The novel “War and Peace” and its heroes in the assessments of literary criticism. Strakhov War and Peace

“Art is a historical phenomenon, therefore, its content is social, but its form is taken from the forms of nature” Ogarev N.P. About literature and art. - M., 1988. P. 37.

After the publication of the novel was completed, by the beginning of the 70s. There were mixed responses and articles. Critics became more and more strict, especially the 4th, “Borodinsky” volume and the philosophical chapters of the epilogue caused a lot of objections. But, nevertheless, the success and scale of the epic novel became more and more obvious - they manifested themselves even through disagreement or denial.

Writers' opinions about the books of their colleagues are always of particular interest. After all, the writer examines someone else’s artistic world through the prism of his own. This view, of course, is more subjective, but it can reveal unexpected sides and facets in a work that professional criticism does not see.

F. M. Dostoevsky’s statements about the novel are fragmentary. He agreed with Strakhov's articles, denying only two lines. At the request of the critic, these two lines are named and commented on: “Two lines about Tolstoy, with which I do not completely agree, are when you say that L. Tolstoy is equal to everything that is great in our literature. It is absolutely impossible to say! Pushkin, Lomonosov are geniuses. To appear with “Arap of Peter the Great” and with “Belkin” means to decisively appear with a brilliant new word, which until then had never been said anywhere and never been said. To appear with “War and Peace” means to appear after this new word, already spoken by Pushkin, and this is all in any case, no matter how far and high Tolstoy goes in developing the new word already spoken for the first time by a genius.” Dostoevsky F.M. Complete works in 30 volumes - L., 1986. - T. 29. - P. 109.

At the end of the decade, while working on “The Adolescent,” Dostoevsky once again recalled “War and Peace.” But this remained in drafts; detailed reviews of F.M. Dostoevsky are no longer known.

Even less is known about the reader's reaction to M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. In T.A. Kuzminskaya relayed his remark: “These war scenes are nothing but lies and vanity. Bagration and Kutuzov are puppet generals. In general, it’s the chatter of nannies and mothers. But our so-called “high society”, the Count famously grabbed hold of the War because of War and Peace. Roman L.N. Tolstoy in Russian criticism and literary criticism. - St. Petersburg, 2002. pp. 25-26.

Poet close to Leo Tolstoy A.A. Fet wrote several detailed letters of analysis to the author himself. Back in 1866, having read only the beginning of “1805,” Fet foresaw the judgments of Annenkov and Strakhov about the nature of Tolstoy’s historicism: “I understand that the main task of the novel is to turn a historical event inside out and view it not from the official gold-embroidered side of the front door.” caftan, but from a shirt, that is, a shirt that is closer to the body and under the same shiny general uniform” Tolstoy L.N. Correspondence with Russian writers. - M., 1978. P. 379.. The second letter, written in 1870, develops similar ideas, but A. Fet’s position becomes more critical: “You write the lining instead of the face, you have turned the contents upside down. You are a free artist and you are quite right. But artistic laws for all content are unchangeable and inevitable, like death. And the first law is unity of representation. This unity in art is achieved completely differently than in life... We understood why Natasha gave up her roaring success, we realized that she was not drawn to sing, but was drawn to be jealous and strained to feed her children. They realized that she didn’t need to think about belts and ribbons and ringlets of curls. All this does not harm the whole idea of her spiritual beauty. But why insist on the fact that she had become a slob? This may be in reality, but this is intolerable naturalism in art... This is a caricature that violates harmony." Ibid. pp. 397 - 398..

The most detailed writer's review of the novel belongs to N.S. Leskov. His series of articles in the Stock Exchange Gazette, dedicated to the 5th volume, is rich in thoughts and observations. The stylistic compositional form of Leskov’s articles is extremely interesting. He breaks the text into small chapters with characteristic headings (“Upstarts and horonyaks”, “The unreasoning hero”, “Enemy power”), and boldly introduces digressions (“Two anecdotes about Yermolov and Rastopchin”). War over "War and Peace". Roman L.N. Tolstoy in Russian criticism and literary criticism. - St. Petersburg, 2002. pp. 25-26.

The attitude towards the novel by I.S. was complex and changing. Turgenev. Dozens of his reviews in letters are accompanied by two printed ones, very different in tone and focus.

In 1869, in the article “About “Fathers and Sons”,” I.S. Turgenev casually mentioned “War and Peace” as a wonderful work, but still devoid of “true meaning” and “true freedom.” Turgenev's main reproaches and complaints, repeated several times, are collected in a letter to P.V. Annenkov, written after reading his article “Historical addition, from which readers are delighted, puppet comedy and quackery... Tolstoy amazes the reader with the toe of Alexander’s boot, Speransky’s laugh, making him think that he knows about all this, if he even got to these little things, and he only knows these little things... There is no real development in any character, but there is an old habit of conveying vibrations, vibrations of the same feeling, position, what he so mercilessly puts into the mouth and consciousness of each of the heroes... Tolstoy seems to not know another psychology or with the intention of it ignores." In this detailed assessment, the incompatibility of Turgenev’s “secret psychologism” and Tolstoy’s “penetrating” psychological analysis is clearly visible.

The final review of the novel is equally mixed. “I read the sixth volume of War and Peace,” writes I.S. Turgenev to P. Borisov in 1870, “of course, there are first-class things; but, not to mention children's philosophy, it was unpleasant for me to see the reflection of the system even on the images drawn by Tolstoy... Why does he try to assure the reader that if a woman is smart and developed, then she is certainly a phrase-monger and a liar? How did he lose sight of the Decembrist element, which played such a role in the 20s, - and why are all his decent people some kind of blockheads - with a little bit of foolishness? Right there. S. 26..

But time passes, and the number of questions and complaints is gradually decreasing. Turgenev comes to terms with this novel, moreover, he becomes its faithful propagandist and admirer. “This is a great work of a great writer, and this is genuine Russia” - this is how I. S. Turgenev’s fifteen-year reflections on “War and Peace” end.

One of the first to write an article about “War and Peace” was P.V. Annenkov, long-standing, from the mid-50s. acquaintance of the writer. In his article, he revealed many features of Tolstoy's plan.

Tolstoy boldly destroys the boundary between “romantic” and “historical” characters, Annenkov believes, depicting both in a similar psychological key, that is, through everyday life: “The dazzling side of the novel lies precisely in the naturalness and simplicity with which it brings down world events and major phenomena of social life to the level and horizon of vision of any witness he has chosen... Without any sign of rape of life and its usual course, the novel establishes a constant connection between the love and other adventures of its persons and Kutuzov, Bagration, between historical facts of enormous significance - Shengraben, Austerlitz and troubles Moscow aristocratic circle..." Ibid. S. 22..

“First of all, it should be noted that the author adheres to the first vital principle of any artistic narrative: he does not try to extract from the subject of description what he cannot do, and therefore does not retreat one step from simple mental research of it” Annenkov P.V. Critical Essays. - St. Petersburg, 2000. P. 123-125..

However, the critic had difficulty finding “a knot of romantic intrigue” in “War and Peace” and found it difficult to determine “who should be considered the main characters of the novel”: “It can be assumed that we were not the only ones who, after the rapturous impressions of the novel, had to ask: where is he himself, this novel, where did he put his real business - the development of a private incident, his “plot” and “intrigue”, because without them, no matter what the novel does, it will still seem like an idle novel.

But, finally, the critic astutely noticed the connection of Tolstoy’s heroes not only with the past, but also with the present: “Prince Andrei Bolkonsky introduces into his criticism of current affairs and in general into his views on his contemporaries the ideas and ideas that have formed about them in our time. He has the gift of foresight, which came to him like an inheritance, without difficulty, and the ability to stand above his age, obtained very cheaply. He thinks and judges wisely, but not with the mind of his era, but with another, later one, which was revealed to him by a benevolent author." War because of "War and Peace." Roman L.N. Tolstoy in Russian criticism and literary criticism. - St. Petersburg, 2002. P. 22.

N.N. Strakhov paused before speaking about the work. His first articles about the novel appeared in early 1869, when many opponents had already expressed their point of view.

Strakhov rejects the reproaches of the “elitism” of Tolstoy’s book, which were made by a variety of critics: “Despite the fact that one family is a count, and the other a prince, “War and Peace” does not have even a shadow of a high-society character... The Rostov family and the Bolkonsky family, in their internal life, in the relationships of their members, they are the same Russian families as any other.” Unlike some other critics of the novel, N.N. Strakhov does not speak the truth, but seeks it.

“The idea of “War and Peace,” the critic believes, “can be formulated in different ways. We can say, for example, that the guiding thought of the work is the idea of heroic life.”

“But the heroic life does not exhaust the author’s tasks. Its subject is obviously broader. The main idea that guides him when depicting heroic phenomena is to reveal their human basis, to show people in the heroes.” This is how the main principle of Tolstoy’s approach to history is formulated: unity of scale in the depiction of different characters. Therefore, Strakhov has a very special approach to the image of Napoleon. He convincingly demonstrates why exactly such an artistic image of the French commander was needed in War and Peace: “So, in the person of Napoleon, the artist seemed to want to present to us the human soul in its blindness, wanted to show that a heroic life can contradict true human dignity, that goodness, truth and beauty can be much more accessible to simple and small people than to other great heroes. A simple person, a simple life, are placed above heroism in this - both in dignity and in strength; for ordinary Russian people with hearts like those of Nikolai Rostov, Timokhin and Tushin, defeated Napoleon and his great army” Ibid. P. 26.

These formulations are very close to Tolstoy’s future words about “people’s thought” as the main one in “War and Peace.”

D.I. Pisarev spoke positively about the novel: “A new, not yet finished novel by gr. L. Tolstoy can be called an exemplary work regarding the pathology of Russian society.”

He viewed the novel as a reflection of the Russian, old nobility.

“The novel “War and Peace” presents us with a whole bouquet of diverse and superbly finished characters, male and female, old and young” Ibid. P. 26.. In his work “The Old Nobility” he very clearly and completely analyzed the characters of not only the main but also the secondary characters of the work, thereby expressing his point of view.

With the publication of the first volumes of the work, responses began to arrive not only from Russia, but also abroad. The first major critical article appeared in France more than a year and a half after the publication of Paskevich’s translation - in August 1881. The author of the article, Adolf Baden, was able to give only a detailed and enthusiastic retelling of “War and Peace” over almost two printed pages. Only in conclusion did he make several evaluative remarks.

The early responses to Leo Tolstoy's work in Italy are noteworthy. It was in Italy, at the beginning of 1869, that one of the first articles in the foreign press and “War and Peace” appeared. It was “correspondence from St. Petersburg”, signed by M.A. and entitled “Count Leo Tolstoy and his novel “Peace and War”. Its author spoke in an unkind tone about the “realistic school” to which L.N. belongs. Tolstoy Motyleva T.L. "War and Peace" abroad. - M., 1978. P. 177..

In Germany, as in France, as in Italy, the name of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy by the end of the last century fell into the orbit of intense political struggle. The growing popularity of Russian literature in Germany caused concern and irritation among the ideologists of the imperialist reaction.

The first extensive review of War and Peace to appear in English was by critic and translator William Rolston. His article, published in April 1879 in the English magazine “Nineteenth Century”, and then reprinted in the USA, was called “The Novels of Count Leo Tolstoy,” but in essence it was, first of all, a retelling of the content of “War and Peace” - namely retelling, not analysis. Rolston, who spoke Russian, tried to give the English public at least an initial idea of L.N. Tolstoy.

As we see at the end of the last chapter, during its first publications the novel was characterized by different authors in different ways. Many tried to express their understanding of the novel, but not many were able to feel its essence. A great work requires great and deep thought. The epic novel “War and Peace” allows you to think about many principles and ideals.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF BASHKORTOSTAN

Outline

literature lesson on the topic:

“War and Peace” L.N. Tolstoy in

perception of Russian criticism I

half XX century"

(Grade 10)

Teacher of Russian language and literature MBOU secondary school No. 101 with in-depth study of economics, Ufa Tatyana Vasilievna Sysoeva

Ufa

Lesson topic: “War and Peace” L.N. Tolstoy in the perception of Russian criticism of the first half of the 20th century."

Lesson objectives; Educational :

1) reveal the compositional role of the philosophical chapters of the epic novel;

2) explain the main provisions of historical and philosophical views
Tolstoy.

Developmental:

trace the attitude of critics of the first half of the twentieth century to the “War”

and to the world" L.N. Tolstoy.

Educational:

nurturing a culture of mental work based on such mental operations as analysis, synthesis, grouping;

instilling a sense of beauty in students.

Equipment: portrait of L.N. Tolstoy; exhibition of photographic materials; illustrations based on the writer’s work; I. Tolstoy’s book “The Light in Yasnaya Polyana”; text "War and Peace"; book “L.N. Tolstoy in Russian criticism." Methodical techniques: teacher's lecture, teacher's story, elements of text analysis, group work, student reports, conversation on issues. Lesson plan:

I. Teacher's lecture.

II. Student messages.

Work in groups.

Summarizing. Commenting on ratings.

V. Homework explanation.
Epigraphs for the lesson:

“Tolstoy told us almost as much about Russian life as the rest of our literature” (M. Gorky).

“Every person is a diamond who can purify or not purify himself. To the extent that it is purified, eternal light shines through it. Therefore, a person’s job is not to try to shine, but to try to purify himself” (L.N. Tolstoy).

“If only you could write like Tolstoy and make the whole world listen!” (T. Dreiser).

During the classes: I.

TEACHER'S LECTURE.

In the second half of the 19th century, new principles emerged in Russian realism. Three peaks rose on the literary horizon during this period - Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov. Each of them is the initiator of new creative trends not only in Russian, but also in world literature.

In the works of L.N. Tolstoy reveals not just the conflict between the individual and society, but the individual’s search for unity with the people based on the revision of all social institutions. Tolstoy's social and aesthetic ideal is a fair common life.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828 - 1910) - a brilliant artist and a brilliant personality. Tolstoy left a huge literary legacy: three major novels, dozens of novellas, hundreds of short stories, several folk dramas, a treatise on art, many journalistic and literary critical articles, thousands of letters, entire volumes of diaries. And all this difficult-to-see legacy bears the stamp of the great writer’s tireless ideological quest.

Tolstoy L.N. was an ardent defender of the people. He showed, in particular in War and Peace, its decisive role in the historical development of society. But this was not the only characteristic of Tolstoy.

Tolstoy's epico-psychological realism is not a simple continuation of the realism of Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov. Developed in the work of his predecessors - not only in Russian, but also in the world

literature, the epic principle in Tolstoy’s works acquires new content and meaning.

In revealing psychology, Tolstoy comes into contact with Stendhal and
Lermontov. However, Tolstoy’s “dialectics of the soul” constitutes a truly
a new word in literature. The synthesis of the epic and psychological opened
literature has enormous possibilities for aesthetic development
reality..,

However, in all of world literature there are not many books that could compare with War and Peace in terms of richness of content and artistic power. A historical event of enormous significance, the deepest foundations of the national life of Russia, its nature, the fate of its best people, the masses set in motion by the course of history, the richness of our beautiful language - all this was embodied on the pages of the great epic. Tolstoy himself said: “Without false modesty, it’s like the Iliad,” that is, he compared his book with the greatest creation of the ancient Greek epic.

"War and Peace" is one of the most fascinating and exciting novels in world literature. The horizon of a huge book is vast, where peace and life overcome death and war, where with such depth, with such insight, the history of the human soul is traced - that “mysterious Russian soul” with its passions and delusions, with a frantic thirst for justice and patient faith in goodness, oh which was written so much all over the world both before and after Tolstoy. It was aptly said once: “If God wanted to write a novel, he could not do it without taking War and Peace as a model.” , G

On the novel “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy worked from 1863 to 1869. Initially, a story was conceived on a contemporary theme of that era, “The Decembrists,” of which three chapters remain. First L.N. Tolstoy was going to write about the Decembrist who returned from Siberia, and the action of the novel was supposed to begin in 1856. In the process of work, the writer decided to talk about the uprising of 1825, then pushed back the beginning of the action to 1812 -

the time of childhood and youth of the Decembrists. But since the Patriotic War was closely connected with the campaign of 1805 - 1807, Tolstoy decided to begin the novel from that time.

As the plan progressed, there was an intense search for the title of the novel. The original, “Three Times,” soon ceased to correspond to the content, because from 1856 to 1825 Tolstoy moved further and further into the past; Only one time was in the spotlight - 1812. So a different date appeared, and the first chapters of the novel were published in the magazine “Russian Messenger” under the title “1805”. In 1866, a new version emerged, no longer specifically historical, but philosophical: “All’s well that ends well.” And finally, in 1867 - another title where the historical and philosophical formed a certain balance - “War and Peace”.

So, in relation to all previous work of L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" was a kind of result, synthesis and a huge step forward.

World fame came to Tolstoy during his lifetime. In Western countries, first of all, the greatness of the artist was revealed; In the East, interest in philosophical, social and religious-moral works first arose. As a result, it became clear that the artist and the thinker in Tolstoy were inseparable. II . STUDENT MESSAGES.

Pre-prepared students make presentations.

1. The subjectivist method of critics in assessing “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy.

The multifaceted life of L.N. Tolstoy and his exceptionally rich creativity have been the subject of the most diverse and contradictory critical assessments over the course of many years. Newspapers and magazines of all political trends wrote about Tolstoy, and in other years his name did not leave the pages of periodicals. In total, thousands of critical articles and reviews have been written about him, but the predominant

Most of them have already been rightly forgotten and have become the property of bibliographers, a much smaller part is still of known historical interest, and very few have retained all their living significance to this day.

Only Tolstoy's early works were appreciated in revolutionary-democratic criticism; the outstanding representatives of this criticism, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, were no longer able to say their word about the masterpieces of the great writer - his novels. Therefore, such a novel as “War and Peace” did not receive real disclosure and coverage in contemporary criticism.

The criticism noted that Tolstoy, with his stories, opened up to readers a completely new world, hitherto unknown to them, that his works, distinguished by deep and genuine poetry, are a true and happy innovation in the description of military scenes.

The novel “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy has generated widespread critical literature. Articles and reviews began to appear already in 1868, the year the first three volumes of the novel were published. The novel was lively discussed in literary circles, and issues of historical and aesthetic order were touched upon; everyone was interested not only in the correspondence of what was depicted to the true historical truth, but also in the unusual form of the work, its deep artistic originality. “What is “War and Peace”? - this question was asked by many critics and reviewers, but none of them understood the deeply innovative essence of Tolstoy’s work.

2. Novel - epic L.N. Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” in the assessment of the philosopher N.A. Berdyaev.

Let us turn to the assessment of the novel “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy, given by the famous philosopher N.A. Berdyaev. In his judgments, he noted the genius of Tolstoy as an artist and personality, but denied him as a religious thinker. “He was not given the gift of expression in words, of expressing his religious life, his religious quest.”

It has long been noted that the works of Tolstoy the artist reflected our entire life, from the tsar to the peasant. These poles are outlined correctly: indeed, in War and Peace, for example, there is a strikingly vivid and real image of the tsar in the person of Alexander I. This is on the one hand. On the other, we have the almost speechless soldier Karataev and the peasant Akim (from “The Power of Darkness”). Between these extremes there are many characters - the aristocracy, village nobles, serfs, courtyards, men.

Tolstoy the thinker is entirely the product of Tolstoy the artist. L.N. Tolstoy is a shining example of aspiration, restless, selfless, tireless and contagious. The formulas in which Tolstoy from time to time concludes this desire, as a ready-made truth and as a moral for behavior, have changed more than once, just as they changed with his hero, Pierre Bezukhov. If you look at Tolstoy from this point of view, then all of him - throughout his long and brilliant work - is one fragile contradiction. Here, for example, is one of these formulas: “...It is good for the people who, not like the French in 1813, saluted according to all the rules of art and turned the sword over with the hilt, gracefully and courteously handing it over to the magnanimous winner, but good for the people who minute of testing, without asking how others acted according to the rules in similar cases with simplicity and ease he picks up the first club he comes across and nails it until while in his soul feeling of insult and revenge not replaced by feeling contempt and pity..."

These words, in which the feeling of “resistance” was expressed in all its immediacy and even extremes, where even a defeated enemy has no other attitude than pity mixed with contempt.

This motive, one and never changed in Tolstoy, is the search for truth, the desire for an integral mental structure, which is given only by deep, indecomposable analysis, faith in one’s truth and its direct application to life.

Next N.A. Berdyaev points out the antinomy of Tolstoy's views. After all, on the one hand, L.N. Tolstoy is striking in his belonging to the noble life. On the other hand, Tolstoy, with the power of negation and genius, rebels against the “light” not only in the narrow, but also in the broad sense of the word, against the entire “cultured” society.

Thus, N.A. Berdyaev comes to the conclusion that the brilliant personality and life of L.N. Tolstoy bears the stamp of some special mission. III . WORK IN GROUPS.

The teacher divides the class into two halves, gives questions to each group, and after a certain amount of time, students comment on the answer to the question given to them, citing the text of the epic novel and critical articles. 1 GROUP. V.G. Korolenko about “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy (Articles by V.G. Korolenko “Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy” (article one); “L.N. Tolstoy” (article two)).

“Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy” (first article) was first published in the magazine “Russian Wealth” (1908, No. 8, August). “L.N. Tolstoy" (article two) was first published in the newspaper "Russian Vedomosti" (1908, No. 199, August 28).

Tolstoy is a great artist. This is a truth already recognized by the reading world and, it seems, not seriously disputed anywhere or by anyone. Tolstoy is truly a great artist, the kind that has been born for centuries, and his work is crystal clear, light and beautiful.

V.G. Korolenko noted that Tolstoy, a publicist, moralist and thinker, was not always sufficiently grateful to Tolstoy the artist. Meanwhile, if the artist had not risen to a height from where he is known and heard by the whole world, the world would hardly have listened with such attention to the words of the thinker. And, besides, Tolstoy the thinker is entirely contained in Tolstoy the artist. Here are all its major advantages and no less major disadvantages.

GROUP 2. M. Gorky about the novel by L.N. Tolstoy “War and Peace” (“Leo Tolstoy” (notes); “Leo Tolstoy” (excerpt)).

"Lev Tolstoy". For the first time, the main part of the “Notes” was published in a separate publication under the title “Memories of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.” Publisher Z.I. Grzhebina, St. Petersburg, 1919. "Lev Tolstoy". The excerpt represents the final part of a lecture on Tolstoy from The History of Russian Literature.

Having once experienced a passion for the countryside, the Caucasus, Lucerne, Tolstoy returns to Yasnaya Polyana again, opens a school there, teaches children, writes articles on pedagogy, polemicizes and writes the greatest work of world literature in the 19th century, “War and Peace.”

In it, the brightest type of peasant is Platon Karataev, a man who is deprived of the consciousness of his individuality, considers himself an insignificant part of a huge whole and says that the death and misfortunes of one person are replaced by the fullness of life and joy for some other, and this is the world order, harmony. The whole world is justified, with all its evil, with all the misfortunes and the brutal struggle of people for power over each other. But this harmony is doubtful; after all, evil is justified only because the Russian peasant supposedly agreed good-naturedly. Tolstoy puts all his observations of the peasant before the reform into the saint Platon Karataev.

Tolstoy is a deeply truthful man; he is also valuable to us because all his works of art, written with terrible, almost miraculous power - all his novels and stories - fundamentally deny his religious philosophy.

Reality is a living process, constantly flowing,

changing, this process is always wider and deeper than all possible generalizations.

He was often crudely tendentious in his attempts to confirm his conclusions with directly taken reality, even sometimes confirming the tendency of passivism, but still indicated

The longing for spontaneity and the search for faith, which gives integrity to the spiritual structure - this is the main note of the main characters of Tolstoy the artist, in whom his own personality was most fully reflected.

At one time, it seemed not only to Tolstoy that spiritual integrity remained only among the common people, as a gift of fate for the heavy burden of suffering and labor. But this gift is worth all the benefits that the lucky ones who walk on the sunny side of life took with them. It is more precious than even knowledge, science and art, because it contains complete, all-resolving wisdom. The illiterate soldier Karataev is taller and happier than the educated Pierre Bezukhov. And Pierre Bezukhov tries to penetrate the secret of this integral wisdom of an illiterate soldier, just as Tolstoy himself strives to comprehend the wisdom of the common people.

It is hardly accidental that the great artist chose for the most significant of his works an era in which the direct feeling of the people saved the state at a critical moment, when all “rational” organized forces turned out to be powerless and insolvent. Tolstoy sees the genius of Kutuzov as a commander only in the fact that he alone understood the power of spontaneous popular feeling and surrendered to this powerful current without reasoning. Tolstoy himself, like his Kutuzov, during this period was also at the mercy of the great elements. The people, their immediate feelings, their views on the world, their faith - all this, like a mighty ocean wave, carried with it the artist’s soul, dictated to him cruel maxims about “the first club that came his way”, about contempt for the vanquished. This is whole, and, therefore, this is the law of life.

In the era of “War and Peace,” an ocean of spiritual integrity swayed before Tolstoy’s admiring gaze, just as powerful, just as spontaneous and just as exciting. He was inspired by the mood of another people who, at the dawn of Christianity, under the roar of the collapsed old world, were preparing to conquer humanity not with a feeling of enmity and revenge, but with the teaching of love and meekness.

the only direction worthy of a person is towards activism, towards direct intervention in the life of human will and reason.

Tolstoy saw this and himself ridiculed his attempts, but, having ridiculed them, he again took up the same thing - that is, he wanted to process reality in the interests of his tendency.

Personally, Tolstoy always sought to separate himself from all people, to stand above them - this is the only motivation of a person who knows that he is the person who completes an entire period in the history of his country, a person who embodies everything that he has achieved in his hundred years. team, its class.

IV. SUMMARIZING. COMMENTING ON RATINGS.

Thus, the documents indicate that Tolstoy did not have the gift of easy creativity, he was one of the most sublime, most patient, most diligent workers. Two thousand pages of the huge epic “War and Peace” were rewritten seven times; sketches and notes filled large drawers. Every historical detail, every semantic detail is substantiated by similar documents.

The opinions of critics on the novel “War and Peace” by L.N. were also not uniform. Tolstoy. But basically the work was highly appreciated; it was noted for its fidelity to reality, deep knowledge of life and the subtle observation of the artist, who can not only picturesquely reproduce the life of peasants, but also convey “their view of things.”

V. HOMEWORK EXPLANATION.

1. Review volume III, highlight the main events of the novel.

2. Individual tasks - messages (brief retelling with elements of analysis): a) Kutuzov and Napoleon in the assessment of critics of the first half of the 20th century; b) Patriotism and heroism of the people in the Patriotic War of 1812.

In the early 60s, as already mentioned, I greeted the epic novel with irritation, not finding in it an image of the revolutionary intelligentsia and a denunciation of serfdom. The well-known critic V. Zaitsev in his article “Pearls and Adamants of Russian Journalism” (“Russian Word”, 1865, No. 2) described “1805” as a novel about “high-society figures.” The magazine “Delo” (1868, No. 4, 6; 1870, No. 1), in articles by D. Minaev, V. Bervi-Flerovsky and N. Shelgunov, assessed “War and Peace” as a work that lacks “deeply vital content”, its characters as “rude and dirty”, as mentally “petrified” and “morally ugly”, and the general meaning of Tolstoy’s “Slavophile novel” is as an apology for the “philosophy of stagnation”.

It is characteristic, however, that the critical side of the novel was sensitively grasped by the most perspicacious representative of democratic criticism of the 60s, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. He did not appear in print with an assessment of “War and Peace,” but in an oral conversation he noted: “But the so-called “high society” the Count famously grabbed.” D. I. Pisarev, in the remaining unfinished article “The Old Nobility” (“Otechestvennye zapiski”, 1868, No. 2), noted the “truth” in Tolstoy’s portrayal of representatives of high society and gave a brilliant analysis of the types of Boris Drubetsky and Nikolai Rostov; however, he was not satisfied with the “idealization” of the “old nobility”, the “involuntary and natural tenderness” with which the author treats his noble heroes.

The reactionary noble press and official “patriots” criticized “War and Peace” from a different perspective. A. S. Norov and others accused Tolstoy of distorting the historical era of 1812, that he outraged the patriotic feelings of his fathers, and ridiculed the highest circles of the nobility. Among the critical literature about “War and Peace,” the reviews of some military writers who were able to correctly assess Tolstoy’s innovation in depicting war stand out.

An employee of the newspaper “Russian Invalid” N. Lachinov published an article in 1868 (No. 96, dated April 10) in which he highly valued Tolstoy’s artistic skill in the military scenes of the novel, characterized the description of the Battle of Shengraben as “the height of historical and artistic truth” and agreed with Tolstoy's interpretation of the Battle of Borodino.

The article by the famous military figure and writer M.I. Dragomirov, published in 1868-1870 in the “Weapons Collection”, is informative. Dragomirov believed that “War and Peace” should become a reference book for every military man: military scenes and scenes of military life “are inimitable and can constitute one of the most useful additions to any course in the theory of military art.” Dragomirov especially highly appreciated Tolstoy’s ability, when talking about “fictional” but “living” people, to convey “the inner side of the battle.” Polemicizing with Tolstoy’s statements about the spontaneity of war, about the insignificance of the guiding will of the commander during the battle, Dragomirov rightly noted that Tolstoy himself presented wonderful pictures (for example, Bagration’s detour of troops before the start of the Battle of Shengraben), depicting the ability of true commanders to lead the spirit of the army and thereby the best way to control people during battle.

In general, “War and Peace” received the most profound assessment in the reviews of outstanding Russian writers - Tolstoy’s contemporaries. Goncharov, Turgenev, Leskov, Dostoevsky, Fet perceived “War and Peace” as a great, extraordinary literary event.

I. A. Goncharov, in a letter to P. B. Ganzen dated July 17, 1878, advising him to start translating Tolstoy’s novel into Danish, wrote: “This is a positively Russian “Iliad”, embracing a huge era, a huge event and representing a historical gallery great faces, copied from life with a living brush by a great master!.. This work is one of the most capital, if not the most capital.” In 1879, objecting to Hansen, who decided to first translate Anna Karenina, Goncharov wrote: “War and Peace is an extraordinary poem-novel - both in content and in execution. And at the same time, this is also a monumental history of the glorious Russian era, where - either a figure, or a historical colossus, a statue cast in bronze. Even minor characters embody the characteristic features of Russian folk life.” In 1885, expressing satisfaction with the translation of Tolstoy’s works into Danish, especially the novel War and Peace, Goncharov remarked: “Count Tolstoy is positively superior to all of us.”

We find a number of remarkably correct judgments about “War and Peace” in articles by N. S. Leskov, published without a signature in 1869-1870 in the newspaper “Birzhevye Vedomosti”. Leskov called “War and Peace” “the best Russian historical novel”, “the pride of modern literature.” Highly appreciating the artistic truth and simplicity of the novel, Leskov especially emphasized the merit of the writer, who “did more than anything” to raise the “national spirit” to a worthy height.

Turgenev’s final opinion agreed with this assessment of “War and Peace,” which he arrived at by abandoning numerous initial critical judgments about the novel, especially about its historical and military side, as well as about the manner of Tolstoy’s psychological analysis.

The novel “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy introduced us to many heroes, each of whom is a bright personality and has individual traits. One of the most attractive characters in the novel is Pierre Bezukhov. His image stands at the center of “War...

Natasha Rostova is the central female character in the novel “War and Peace” and, perhaps, the author’s favorite. Tolstoy presents us with the evolution of his heroine over the fifteen-year period of her life, from 1805 to 1820, and over more than one and a half thousand...

In 1867, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy completed work on the work “War and Peace”. Speaking about his novel, Tolstoy admitted that in War and Peace he “loved popular thought.” The author poetizes simplicity, kindness, morality...

The image of Andrei Bolkonsky in the novel is one of the most complex, perhaps even the most complex. Throughout the entire narrative, he is looking for something, suffering, trying to understand the meaning of existence and find his place in it. Andrei's concepts of happiness and unhappiness change...

2.2 The novel “War and Peace” and its characters in literary criticism

“Art is a historical phenomenon, and therefore its content is social, but its form is taken from the forms of nature.”

F. M. Dostoevsky’s statements about the novel are fragmentary. He agreed with Strakhov's articles, denying only two lines. At the request of the critic, these two lines are named and commented on: “Two lines about Tolstoy, with which I do not completely agree, are when you say that L. Tolstoy is equal to everything that is great in our literature. It is absolutely impossible to say! Pushkin, Lomonosov are geniuses. To appear with “Arap of Peter the Great” and with “Belkin” means to decisively appear with a brilliant new word, which until then had never been said anywhere and never been said. To appear with “War and Peace” means to appear after this new word, already spoken by Pushkin, and this is all in any case, no matter how far and high Tolstoy goes in developing the new word already spoken for the first time by a genius.” At the end of the decade, while working on “The Adolescent,” Dostoevsky once again recalled “War and Peace.” But this remained in drafts; detailed reviews of F.M. Dostoevsky are no longer known.

Poet close to Leo Tolstoy A.A. Fet wrote several detailed letters of analysis to the author himself. Back in 1866, having read only the beginning of “1805,” Fet foresaw the judgments of Annenkov and Strakhov about the nature of Tolstoy’s historicism: “I understand that the main task of the novel is to turn a historical event inside out and view it not from the official gold-embroidered side of the front door.” caftan, but from a shirt, that is, a shirt that is closer to the body and under the same shiny general uniform.” The second letter, written in 1870, develops similar ideas, but A. Fet’s position becomes more critical: “You write the lining instead of the face, you have turned the content around. You are a free artist and you are quite right. But artistic laws for all content are unchangeable and inevitable, like death. And the first law is unity of representation. This unity in art is achieved completely differently than in life... We understood why Natasha gave up her roaring success, we realized that she was not drawn to sing, but was drawn to be jealous and strained to feed her children. They realized that she didn’t need to think about belts and ribbons and ringlets of curls. All this does not harm the whole idea of her spiritual beauty. But why insist on the fact that she had become a slob? This may be in reality, but this is intolerable naturalism in art... This is a caricature that violates harmony.”

The attitude towards the novel by I.S. was complex and changing. Turgenev. Dozens of his reviews in letters are accompanied by two printed ones, very different in tone and focus.

“First of all, it should be noted that the author adheres to the first vital principle of any artistic narrative: he does not try to extract from the subject of description what he cannot do, and therefore does not deviate a single step from a simple mental study of it.”

However, the critic had difficulty finding “a knot of romantic intrigue” in “War and Peace” and found it difficult to determine “who should be considered the main characters of the novel”: “It can be assumed that we were not the only ones who, after the rapturous impressions of the novel, had to ask: where is himself, this novel, where did he put his real business - the development of a private incident, his “plot” and “intrigue”, because without them, no matter what the novel does, it will still seem like an idle novel.

N.N. Strakhov paused before speaking about the work. His first articles about the novel appeared in early 1869, when many opponents had already expressed their point of view.

“The idea of “War and Peace,” the critic believes, “can be formulated in different ways. We can say, for example, that the guiding thought of the work is the idea of heroic life.”

These formulations are very close to Tolstoy’s future words about “people’s thought” as the main one in “War and Peace.”

D.I. Pisarev spoke positively about the novel: “A new, not yet finished novel by gr. L. Tolstoy can be called an exemplary work regarding the pathology of Russian society.”

He viewed the novel as a reflection of the Russian, old nobility.

“The novel War and Peace presents us with a whole bouquet of varied and superbly crafted characters, male and female, old and young.” In his work “The Old Nobility” he very clearly and completely analyzed the characters of not only the main but also the secondary characters of the work, thereby expressing his point of view.

Conclusion

Work by L.N. Tolstoy is undoubtedly a valuable asset of world literature. Over the years, it has been studied, criticized, and admired by many generations of people. The epic novel “War and Peace” allows you to think and analyze the course of events; this is not just a historical novel, although the details of significant events are revealed to us, it is a whole layer of the moral and spiritual development of the heroes, which we should pay attention to.

In this work, materials were studied that made it possible to consider the work of L. Tolstoy in the context of historical significance

The first chapter examined the features of the novel, its composition, and presents the history of the creation of the work. We can note that what we have now is thanks to the long and hard work of the writer. This was a reflection of his life experience and developed skill. Family legends and folk experiences found their place here. “Family thought” and “folk thought” in the novel merge into a single whole, creating harmony and unity of the image. By studying this work, you can understand the life and morals of the people of the time of 1812, grasp the mentality of the people through its characteristic representatives.

The epic novel “War and Peace” changed the understanding of the war of 1812. The writer’s idea was to show the war not only by exalting the victory, but also by conveying all the psychological and physical torment that had to be endured to achieve it. Here the reader can experience the situation of events as they were during the Patriotic War.

The second chapter examined the peculiarities of the development of the destinies of the main characters of the work, their spiritual and moral quests. Throughout the novel, the characters changed their views and beliefs more than once. Of course, first of all, this was due to decisive, turning points in their lives. The work examines the development of the characters of the main characters.

To fully evaluate the work, the points of view of various writers and critics were presented. In the course of the work, it was revealed that, despite the significance of the epic novel “War and Peace”, in the first years of its publication, the assessment of contemporaries was not unambiguous. There is an opinion that contemporaries were not ready to understand the meaning of the work. However, those small critical reviews were a natural reaction to the appearance of a huge, complex work. Having comprehended its full significance, most literary scholars agreed that this is a truly remarkable legacy of the “Golden Age” of literature.

To sum up the work, we can say that the epic novel “War and Peace” can with dignity bear the title of a masterpiece of Russian literature. Here, not only are the main events of the early 19th century reflected in their full breadth, but also the main principles of the nationality, both its high society and ordinary people, are revealed. All this in a single stream is a reflection of the spirit and life of the Russian people.

List of used literature

1. Annenkov P.V. Critical Essays. – St. Petersburg, 2000. P. 123-125, 295-296, 351-376.

2. Annenkov P.V. Literary Memoirs. – M., 1989. P. 438-439.

3. Bocharov S.G. Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace". – M., 1978. P. 5.

4. War over "War and Peace". Roman L.N. Tolstoy in Russian criticism and literary criticism. – St. Petersburg, 2002. pp. 8-9, 21-23, 25-26.

5. Herzen A.I. Thoughts on art and literature. – Kyiv, 1987. P. 173.

6. Gromov P.P. About the style of Leo Tolstoy. "Dialectics of the Soul" in "War and Peace". - L., 1977. P. 220-223.

7. Gulin A.V. Leo Tolstoy and the paths of Russian history. – M., 2004. P.120-178.

8. Dostoevsky F.M. Complete works in 30 volumes - L., 1986. - T. 29. - P. 109.

9. Kamyanov V. The poetic world of the epic, about Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace”. - M., 1978. P. 14-21.

10. Kurlyandskaya G.B. The moral ideal of the heroes of L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky. – M., 1988. pp. 137-149.

11. Libedinskaya L. Living heroes. – M., 1982, S. 89.

12. Motyleva T.L. "War and Peace" abroad. – M., 1978. S. 177, 188-189, 197-199.

13. Ogarev N.P. About literature and art. – M., 1988. P. 37.

14. Opulskaya L.D. Epic novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace". - M., 1987. pp. 3-57.

15. Writer and criticism of the 19th century. Kuibyshev, 1987. pp. 106-107.

16. Slivitskaya O.V. “War and Peace” L.N. Tolstoy. Problems of human communication. – L., 1988. P. 9-10.

17. Tolstoy L.N. War and Peace. – M., 1981. – T. 2. – P. 84-85.

18. Tolstoy L.N. Correspondence with Russian writers. – M., 1978. S. 379, 397 – 398.

19. Tolstoy L.N. Full collection cit.: In 90 volumes - M., 1958 - T. 13. - P. 54-55.

20. Tolstoy L.N. Full collection cit.: In 90 volumes - M., 1958 - T. 60. - P. 374.

21. Tolstoy L.N. Collected works in 20 volumes - M., 1984. - T. 17.- P. 646-647, 652, 658-659, 663-664.

22. Khalishchev V.E., Kormilov S.I. Roman L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace". – M., 1983. P. 45-51.

Herzen A.I. Thoughts on art and literature. – Kyiv, 1987. P. 173

War over "War and Peace". Roman L.N. Tolstoy in Russian criticism and literary criticism. – St. Petersburg, 2002. P. 8-9

Opulskaya L.D. Epic novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace". - M., 1987. S. 3

Right there. S. 5

Tolstoy L.N. War and Peace. – M., 1981. – T. 2. – P. 84-85.

Tolstoy L.N. Full collection cit.: In 90 volumes - M., 1958 - T. 13. - P. 54-55.

Tolstoy L.N. Full collection cit.: In 90 volumes - M., 1958 - T. 60. - P. 374.

Right there. P. 374.

Opulskaya L.D. Epic novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace". - M., 1987. P. 53..

Right there. P. 54.

War over "War and Peace". Roman L.N. Tolstoy in Russian criticism and literary criticism. – St. Petersburg, 2002. pp. 21-23.

Opulskaya L.D. Epic novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace". - M., 1987. P. 56.

Right there. P. 56.

Gulin A.V. Leo Tolstoy and the paths of Russian history. – M., 2004. P.130.

Opulskaya L.D. Epic novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace". - M., 1987. P. 40.

Gulin A.V. Leo Tolstoy and the paths of Russian history. – M., 2004. P. 131.

17 Ibid. P.133.

Right there. P. 139

Libedinskaya L. Living heroes. – M., 1982, S. 89.

Gulin A.V. Leo Tolstoy and the paths of Russian history. – M., 2004. P.168.

Ogarev N.P. About literature and art. – M., 1988. P. 37.

Dostoevsky F.M. Complete works in 30 volumes - L., 1986. - T. 29. - P. 109.

Tolstoy L.N. Correspondence with Russian writers. – M., 1978. P. 379.

Right there. pp. 397 – 398.

War over "War and Peace". Roman L.N. Tolstoy in Russian criticism and literary criticism. – St. Petersburg, 2002. pp. 25-26.

Right there. P. 26.

Right there. P. 22.

Annenkov P.V. Critical Essays. – St. Petersburg, 2000. P. 123-125.

War over "War and Peace". Roman L.N. Tolstoy in Russian criticism and literary criticism. – St. Petersburg, 2002. P. 22

Right there. P. 26

Right there. P. 26.

Motyleva T.L. "War and Peace" abroad. – M., 1978. P. 177.

A single scale for the depicted phenomena and persons, without violating the proportions between the human and the national. Understanding the causes of wars, Tolstoy reveals the mechanisms of action of the laws of history, strives for a deep philosophical understanding of the idea of war and peace, embodied in the novel at various thematic levels. The potential of the title lies in the possibility of interpreting the concepts of “war” and “...

Labor, turning a person into an appendage of a machine. He denies scientific and technological progress aimed at increasing luxury and pleasure, at increasing material needs, and, consequently, at corrupting man. Tolstoy preaches a return to more organic forms of life, calls for the abandonment of the excesses of civilization, which is already threatening the destruction of the spiritual foundations of life. Tolstoy's teaching on family...

In all its purity and strength. Only the recognition of this feeling in him made the people, in such strange ways, choose him, an old man in disgrace, against the will of the tsar, as a representative of the people’s war.” 3. Victory and its heroes In the novel, Tolstoy expresses his thoughts about the reasons for Russia’s victory in the War of 1812: “No one will argue that the reason for the death of Napoleon’s French troops was, with...

Nest", "War and Peace", "The Cherry Orchard". It is also important that the main character of the novel opens up a whole gallery of "superfluous people" in Russian literature: Pechorin, Rudin, Oblomov. Analyzing the novel "Eugene Onegin", Belinsky pointed out , that at the beginning of the 19th century the educated nobility was the class “in which the progress of Russian society was almost exclusively expressed,” and that in “Onegin” Pushkin “decided...

WAR AND PEACE
The work, which, according to Tolstoy himself, was the result of “insane authorial effort,” was published in the pages of the Russian Messenger magazine in 1868-1869. The success of War and Peace, according to contemporaries, was extraordinary. Russian critic N. N. Strakhov wrote: “In such great works as War and Peace, the true essence and importance of art is most clearly revealed. Therefore, “War and Peace” is also an excellent touchstone of all critical and aesthetic understanding, and at the same time a cruel stumbling block for all stupidity and all impudence. It seems easy to understand that War and Peace will not be judged by your words and opinions, but you will be judged by what you say about War and Peace.
Soon Tolstoy's book was translated into European languages. The classic of French literature G. Flaubert, having met her, wrote to Turgenev: “Thank you for making me read Tolstoy’s novel. It's first class. What a painter and what a psychologist!.. It seems to me that sometimes there is something Shakespearean in him.” Let us note that Russian and Western European masters and literature experts unanimously speak about the unusual nature of the “War and Peace” genre. They feel that Tolstoy’s work does not fit into the usual forms and boundaries of the classical European novel. Tolstoy himself understood this. In the afterword to War and Peace he wrote:
“What is “War and Peace”? This is not a novel, still less a poem, even less a historical chronicle. “War and Peace” is what the author wanted and could express in the form in which it was expressed.”
What distinguishes War and Peace from a classic novel? The French historian Albert Sorel, who gave a lecture on “War and Peace” in 1888, compared Tolstoy’s work with Stendhal’s novel “The Monastery of Parma.” He compared the behavior of Stendhal’s hero Fabrizio at the Battle of Waterloo with the well-being of Tolstoy’s Nikolai Rostov at the Battle of Austerlitz: “What a great moral difference between the two characters and the two concepts of war! Fabrizio has only a fascination with the external splendor of war, a simple curiosity for glory. After we went through a series of skillfully shown episodes with him, we involuntarily come to the conclusion: what, this is Waterloo, that’s all? This is Napoleon, that's all? When we follow Rostov near Austerlitz, together with him we experience a nagging feeling of enormous national disappointment, we share his excitement...”
The interest of Tolstoy the writer is focused not only on the depiction of individual human characters, but also on their connections with each other in moving and interconnected worlds.
Tolstoy himself, feeling a certain similarity between War and Peace and the heroic epic of the past, at the same time insisted on a fundamental difference: “The ancients left us examples of heroic poems in which the heroes constitute the entire interest of history; we still cannot get used to the fact that that for our human time a story of this kind has no meaning.”
Tolstoy decisively destroys the traditional division of life into “private” and “historical”. He has Nikolai Rostov, playing cards with Dolokhov, “praying to God, as he prayed on the battlefield on the Amstetten Bridge,” and in the battle near Ostrovnoy he gallops “across the frustrated ranks of the French dragoons” “with the feeling with which he rushed across the wolf.” . Thus, in everyday life, Rostov experiences feelings similar to those that overcame him in the first historical battle, and in the battle of Ostrovnoy, his military spirit feeds and supports the hunting instinct, born in the amusements of peaceful life. The mortally wounded Prince Andrei, in a heroic moment, “remembered Natasha as he saw her for the first time at the ball in 1810, with a thin neck and thin arms, with a face ready for delight, a frightened, happy face, and love and tenderness for her, even more vividly.” and awakened stronger than ever in his soul.”
The fullness of the impressions of peaceful life not only does not leave Tolstoy’s heroes in historical circumstances, but comes to life with even greater force and is resurrected in their souls. Reliance on these peaceful values of life spiritually strengthens Andrei Bolkonsky and Nikolai Rostov, and is the source of their courage and strength.
Not all of Tolstoy's contemporaries realized the depth of the discovery he made in War and Peace. The habit of clearly dividing life into “private” and “historical”, the habit of seeing in one of them a “low”, “prosaic” genre, and in the other a “high” and “poetic” genre, had an effect. P. A. Vyazemsky, who himself, like Pierre Bezukhov, was a civilian and participated in the Battle of Borodino, wrote about “War and Peace” in the article “Memories of 1812”: “Let’s start with the fact that in the mentioned book it is difficult to decide and even guess where the story ends and where the novel begins, and vice versa. This interweaving, or rather confusion, of history and the novel, without a doubt, harms the former and ultimately, before the court of sound and impartial criticism, does not elevate the true dignity of the latter, that is, the novel.”
P. V. Annenkov believed that the interweaving of private destinies and history in War and Peace does not allow the “wheel of the romantic machine” to move properly.
In essence, he decisively and abruptly changes the usual angle of view on history. If his contemporaries asserted the primacy of the historical over the private and looked at private life from top to bottom, then the author of “War and Peace” looks at history from the bottom up, believing that the peaceful everyday life of people, firstly, is wider and richer than historical life, and secondly secondly, it is the fundamental principle, the soil from which historical life grows and from which it is nourished. A. A. Fet astutely noted that Tolstoy considers a historical event “from the shirt, that is, from the shirt, which is closer to the body.”
And under Borodin, at this decisive hour for Russia, at the Raevsky battery, where Pierre ends up, one can feel “a common revival for everyone, like a family revival.” When the feeling of “unfriendly bewilderment” towards Pierre passed among the soldiers, “these soldiers immediately mentally accepted Pierre into their family, appropriated them and gave him a nickname. “Our master” they nicknamed him and laughed affectionately about him among themselves.”
Tolstoy endlessly expands the very understanding of the historical, including in it the entirety of the “private” lives of people. He achieves, in the words of the French critic Melchior Vogüe, “a unique combination of the great epic spirit with endless small analyzes.” History comes to life everywhere in Tolstoy, in any ordinary, “private”, “ordinary” person of his time, it manifests itself in the nature of the connection between people. The situation of national discord and disunity will affect, for example, in 1805 the defeat of Russian troops in the Battle of Austerlitz, and Pierre’s unsuccessful marriage to the predatory social beauty Helen, and the feeling of loss, loss of the meaning of life that the main characters of the novel experience during this period. And vice versa, the year 1812 in the history of Russia will give a living sense of national unity, the core of which will be people's life. The “peace” that emerges during the Patriotic War will bring Natasha and Prince Andrei together again. Through the seeming randomness of this meeting, necessity makes its way through. Russian life in 1812 gave Andrei and Natasha that new level of humanity at which this meeting turned out to be possible. If Natasha had not had a patriotic feeling, if her loving attitude towards people from her family had not spread to the entire Russian world, she would not have taken a decisive action, she would not have convinced her parents to remove their household belongings from the carts and give them to the wounded.

Author of the article: Weil P.
When the first part of “War and Peace” was published in the “Russian Messenger” in 1865 - then the novel was still called “1805” - Turgenev wrote to a friend: “To my true chagrin, I must admit that this novel seems positively bad to me , boring and unsuccessful. Tolstoy entered the wrong monastery - and all his shortcomings stuck out. All these little things, cunningly noticed and pretentiously expressed, small psychological remarks that he, under the pretext of “truth,” picks out from the armpits and other dark places of his heroes - how insignificant all this is on the broad canvas of a historical novel!
This one of the earliest assessments (later Turgenev changed his opinion) turned out to be prophetic to a certain extent. Descendants, however, without condemning the “stuff,” perceived “War and Peace” precisely and primarily as a historical novel, as a broad epic canvas, only incidentally noting small details - like the heavy tread of Princess Marya or the little princess’s mustache - as devices portrait characteristics.
In the case of Tolstoy's novel, the effect of monumental painting was felt. Contemporary Turgenev was still standing too close and looking at individual strokes. Over the years, from a distance, “War and Peace” has finally turned into a huge fresco, on which, God willing, one can discern the overall composition and grasp the flow of the plot - the nuances in the fresco are invisible and therefore insignificant.
This is probably why the monument erected by Tolstoy was so tempting to imitate. Russian literature does not know such an example: almost everything that is written in Russian about the war bears the stamp of Tolstoy’s influence; Almost every work that claims to be called an epic (at least in terms of time span, in terms of the number of characters) came out of War and Peace in one way or another. This influence was experienced by writers of such varying degrees of talent as Fadeev, Sholokhov, Simonov, Solzhenitsyn, Grossman, Vladimov and others, less noticeable (the only obvious exception is “Doctor Zhivago” by Pasternak, who followed the poetic tradition.) Following Tolstoy was captivating with its apparent simplicity. : it is enough to master the basic principles - historicism, nationality, psychologism - and lead the story, evenly alternating heroes and storylines.
However, “War and Peace” still stands in our literature as the lonely pinnacle of a grandiose novel in its scope, which - above all - is incredibly exciting to read. With all the historicism and psychologism, even in some fifth reading, I really want to simply, from a reader’s perspective, find out what will happen next, what will happen to the characters. Tolstoy’s book is captivating, and one gets the feeling that the author was captivated by his narrative in the same way - when suddenly phrases burst onto the pages as if from action-packed novels of a romantic nature: “Despite his seemingly weak build, Prince Andrei could endure physical fatigue much better than the best strong people." Or: “Prince Andrei was one of the best dancers of his time. Natasha danced superbly."
These infrequent inclusions in War and Peace are nevertheless not accidental. Tolstoy's book is full of admiration for the heroes and admiration for the beauty of man. What is noteworthy is that it is more masculine than feminine. In fact, there is only one unconditional beauty in the novel - Helen Bezukhova, but she is also one of the most repulsive characters, the personification of depravity and evil, which the author certainly condemns. Even Natasha Rostova is just ugly charming, but in the epilogue she turns into a “fertile female.” For this metamorphosis, Tolstoy was unanimously criticized by all Russian lovers of female images, and although there were speculations that the epilogue on nepotism and motherhood was written in polemics with the movement for emancipation, the secondary nature, the “complementarity” of a woman next to a man is clear throughout the text of War and Peace “It is not women who act at the forefront of history.
There are so many handsome men in the novel that Pierre Bezukhov and Kutuzov especially stand out for their ugliness, as the author repeatedly emphasizes. Not to mention the leading handsome men, like Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, Anatoly Kuragin or Boris Drubetsky, the most random people are good-looking, and Tolstoy considers it necessary to say about some silently flashed adjutant - “a handsome man,” although the adjutant will immediately disappear without a trace and the epithet will disappear for nothing.
But the author doesn’t feel sorry for epithets, just as he doesn’t feel sorry for words in general. The novel does not miss a single opportunity to add a clarifying touch to the overall picture. Tolstoy masterfully alternated broad strokes with small ones, and it is the small ones that create the face of the novel, its uniqueness, its fundamental originality. Of course, this is not a fresco, and if we stick to comparisons from the same series, “War and Peace” is rather a mosaic in which each pebble is both brilliant in itself and included in the brilliance of the entire composition.
Thus, the abundance of handsome men creates the effect of war as a holiday - this impression is present in the novel even when describing the bloodiest battles. Tolstoy’s Borodino stylistically correlates with Lermontov’s sublime anniversary poem, which Tolstoy called the “grain” of his novel, and there are direct indications of this: “Who, having taken off his shako, carefully unraveled and reassembled the assemblies; who polished the bayonet with dry clay, spreading it in his palms...” Of course, this is Lermontov’s “Borodino”: “Who cleaned the shako, all beaten up, Who sharpened the bayonet, grumbling angrily...”
All these beautiful adjutants, colonels and captains in smart uniforms go out to fight, as if on a parade somewhere on Tsaritsyn Meadow. And that, by the way, is why ugly Pierre looks so strikingly alien on the battlefield.
But later, when Tolstoy unfolds his historical and philosophical digressions about the horrors of war, the same stroke gives the exact opposite effect: war may be beautiful, but war kills beautiful people and thereby destroys the beauty of the world. This is how an expressive detail works ambivalently.
Tolstoy's small detail almost always looks more convincing and colorful than his detailed description. For example, Pierre Bezukhov’s thoughts about Platon Karataev are largely nullified by the remark that flashed almost without explanation about this hero: “He often said the exact opposite of what he said before, but both were true.”
It is precisely this optionality of the presence of meaning, which, as a direct consequence, turns out to be the presence of meaning in everything - and then leads Pierre to the conclusion that in Karataev God is greater than in the complex constructions of the Freemasons.
Divine nonsense is the most important element of the book. It appears in the form of small episodes and replicas, which one could, it seems, completely do without in a historical novel - but nonsense invariably appears and, which is very significant, as a rule, at moments of strong dramatic tension.
Pierre utters nonsense that is obvious even to himself (but not to the author!), pointing at someone else’s girl during the fire of Moscow and pathetically declaring to the French that this is his daughter, whom he saved from the fire.
Kutuzov promises Rastopchin not to give up Moscow, although both know that Moscow has already been given up.
During a period of acute longing for Prince Andrei, Natasha stuns the governesses: “The island of Madagascar,” she said. “Ma da gas kar,” she repeated each syllable clearly and, without answering the questions... left the room.”
Is it not from this Madagascar, which had nothing to do with the previous conversation and appeared literally out of nowhere, that Chekhov’s famous Africa, where the heat is terrible, came out? But Madagascar itself did not become famous, was not remembered - of course, because of the focus on reading the epic, which generations of Russian readers wanted to see in War and Peace. Meanwhile, Tolstoy managed not only to reproduce normal - that is, incoherent and illogical - human speech, but also to present tragic and fateful events as meaningless, as in the episodes with Pierre and Kutuzov.
This is a direct result of the worldview of Tolstoy the thinker and the skill of Tolstoy the artist. Perhaps the main philosophical line of the novel is the theme of the infinite number of sources, causes and causes of phenomena and events occurring on earth, the fundamental inability of man to embrace and realize this multitude, his helplessness and pitifulness in the face of the chaos of life. The author repeats this favorite thought persistently, sometimes even intrusively, varying situations and circumstances.
The human body is incomprehensible and disease is incomprehensible, for suffering is the sum total of many sufferings. Battles and wars are unpredictable because too many divergent forces influence their outcome, and “sometimes it seems that salvation lies in running back, sometimes in running forward.” The vicissitudes of the political and social activity of man and all humanity are unknowable, since life is not subject to unambiguous control by reason.
It seems that the author also had himself in mind when he wrote about Kutuzov, in whom there was “instead of a mind (grouping events and drawing conclusions) only the ability to calmly contemplate the course of events... He won’t come up with anything, won’t do anything,... but he will listen to everything, remember everything , will put everything in its place, will not interfere with anything useful and will not allow anything harmful.”
Tolstoy's Kutuzov despises knowledge and mind, putting forward something inexplicable as the highest wisdom, a certain substance that is more important than knowledge and mind - the soul, the spirit. This is, according to Tolstoy, the main and exclusive advantage of the Russian people, although when reading the novel it often seems that the heroes are divided on the basis of good French pronunciation. True, one does not contradict the other, and the real Russian, one might assume, has already surpassed and absorbed the European. The more varied and complex the mosaic of a book written largely in a foreign language.
In War and Peace, Tolstoy so firmly believes in the superiority and primacy of spirit over reason that in his famous list of the sources of self-confidence of different peoples, when it comes to Russians, there are even caricature notes. Having explained “the self-confidence of the Germans by their learning, the French by their belief in their charm, the English by their statehood, and the Italians by their temperament, Tolstoy finds a universal formula for the Russians: “A Russian is self-confident precisely because he knows nothing and does not want to know, because he does not believe, so that you can fully know anything.”
One of the consequences of this formula is eternal absolution, an indulgence given in advance to all future Russian boys who undertake to correct the star chart. And in fact, there is no ridicule here, because Tolstoy during the period of “War and Peace” applied this formula both to himself and, most importantly, to the people he glorified, as if admiring their stupidity and tongue-tiedness. These are the scenes of the Bogucharov riot, conversations with soldiers, and indeed almost any appearance of the people in the novel. Contrary to popular belief, there are few of them: it is estimated that only eight percent of the book is devoted to the actual topic of the people. (After the release of the novel, responding to critics’ reproaches that the intelligentsia, commoners, and few folk scenes were not depicted, the author admitted that he was not interested in these layers of the Russian population, that he knew and wanted to describe what he described: the Russian nobility.)
However, these percentages will increase sharply if we consider that from Tolstoy’s point of view, the people’s soul and spirit are expressed no less than by Platon Karataev or Tikhon Shcherbaty by Vasily Denisov, Field Marshal Kutuzov, and, finally - and most importantly - he himself, the author. And Pierre, who is already beginning to see the light, does without deciphering: “They want to attack all the people, one word - Moscow. They want to do one end. “Despite the vagueness of the soldier’s words, Pierre understood everything he wanted to say and nodded his head approvingly.”
According to Tolstoy, you cannot correct, but you can not interfere, you cannot explain, but you can understand, you cannot express, but you can name.
The thinker determined the direction of the artist's actions. In the poetics of War and Peace, this author’s worldview is expressed in the smallest detail. If events and phenomena arise from many causes, it means that there are no unimportant ones among them. Absolutely everything is important and significant, every pebble of the mosaic takes its rightful place, and the absence of any of them removes the mosaic from completeness and perfection. The more named, the better and more correct.
And Tolstoy calls it. His novel, especially the first half (in the second, the war generally overcomes the world, the episodes become larger, there are more philosophical digressions, fewer nuances), is full of small details, fleeting scenes, side, as if “to the side”, remarks. Sometimes it seems that all this is too much, and the bewilderment of Konstantin Leontyev, with his subtle aesthetic taste, is understandable: “Why... Why does Tolstoy need these excesses?” But Tolstoy himself - for the sake of the desire to name everything and not miss anything - is capable of even sacrificing style, leaving, for example, the glaring three “whats” in a short sentence, which resulted in a clumsy construction like: she knew that this meant that he was glad that she didn't leave.
If Tolstoy is merciless in his details, it is only out of an artistic principle that encourages him not to miss anything. Only Napoleon is openly tendentious, to whom the author flatly denied not only greatness, but also significance. Other characters only strive for full embodiment, and again - a fleeting touch not only clarifies the outline of the image, but often comes into conflict with it, which is one of the main pleasures of reading the novel.
Princess Marya, famous for her cordiality, to which many pages are devoted (to cordiality), appears coldly secular, almost like Helen: “The princess and princess... clasped their hands, firmly pressed their lips to the places where they fell in the first minute.” And of course, the princess, with her inaccessible high spirituality, immediately turns into a living person. The rollicking Denisov becomes alive when he makes “sounds like a dog barking” over the body of the murdered Petya Rostov.
These metamorphoses are even more clear in the description of historical figures, which explains why in Tolstoy they are reliable, why one does not feel (or almost does not feel: the exceptions are Napoleon, partly Kutuzov) artificiality and falsehood in episodes with characters who have real prototypes.
Thus, having devoted a lot of space to the statesman Speransky, the author finds the opportunity to actually put an end to him in a very indirect way - by conveying the impressions of Prince Andrei from dinner in the Speransky family: “There was nothing bad or inappropriate in what they said, everything was witty and could be funny; but that very thing that is the essence of fun not only didn’t happen, but they didn’t even know that it happened.” These last words so expressively convey the “unreality”, the lifelessness of Speransky, so disgusting to the author, that no further explanation is required why Prince Andrei, and with him Tolstoy, left him.
“The French Arakcheev” - Marshal Davout - is written in “War and Peace” with only black paint, and yet the most striking and memorable characteristic is the generally unimportant circumstance that he chose a dirty barn for his headquarters - because “Davout was one of those people who deliberately put themselves in the darkest conditions of life in order to have the right to be gloomy.” And such people, as everyone knows, were not only in France and not only in the time of Tolstoy.
Tolstoy's detail reigns supreme in the novel, being responsible for literally everything: it draws images, directs plot lines, builds composition, and finally creates a holistic picture of the author's philosophy. More precisely, it initially follows from their author’s worldview, but, forming Tolstoy’s unique mosaic poetics, the detail - the abundance of details - clarifies this worldview, makes it clearly visual and convincing. And dozens of the most touching pages about Natasha’s love for Prince Andrei can hardly be compared in touchingness and expressiveness with one - the only question that Natasha asks her mother about her fiancé: “Mom, isn’t it a shame that he is a widower?”
In the description of the war, the detail just as successfully fights against the superior forces of the epic - and wins. A huge event in the history of Russia was, as it were, deliberately chosen by the author to prove this writer’s hypothesis. Kutuzov's drowsiness, Napoleon's irritability, and the thin voice of Captain Tushin remain in the foreground. Tolstoy's detail was intended to destroy the genre of the heroic historical novel and did this, once and for all making the revival of the heroic epic impossible.
As for Tolstoy’s book itself, the “little things” that outraged Leontyev and upset Turgenev, which Tolstoy supposedly “picks out from under the armpits of his heroes” - as it turned out, determined both the heroes themselves and the narrative, which is why “War and Peace” did not turn into a monument , but has become a novel that is read with enthusiasm by generations.

Author of the article: Pisarev D.I.
The new, not yet finished novel by Count L. Tolstoy can be called an exemplary work regarding the pathology of Russian society. In this novel, a whole series of bright and varied pictures, written with the most majestic and imperturbable epic calm, poses and resolves the question of what happens to human minds and characters under such conditions that give people the opportunity to do without knowledge, without thoughts, without energy and without difficulty.
It is very possible, and even very likely, that Count Tolstoy does not mean to pose and resolve such a question. It is very likely that he simply wants to paint a series of pictures from the life of the Russian nobility during the time of Alexander I. He sees for himself and tries to show others, clearly, down to the smallest details and shades, all the features characterizing the time and the people of that time, people of the circle who most interesting to him or accessible to his study. He tries only to be truthful and accurate; his efforts do not tend to support or refute any theoretical idea with the images he creates; he, in all likelihood, treats the subject of his long and careful research with that involuntary and natural tenderness that a gifted historian usually feels for the distant or near past, resurrected under his hands; he, perhaps, finds even in the features of this past, in the figures and characters of the personalities depicted, in the concepts and habits of the depicted society, many features worthy of love and respect. All this can happen, all this is even very probable. But precisely because the author spent a lot of time, labor and love on studying and depicting the era and its representatives, precisely because the images he created live their own life, independent of the author’s intentions, enter into direct relationships with readers, speak for themselves and irresistibly lead the reader to thoughts and conclusions that the author did not have in mind and which he, perhaps, would not even approve of.
This truth, gushing out as a living spring from the facts themselves, this truth, breaking through beyond the personal sympathies and beliefs of the narrator, is especially precious in its irresistible persuasiveness. We will now try to extract this truth, this awl that cannot be hidden in a bag, from Count Tolstoy’s novel.
The novel "War and Peace" presents us with a whole bouquet of diverse and superbly finished characters, male and female, old and young. The selection of young male characters is especially rich. We will begin with them, and begin from the bottom, that is, with those figures about which disagreement is almost impossible and whose unsatisfactoriness will, in all likelihood, be recognized by all readers.
The first portrait in our art gallery will be Prince Boris Drubetskoy, a young man of noble origin, with a name and connections, but without a fortune, paving his way to wealth and honor with his ability to get along with people and take advantage of circumstances. The first of those circumstances that he uses with remarkable skill and success is his own mother, Princess Anna Mikhailovna. Everyone knows that a mother asking for her son always and everywhere turns out to be the most zealous, efficient, persistent, tireless and fearless of lawyers. In her eyes, the end justifies and sanctifies all means, without the slightest exception. She is ready to beg, cry, ingratiate herself, fawn, grovel, bother, swallow all sorts of insults, if only out of annoyance, out of a desire to get rid of her and stop her annoying cries, they finally throw an annoyingly demanded handout for her son. Boris knows all these advantages of his mother well. He also knows that all the humiliations to which a loving mother voluntarily exposes herself does not harm her son at all, if only this son, using her services, behaves with sufficient, decent independence.
Boris chooses the role of a respectful and obedient son, as the most profitable and convenient role for himself. It is beneficial and convenient, firstly, because it imposes on him the obligation not to interfere with those feats of sycophancy with which his mother lays the foundation for his brilliant career. Secondly, it is beneficial and convenient in that it puts him in the best light in the eyes of those strong people on whom his success depends. “What an exemplary young man!” everyone around him should think and talk about him. “How much noble pride he has and what magnanimous efforts he uses in order, out of love for his mother, to suppress in himself the too impetuous movements of young, uncalculated obstinacy, such movements that could have upset the poor old woman, who had concentrated all her thoughts and desires on her son's career. And how carefully and how successfully he hides his magnanimous efforts under the guise of outward calm! How he understands that these efforts, by the very fact of their existence, could serve as a heavy reproach to his poor mother, completely blinded by her ambitious maternal dreams and plans. What intelligence, what tact, what strength of character, what a heart of gold and what refined delicacy! "
When Anna Mikhailovna knocks on the thresholds of benefactors and benefactors, Boris behaves passively and calmly, like a man who has decided once and for all to respectfully and with dignity submit to his difficult and bitter fate, and to submit so that everyone can see it, but so that no one dares to tell him with warm sympathy: “Young man, in your eyes, in your face, in your entire dejected appearance, I see clearly that you are patiently and courageously bearing a heavy cross.” He goes with his mother to the dying rich man Bezukhov, on whom Anna Mikhailovna places some hopes, mainly because “he is so rich, and we are so poor!” He goes, but he makes even his mother feel that he is doing this exclusively for her, that he himself does not foresee anything from this trip except humiliation, and that there is a limit beyond which his obedience and his artificial calm can betray him. The hoax is carried out so skillfully that Anna Mikhailovna herself fears her respectful son, like a volcano from which a destructive eruption can be expected every minute; It goes without saying that this fear increases her respect for her son; She looks back at him at every step, asks him to be affectionate and attentive, reminds him of his promises, touches his hand so that, depending on the circumstances, she either calms or excites him. Anxious and fussing in this way, Anna Mikhailovna remains in the firm confidence that without these skillful efforts and diligence on her part everything will go to waste, and the adamant Boris, if he does not anger strong people forever with an outburst of noble indignation, then at least will probably freeze them with the icy coldness of his treatment. all the hearts of patrons and benefactors.
If Boris so successfully mystifies his own mother, an experienced and intelligent woman, under whose eyes he grew up, then, of course, he is even easier and just as successful in fooling strangers with whom he has to deal. He bows to benefactors and patrons courteously, but so calmly and with such modest dignity that powerful people immediately feel the need to look at him more closely and distinguish him from the crowd of needy clients for whom annoying mothers and aunties ask. He answers their casual questions precisely and clearly, calmly and respectfully, showing neither annoyance at their harsh tone, nor any desire to engage in further conversation with them. Looking at Boris and listening to his calm answers, patrons and benefactors are immediately imbued with the conviction that Boris, remaining within the boundaries of strict politeness and impeccable respect, will not allow anyone to push him around and will always be able to stand up for his noble honor. Being a supplicant and seeker, Boris knows how to shift all the dirty work of this matter onto his mother, who, of course, lends her old shoulders with the greatest readiness and even begs her son to allow her to arrange his promotion. Leaving his mother to grovel before strong people, Boris himself knows how to remain pure and graceful, a modest but independent gentleman. Purity, grace, modesty, independence and gentlemanliness, of course, give him benefits that plaintive begging and base servility could not give him. That sop that can be thrown to a timid, dirty little fellow who barely dares to sit on the end of a chair and strives to kiss his benefactor on the shoulder is extremely inconvenient, embarrassing and even dangerous to offer to an elegant young man, in whom decent modesty coexists in the most harmonious way with an ineradicable and ever-vigilant sense of self. dignity. Such a post, to which it would be absolutely impossible to place a simply and openly groveling petitioner, is extremely decent for a modestly independent young man who knows how to bow at the right time, smile at the right time, make a serious and even stern face at the right time, and yield at the right time. or to be convinced, to reveal noble steadfastness in time, without even for a moment losing calm composure and decently respectful ease of manner.
Patrons usually love flatterers; They are pleased to see in the reverence of the people around them an involuntary tribute to the admiration brought by the genius of their minds and the incomparable superiority of their moral qualities. But for flattery to make a pleasant impression, it must be quite subtle, and the smarter the person who is being flattered, the subtler the flattery must be, and the subtler it is, the more pleasant it acts. When flattery turns out to be so crude that the person to whom it is addressed can recognize its insincerity, then it can produce a completely opposite effect on him and seriously damage the inexperienced flatterer. Let's take two flatterers: one is in awe of his patron, agrees with him in everything and clearly shows with all his actions and words that he has neither his own will nor his own conviction, that he, having now praised one judgment of his patron, is ready to extol another in a minute a judgment that is diametrically opposed, as long as it was expressed by the same patron; the other, on the contrary, knows how to show that, in order to please the patron, he does not have the slightest need to renounce his mental and moral independence, that all the patron’s judgments conquer his mind by the power of their own irresistible inner persuasiveness, that he obeys the patron at any given moment not with a feeling of slavish fear and slavish selfish servility, but with the living and deep pleasure of a free man who had the good fortune of finding himself a wise and generous leader. It is clear that of these two flatterers, the second will go much further than the first. The first will be fed and despised; the first will be dressed as a jester; the first will not be allowed further than the lackey role that he assumed in the short-sighted expectation of future benefits; the second, on the contrary, will be consulted; he may be loved; they may even feel respect for him; he can be made into friends and confidants. The high-society Molchalin, Prince Boris Drubetskoy, follows this second path and, of course, holding his beautiful head high and not staining the tips of his nails with any work, will easily and quickly reach this path to such well-known degrees that simple Molchalin will never crawl to. , innocently being mean and in awe of his boss and humbly earning himself an early stoop behind office papers. Boris acts in life the way a deft and agile gymnast climbs a tree. Standing with his foot on one branch, he already looks with his eyes for another, which he could grab with his hands in the next moment; his eyes and all his thoughts are directed upward; when his hand has found a reliable support point, he completely forgets about the branch on which he just now stood with all the weight of his body and from which his leg is already beginning to separate. Boris looks at all his acquaintances and at all those people with whom he can get acquainted precisely as at branches located one above the other, at a more or less distant distance from the top of a huge tree, from that top where the desired calm awaits a skilled gymnastics among luxury, honors and attributes of power. Boris immediately, with the penetrating gaze of a gifted commander or a good chess player, grasps the mutual relations of his acquaintances and those paths that can lead him from one already made acquaintance to another, still beckoning him to himself, and from this other to a third, still wrapped in golden a fog of majestic inaccessibility. Having managed to appear to the good-natured Pierre Bezukhov as a sweet, intelligent and firm young man, even managing to confuse and touch him with his intelligence and firmness at the very time when he and his mother came to the old Count Bezukhov to ask for poverty and for guards uniforms, Boris gets for himself This Pierre sent a letter of recommendation to Kutuzov’s adjutant, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, and through Bolkonsky he met Adjutant General Dolgorukov and himself became an adjutant to some important person.
Having placed himself on friendly terms with Prince Bolkonsky, Boris immediately carefully separates his leg from the branch on which he was holding on. He immediately begins to gradually weaken his friendly connection with his childhood friend, the young Count Rostov, with whom he lived in the house for entire years and whose mother had just given him, Boris, five hundred rubles for uniforms, which were accepted by Princess Anna Mikhailovna with tears of tenderness and joyful gratitude. . After a six-month separation, after campaigns and battles endured by the young Rostov, Boris meets with him, his childhood friend, and on the same first date Rostov notices that Boris, to whom Bolkonsky comes at the same time, seems ashamed to have a friendly conversation with army hussar. The elegant guards officer, Boris, is offended by the army uniform and army habits of young Rostov, and most importantly, he is embarrassed by the thought that Bolkonsky will form an unfavorable opinion of him, seeing his friendly shortness with a man of bad taste. In Boris's relationship with Rostov, a slight tension is immediately revealed, which is especially convenient for Boris precisely because it is impossible to find fault with it, that it cannot be eliminated by frank explanations, and that it is also very difficult not to notice and not to feel. Thanks to this subtle tension, thanks to this subtle dissonance, slightly scratching the nerves, a person of bad taste will be quietly removed, having no reason to complain, be offended and break into ambition, and a person of good taste will see and notice that to the elegant Guards officer , Prince Boris Drubetsky, indelicate young people try to be his friends, whom he meekly and gracefully knows how to push back to their real place.
On a campaign, at war, in social salons - everywhere Boris pursues the same goal, everywhere he thinks exclusively, or at least primarily, about the interests of his career. Using with remarkable intelligibility all the smallest indications of experience, Boris soon turns into conscious and systematic tactics what was previously for him a matter of instinct and happy inspiration. He forms an unmistakably correct theory of career and acts according to this theory with the most unwavering constancy. Having become acquainted with Prince Bolkonsky and having approached through him to the highest spheres of military administration, Boris clearly understood what he had foreseen before, precisely what was in the army, in addition to the subordination and discipline that was written in the regulations and which was known in the regiment and he knew , there was another more significant subordination, the one that forced this drawn-out, purple-faced general to respectfully wait while captain Prince Andrei, for his own pleasure, found it more convenient to talk with ensign Drubetsky. More than ever, Boris decided to serve henceforth not according to what is written in the charter, but according to this unwritten subordination. He now felt that only due to the fact that he had been recommended to Prince Andrei, he had already become immediately superior to the general, who in other cases, at the front, could destroy him, the guards ensign" (1, 75) (1).
Based on the clearest and most unambiguous indications of experience, Boris decides once and for all that serving individuals is incomparably more profitable than serving a cause, and, as a person who is not in the least bound in his actions by an uncalculated love for any idea or for any was the case, he makes it a rule to always serve only individuals and always place all his trust not in any of his own real merits, but only in his good relations with influential persons who know how to reward and bring their faithful and obedient servants into the public eye .
In a casual conversation about service, Rostov tells Boris that he will not become an adjutant to anyone, because this is a “lackey position.” Boris, of course, turns out to be so free from prejudices that he is not embarrassed by the harsh and unpleasant word “lackey”. Firstly, he understands that _comparaison nest pas raison_ (Comparison is not proof (French). - Ed.) and that there is a huge difference between an adjutant and a footman, because the first is gladly received in the most brilliant drawing rooms, while the second is forced to stand in the hall and hold the master's fur coats. Secondly, he also understands that many lackeys live much more pleasantly than other gentlemen who have every right to consider themselves valiant servants of the fatherland. Thirdly, he is always ready to put on any livery himself, if only it will quickly and correctly lead him to his goal. This is what he expresses to Rostov, telling him, in response to his outburst about the adjutant, that “he would really like to become an adjutant,” “because, having already started a career in military service, one must try to make, if possible, a brilliant career.” (I, 62) (2). This frankness of Boris is very remarkable. It clearly proves that the majority of the society in which he lives and whose opinion he values, completely approves of his views on paving the road, on serving individuals, on unwritten subordination and on the undoubted convenience of livery as a means leading to an end. Boris calls Rostov a dreamer for his outburst against serving individuals, and the society to which Rostov belongs would, without any doubt, not only confirm, but also strengthen this verdict to a very significant extent, so Rostov, for his attempt to deny the system of patronage and unwritten chain of command, would have turned out to be not a dreamer, but simply a stupid and rude army brawler, incapable of understanding and appreciating the most legitimate and laudable aspirations of well-bred and respectable young men.
Boris, of course, continues to succeed under the shadow of his infallible theory, which is fully consistent with the mechanism and spirit of the society among which he seeks wealth and honor. “He fully adopted the unwritten subordination that he liked in Olmutz, according to which an ensign could stand without comparison above a general and according to which, for success in the service, what was needed was not effort in the service, not labor, not courage, not constancy, but it was necessary only the ability to deal with those who reward for service - and he was often surprised at his rapid successes and how others could not understand this. As a result of this discovery, his entire way of life, all his relationships with former acquaintances, all his plans for the future - completely changed. He was not rich, but he used the last of his money to be better dressed than others; he would rather deprive himself of many pleasures than allow himself to ride in a bad carriage or appear in an old uniform on the streets of St. Petersburg. He became closer and sought acquaintance only with people who were higher than him and therefore could be useful to him" (II, 106) (3).
With a special feeling of pride and pleasure, Boris enters the houses of high society; he takes the invitation from the maid of honor Anna Pavlovna Scherer for an “important promotion”; At an evening with her, he, of course, is not looking for entertainment; he, on the contrary, works in his own way in her living room; he carefully studies the terrain in which he has to maneuver in order to win new benefits and attract new benefactors; he carefully observes each face and evaluates the benefits and possibilities of rapprochement with each of them. He enters this high society with the firm intention of imitating it, that is, to shorten and narrow his mind as much as necessary, so as not to push himself in any way from the general level and under no circumstances irritate with his superiority this or that limited person capable of being useful in terms of unwritten chain of command.
At Anna Pavlovna's party, one very stupid young man, the son of the minister Prince Kuragin, after repeated attacks and long preparations, produces a stupid and hackneyed joke. Boris, of course, is so smart that such jokes should offend him and arouse in him that feeling of disgust that is usually born in a healthy person when he has to see or hear an idiot. Boris cannot find this joke witty or funny, but, being in a high society salon, he does not dare to stand this joke with a serious face, because his seriousness could be mistaken for a silent condemnation of a pun, over which, perhaps, the cream of St. Petersburg society would like laugh. So that the laughter of these cream of the crop does not take him by surprise, the prudent Boris takes his measures at the very second when a flat and alien wit falls from the lips of Prince Ippolit Kuragin. He smiles cautiously, so that his smile can be attributed to ridicule or approval of the joke, depending on how it is received. The cream laughs, recognizing in the sweet wit the flesh of his flesh and the bone of his bones - and the measures taken in advance by Boris turn out to be highly saving for him.
The stupid beauty, the worthy sister of Ippolit Kuragin, Countess Helen Bezukhova, who enjoys the reputation of a charming and very intelligent woman and attracts to her salon everything that sparkles with intelligence, wealth, nobility or high rank, finds it convenient for herself to bring the handsome and dexterous adjutant Boris closer to her person. Boris approaches with the greatest readiness, becomes her lover and in this circumstance sees, not without reason, a new and important promotion. If the path to rank and money passes through the boudoir of a beautiful woman, then, of course, there is no sufficient reason for Boris to stop in virtuous bewilderment or turn aside. Grabbing the hand of his stupid beauty, Drubetskoy cheerfully and quickly continues to move forward towards the golden goal.
He begs his closest superior for permission to be in his retinue in Tilsit, during the meeting of both emperors, and makes him feel on this occasion how carefully he, Boris, follows the readings of the political barometer and how carefully he considers all his smallest words and actions with the intentions and desires of high-ranking persons. That person who until now was for Boris General Bonaparte, a usurper and enemy of humanity, becomes for him Emperor Napoleon and a great man from the moment when, having learned about the proposed meeting, Boris begins to ask to go to Tilsit. Once in Tilsit, Boris felt that his position was strengthened. “They not only knew him, but they took a closer look at him and got used to him. Twice he carried out orders for the sovereign himself, so the sovereign knew him by sight, and all those close to him not only did not shy away from him, as before, considering him a new face, but would have been surprised , if he did not exist" (II, 172) (4).
There are no stops or packages on the path that Boris follows. An unexpected catastrophe may occur, which suddenly crushes and breaks an entire career that has begun well and continues successfully; such a catastrophe can overtake even the most cautious and prudent person; but it is difficult to expect from her that she would direct a person’s strength to useful work and open up wide scope for their development; after such a catastrophe a person usually finds himself flattened and crushed; a brilliant, cheerful and successful officer or official most often turns into a pathetic hypochondriac, into an openly low beggar, or simply into a bitter drunkard. Apart from such an unexpected catastrophe, given the smooth and favorable flow of everyday life, there is no chance that a person in Boris’s position would suddenly break away from his constant diplomatic game, which is always equally important and interesting for him, that he would suddenly stop and look back at himself. himself, gave himself a clear account of how the living forces of his mind were shrinking and withering, and with an energetic effort of will he suddenly jumped from the road of skillful, decent and brilliantly successful begging onto the completely unknown to him road of thankless, tedious and not at all lordly labor. The diplomatic game has such addictive properties and produces such brilliant results that a person immersed in this game soon begins to consider everything that is outside of it small and insignificant; all events, all phenomena of private and public life are assessed according to their relationship to winning or losing; all people are divided into means and hindrances; all feelings of one’s own soul are divided into laudable, that is, leading to winning, and reprehensible, that is, distracting attention from the game process. In the life of a person drawn into such a game, there is no place for such impressions from which a strong feeling could develop that is not subordinated to the interests of his career. Serious, pure, sincere love, without any admixture of selfish or ambitious calculations, love with all the bright depth of its pleasures, love with all its solemn and holy duties cannot take root in the dried-out soul of a person like Boris. Moral renewal through happy love is unthinkable for Boris. This is proven in Count Tolstoy’s novel by his story with Natasha Rostova, the sister of that army hussar whose uniform and manners offend Boris in the presence of Prince Bolkonsky.
When Natasha was 12 years old, and Boris was 17 or 18 years old, they played love with each other; once, shortly before Boris left for the regiment, Natasha kissed him, and they decided that their wedding would take place four years later, when Natasha turned 16. These four years passed, the bride and groom - both, if they did not forget their mutual obligations, then at least began to look at them as a childish prank; when Natasha could actually be a bride and when Boris was already a young man standing, as they say, on the best road, they met and became interested in each other again. After the first date, “Boris told himself that Natasha was just as attractive to him as before, but that he should not give in to this feeling, because marrying her, a girl with almost no fortune, would be the ruin of his career, and the resumption of previous relationship without the goal of marriage would be an ignoble act" (III, 50) 5.
Despite this prudent and saving consultation with himself, despite the decision to avoid meeting with Natasha, Boris gets carried away, begins to visit the Rostovs often, spends whole days with them, listens to Natasha’s songs, writes poetry for her in an album, and even stops visiting Countess Bezukhova. , from whom he receives daily invitations and reproachful notes. He keeps going to explain to Natasha that he can never and can never become her husband, but he still doesn’t have enough strength and courage to start and finish such a delicate explanation. He is becoming more and more confused every day. But some temporary and fleeting inattention to the great interests of his career constitutes the extreme limit of hobbies possible for Boris. To inflict any serious and irreparable blow on these great interests is unimaginable for him, even under the influence of the strongest passions available to him.
As soon as the old Countess Rostova has a serious word with Boris, as soon as she lets him feel that his frequent visits are noticed and taken into account, Boris immediately, so as not to compromise the girl and not spoil his career, turns to a prudent and noble flight. He stops visiting the Rostovs and even, having met them at the ball, passes by them twice and turns away each time (III, 65) (6).
Having sailed safely between the pitfalls of love, Boris is already flying non-stop, with full sails, to a reliable pier. His position in the service, his connections and acquaintances give him entry into houses where there are very rich brides. He begins to think that it is time for him to secure a profitable marriage. His youth, his handsome appearance, his presentable uniform, his intelligently and prudently managed career constitute a commodity that can be sold for a very good price. Boris looks out for a buyer and finds her in Moscow.
TALENT L.N. TOLSTOY AND THE NOVEL “WAR AND PEACE” IN THE EVALUATION OF CRITICS
In this novel, a whole series of bright and varied pictures, written with the most majestic and imperturbable epic calm, poses and resolves the question of what happens to human minds and characters under such conditions that give people the opportunity to do without knowledge, without thoughts, without energy and labor.... It is very likely that the author simply wants to draw a series of pictures from the life of the Russian nobility during the time of Alexander I. He himself sees and tries to show others clearly, down to the smallest details and shades, all the features that characterized the time and the people of that time people - people of the circle that is increasingly interesting to him or accessible to his study. He tries only to be truthful and accurate; his efforts do not tend to support or refute any theoretical idea created by the images; he, in all likelihood, treats the subject of his long and careful research with that involuntary and natural tenderness that a gifted historian usually feels for the distant or near past, resurrected under his hands; he, perhaps, finds in the features of this past, in the figures and characters of the personalities depicted, in the concepts and habits of the depicted society, many features worthy of love and respect. All this can happen, all this is even very probable. But precisely because the author spent a lot of time, labor and love on studying and depicting the era and its representatives, that is why its representatives live their own lives, independent of the author’s intentions, enter into direct relationships with themselves with readers, speak for themselves and uncontrollably lead the reader to thoughts and conclusions that the author did not have in mind and which he, perhaps, would not even approve of... (From the article by D.I. Pisarev “The Old Nobility”)
Count Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" is interesting for the military in a double sense: for its description of scenes of the military and military life and for its desire to draw some conclusions regarding the theory of military affairs. The first, that is, the scenes, are inimitable and ... can constitute one of the most useful additions to any course in the theory of military art; the second, that is, the conclusions, do not withstand the most lenient criticism due to their one-sidedness, although they are interesting as a transitional stage in the development of the author’s views on military affairs...
In the foreground is an everyday peace-war picture; but what! Ten battle paintings of the best master, of the largest size, can be given for her. We boldly say that not a single military man, having read it, involuntarily said to himself: yes, he copied this from our regiment.
Count Tolstoy's combat scenes are no less instructive: the entire internal side of the battle, unknown to most military theorists and peaceful military practitioners, and yet giving success or failure, comes to the fore in his magnificently relief paintings. The difference between his descriptions of battles and descriptions of historical battles is the same as between a landscape and a topographical plan: the first gives less, gives from one point, but gives more accessible to the human eye and heart. The second gives every local object from a large number of sides, gives the terrain for tens of miles, but gives it in a conventional drawing that has nothing in common with the objects depicted; and therefore everything on it is dead, lifeless, even to the trained eye... The moral physiognomy of the leading personalities, their struggle with themselves and with others, which precedes any determination, all this disappears - and from the fact that has developed from thousands of human lives, something remains like a heavily worn coin: the outline is visible, but what kind of face? The best numismatist does not recognize. Of course, there are exceptions, but they are extremely rare and in any case do not bring events to life before you in the same way as a landscape event brings it to life, that is, representing what an observant person could see at a given moment from one point...
Tolstoy's heroes are fictional, but living people; they suffer, they die, they perform great feats, cowardly: all this is like real people; and that is why they are highly instructive, and that is why the military leader who does not kill himself, thanks to Tolstoy’s story, will be worthy of regret, how unwise it is to bring gentlemen like Zherkov closer to oneself, how vigilantly you need to look closely to see the Tushins and Timokhins in the real light; how you need to be perceptively careful so as not to make a hero of some Zherkov or a serviceable and so smart and managerial nameless regimental commander after a battle... (M.I. Dragomirov. “War and Peace” of Count Tolstoy from a military point of view ")
Documents testify that Tolstoy did not have the gift of easy creativity, he was one of the most sublime, most patient, most diligent workers, and his grandiose world frescoes represent an artistic and labor mosaic, composed of an infinite number of multi-colored pieces, of a million tiny individual observations. Behind the apparent easy straightforwardness lies the most persistent work of craftsmanship - not of a dreamer, but of a slow, objective, patient master who, like the old German painters, carefully primed the canvas, deliberately measured the area, carefully outlined the contours and lines and then applied paint after paint before meaningfully the distribution of light and shadow to give vital illumination to your epic plot. Two thousand pages of the huge epic “War and Peace” were rewritten seven times; sketches and notes filled large drawers. Every historical detail, every semantic detail is substantiated based on selected documents; In order to give the description of the Battle of Borodino real accuracy, Tolstoy travels around the battlefield for two days with a map of the General Staff, travels many miles by rail to obtain this or that decorative detail from some surviving participant in the war. He not only digs up all the books, searches not only all the libraries, but even turns to noble families and archives for forgotten documents and private letters in order to find a grain of truth in them. This is how small balls of mercury are collected over the years - tens, hundreds of thousands of small observations, until they begin to merge into a rounded, pure, perfect form. And only then is the struggle for truth over, the search for clarity begins... One sticking out phrase, a not quite appropriate adjective, caught among tens of thousands of lines - and in horror, following the sent proofs, he telegraphs the metro page in Moscow and demands to stop the car, to satisfy the tonality of a syllable that did not satisfy him. This first proof again enters the retort of the spirit, is once again melted and again poured into form - no, if for someone art was not easy work, then it is precisely for him, whose art seems natural to us. For ten years, Tolstoy works eight, ten hours a day; It is not surprising that even this husband, who has the strongest nerves, is psychologically depressed after each of his big novels...
Tolstoy's accuracy in observations is not associated with any gradations in relation to the creatures of the earth: there are no partialities in his love. Napoleon, to his incorruptible gaze, is no more a man than any of his soldiers, and this latter is again no more important and no more significant than the dog that runs after him, or the stone that it touches with its paw. Everything in the circle of the earth - man and mass, plants and animals, men and women, old people and children, generals and men - flows with crystal clear regularity into his senses, in order to also pour out in the same order. This gives his art a resemblance to the eternal uniformity of incorruptible nature and his epic - sea monotonous and still the same magnificent rhythm, always reminiscent of Homer... (S. Zweig. From the book “Three Singers of Their Lives. Casanova. Stendhal. Tolstoy”)
That Tolstoy loves nature and depicts it with such skill, to which, it seems, no one has ever risen before, anyone who has read his works knows this. Nature is not described, but lives in our great artist. Sometimes she is even one of the characters in the story: remember the incomparable scene of the Rostovs’ Yule skating in “War and Peace”...
The beauty of nature finds in Tolstoy the most sympathetic connoisseur... But this extremely sensitive man, who feels how the beauty of nature flows through his eyes into his soul, does not admire every beautiful area. Tolstoy loves only those types of nature that awaken in him the consciousness of his unity with it... (G.V. Plekhanov. “Tolstoy and Nature”)
And with less development of creative powers and artistic features, a historical novel from an era so close to modern society would arouse the intense attention of the public. The venerable author knew very well that he would touch upon the still fresh memories of his contemporaries and would respond to many of their needs and secret sympathies when he based his novel on the characterization of our high society and the main political figures of the era of Alexander I, with the undisguised goal of building this characterization on the revealing evidence of legends , rumors, folklore and eyewitness accounts. The work ahead of him was not unimportant, but extremely rewarding...
The author is one of the initiates. He has knowledge of their language and uses it to discover under all forms of secularism an abyss of frivolity, insignificance, deceit, and sometimes completely rude, wild and ferocious attempts. One thing is most remarkable. The people of this circle seem to be under some kind of vow, condemning them to severe punishment - never to comprehend any of their assumptions, plans and aspirations. As if driven by an unknown hostile force, they run past the goals that they themselves have set for themselves, and if they achieve something, it is always not what they expected... They succeed in nothing, everything falls out of their hands... Young Pierre Bezukhov, capable of understanding goodness and moral dignity, marries a woman who is as dissolute as she is stupid by nature. Prince Bolkonsky, with all the makings of a serious mind and development, chooses as his wife a kind and empty secular doll, who is the misfortune of his life, although he has no reason to complain about her; his sister, Princess Maria, is saved from the yoke of her father’s despotic manners and constantly secluded village life into a warm and bright religious feeling, which ends in connections with vagabond saints, etc. So persistently this deplorable story with the best people of the described society returns in the novel, that in the end, with every picture of a young and fresh life beginning somewhere, with every story about a joyful phenomenon that promises a serious or instructive outcome, the reader is overcome with fear and doubt: behold, behold, they will deceive all hopes, voluntarily betray their content and turn into the impenetrable sands of emptiness and vulgarity, where they will disappear. And the reader is almost never wrong; they actually turn there and disappear there. But, the question arises - what kind of merciless hand and for what sins has it been burdened over this entire environment... What happened? Apparently nothing special happened. Society calmly lives on the same serfdom as its ancestors; Catherine's loan banks are open to him as before; the doors to the acquisition of fortune and to ruining oneself in the service in the same way stand wide open, letting in everyone who has the right to pass through them; finally, no new figures blocking the way, spoiling his life and confusing his thoughts are shown at all in Tolstoy’s novel. Why, however, is this society, which at the end of the last century believed in itself boundlessly, was distinguished by the strength of its composition and easily coped with life, - now, according to the author’s testimony, cannot arrange it in any way at will, has broken up into circles that almost despise each other, and is struck by the impotence that prevents its best people from even defining both themselves and clear goals for spiritual activity. .. (P.V. Annenkov. “Historical and aesthetic issues in the novel “War and Peace””)
Extreme observation, subtle analysis of mental movements, clarity and poetry in pictures of nature, elegant simplicity are the hallmarks of Count Tolstoy's talent... The depiction of an internal monologue, without exaggeration, can be called amazing. And, in our opinion, that side of Count Tolstoy’s talent, which gives him the opportunity to capture these psychic monologues, constitutes a special strength in his talent, unique to him... The special feature in Count Tolstoy’s talent is so original that one needs to look at it with great attention it, and only then will we understand its full importance for the artistic merit of his works. Psychological analysis is perhaps the most essential of the qualities that give strength to creative talent... Of course, this ability must be innate by nature, like any other ability; but it would not be enough to dwell on this too general explanation: only through independent (moral) activity does talent develop, and in this activity, the extraordinary energy of which is evidenced by the peculiarity of Count Tolstoy’s works that we noticed, we must see the basis of the strength acquired by his talent.
We are talking about self-deepening, about the desire for tireless observation of oneself. We can study the laws of human action, the play of passions, the concatenation of events, the influence of events and relationships by carefully observing other people; but all the knowledge acquired in this way will have neither depth nor accuracy if we do not study the most intimate laws of mental life, the play of which is open to us only in our (own) self-consciousness. He who has not studied man within himself will never achieve a deep knowledge of people. That feature of Count Tolstoy’s talent, which we spoke about above, proves that he extremely carefully studied the secrets of the human spirit within himself; this knowledge is precious not only because it gave him the opportunity to paint pictures of the internal movements of human thought, to which we drew the reader’s attention, but also, perhaps more, because it gave him a solid basis for the study of human life in general, for unraveling characters and the springs of action, the struggle of passions and impressions...
There is another force in Mr. Tolstoy’s talent that gives his works a very special dignity with its extremely remarkable freshness - the purity of moral feeling... Public morality has never reached such a high level as in our noble time - noble and beautiful, despite the remnants old dirt, because it strains all its strength to wash itself and cleanse itself from inherited sins... The beneficial influence of this trait of talent is not limited to those stories or episodes in which it comes to the fore noticeably: it constantly serves as a revitalizer, a refresher of talent . What in the world is more poetic, more charming than a pure youthful soul, responding with joyful love to everything that seems sublime and noble, pure and beautiful, like herself?..
Count Tolstoy has true talent. This means that his works are artistic, that is, in each of them the very idea that he wanted to realize in this work is very fully realized. He never says anything superfluous, because this would be contrary to the conditions of artistry; he never disfigures his works with an admixture of scenes and figures alien to the idea of the work. This is precisely one of the main advantages of artistry. You need to have a lot of taste to appreciate the beauty of Count Tolstoy’s works, but a person who knows how to understand true beauty, true poetry, sees in Count Tolstoy a real artist, that is, a poet with remarkable talent. (N.G. Chernyshevsky. “War stories of L.N. Tolstoy”)
L. Tolstoy’s images of human personalities resemble those semi-convex human bodies on high reliefs, which sometimes seem to be about to separate from the plane in which they are sculptured and which holds them, will finally come out and stand before us like perfect sculptures, visible from all sides , tangible; but this is an optical illusion. They will never separate completely, from semicircular they will not become completely round - we will never see them from the other side.
In the image of Platon Karataev, the artist made the seemingly impossible possible: he was able to define a living, or at least temporarily seemingly living, personality in impersonality, in the absence of any definite features and sharp corners, in a special “roundness”, the impression of which is strikingly visual, even as if the geometric arises, however, not so much from the internal, spiritual, but from the external, bodily appearance: Karataev has a “round body”, “round head”, “round movements”, “round speeches”, “something round” "even in the smell. He is a molecule; He is the first and the last, the smallest and the greatest - the beginning and the end. He does not exist in himself: he is only a part of the Whole, a drop in the ocean of nationwide, all-human, universal life. And he reproduces this life with his personality or impersonality, just as a water drop with its perfect roundness reproduces the world sphere. Be that as it may, a miracle of art or a most ingenious optical illusion is accomplished, almost accomplished. Platon Karataev, despite his impersonality, seems personal, special, unique. But we would like to know him to the end, to see him from the other side. He is kind; but maybe at least once in his life he got annoyed with someone? he is chaste; but maybe he looked at at least one woman differently from the others? but speaks in proverbs; but maybe, but did he insert a word of his own into these sayings at least once? If only one word, one unexpected line would break this too regular, mathematically perfect “roundness” - and we would believe that he is a man of flesh and blood, that he exists.
But, precisely at the moment of our closest and greedy attention, Platon Karataev, as if on purpose, dies, disappears, dissolves like a water balloon in the ocean. And when he is even more defined in death, we are ready to admit that he could not have been defined in life, in human feelings, thoughts and actions: he did not live, but only was, precisely was, precisely “perfectly round” and with this he fulfilled his purpose, so that all he could do was die. And in our memory, just as in the memory of Pierre Bezukhov, Platon Karataev is forever imprinted not by a living face, but only by the living personification of everything Russian, good and “round”, that is, a huge, world-historical religious and moral symbol.... ( D.S. Merezhkovsky. From the treatise “L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky”, 1902)
Genre and plot originality
The novel "War and Peace" is a work of large volume. It covers 16 years (from 1805 to 1821) of the life of Russia and more than five hundred different heroes. Among them there are real characters in the historical events described, fictional characters and many people to whom Tolstoy does not even give names, for example, “the general who ordered”, “the officer who did not arrive.” In this way, the writer wanted to show that the movement of history occurs not under the influence of any specific individuals, but thanks to all participants in the events. To combine such a huge material into one work, the author created a genre that had not been used by any writer before, which he called the epic novel.
The novel describes real historical events: the Battle of Austerlitz, Shengraben, Borodino, the conclusion of the Peace of Tilsit, the capture of Smolensk, the surrender of Moscow, partisan warfare and others, in which real historical figures manifest themselves. Historical events in the novel also play a compositional role. Since the Battle of Borodino largely determined the outcome of the War of 1812, 20 chapters are devoted to its description, it is the culminating center of the novel. The work contained pictures of battle, giving way to images of the world as the complete opposite of war, peace as the existence of a community of many, many people, as well as nature, that is, everything that surrounds a person in space and time. Disputes, misunderstandings, hidden and overt conflicts, fear, hostility, love... All this is real, living, sincere, like the heroes of a literary work themselves.
By being nearby at certain moments of their lives, people who are completely different from each other unexpectedly help themselves to better understand all the shades of feelings and motives of behavior. Thus, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Anatol Kuragin will play an important role in the life of Natasha Rostova, but their attitude towards this naive and fragile girl is different. The situation that has arisen allows us to discern the deep chasm between the moral ideals of these two men from high society. But their conflict does not last long - seeing that Anatole is also wounded, Prince Andrei forgives his opponent right on the battlefield. As the novel progresses, the worldview of the characters changes or gradually deepens. Three hundred thirty-three chapters of four volumes and twenty-eight chapters of the epilogue form a clear, definite picture.
The narration in the novel is not conducted in the first person, but the presence of the author in every scene is palpable: he always tries to assess the situation, show his attitude to the hero’s actions through their description, through the hero’s internal monologue, or through the author’s digression-reasoning. Sometimes the writer gives the reader the right to figure out what is happening for himself, showing the same event from different points of view. An example of such an image is the description of the Battle of Borodino: first, the author gives detailed historical information about the balance of forces, the readiness for battle on both sides, talks about the point of view of historians on this event; then shows the battle through the eyes of a non-professional in military affairs - Pierre Bezukhov (that is, shows a sensory, rather than logical perception of the event), reveals the thoughts of Prince Andrei and Kutuzov’s behavior during the battle. In his novel L.N. Tolstoy sought to express his point of view on historical events, show his attitude to important life problems, and answer the main question: “What is the meaning of life?” And Tolstoy’s call on this issue sounds so that one cannot but agree with him: “We must live, we must love, we must believe.”
Portrait characteristics of heroes
In the novel L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" has over five hundred heroes. Among them are emperors and statesmen, generals and ordinary soldiers, aristocrats and peasants. Some characters, as is easy to see, are especially attractive to the author, while others, on the contrary, are alien and unpleasant. The means of portraiture is one of the most important artistic means in the novel "War and Peace".
The writer singles out a particular feature in the portrait of the hero and constantly draws our attention to it: this is Natasha’s large mouth, and Marya’s radiant eyes, and the dryness of Prince Andrei, and the massiveness of Pierre, and the old age and decrepitude of Kutuzov, and the roundness of Platon Karataev. But the remaining features of the heroes change, and Tolstoy describes these changes in such a way that you can understand everything that happens in the souls of the heroes. Tolstoy often uses the technique of contrast, emphasizing the discrepancy between the appearance and the inner world, the behavior of the characters and their internal state. For example, when Nikolai Rostov, upon returning home from the front, upon meeting Sonya, greeted her dryly and addressed her as “you,” in their hearts they “called each other “you” and kissed tenderly.”
Some portraits are characterized by excessive detail, while others, on the contrary, are barely sketched. However, almost every stroke complements our idea of the hero. For example, introducing us to one of the main characters, Andrei Bolkonsky, the writer notes that he was “a very handsome young man with definite and dry features.” This phrase alone suggests that the hero is distinguished by restraint, practicality and strong will. In addition, we can guess about the inherent “pride of thought” that his sister Marya Bolkonskaya will feel in him. And in her portrait the author will especially highlight one single detail that conveys the essence of the heroine’s nature. Marya has “an ugly, weak body and a thin face,” but “the princess’s eyes, large, deep and radiant... were so beautiful that very often, despite the ugliness of her entire face, these eyes became more attractive than beauty.” These “radiant” eyes speak more eloquently than any words about the spiritual beauty of Marya Bolkonskaya. Tolstoy’s favorite heroine, Natasha Rostova, is no different in external beauty, “black-eyed, with a big mouth, ugly, but alive...” With her liveliness and cheerfulness, she is, above all, dear to the author. But Sonya, Natasha’s cousin, according to the writer, resembles “a beautiful, but not yet formed kitten, which will be a lovely cat.” And the reader feels that Sonya is far from Natasha, as if she lacks that spiritual wealth with which Tolstoy’s favorite is generously endowed.
The most internally beautiful characters in the novel are not distinguished by their external beauty. First of all, this applies to Pierre Bezukhov. A constant portrait feature is the massive, thick figure of Pierre Bezukhov, which, depending on the circumstances, can be either clumsy or strong. It can express confusion, anger, kindness, and rage. In other words, in Tolstoy’s work, the constant artistic detail acquires new, additional shades each time. Pierre's smile is different from others. When a smile appeared on his face, then suddenly the serious face instantly disappeared and another one appeared - a childish, kind one. Andrei Bolkonsky says about Pierre: “One living person among all our light.” And this word “alive” inextricably connects Pierre Bezukhov with Natasha Rostova, whose antipode is the brilliant St. Petersburg beauty Helen Kuragina. The author repeatedly draws attention to Helen’s unchanging smile, white full shoulders, glossy hair and beautiful figure. But, despite this “undoubtedly and too powerfully and victoriously acting beauty,” she certainly loses to both Natasha Rostova and Marya Bolkonskaya, because the presence of life is not felt in her features. The same can be said about Helen Kuragina’s brother, Anatole.
Turning to the portraits of ordinary people, it is easy to notice that Tolstoy values in them, first of all, kindness and liveliness of character. It is no coincidence that he emphasizes this, for example, in Platon Karataev, drawing his smiling round face.
However, Tolstoy used portraiture not only when depicting fictional characters, but also when depicting historical figures, such as Emperor Napoleon and commander Kutuzov. Kutuzov and Napoleon are philosophically opposed to each other. Outwardly, Kutuzov is in no way inferior to the French emperor: “Kutuzov, in an unbuttoned uniform, from which, as if freed, his fat neck floated onto the collar, sat in a Voltaire chair.” Napoleon “was in a blue uniform, open over a white vest that hung down to his round belly, in white leggings that hugged the fat thighs of his thick legs, and in boots.” However, the expressions on their faces are noticeably different: “Napoleon had an unpleasantly feigned smile on his face,” but “an intelligent, kind and at the same time subtly mocking expression shone on Kutuzov’s plump face.” If the portrait of Kutuzov emphasizes ease and naturalness, then in the face of Napoleon it is pretense.
Kutuzov, like a mere mortal, “was weak to tears,” he “reluctantly played the role of chairman and head of the military council,” he spoke “clearly and distinctly” with the sovereign, and considered his soldiers “a wonderful, incomparable people.” He “understood that there was something stronger and more significant than his will - this was the inevitable course of events...” Despite his obesity and old man’s frailty, he felt inner peace and purity of soul.
In the image of Napoleon, Tolstoy emphasizes a certain mystery. Portrait characteristics of the French commander
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