason for her mannerisms probably lies in her exhausted and weak physical condition from giving birth and raising four children. She loves her family and children very much, so the news of the death of her youngest son Petya almost drove her crazy. Just like Ilya Andreevich, Countess Rostova was very fond of luxury and the fulfillment of any of her orders.

Leo Tolstoy and the heroes of the novel “War and Peace” in Countess Rostova helped reveal the prototype of the author’s grandmother, Pelageya Nikolaevna Tolstoy.

Rostov Nikolay

Son of Count Rostov Ilya Andreevich. A loving brother and son who honors his family, at the same time he loves to serve in the Russian army, which is very significant and important for his dignity. Even in his fellow soldiers, he often saw his second family. Even though there was for a long time in love with his cousin Sonya, yet at the end of the novel he marries Princess Marya Bolkonskaya. A very energetic young man, with curly hair and an “open expression.” His patriotism and love for the Emperor of Russia never dried up. Having gone through many hardships of war, he becomes a brave and courageous hussar. After the death of Father Ilya Andreevich, Nikolai retires in order to improve the family’s financial affairs, pay off debts and, finally, become a good husband for Marya Bolkonskaya.

Introduced to Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich as a prototype of his father.

Rostova Natasha

Daughter of Count and Countess Rostov. A very energetic and emotional girl, considered ugly, but lively and attractive, she is not very smart, but intuitive, because she knew how to perfectly “guess people,” their mood and some character traits. Very impulsive towards nobility and self-sacrifice. She sings and dances very beautifully, which at that time was an important characteristic for a girl from secular society. Natasha’s most important quality, which Leo Tolstoy, like his heroes, repeatedly emphasize in the novel “War and Peace” is her closeness to the ordinary Russian people. And she herself completely absorbed the Russianness of culture and the strength of the spirit of the nation. However, this girl lives in her illusion of goodness, happiness and love, which, after some time, brings Natasha into reality. It is these blows of fate and her heartfelt experiences that make Natasha Rostova an adult and ultimately give her a mature, true love for Pierre Bezukhov. The story of the rebirth of her soul deserves special respect, how Natasha began to attend church after succumbing to the temptation of a deceitful seducer. If you are interested in Tolstoy's works, which take a deeper look at the Christian heritage of our people, then you need to read about how he fought temptation.

Collective prototype of the writer's daughter-in-law Kuzminskaya Tatiana Andreevna, as well as her sister - the wife of Lev Nikolaevich - Sofia Andreevna.

Rostova Vera

Daughter of Count and Countess Rostov. She was famous for her strict disposition and inappropriate, albeit fair, remarks in society. It is unknown why, but her mother did not really love her and Vera felt this acutely, apparently, which is why she often went against everyone around her. Later she became the wife of Boris Drubetsky.

She is the prototype of Tolstoy’s sister Sophia, the wife of Lev Nikolaevich, whose name was Elizaveta Bers.

Rostov Peter

Just a boy, the son of Count and Countess Rostov. Growing up, Petya, as a young man, was eager to go to war, and in such a way that his parents could not restrain him at all. Having finally escaped from parental care and joined Denisov’s hussar regiment. Petya dies in the first battle, without having had time to fight. His death greatly affected his family.

Sonya

The miniature, nice girl Sonya was the niece of Count Rostov and lived all her life under his roof. Her long-term love for Nikolai Rostov became fatal for her, because she never managed to unite with him in marriage. In addition, the old count Natalya Rostova was very against their marriage, because they were cousins. Sonya acts nobly, refusing Dolokhov and agreeing to love only Nikolai for the rest of her life, while freeing him from his promise to marry her. She lives the rest of her life under the old countess in the care of Nikolai Rostov.

The prototype of this seemingly insignificant character was Lev Nikolaevich’s second cousin, Tatyana Aleksandrovna Ergolskaya.

Bolkonsky - princes and princesses

Bolkonsky Nikolai Andreevich

The father of the main character, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. In the past, the current general-in-chief, in the present, a prince who earned himself the nickname “Prussian king” in Russian secular society. Socially active, strict like a father, tough, pedantic, but wise master of his estate. Outwardly, he was a thin old man in a powdered white wig, thick eyebrows hanging over penetrating and intelligent eyes. He doesn’t like to show feelings even to his beloved son and daughter. He constantly torments his daughter Marya with nagging and sharp words. Sitting on his estate, Prince Nikolai is constantly on the alert for events taking place in Russia, and only before his death does he lose a full understanding of the scale of the tragedy of the Russian war with Napoleon.

The prototype of Prince Nikolai Andreevich was the writer’s grandfather Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky.

Bolkonsky Andrey

Prince, son of Nikolai Andreevich. He is ambitious, just like his father, restrained in the manifestation of sensual impulses, but loves his father and sister very much. Married to the “little princess” Lisa. Made a good one military career. He philosophizes a lot about life, meaning and the state of his spirit. From which it is clear that he is in some kind of constant search. After the death of his wife, in Natasha Rostova he saw hope for himself, a real girl, and not a fake one as in secular society, and some light of future happiness, so he was in love with her. Having proposed to Natasha, he was forced to go abroad for treatment, which served as a real test for both of their feelings. As a result, their wedding fell through. Prince Andrey went to war with Napoleon and was seriously wounded, after which he did not survive and died from a serious wound. Natasha devotedly looked after him until the end of his death.

Bolkonskaya Marya

Daughter of Prince Nikolai and sister of Andrei Bolkonsky. A very meek girl, not beautiful, but kind-hearted and very rich, like a bride. Her inspiration and devotion to religion serves as an example of good morals and meekness to many. She unforgettably loves her father, who often mocked her with his ridicule, reproaches and injections. And he also loves his brother, Prince Andrei. She did not immediately accept Natasha Rostova as her future daughter-in-law, because she seemed too frivolous for her brother Andrei. After all the hardships she has experienced, she marries Nikolai Rostov.

The prototype of Marya is the mother of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy - Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya.

Bezukhovs - counts and countesses

Bezukhov Pierre (Peter Kirillovich)

One of the main characters who deserves close attention and the most positive assessment. This character has experienced a lot of emotional trauma and pain, possessing a kind and highly noble disposition. Tolstoy and the heroes of the novel “War and Peace” very often express their love and acceptance of Pierre Bezukhov as a man of very high morals, complacent and a man of a philosophical mind. Lev Nikolaevich loves his hero, Pierre, very much. As a friend of Andrei Bolkonsky, the young Count Pierre Bezukhov is very loyal and responsive. Despite the various intrigues weaving under his nose, Pierre did not become embittered and did not lose his good nature towards people. And having married Natalya Rostova, he finally found the grace and happiness that he so lacked in his first wife, Helen. At the end of the novel, his desire to change the political foundations in Russia can be traced, and from afar one can even guess his Decembrist sentiments. (100%) 4 votes

Introduction

Leo Tolstoy in his epic depicted more than 500 characters typical of Russian society. In War and Peace, the heroes of the novel are representatives of the upper class of Moscow and St. Petersburg, key government and military figures, soldiers, people from the common people, and peasants. The depiction of all layers of Russian society allowed Tolstoy to recreate a complete picture of Russian life in one of the turning points in the history of Russia - the era of the wars with Napoleon of 1805-1812.

In War and Peace, the characters are conventionally divided into main characters - whose fates are woven by the author into the plot narrative of all four volumes and the epilogue, and secondary - heroes who appear sporadically in the novel. Among the main characters of the novel are central characters- Andrei Bolkonsky, Natasha Rostova and Pierre Bezukhov, around whose destinies the events of the novel unfold.

Characteristics of the main characters of the novel

Andrey Bolkonsky- “a very handsome young man with definite and dry features”, “short stature.” The author introduces Bolkonsky to the reader at the beginning of the novel - the hero was one of the guests at Anna Scherer's evening (where many of the main characters of Tolstoy's War and Peace were also present). According to the plot of the work, Andrei was tired of high society, he dreamed of glory, no less than the glory of Napoleon, which is why he goes to war. The episode that changed Bolkonsky’s worldview was the meeting with Bonaparte - wounded on the field of Austerlitz, Andrei realized how insignificant Bonaparte and all his glory really were. The second turning point in Bolkonsky’s life is his love for Natasha Rostova. The new feeling helped the hero return to a full life, to believe that after the death of his wife and everything he had suffered, he could continue to live fully. However, their happiness with Natasha was not destined to come true - Andrei was mortally wounded during the Battle of Borodino and soon died.

Natasha Rostova- a cheerful, kind, very emotional and loving girl: “black-eyed, with big mouth, ugly, but alive.” An important feature of the image central heroine“War and Peace” is her musical talent - a beautiful voice that even people inexperienced in music were fascinated by. The reader meets Natasha on the girl’s name day, when she turns 12 years old. Tolstoy depicts the moral maturation of the heroine: love experiences, going out into the world, Natasha’s betrayal of Prince Andrei and her worries because of this, the search for herself in religion and the turning point in the heroine’s life – the death of Bolkonsky. In the epilogue of the novel, Natasha appears to the reader completely different - before us is more the shadow of her husband, Pierre Bezukhov, and not the bright, active Rostova, who a few years ago danced Russian dances and “won” carts for the wounded from her mother.

Pierre Bezukhov- “a massive, fat young man with a cropped head and glasses.”

“Pierre was somewhat larger than the other men in the room,” he had “an intelligent and at the same time timid, observant and natural look that distinguished him from everyone in this living room.” Pierre is a hero who is in constant search of himself through knowledge of the world around him. Every situation in his life, every life stage became a special life lesson for the hero. Marriage to Helen, passion for Freemasonry, love for Natasha Rostova, presence on the field of the Borodino battle (which the hero sees precisely through the eyes of Pierre), French captivity and acquaintance with Karataev completely change Pierre’s personality - a purposeful and self-confident man with own views and goals.

Other important characters

In War and Peace, Tolstoy conventionally identifies several blocks of characters - the Rostov, Bolkonsky, Kuragin families, as well as characters included in the social circle of one of these families. The Rostovs and Bolkonskys, as positive heroes, bearers of truly Russian mentality, ideas and spirituality, are contrasted with the negative characters Kuragins, who had little interest in the spiritual aspect of life, preferring to shine in society, weave intrigues and choose acquaintances according to their status and wealth. A brief description of the heroes of War and Peace will help you better understand the essence of each main character.

Graph Ilya Andreevich Rostov- a kind and generous man, for whom the most important thing in his life was family. The Count sincerely loved his wife and four children (Natasha, Vera, Nikolai and Petya), helped his wife in raising their children and did his best to maintain a warm atmosphere in the Rostov house. Ilya Andreevich cannot live without luxury, he liked to organize magnificent balls, receptions and evenings, but his wastefulness and inability to manage economic affairs ultimately led to the critical financial situation of the Rostovs.
Countess Natalya Rostova is a 45-year-old woman with oriental features, who knows how to make an impression in high society, the wife of Count Rostov, and the mother of four children. The Countess, like her husband, loved her family very much, trying to support her children and bring up the best qualities in them. Due to her excessive love for children, after Petya’s death, the woman almost goes crazy. In the countess, kindness towards loved ones was combined with prudence: wanting to improve the financial situation of the family, the woman tries with all her might to upset Nikolai’s marriage to the “unprofitable bride” Sonya.

Nikolay Rostov- “a short, curly-haired young man with an open expression on his face.” This is a simple-minded, open, honest and friendly young man, Natasha’s brother, the eldest son of the Rostovs. At the beginning of the novel, Nikolai appears as an admiring young man who wants military glory and recognition, however, after participating first in the Battle of Shengrab, and then in the Battle of Austerlitz and the Patriotic War, Nikolai’s illusions are dispelled and the hero understands how absurd and wrong the very idea of ​​war is. Nikolai finds personal happiness in his marriage to Marya Bolkonskaya, in whom he felt a like-minded person even at their first meeting.

Sonya Rostova- “a thin, petite brunette with a soft look, shaded by long eyelashes, a thick black braid that wrapped around her head twice, and a yellowish tint to the skin on her face,” the niece of Count Rostov. According to the plot of the novel, she is a quiet, reasonable, kind girl who knows how to love and is prone to self-sacrifice. Sonya refuses Dolokhov, because she wants to be faithful only to Nikolai, whom she sincerely loves. When the girl finds out that Nikolai is in love with Marya, she meekly lets him go, not wanting to interfere with the happiness of her loved one.

Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky- Prince, retired General Chief. He is a proud, intelligent, strict man of short stature “with small dry hands and gray drooping eyebrows, which sometimes, as he frowned, obscured the brilliance of his intelligent and youthful sparkling eyes.” Deep down in his soul, Bolkonsky loves his children very much, but does not dare to show it (only before his death was he able to show his daughter his love). Nikolai Andreevich died from the second blow while in Bogucharovo.

Marya Bolkonskaya- a quiet, kind, meek girl, prone to self-sacrifice and sincerely loving her family. Tolstoy describes her as a heroine with an "ugly, weak body and thin face“, but “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 the ugliness of her entire face, these eyes became more attractive than beauty.” The beauty of Marya’s eyes later amazed Nikolai Rostov. The girl was very pious, devoted herself entirely to caring for her father and nephew, then redirecting her love to own family and husband.

Helen Kuragina- a bright, brilliantly beautiful woman with an “unchanging smile” and full white shoulders, who liked male company, Pierre’s first wife. Helen was not particularly intelligent, but thanks to her charm, ability to behave in society and establish the necessary connections, she set up her own salon in St. Petersburg and was personally acquainted with Napoleon. The woman died of a severe sore throat (although there were rumors in society that Helen had committed suicide).

Anatol Kuragin- Helen's brother, as handsome in appearance and noticeable in high society as his sister. Anatole lived the way he wanted, throwing away all moral principles and foundations, organizing drunkenness and brawls. Kuragin wanted to steal Natasha Rostova and marry her, although he was already married.

Fedor Dolokhov- “a man of average height, curly hair and light eyes,” an officer of the Semenovsky regiment, one of the leaders of the partisan movement. Fedor’s personality amazingly combined selfishness, cynicism and adventurism with the ability to love and care for his loved ones. (Nikolai Rostov is very surprised that at home, with his mother and sister, Dolokhov is completely different - a loving and gentle son and brother).

Conclusion

Even short description heroes of Tolstoy's "War and Peace" allows us to see the close and inextricable relationship between the destinies of the characters. Like all events in the novel, the meetings and farewells of the characters take place according to the irrational, elusive law of historical mutual influences. It is these incomprehensible mutual influences that create the destinies of the heroes and shape their views on the world.

Work test

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; that a person can choose the right path both in private life and in great history not with the help of a proud mind, but with the help sensitive heart. The one who guessed right, felt the mysterious course of history and the no less mysterious laws of everyday life, is wise and great, even if he is small in his social status. 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. It's monotony narrative device testifies not to the poverty of the artistic arsenal, but, on the contrary, to the 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 sorts of bad things and ends up in scandalous stories (the plot with the bear and the policeman in the first part, for which Dolokhov was demoted to the rank and file). 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: Fyodor cruelly and dishonestly beats Nikolai Rostov, vilely taking out on him his anger at 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 draw the 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 outer outline of their biographies can be reproduced in literary essay 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. Odin lives in the legend of a great commander, which is retold to each other by 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 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 the 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 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 a completely different quality in them, 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 in a clear sky, ran across the emperor’s young and happy face 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 are talking about the resignation of Kutuzov, who had just won, together with the entire Russian people, a victory over Napoleon!

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. Leaving for the village for two years, trying to move to St. Petersburg and get a job changes little in general situation of things.

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 improving the lives of the children themselves the best way. And when the countess learns about the death of her beloved youngest son in the war, her life essentially ends; 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 is especially 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 the key episodes of Nikolai Rostov’s storyline is the crossing of 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 ordinary 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 in the novel space to have an independent line and actively participate in the development of the main intrigue, Nikolai is endowed with a love plot. 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 comes 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; Having abandoned military service (along with a vain dream of personal greatness), Bolkonsky settles in Bogucharovo, takes care of the household, reads, and raises his son.

It would seem that he anticipates the path along which at the end of the fourth Tom will do Nikolai Rostov 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 in fact, village life cannot accommodate 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 has a difficult job ahead of him; 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; upon entering the forest he notices an old oak 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 becomes involved in social activities with renewed vigor; 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 overcome the temptation by the example of Napoleon, happily avoided the temptation by the example of Speransky, having again lost hope of family happiness, Prince Andrei repeats the “pattern” 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 takes over from the great commander a wise view of the purely folk character 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 their involuntary alienation, on the eve of the day when, perhaps, both of them will die, the friends again openly discuss the most subtle, 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 take this general ledger Christianity, telling 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 the novel prose of the late 18th century. early XIX century. 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 heroic feat, not to become a leader like Napoleon, but to serve people, to feel 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 literature of the 19th 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 sincere truth 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; Previously, he saw in Napoleon the source of the 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 should understand: spiritual path Pierre is passed only 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 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 vertically challenged, 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, a true attitude towards 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 doesn’t remember own words, said a minute ago, because he does not think in the usual meaning of this word. That is, he does not organize his reasoning in a 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. Karataev’s individual life is over, but the eternal, national life 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 so that largest sizes reflect Him... 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 the traditional language of literary terms, an internal pattern will naturally emerge. 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 of internal contradictions, 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 a lyrical character main character 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 with a 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, “dark-eyed, with a big mouth, ugly, but alive,” is 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.

A.E. In 1863, Bersom wrote a letter to his friend, Count Tolstoy, reporting on a fascinating conversation between young people about the events of 1812. Then Lev Nikolaevich decided to write a grandiose work about that heroic time. Already in October 1863, the writer wrote in one of his letters to a relative that he had never felt such creative forces in himself; the new work, according to him, would not be like anything he had done before.

Initially, the main character of the work should be the Decembrist, returning from exile in 1856. Next, Tolstoy moved the beginning of the novel to the day of the uprising in 1825, but then the artistic time moved to 1812. Apparently, the count was afraid that the novel would not be released for political reasons, since Nicholas the First tightened censorship, fearing a repeat of the riot. Since the Patriotic War directly depends on the events of 1805, it was this period that in the final version became the foundation for the beginning of the book.

“Three Pores” - that’s what Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy called his work. It was planned that the first part or time would tell about the young Decembrists, participants in the war; in the second - a direct description of the Decembrist uprising; in the third - the second half of the 19th century, the sudden death of Nicholas 1, the defeat of the Russian army in the Crimean War, an amnesty for members of the opposition movement who, returning from exile, expect changes.

It should be noted that the writer rejected all the works of historians, basing many episodes of War and Peace on the memoirs of participants and witnesses of the war. Materials from newspapers and magazines also served as excellent informants. In the Rumyantsev Museum, the author read unpublished documents, letters from ladies-in-waiting and generals. Tolstoy spent several days in Borodino, and in letters to his wife he enthusiastically wrote that if God grants health, he will describe the Battle of Borodino in a way that no one has described before.

The author spent 7 years of his life creating War and Peace. There are 15 variations of the beginning of the novel; the writer repeatedly abandoned and started his book again. Tolstoy foresaw the global scope of his descriptions, wanted to create something innovative and created an epic novel worthy of representing the literature of our country on the world stage.

Themes of War and Peace

1. Family theme. It is the family that determines the upbringing, psychology, views and moral principles of a person, and therefore naturally occupies one of the central places in the novel. The forge of morals shapes the characters' characters and influences the dialectic of their souls throughout the entire narrative. The description of the Bolkonsky, Bezukhov, Rostov and Kuragin families reveals the author’s thoughts about house building and the importance he attaches to family values.
2. The theme of the people. The glory for a won war always belongs to the commander or emperor, and the people, without whom this glory would not have appeared, remain in the shadows. It is this problem that the author raises, showing the vanity of the vanity of military officials and elevating ordinary soldiers. became the topic of one of our essays.
3. Theme of war. Descriptions of military operations exist relatively separately from the novel, independently. It is here that phenomenal Russian patriotism is revealed, which became the key to victory, the boundless courage and fortitude of a soldier who goes to any length to save his homeland. The author introduces us to war scenes through the eyes of one or another hero, plunging the reader into the depths of the bloodshed taking place. Large-scale battles echo the mental anguish of the heroes. Being at the crossroads of life and death reveals the truth to them.
4. Theme of life and death. Tolstoy's characters are divided into “living” and “dead”. The first include Pierre, Andrey, Natasha, Marya, Nikolai, and the second include old Bezukhov, Helen, Prince Vasily Kuragin and his son Anatole. The “living” are constantly in motion, and not so much physical as internal, dialectical (their souls come to harmony through a series of trials), while the “dead” hide behind masks and come to tragedy and internal split. Death in “War and Peace” is presented in 3 forms: bodily or physical death, moral death, and awakening through death. Life is comparable to the burning of a candle, someone’s light is small, with flashes of bright light (Pierre), for someone it burns tirelessly (Natasha Rostova), Masha’s wavering light. There are also 2 hypostases: physical life, like that of “dead” characters, whose immorality deprives the world of the necessary harmony within, and the life of the “soul”, this is about the heroes of the first type, they will be remembered even after death.

Main characters

• Andrey Bolkonsky- a nobleman, disillusioned with the world and seeking glory. The hero is handsome, has dry features, short stature, but athletic build. Andrei dreams of being famous like Napoleon, and that’s why he goes to war. He is bored with high society; even his pregnant wife does not give him any relief. Bolkonsky changes his worldview when, wounded at the battle of Austerlitz, he encountered Napoleon, who seemed like a fly to him, along with all his glory. Further, the love that flared up for Natasha Rostova also changes the views of Andrei, who finds the strength to live again fully and happy life, after the death of his wife. He meets death on the Borodino field, because he does not find the strength in his heart to forgive people and not fight with them. The author shows the struggle in his soul, hinting that the prince is a man of war, he cannot get along in an atmosphere of peace. So, he forgives Natasha for betrayal only on his deathbed, and dies in harmony with himself. But finding this harmony was possible only in this way - for the last time. We wrote more about his character in the essay "".
• Natasha Rostova– a cheerful, sincere, eccentric girl. Knows how to love. He has a wonderful voice that will captivate the most picky music critics. In the work we see her for the first time 12 summer girl, on her name day. Throughout the entire work, we observe the growing up of a young girl: first love, first ball, Anatole’s betrayal, guilt before Prince Andrei, the search for her “I”, including in religion, the death of her lover (Andrei Bolkonsky). We analyzed her character in the essay "". In the epilogue, the wife of Pierre Bezukhov, his shadow, appears before us from a cocky lover of “Russian dances”.
• Pierre Bezukhov- a plump young man who was unexpectedly bequeathed a title and a large fortune. Pierre discovers himself through what is happening around him, from each event he draws morals and life lesson. His wedding with Helen gives him confidence; after being disappointed in her, he finds interest in Freemasonry, and in the end he gains warm feelings for Natasha Rostova. The Battle of Borodino and capture by the French taught him not to philosophize and find happiness in helping others. These conclusions were determined by acquaintance with Platon Karataev, a poor man who, while awaiting death in a cell without normal food and clothing, looked after the “little baron” Bezukhov and found the strength to support him. We've already looked at it too.
• Graph Ilya Andreevich Rostov- a loving family man, luxury was his weakness, which led to financial problems in the family. Softness and weakness of character, inability to adapt to life make him helpless and pitiful.
• Countess Natalya Rostova– the Count’s wife, has an oriental flavor, knows how to present herself correctly in society, and loves her own children excessively. A calculating woman: she strives to upset the wedding of Nikolai and Sonya, since she was not rich. It was her cohabitation with a weak husband that made her so strong and firm.
• NickOlai Rostov– the eldest son is kind, open, with curly hair. Wasteful and weak in spirit, like his father. He squanders his family's fortune on cards. He longed for glory, but after participating in a number of battles he understands how useless and cruel war is. He finds family well-being and spiritual harmony in his marriage to Marya Bolkonskaya.
• Sonya Rostova– the count’s niece – small, thin, with a black braid. She had a reasonable character and good disposition. She has been devoted to one man all her life, but lets her beloved Nikolai go after learning about his love for Marya. Tolstoy exalts and appreciates her humility.
• Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky- Prince, has an analytical mind, but a heavy, categorical and unfriendly character. He is too strict, therefore he does not know how to show love, although he has warm feelings for children. Dies from the second blow in Bogucharovo.
• Marya Bolkonskaya– modest, loving her family, ready to sacrifice herself for the sake of her loved ones. L.N. Tolstoy especially emphasizes the beauty of her eyes and the ugliness of her face. In her image, the author shows that the charm of forms cannot replace spiritual wealth. are described in detail in the essay.
• Helen Kuragina – ex-wife Piera is a beautiful woman, a socialite. She loves male company and knows how to get what she wants, although she is vicious and stupid.
• Anatol Kuragin- Helen's brother is handsome and belongs to high society. Immoral, lacking moral principles, wanted to secretly marry Natasha Rostova, although he already had a wife. Life punishes him with martyrdom on the battlefield.
• Fedor Dolokhov- officer and leader of the partisans, not tall, has light eyes. Successfully combines selfishness and care for loved ones. Vicious, passionate, but attached to his family.

Tolstoy's favorite hero

In the novel, the author's sympathy and antipathy for the characters is clearly felt. As for female characters, the writer gives his love to Natasha Rostova and Marya Bolkonskaya. Tolstoy valued the true feminine in girls - devotion to a lover, the ability to always remain blooming in the eyes of her husband, the knowledge of happy motherhood and caring. His heroines are ready for self-denial for the benefit of others.

The writer is fascinated by Natasha, the heroine finds the strength to live even after the death of Andrei, she directs love to her mother after the death of her brother Petya, seeing how hard it is for her. The heroine is reborn, realizing that life is not over as long as she has a bright feeling for her neighbor. Rostova shows patriotism, without a doubt helping the wounded.

Marya also finds happiness in helping others, in feeling needed by someone. Bolkonskaya becomes a mother for Nikolushka’s nephew, taking him under her “wing”. She worries about ordinary men who have nothing to eat, passing the problem through herself, and does not understand how the rich can not help the poor. In the final chapters of the book, Tolstoy is fascinated by his heroines, who have matured and found female happiness.

The writer’s favorite male characters were Pierre and Andrei Bolkonsky. Bezukhov first appears to the reader as a clumsy, plump, short young man who appears in Anna Scherer's living room. Despite his ridiculous, ridiculous appearance, Pierre is smart, but the only person who accepts him for who he is is Bolkonsky. The prince is brave and stern, his courage and honor come in handy on the battlefield. Both men risk their lives to save their homeland. Both are rushing around in search of themselves.

Of course, L.N. Tolstoy brings his favorite heroes together, only in the case of Andrei and Natasha, happiness is short-lived, Bolkonsky dies young, and Natasha and Pierre find family happiness. Marya and Nikolai also found harmony in each other's company.

Genre of the work

“War and Peace” opens the genre of the epic novel in Russia. The features of any novels are successfully combined here: from family novels to memoirs. The prefix “epic” means that the events described in the novel cover a significant historical phenomenon and reveal its essence in all its diversity. Typically, a work of this genre has a lot of plot lines and characters, since the scale of the work is very large.

The epic nature of Tolstoy’s work lies in the fact that he not only invented a story about a famous historical event, but also enriched it with details gleaned from the memories of eyewitnesses. The author did a lot to ensure that the book was based on documentary sources.

The relationship between the Bolkonskys and the Rostovs was also not invented by the author: he depicted the history of his family, the merger of the Volkonsky and Tolstoy families.

Main problems

1. Search problem real life . Let's take Andrei Bolkonsky as an example. He dreamed of recognition and glory, and the surest way to earn authority and adoration was through military exploits. Andrei made plans to save the army with his own hands. Bolkonsky constantly saw pictures of battles and victories, but he was wounded and went home. Here, in front of Andrei’s eyes, his wife dies, completely shaking the prince’s inner world, then he realizes that there is no joy in the murders and suffering of the people. This career is not worth it. The search for oneself continues, because the original meaning of life has been lost. The problem is that it is difficult to find.
2. The problem of happiness. Take Pierre, who is torn away from the empty society of Helen and the war. He soon becomes disillusioned with a vicious woman; illusory happiness has deceived him. Bezukhov, like his friend Bolkonsky, tries to find a calling in the struggle and, like Andrei, abandons this search. Pierre was not born for the battlefield. As you can see, any attempts to find bliss and harmony result in the collapse of hopes. As a result, the hero returns to his former life and finds himself in a quiet family haven, but only by making his way through thorns did he find his star.
3. The problem of the people and the great man. The epic novel clearly expresses the idea of ​​commanders-in-chief inseparable from the people. A great man must share the opinions of his soldiers and live by the same principles and ideals. Not a single general or king would have received his glory if this glory had not been presented to him on a “platter” by the soldiers, in whom lies main strength. But many rulers do not cherish it, but despise it, and this should not happen, because injustice hurts people painfully, even more painfully than bullets. People's War in the events of 1812 she was shown on the side of the Russians. Kutuzov protects the soldiers and sacrifices Moscow for their sake. They sense this, mobilize the peasants and launch a guerrilla struggle that finishes off the enemy and finally drives him out.
4. The problem of true and false patriotism. Of course, patriotism is revealed through images of Russian soldiers, a description of the heroism of the people in the main battles. False patriotism in the novel is represented in the person of Count Rostopchin. He distributes ridiculous pieces of paper throughout Moscow, and then saves himself from the wrath of people by sending his son Vereshchagin to certain death. We have written an article on this topic, called “”.

What is the point of the book?

The writer himself speaks about the true meaning of the epic novel in the lines about greatness. Tolstoy believes that there is no greatness where there is no simplicity of soul, good intentions and a sense of justice.

L.N. Tolstoy expressed greatness through the people. In the images of battle paintings, an ordinary soldier shows unprecedented courage, which causes pride. Even the most fearful aroused in themselves a feeling of patriotism, which, like an unknown and frantic force, brought victory to the Russian army. The writer protests against false greatness. When the scales are placed (here you can find them comparative characteristics), the latter remains soaring: his fame is lightweight, since it has very flimsy foundations. The image of Kutuzov is “folk”; none of the commanders has ever been so close to the common people. Napoleon is only reaping the fruits of fame, it is not without reason that when Bolkonsky lies wounded on the field of Austerlitz, the author through his eyes shows Bonaparte like a fly in this huge world. Lev Nikolaevich sets a new trend of heroic character. He becomes the “people's choice”.

An open soul, patriotism and a sense of justice won not only in the War of 1812, but also in life: the heroes who were guided by moral principles and the voice of their hearts became happy.

Thought Family

L.N. Tolstoy was very sensitive to the topic of family. Thus, in his novel “War and Peace,” the writer shows that the state, like a clan, transmits values ​​and traditions from generation to generation, and good human qualities are also sprouts from roots going back to the forefathers.

Brief description of families in the novel “War and Peace”:

1. Of course, the beloved family of L.N. Tolstoy's were the Rostovs. Their family was famous for its cordiality and hospitality. It is in this family that the author’s values ​​of true home comfort and happiness are reflected. The writer considered the purpose of a woman to be motherhood, maintaining comfort in the home, devotion and the ability to self-sacrifice. This is how all the women of the Rostov family are depicted. There are 6 people in the family: Natasha, Sonya, Vera, Nikolai and parents.
2. Another family is the Bolkonskys. Restraint of feelings, the severity of Father Nikolai Andreevich, and canonicity reign here. Women here are more like “shadows” of their husbands. Andrei Bolkonsky will inherit the best qualities, becoming a worthy son of his father, and Marya will learn patience and humility.
3. The Kuragin family is the best personification of the proverb “no oranges are born from aspen trees.” Helen, Anatole, Hippolyte are cynical, seek benefits in people, are stupid and not the least bit sincere in what they do and say. “A show of masks” is their lifestyle, and in this they completely took after their father, Prince Vasily. There are no friendly and warm relations in the family, which is reflected in all its members. L.N. Tolstoy especially dislikes Helen, who was incredibly beautiful on the outside, but completely empty on the inside.

People's thought

She is the central line of the novel. As we remember from what was written above, L.N. Tolstoy abandoned generally accepted historical sources, basing “War and Peace” on memoirs, notes, letters from ladies-in-waiting and generals. The writer was not interested in the course of the war as a whole. Individual personalities, fragments – that’s what the author needed. Each person had his own place and significance in this book, like pieces of a puzzle, which, when assembled correctly, will reveal a beautiful picture - the power of national unity.

The Patriotic War changed something inside each of the characters in the novel, each made their own small contribution to the victory. Prince Andrei believes in the Russian army and fights with dignity, Pierre wants to destroy the French ranks from their very heart - by killing Napoleon, Natasha Rostova without hesitation gives carts to crippled soldiers, Petya fights bravely in partisan detachments.

The people's will to victory is clearly felt in the scenes of the Battle of Borodino, the battle for Smolensk, and the partisan battle with the French. The latter is especially memorable for the novel, because volunteers who came from the ordinary peasant class fought in the partisan movements - the detachments of Denisov and Dolokhov personified the movement of the entire nation, when “both old and young” stood up to defend their homeland. Later they would be called the “club of the people’s war.”

The War of 1812 in Tolstoy's novel

The War of 1812, as a turning point in the lives of all the heroes of the novel War and Peace, has been mentioned several times above. It was also said that it was won by the people. Let's look at the issue from a historical perspective. L.N. Tolstoy draws 2 images: Kutuzov and Napoleon. Of course, both images are drawn through the eyes of a person from the people. It is known that the character of Bonaparte was thoroughly described in the novel only after the writer was convinced of the fair victory of the Russian army. The author did not understand the beauty of war, he was its opponent, and through the mouths of his heroes Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov, he speaks of the meaninglessness of its very idea.

The Patriotic War was a national liberation war. It occupied a special place on the pages of volumes 3 and 4.

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

Every book you read is another life lived, especially when the plot and characters are so well developed. “War and Peace” is a unique epic novel; there is nothing like it in either Russian or world literature. The events described in it take place in St. Petersburg, Moscow, foreign estates of nobles and in Austria over the course of 15 years. The characters are also striking in their scale.

"War and Peace" is a novel in which more than 600 characters are mentioned. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy describes them so aptly that the few apt characteristics bestowed upon the cross-cutting characters are enough to form an idea about them. Therefore, “War and Peace” is a whole life in all the fullness of colors, sounds and sensations. It's worth living.

The birth of an idea and creative quest

In 1856, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy began writing a story about the life of the Decembrist who returned after exile. The time of action was supposed to be 1810-1820. Gradually the period expanded until 1825. But by this time main character He has already matured and become a family man. And in order to better understand him, the author had to return to the period of his youth. And it coincided with a glorious era for Russia.

But Tolstoy could not write about the triumph over Bonaparte's France without mentioning failures and mistakes. Now the novel already consisted of three parts. The first (as conceived by the author) was supposed to describe the youth of the future Decembrist and his participation in the War of 1812. This is the first period of the hero's life. Tolstoy wanted to devote the second part to the Decembrist uprising. The third - the return of the hero from exile and his later life. However, Tolstoy quickly abandoned this idea: the work on the novel turned out to be too large-scale and painstaking.

Initially, Tolstoy limited the duration of his work to 1805-1812. The epilogue, dated 1920, appeared much later. But the author was concerned not only with the plot, but also with the characters. "War and Peace" is not a description of the life of one hero. Central figures several characters appear at once. And the main character is the people, which is much larger than the thirty-year-old Decembrist Pyotr Ivanovich Labazov, who returned from exile.

Work on the novel took Tolstoy six years, from 1863 to 1869. And this does not take into account the six that went into developing the idea of ​​​​the Decembrist, which became its basis.

The system of characters in the novel "War and Peace"

The main character in Tolstoy is the people. But in his understanding, he represents not just a social category, but a creative force. According to Tolstoy, the people are all the best that is in the Russian nation. Moreover, this includes not only representatives of the lower classes, but also those of the nobles who have a desire to live for the sake of others.

Tolstoy contrasts representatives of the people with Napoleon, the Kuragins and other aristocrats - regulars at Anna Pavlovna Scherer's salon. These are the negative characters in the novel "War and Peace". Already in the description of their appearance, Tolstoy emphasizes the mechanical nature of their existence, lack of spirituality, “animality” of actions, lifelessness of smiles, selfishness and inability to compassion. They are incapable of change. Tolstoy does not see the possibility of their spiritual development, so they remain forever frozen, distant from the real understanding of life.

Researchers often distinguish two subgroups of “folk” characters:

• Those who are endowed with “simple consciousness”. They easily distinguish right from wrong, guided by the “mind of the heart.” This subgroup includes such characters as Natasha Rostova, Kutuzov, Platon Karataev, Alpatych, officers Timokhin and Tushin, soldiers and partisans.
• Those who are “looking for themselves.” Upbringing and class barriers prevent them from connecting with the people, but they manage to overcome them. This subgroup includes such characters as Pierre Bezukhov and Andrei Bolkonsky. It is these heroes who are shown capable of development and internal change. They are not without shortcomings, they make mistakes more than once in their life quests, but they pass all tests with dignity. Sometimes Natasha Rostova is included in this group. After all, she too was once carried away by Anatole, forgetting about her beloved Prince Bolkonsky. The War of 1812 becomes a kind of catharsis for this entire subgroup, which makes them look at life differently and discard the class conventions that previously prevented them from living according to the dictates of their hearts, as the people do.

The simplest classification

Sometimes the characters in War and Peace are divided according to an even simpler principle - their ability to live for the sake of others. Such a character system is also possible. “War and Peace,” like any other work, is the author’s vision. Therefore, everything in the novel happens in accordance with Lev Nikolaevich’s worldview. The people, in Tolstoy’s understanding, are the personification of all the best that is in the Russian nation. Characters such as the Kuragin family, Napoleon, and many regulars at the Scherer salon know how to live only for themselves.

Along Arkhangelsk and Baku

• “Life-wasters,” from Tolstoy’s point of view, are the furthest from the correct understanding of existence. This group lives only for themselves, selfishly neglecting those around them.
• "Leaders" This is what Arkhangelsky and Buck call those who think they control history. For example, the authors include Napoleon in this group.
• “Wise men” are those who understood the true world order and were able to trust providence.
• "Ordinary people". This group, according to Arkhangelsky and Buck, includes those who know how to listen to their hearts, but do not particularly strive for anything.
• “Truth Seekers” are Pierre Bezukhov and Andrei Bolkonsky. Throughout the novel, they painfully search for the truth, strive to understand what the meaning of life is.
• IN separate group The authors of the textbook single out Natasha Rostova. They believe that she is simultaneously close to both “ordinary people” and “sages”. The girl easily comprehends life empirically and knows how to listen to the voice of her heart, but the most important thing for her is family and children, as it should be, according to Tolstoy, for an ideal woman.

You can consider many more classifications of the characters in War and Peace, but they all ultimately come down to the simplest one, which fully reflects the worldview of the author of the novel. After all, he saw true happiness in serving others. Therefore, positive (“folk”) heroes know how and want to do this, but negative ones do not.

L.N. Tolstoy “War and Peace”: female characters

Any work is a reflection of the author's vision of life. According to Tolstoy, the highest purpose of a woman is to care for her husband and children. It is the keeper of the hearth that the reader sees Natasha Rostova in the epilogue of the novel.

All positive female characters in War and Peace fulfill their highest purpose. The author also imparts happiness to motherhood and family life to Maria Bolkonskaya. Interestingly, she is perhaps the most positive hero of the novel. Princess Marya has practically no flaws. Despite her varied education, she still finds her purpose, as befits a Tolstoy heroine, in caring for her husband and children.

A completely different fate awaited Helen Kuragina and the little princess, who saw no joy in motherhood.

Pierre Bezukhov

This is Tolstoy's favorite character. "War and Peace" describes him as a man who by nature has a highly noble character, so he easily understands the people. All his mistakes are due to the aristocratic conventions instilled in him by his upbringing.

Throughout the novel, Pierre experiences many mental traumas, but does not become embittered or become less good-natured. He is loyal and responsive, often forgetting about himself in an effort to serve others. Having married Natasha Rostova, Pierre found that grace and true happiness that he so lacked in his first marriage to the completely false Helen Kuragina.

Lev Nikolaevich loves his hero very much. He describes in detail its formation and spiritual development from the very beginning to the end. The example of Pierre shows that the main thing for Tolstoy is responsiveness and devotion. The author rewards him with happiness with his favorite female heroine - Natasha Rostova.

From the epilogue one can understand Pierre's future. By changing himself, he strives to transform society. He does not accept the contemporary political foundations of Russia. It can be assumed that Pierre will participate in the Decembrist uprising, or at least actively support it.

Andrey Bolkonsky

The reader first meets this hero in the salon of Anna Pavlovna Scherer. He is married to Lisa - the little princess, as she is called, and will soon become a father. Andrei Bolkonsky behaves extremely arrogantly with all the regulars of Sherer. But the reader soon notices that this is only a mask. Bolkonsky understands that those around him cannot understand his spiritual quest. He talks to Pierre in a completely different way. But Bolkonsky at the beginning of the novel is not alien to the ambitious desire to achieve heights in the military field. It seems to him that he is above aristocratic conventions, but it turns out that his eyes are just as blinkered as those of others. Andrei Bolkonsky realized too late that he should have given up his feelings for Natasha in vain. But this insight comes to him only before his death.

Like other “searching” characters in Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace,” Bolkonsky spends his entire life trying to find the answer to the question of what is the meaning of human existence. But he understands the highest value of family too late.

Natasha Rostova

This is my favorite female character Tolstoy. However, the entire Rostov family seems to the author to be the ideal of nobles living in unity with the people. Natasha cannot be called beautiful, but she is lively and attractive. The girl has a good sense of people's moods and characters.

According to Tolstoy, internal beauty does not combine with external beauty. Natasha is attractive due to her character, but her main qualities are simplicity and closeness to the people. However, at the beginning of the novel she lives in her own illusion. Disappointment in Anatol makes her an adult and contributes to the heroine’s maturation. Natasha begins to attend church and ultimately finds happiness in family life with Pierre.

Marya Bolkonskaya

The prototype of this heroine was Lev Nikolaevich’s mother. It is not surprising that it is almost completely devoid of flaws. She, like Natasha, is ugly, but has a very rich inner world. Like other positive characters in the novel “War and Peace,” in the end she also becomes happy, becoming the keeper of the hearth in her own family.

Helen Kuragina

Tolstoy has a multifaceted characterization of his characters. War and Peace describes Helen as a cutesy woman with a fake smile. It immediately becomes clear to the reader that there is no internal filling behind external beauty. Marrying her becomes a test for Pierre and does not bring happiness.

Nikolay Rostov

The core of any novel is its characters. War and Peace describes Nikolai Rostov as a loving brother and son, as well as a true patriot. Lev Nikolaevich saw in this hero the prototype of his father. Having gone through the hardships of the war, Nikolai Rostov retires to pay off his family's debts and finds his true love in Marya Bolkonskaya.