What is the popular thought? Popular thought in the epic novel “War and Peace”
According to Tolstoy himself, he loved “folk thought” in the novel most of all. Reflections on this topic became the most important thing for the writer that he wanted to convey to the reader. What did he mean?
“People's thought” in the novel is not in the depiction of the Russian people as a community and not in the abundance of crowd scenes, as it may seem to an inexperienced reader. It is in the point of view of the writer, the system of moral assessments that he gives to both historical events and his heroes. Don't confuse this!
- Mass scenes in the novel are associated with the depiction of battle scenes of 1805, scenes of the Battle of Borodino, the defense and abandonment of Smolensk, and partisan warfare.
In the depiction of the war of 1805, special attention is paid to two battles: Austerlitz and Schöngraben. Tolstoy's goal is to show why the army wins or loses. Shengraben is a “forced” battle, 4 thousand soldiers must cover the retreat of the forty thousand strong Russian army. The battle is observed by Kutuzov’s envoy, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. He sees how the soldiers show heroism, but not the way this quality was imagined by the prince: Captain Timokhin and his squad with skillful actions force the French to retreat, Captain Tushin, an inconspicuous modest man, “does his job”, cheerfully and quickly, his battery smashes the main positions of the French, sets fire to the village and forces them to retreat, and they do not even suspect that they are “ordinary heroes.”
On the contrary, the Battle of Azsterlitz is a “battle of three emperors”, with unclear goals and an unclear plan. It is no coincidence that at the military council, Kutuzov dozed off like an old man to the measured muttering of the Austrian general. Kutuzov wants to save soldiers who do not understand what they are fighting for; it is not for nothing that the landscape of the beginning of the battle is symbolic: the fog covering the battlefield. The author comes to the conclusion: it is not the generals who win the battle, the soldiers win the battle, or rather, the spirit of the army, the understanding of what they are doing.
The same thing happens at Borodino: Kutuzov almost does not participate in the leadership of the battle, unlike Napoleon, who believes that the outcome depends on the will of the emperor. No, the outcome depends on the soldiers getting ready for the last battle, as if for a holiday, putting on clean shirts. According to Kutuzov, the Battle of Borodino was neither won nor lost in terms of consequences, but the Russians won, suppressing the French with fortitude and unprecedented unity of all against a single enemy.
This is how “popular thought” manifested itself in crowd scenes.
- The partisan war that spontaneously unfolded during the invasion also testifies to the unity of the Russian people. In various places under the French, landowners and peasants took up pitchforks and axes to drive the enemy out of their native land. The “club of the people’s war” rose and “nailed ... the Frenchman until the invasion itself perished.” Drawing pictures of guerrilla warfare, Tolstoy depicts some peasant heroes. One of them is Tikhon Shcherbaty, like a wolf attacking the enemy, “the most useful person in the squad,” cruel and merciless. According to Tolstoy, this is a folk type that manifests itself in difficult times for the Motherland. The second folk type is Platon Karataev, from whom Pierre learned to live simply and harmoniously, to accept everything that happens on a person’s path, he realized “that ballet shoes squeeze just like peasant bast shoes,” and therefore a person needs little to be happy. So moral values for Tolstoy become the measure of everything else: peace, war, people, actions.
- While in captivity, Pierre has a dream. In a dream, the globe appears to him as a ball of drops that tremble, shimmer, separate somewhere, merge somewhere. And every drop reflects God. This metaphor is Tolstoy’s own idea of the people’s life: a person lives his “swarm life”, is busy with his problems and thoughts, but he must “conjugate” (the writer’s word) his life with the lives of others. And if the desires and needs of many people coincide at one point, history makes its movement there. This is another aspect of “folk thought in the novel.”
- And Tolstoy “measures” his heroes with this yardstick. If they are far from common interests, common aspirations, if they do not understand what is common, they put their own interests above others or try to interfere in the natural course of life, then they sink lower and lower and fall into a spiritual crisis. This happens with Prince Andrey, when he raises soldiers in a senseless attack at Austerlitz, and with Pierre, trying to kill Napoleon. Some of the heroes never realize their own life at all, or rather, existence - such is Helen, Rostopchin with his “posters”, Napoleon. Pierre, trying to somehow help Russia, equips a regiment with his own money, Natasha gives carts to the wounded, without thinking about the well-being of the family, and Berg is trying to “buy a shelf that Verochka likes so much.” Which of them lives according to popular laws?
So, “People's Thought,” according to Tolstoy, is the thought of the need to connect one’s life with common interests, life according to the moral laws that have existed in the world for centuries, life together.
Target:
During the classes
II. “People's thought” is the main idea of the novel.
- The main conflicts of the novel.
due to the War of 1812.
L.N. Tolstoy
View document contents
""People's Thought" in the novel "War and Peace""
Lesson 18.
“People's Thought” in the novel “War and Peace”
Target: generalize throughout the novel the role of the people in history, the author’s attitude towards the people.
During the classes
The lesson-lecture is conducted according to plan with the recording of theses:
I. Gradual change and deepening of the concept and theme of the novel “War and Peace.”
II. “People's thought” is the main idea of the novel.
The main conflicts of the novel.
Tearing off all kinds of masks from court and staff lackeys and drones.
“Russian at heart” (The best part of the noble society in the novel. Kutuzov as the leader of the people’s war).
A depiction of the moral greatness of the people and the liberating nature of the people's war of 1812.
III. The immortality of the novel "War and Peace".
For the work to be good,
you have to love the main, fundamental idea in it.
In “War and Peace” I loved popular thought,
due to the War of 1812.
L.N. Tolstoy
Lecture material
L.N. Tolstoy, based on his statement, considered “folk thought” the main idea of the novel “War and Peace”. This is a novel about the destinies of people, about the fate of Russia, about the people's feat, about the reflection of history in a person.
The main conflicts of the novel - Russia's struggle against Napoleonic aggression and the clash of the best part of the nobility, expressing national interests, with court lackeys and staff drones, pursuing selfish, selfish interests both in the years of peace and in the years of war - are connected with the theme of the people's war.
“I tried to write the history of the people,” said Tolstoy. The main character of the novel is the people; a people thrown into a war of 1805 that was alien to its interests, unnecessary and incomprehensible, a people who rose up in 1812 to defend their Motherland from foreign invaders and defeated in a just, liberating war a huge enemy army led by a hitherto invincible commander, a people united by a great goal - “cleanse your land from invasion.”
There are more than a hundred crowd scenes in the novel, over two hundred named people from the people act in it, but the significance of the image of the people is determined, of course, not by this, but by the fact that all the important events in the novel are assessed by the author from the people's point of view. Tolstoy expresses the popular assessment of the war of 1805 in the words of Prince Andrei: “Why did we lose the battle at Austerlitz? There was no need for us to fight there: we wanted to leave the battlefield as quickly as possible.” The popular assessment of the Battle of Borodino, when the hand of the strongest enemy in spirit was laid on the French, is expressed by the writer at the end of Part I of Vol. III of the novel: “The moral strength of the French attacking army was exhausted. Not the victory that is determined by the pieces of material picked up on sticks called banners, and by the space on which the troops stood and are standing, but a moral victory, one that convinces the enemy of the moral superiority of his enemy and of his own powerlessness, was won by the Russians under Borodin."
“People's thought” is present everywhere in the novel. We clearly feel it in the merciless “tearing off masks” that Tolstoy resorts to when painting the Kuragins, Rostopchin, Arakcheev, Bennigsen, Drubetsky, Julie Karagin and others. Their calm, luxurious St. Petersburg life went on as before.
Often social life is presented through the prism of popular views. Remember the scene of the opera and ballet performance at which Natasha Rostova meets Helen and Anatoly Kuragin (vol. II, part V, chapters 9-10). “After the village... all this was wild and surprising to her. ... -... she felt either ashamed of the actors or funny for them.” The performance is depicted as if it is being watched by an observant peasant with a healthy sense of beauty, surprised at how absurdly the gentlemen are amusing themselves.
“People's thought” is felt more clearly where heroes close to the people are depicted: Tushin and Timokhin, Natasha and Princess Marya, Pierre and Prince Andrei - they are all Russian at heart.
It is Tushin and Timokhin who are shown as the true heroes of the Battle of Shengraben; victory in the Battle of Borodino, according to Prince Andrei, will depend on the feeling that is in him, in Timokhin and in every soldier. “Tomorrow, no matter what, we will win the battle!” - says Prince Andrei, and Timokhin agrees with him: “Here, your Excellency, the truth, the true truth.”
In many scenes of the novel, both Natasha and Pierre act as bearers of popular feeling and “folk thought”, who understood the “hidden warmth of patriotism” that was in the militia and soldiers on the eve and on the day of the Battle of Borodino; Pierre, who, according to the servants, “was taken a simpleton” in captivity, and Prince Andrei, when he became “our prince” for the soldiers of his regiment.
Tolstoy portrays Kutuzov as a man who embodied the spirit of the people. Kutuzov is a truly people's commander. Expressing the needs, thoughts and feelings of the soldiers, he appears during the review at Braunau, and during the Battle of Austerlitz, and during the war of liberation of 1812. “Kutuzov,” writes Tolstoy, “with all his Russian being knew and felt what every Russian soldier felt...” During the War of 1812, all his efforts were aimed at one goal - cleansing his native land from invaders. On behalf of the people, Kutuzov rejects Lauriston's proposal for a truce. He understands and repeatedly says that the Battle of Borodino is a victory; Understanding, like no one else, the popular nature of the War of 1812, he supports the plan for the deployment of partisan actions proposed by Denisov. It was his understanding of the people’s feelings that forced the people to choose this old man, who was in disgrace, as the leader of the people’s war against the will of the tsar.
Also, “people's thought” was fully manifested in the depiction of the heroism and patriotism of the Russian people and army during the Patriotic War of 1812. Tolstoy shows extraordinary tenacity, courage and fearlessness of the soldiers and the best part of the officers. He writes that not only Napoleon and his generals, but all the soldiers of the French army experienced in the Battle of Borodino “a feeling of horror in front of that enemy who, having lost half the army, stood just as menacingly at the end as at the beginning of the battle.”
The War of 1812 was not like other wars. Tolstoy showed how the “club of the people’s war” rose, painted numerous images of partisans, and among them - the memorable image of the peasant Tikhon Shcherbaty. We see the patriotism of civilians who left Moscow, abandoned and destroyed their property. “They went because for the Russian people there could be no question: whether it would be good or bad under the control of the French in Moscow. You can’t be under French rule: that was the worst thing.”
Thus, reading the novel, we are convinced that the writer judges the great events of the past, the life and morals of various strata of Russian society, individual people, war and peace from the position of popular interests. And this is the “folk thought” that Tolstoy loved in his novel.
“The subject of history is the life of peoples and humanity,” this is how L.N. Tolstoy begins the second part of the epilogue of the epic novel “War and Peace.” He further asks the question: “What force moves nations?” Reflecting on these “theories,” Tolstoy comes to the conclusion that: “The life of peoples does not fit into the lives of a few people, because the connection between these several people and nations has not been found...” In other words, Tolstoy says that the role of the people in history is undeniable, and the eternal truth that history is made by the people was proven by him in his novel. “People's thought” in Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” is indeed one of the main themes of the epic novel.
The people in the novel "War and Peace"
Many readers understand the word “people” not quite the way Tolstoy understands it. Lev Nikolaevich means by “people” not only soldiers, peasants, men, not only that “huge mass” driven by some force. For Tolstoy, the “people” included officers, generals, and the nobility. This is Kutuzov, and Bolkonsky, and the Rostovs, and Bezukhov - this is all of humanity, embraced by one thought, one deed, one purpose.
All the main characters of Tolstoy's novel are directly connected with their people and are inseparable from them.
Heroes of the novel and “folk thought”
The fates of the beloved heroes of Tolstoy’s novel are connected with the life of the people. “People's thought” in “War and Peace” runs like a red thread through the life of Pierre Bezukhov. While in captivity, Pierre learned his truth of life. Platon Karataev, a peasant peasant, opened it to Bezukhov: “In captivity, in a booth, Pierre learned not with his mind, but with his whole being, with his life, that man was created for happiness, that happiness is in himself, in the satisfaction of natural human needs, that all misfortune occurs not from lack, but from excess.” The French offered Pierre to transfer from a soldier's booth to an officer's, but he refused, remaining faithful to those with whom he suffered his fate. And for a long time afterwards he recalled with rapture this month of captivity as “complete peace of mind, complete inner freedom, which he experienced only at this time.”
Andrei Bolkonsky also felt his people at the Battle of Austerlitz. Grabbing the flagpole and rushing forward, he did not think that the soldiers would follow him. And they, seeing Bolkonsky with a banner and hearing: “Guys, go ahead!” rushed at the enemy behind their leader. The unity of officers and ordinary soldiers confirms that the people are not divided into ranks and titles, the people are united, and Andrei Bolkonsky understood this.
Natasha Rostova, leaving Moscow, dumps her family property on the ground and gives away her carts for the wounded. This decision comes to her immediately, without thinking, which suggests that the heroine does not separate herself from the people. Another episode that speaks of the true Russian spirit of Rostova, in which L. Tolstoy himself admires his beloved heroine: “Where, how, when did she suck into herself from the Russian air that she breathed - this countess, raised by a French governess - this spirit, where she got these techniques from... But these spirits and techniques were the same, inimitable, unstudied, Russian.”
And Captain Tushin, who sacrificed his own life for the sake of victory, for the sake of Russia. Captain Timokhin, who rushed at the Frenchman with “one skewer.” Denisov, Nikolai Rostov, Petya Rostov and many other Russian people who stood with the people and knew true patriotism.
Tolstoy created a collective image of a people - a united, invincible people, when not only soldiers, troops, but also militias fight. Civilians help not with weapons, but with their own methods: men burn hay so as not to take it to Moscow, people leave the city only because they do not want to obey Napoleon. This is what “folk thought” is and how it is revealed in the novel. Tolstoy makes it clear that the Russian people are strong in a single thought - not to surrender to the enemy. A sense of patriotism is important for all Russian people.
Platon Karataev and Tikhon Shcherbaty
The novel also shows the partisan movement. A prominent representative here was Tikhon Shcherbaty, who fought the French with all his disobedience, dexterity, and cunning. His active work brings success to the Russians. Denisov is proud of his partisan detachment thanks to Tikhon.
Opposite to the image of Tikhon Shcherbaty is the image of Platon Karataev. Kind, wise, with his worldly philosophy, he calms Pierre and helps him survive captivity. Plato's speech is filled with Russian proverbs, which emphasizes his nationality.
Kutuzov and the people
The only commander-in-chief of the army who never separated himself and the people was Kutuzov. “He knew not with his mind or science, but with his whole Russian being, he knew and felt what every Russian soldier felt...” The disunity of the Russian army in the alliance with Austria, the deception of the Austrian army, when the allies abandoned the Russians in battles, were unbearable pain for Kutuzov. To Napoleon’s letter about peace, Kutuzov replied: “I would be damned if they looked at me as the first instigator of any deal: such is the will of our people” (italics by L.N. Tolstoy). Kutuzov did not write on his own behalf, he expressed the opinion of the entire people, all Russian people.
The image of Kutuzov is contrasted with the image of Napoleon, who was very far from his people. He was only interested in personal interest in the struggle for power. An empire of worldwide submission to Bonaparte - and an abyss in the interests of the people. As a result, the war of 1812 was lost, the French fled, and Napoleon was the first to leave Moscow. He abandoned his army, abandoned his people.
conclusions
In his novel War and Peace, Tolstoy shows that people's power is invincible. And in every Russian person there is “simplicity, goodness and truth.” True patriotism does not measure everyone by rank, does not build a career, does not seek fame. At the beginning of the third volume, Tolstoy writes: “There are two sides of life in every person: personal life, which is the more free the more abstract its interests are, and spontaneous, swarm life, where a person inevitably fulfills the laws prescribed to him.” Laws of honor, conscience, common culture, common history.
This essay on the topic “People's Thought” in the novel “War and Peace” reveals only a small part of what the author wanted to tell us. The people live in the novel in every chapter, in every line.
“People's thought” in the novel “War and Peace” by Tolstoy - essay on the topic |
Target:
During the classes
II. “People's thought” is the main idea of the novel.
- The main conflicts of the novel.
due to the War of 1812.
L.N. Tolstoy
View document contents
""People's Thought" in the novel "War and Peace""
Lesson 18.
“People's Thought” in the novel “War and Peace”
Target: generalize throughout the novel the role of the people in history, the author’s attitude towards the people.
During the classes
The lesson-lecture is conducted according to plan with the recording of theses:
I. Gradual change and deepening of the concept and theme of the novel “War and Peace.”
II. “People's thought” is the main idea of the novel.
The main conflicts of the novel.
Tearing off all kinds of masks from court and staff lackeys and drones.
“Russian at heart” (The best part of the noble society in the novel. Kutuzov as the leader of the people’s war).
A depiction of the moral greatness of the people and the liberating nature of the people's war of 1812.
III. The immortality of the novel "War and Peace".
For the work to be good,
you have to love the main, fundamental idea in it.
In “War and Peace” I loved popular thought,
due to the War of 1812.
L.N. Tolstoy
Lecture material
L.N. Tolstoy, based on his statement, considered “folk thought” the main idea of the novel “War and Peace”. This is a novel about the destinies of people, about the fate of Russia, about the people's feat, about the reflection of history in a person.
The main conflicts of the novel - Russia's struggle against Napoleonic aggression and the clash of the best part of the nobility, expressing national interests, with court lackeys and staff drones, pursuing selfish, selfish interests both in the years of peace and in the years of war - are connected with the theme of the people's war.
“I tried to write the history of the people,” said Tolstoy. The main character of the novel is the people; a people thrown into a war of 1805 that was alien to its interests, unnecessary and incomprehensible, a people who rose up in 1812 to defend their Motherland from foreign invaders and defeated in a just, liberating war a huge enemy army led by a hitherto invincible commander, a people united by a great goal - “cleanse your land from invasion.”
There are more than a hundred crowd scenes in the novel, over two hundred named people from the people act in it, but the significance of the image of the people is determined, of course, not by this, but by the fact that all the important events in the novel are assessed by the author from the people's point of view. Tolstoy expresses the popular assessment of the war of 1805 in the words of Prince Andrei: “Why did we lose the battle at Austerlitz? There was no need for us to fight there: we wanted to leave the battlefield as quickly as possible.” The popular assessment of the Battle of Borodino, when the hand of the strongest enemy in spirit was laid on the French, is expressed by the writer at the end of Part I of Vol. III of the novel: “The moral strength of the French attacking army was exhausted. Not the victory that is determined by the pieces of material picked up on sticks called banners, and by the space on which the troops stood and are standing, but a moral victory, one that convinces the enemy of the moral superiority of his enemy and of his own powerlessness, was won by the Russians under Borodin."
“People's thought” is present everywhere in the novel. We clearly feel it in the merciless “tearing off masks” that Tolstoy resorts to when painting the Kuragins, Rostopchin, Arakcheev, Bennigsen, Drubetsky, Julie Karagin and others. Their calm, luxurious St. Petersburg life went on as before.
Often social life is presented through the prism of popular views. Remember the scene of the opera and ballet performance at which Natasha Rostova meets Helen and Anatoly Kuragin (vol. II, part V, chapters 9-10). “After the village... all this was wild and surprising to her. ... -... she felt either ashamed of the actors or funny for them.” The performance is depicted as if it is being watched by an observant peasant with a healthy sense of beauty, surprised at how absurdly the gentlemen are amusing themselves.
“People's thought” is felt more clearly where heroes close to the people are depicted: Tushin and Timokhin, Natasha and Princess Marya, Pierre and Prince Andrei - they are all Russian at heart.
It is Tushin and Timokhin who are shown as the true heroes of the Battle of Shengraben; victory in the Battle of Borodino, according to Prince Andrei, will depend on the feeling that is in him, in Timokhin and in every soldier. “Tomorrow, no matter what, we will win the battle!” - says Prince Andrei, and Timokhin agrees with him: “Here, your Excellency, the truth, the true truth.”
In many scenes of the novel, both Natasha and Pierre act as bearers of popular feeling and “folk thought”, who understood the “hidden warmth of patriotism” that was in the militia and soldiers on the eve and on the day of the Battle of Borodino; Pierre, who, according to the servants, “was taken a simpleton” in captivity, and Prince Andrei, when he became “our prince” for the soldiers of his regiment.
Tolstoy portrays Kutuzov as a man who embodied the spirit of the people. Kutuzov is a truly people's commander. Expressing the needs, thoughts and feelings of the soldiers, he appears during the review at Braunau, and during the Battle of Austerlitz, and during the war of liberation of 1812. “Kutuzov,” writes Tolstoy, “with all his Russian being knew and felt what every Russian soldier felt...” During the War of 1812, all his efforts were aimed at one goal - cleansing his native land from invaders. On behalf of the people, Kutuzov rejects Lauriston's proposal for a truce. He understands and repeatedly says that the Battle of Borodino is a victory; Understanding, like no one else, the popular nature of the War of 1812, he supports the plan for the deployment of partisan actions proposed by Denisov. It was his understanding of the people’s feelings that forced the people to choose this old man, who was in disgrace, as the leader of the people’s war against the will of the tsar.
Also, “people's thought” was fully manifested in the depiction of the heroism and patriotism of the Russian people and army during the Patriotic War of 1812. Tolstoy shows extraordinary tenacity, courage and fearlessness of the soldiers and the best part of the officers. He writes that not only Napoleon and his generals, but all the soldiers of the French army experienced in the Battle of Borodino “a feeling of horror in front of that enemy who, having lost half the army, stood just as menacingly at the end as at the beginning of the battle.”
The War of 1812 was not like other wars. Tolstoy showed how the “club of the people’s war” rose, painted numerous images of partisans, and among them - the memorable image of the peasant Tikhon Shcherbaty. We see the patriotism of civilians who left Moscow, abandoned and destroyed their property. “They went because for the Russian people there could be no question: whether it would be good or bad under the control of the French in Moscow. You can’t be under French rule: that was the worst thing.”
Thus, reading the novel, we are convinced that the writer judges the great events of the past, the life and morals of various strata of Russian society, individual people, war and peace from the position of popular interests. And this is the “folk thought” that Tolstoy loved in his novel.
To love a people means to see with complete clarity both their merits and their shortcomings, their great and small, their ups and downs. Writing for the people means helping them understand their strengths and weaknesses.
F.A. Abramov
In terms of genre, “War and Peace” is an epic of modern times, that is, it combines the features of a classical epic, the example of which is Homer’s “Iliad,” and the achievements of the European novel of the 18th-19th centuries. The subject of the epic is the national character, in other words, the people with their everyday life, their view of the world and man, their assessment of good and bad, prejudices and misconceptions, and their behavior in critical situations.
The people, according to Tolstoy, are not only the men and soldiers who act in the novel, but also nobles who have a people's view of the world and spiritual values. Thus, a people is people united by one history, language, culture, living in the same territory. In the novel “The Captain's Daughter,” Pushkin noted: the common people and the nobility are so divided in the process of historical development of Russia that they cannot understand each other’s aspirations. In the epic novel “War and Peace,” Tolstoy argues that at the most important historical moments, the people and the best nobles do not oppose each other, but act in concert: during the Patriotic War, the aristocrats Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, and Rostov felt the same “warmth of patriotism” in themselves. , as ordinary men and soldiers. Moreover, the very meaning of personal development, according to Tolstoy, lies in the search for a natural fusion of the individual with the people. The best nobles and people are together opposed to the ruling bureaucratic and military circles, who are not capable of high sacrifices and exploits for the sake of the fatherland, but are guided in all actions by selfish considerations.
War and Peace presents a broad picture of people's life in both peace and war. The most important event testing the national character is the Patriotic War of 1812, when the Russian people most fully demonstrated their resilience, unostentatious (inner) patriotism and generosity. However, the description of folk scenes and individual heroes from the people appears already in the first two volumes, that is, one might say, in a huge exposition to the main historical events of the novel.
The crowd scenes of the first and second volumes make a sad impression. The writer depicts Russian soldiers on foreign campaigns, when the Russian army fulfills its allied duty. For ordinary soldiers, this duty is completely incomprehensible: they are fighting for someone else's interests on someone else's land. Therefore, the army is more like a faceless, submissive crowd, which at the slightest danger turns into a panicked flight. This is confirmed by the scene at Austerlitz: “... a naively frightened voice (...) shouted: “Well, brothers, the Sabbath!” And it was as if this voice was a command. At this voice, everything started to run. Mixed, ever-increasing crowds ran back to the place where they had passed the emperors five minutes earlier” (1, 3, XVI).
There is complete confusion among the allied forces. The Russian army is actually starving, since the Austrians do not deliver the promised food. Vasily Denisov's hussars pull out some edible roots from the ground and eat them, which makes everyone's stomachs hurt. As an honest officer, Denisov could not calmly look at this disgrace and decided to commit a crime of office: by force he recaptured part of the provisions from another regiment (1, 2, XV, XVI). This act had a bad impact on his military career: Denisov is put on trial for arbitrariness (2, 2, XX). Russian troops constantly find themselves in difficult situations due to the stupidity or betrayal of the Austrians. So, for example, near Shengraben, General Nostitz with his corps left their positions, believing the talk of peace, and left Bagration’s four-thousand-strong detachment without cover, which now stood face to face with Murat’s hundred-thousand-strong French army (1, 2, XIV). But at Shengraben, Russian soldiers do not flee, but fight calmly and skillfully, because they know that they are covering the retreat of the Russian army.
On the pages of the first two volumes, Tolstoy creates individual images of soldiers: Lavrushka, Denisov’s rogue orderly (2, 2, XVI); the cheerful soldier Sidorov, who deftly imitates French speech (1.2, XV); Transfiguration Lazarev, who received the Order of the Legion of Honor from Napoleon in the scene of the Peace of Tilsit (2, 2, XXI). However, significantly more heroes from the people are shown in a peaceful setting. Tolstoy does not depict the hardships of serfdom, although he, being an honest artist, could not completely avoid this topic. The writer says that Pierre, while touring his estates, decided to make the life of the serfs easier, but nothing came of it, because the chief manager easily deceived the naive Count Bezukhov (2, 1, X). Or another example: old Bolkonsky gave the barman Philip as a soldier because he forgot the prince’s order and, according to an old habit, served coffee first to Princess Marya, and then to the companion Burien (2, 5, II).
The author masterfully, with just a few strokes, draws heroes from the people, their peaceful life, their work, worries, and all these heroes receive brightly individual portraits, just like the characters from the nobility. The Rostov Counts' traveller, Danila, takes part in a wolf hunt. He selflessly devotes himself to hunting and understands this fun no less than his masters. Therefore, without thinking about anything else but the wolf, he angrily cursed the old Count Rostov, who decided to “snack” during the rut (2.4, IV). Uncle Rostov's housekeeper Anisya Fedorovna, a fat, rosy-cheeked, beautiful housekeeper, lives with her. The writer notes her warm hospitality and homeliness (how many different treats were on the tray that she herself brought to the guests!), her kind attention to Natasha (2.4, VII). The image of Tikhon, the devoted valet of old Bolkonsky, is remarkable: the servant understands his paralyzed master without words (3, 2, VIII). Bogucharov's elder Dron has an amazing character - a strong, cruel man, “whom the men feared more than the master” (3, 2, IX). Some vague ideas, dark dreams are wandering in his soul, incomprehensible neither to himself nor to his enlightened masters - the princes Bolkonsky. In peacetime, the best nobles and their serfs live a common life, understand each other, Tolstoy does not find insoluble contradictions between them.
But then the Patriotic War begins, and the Russian nation faces a serious danger of losing its state independence. The writer shows how different heroes, familiar to the reader from the first two volumes or who appeared only in the third volume, are united by one common feeling, which Pierre calls “the inner warmth of patriotism” (3, 2, XXV). This trait becomes not individual, but national, that is, inherent to many Russian people - peasants and aristocrats, soldiers and generals, merchants and urban bourgeoisie. The events of 1812 demonstrate the sacrifice of the Russians, incomprehensible to the French, and the determination of the Russians, against which the invaders can do nothing.
During the Patriotic War, the Russian army behaves completely differently than in the Napoleonic Wars of 1805-1807. Russians do not play war, this is especially noticeable when describing the Battle of Borodino. In the first volume, Princess Marya, in a letter to her friend Julie Karagina, talks about seeing off recruits for the war of 1805: mothers, wives, children, and the recruits themselves are crying (1.1, XXII). And on the eve of the Battle of Borodino, Pierre observes a different mood of the Russian soldiers: “The cavalrymen go to battle and meet the wounded, and do not think for a minute about what awaits them, but walk past and wink at the wounded” (3, 2, XX). Russian “people are calmly and seemingly frivolously preparing for death” (3, 2, XXV), since tomorrow they will “fight for Russian land” (ibid.). The feeling of the army is expressed by Prince Andrei in his last conversation with Pierre: “For me, for tomorrow this is this: a hundred thousand Russian and a hundred thousand French troops agreed to fight, and whoever fights angrier and feels less sorry for himself will win” (3.2, XXV). Timokhin and other junior officers agree with their colonel: “Here, your Excellency, the truth is the true truth. Why feel sorry for yourself now!” (ibid.). Prince Andrei's words came true. Towards the evening of the Battle of Borodino, an adjutant came to Napoleon and said that, on the orders of the emperor, two hundred guns were tirelessly firing at Russian positions, but that the Russians did not flinch, did not run, but “still stand as they did at the beginning of the battle” (3, 2, XXXVIII).
Tolstoy does not idealize the people and paints scenes showing the inconsistency and spontaneity of peasant sentiments. This is, first of all, the Bogucharov riot (3, 2, XI), when the men refused to give Princess Marya carts for her property and did not even want to let her out of the estate, because French leaflets (!) called not to leave. Obviously, the Bogucharov men were flattered by French money (fake, as it later turned out) for hay and food. The men display the same self-interest as the noble staff officers (like Berg and Boris Drubetsky), who see war as a means to make a career, achieve material well-being and even home comfort. However, having decided at the meeting not to leave Bogucharovo, for some reason the men immediately went to a tavern and got drunk. And then the entire peasant gathering obeyed one decisive master - Nikolai Rostov, who shouted at the crowd in a wild voice and ordered the instigators to be tied up, which the peasants obediently did.
Starting from Smolensk, some kind of difficult-to-define, from the French point of view, feeling awakens in the Russians: “The people were carelessly waiting for the enemy... And as soon as the enemy approached, all the rich left, leaving their property, while the poor stayed and lit and destroyed what what remained” (3, 3, V). An illustration for this reasoning is the scene in Smolensk, when the merchant Ferapontov himself set fire to his shop and flour barn (3.2, IV). Tolstoy notes the difference in the behavior of “enlightened” Europeans and Russians. The Austrians and Germans, conquered by Napoleon several years ago, dance with the invaders at balls and are completely enchanted by French gallantry. They seem to forget that the French are enemies, but the Russians do not forget this. For Muscovites, “there could be no question: whether it would be good or bad under the rule of the French in Moscow. It was impossible to be under the control of the French: it was the worst of all” (3, 3, V).
In the irreconcilable struggle against the aggressor, the Russians retained high human qualities, which testifies to the mental health of the people. The greatness of a nation, according to Tolstoy, does not lie in the fact that it conquers all neighboring peoples by force of arms, but in the fact that the nation, even in the most brutal wars, knows how to preserve a sense of justice and humanity in relation to the enemy. The scene that reveals the generosity of the Russians is the rescue of the boastful captain Rambal and his batman Morel. Rambal first appears on the pages of the novel when French troops enter Moscow after Borodin. He receives quarters in the house of the widow of the freemason Joseph Alekseevich Bazdeev, where Pierre has been living for several days, and Pierre saves the Frenchman from the bullet of the crazy old man Makar Alekseevich Bazdeev. In gratitude, the Frenchman invites Pierre to have dinner together; they talk quite peacefully over a bottle of wine, which the valiant captain, by right of the winner, had already grabbed in some Moscow house. The talkative Frenchman praises the courage of the Russian soldiers on the Borodino field, but the French, in his opinion, are still the bravest warriors, and Napoleon is “the greatest man of past and future centuries” (3, 3, XXIX). The second time Captain Rambal appears in the fourth volume, when he and his orderly, hungry, frostbitten, abandoned by their beloved emperor to the mercy of fate, came out of the forest to a soldier’s fire near the village of Krasny. The Russians fed both of them, and then took Rambal to the officer’s hut to warm up. Both Frenchmen were touched by this attitude of ordinary soldiers, and the captain, barely alive, kept repeating: “Here are the people! O my good friends! (4, 4, IX).
In the fourth volume, two heroes appear who, according to Tolstoy, demonstrate opposite and interconnected sides of the Russian national character. This is Platon Karataev - a dreamy, complacent soldier, meekly submitting to fate, and Tikhon Shcherbaty - an active, skillful, decisive and courageous peasant who does not resign himself to fate, but actively intervenes in life. Tikhon came to Denisov’s detachment not on the orders of the landowner or military commander, but on his own initiative. He, more than anyone else in Denisov’s detachment, killed the French and brought the “tongues”. In the Patriotic War, as follows from the content of the novel, the “Shcherbatov” active character of the Russians was more manifested, although the “Karataev” wise patience and humility in the face of adversity also played a role. The self-sacrifice of the people, the courage and steadfastness of the army, the spontaneous partisan movement - this is what determined Russia's victory over France, and not the mistakes of Napoleon, the cold winter, or the genius of Alexander.
So, in War and Peace, folk scenes and characters occupy an important place, as they should in an epic. According to the philosophy of history, which Tolstoy sets out in the second part of the epilogue, the driving force of any event is not an individual great person (king or hero), but the people directly participating in the event. The people are both the embodiment of national ideals and the bearer of prejudices; they are the beginning and the end of state life.
This truth was understood by Tolstoy’s favorite hero, Prince Andrei. At the beginning of the novel, he believed that a specific hero person could influence history with orders from army headquarters or a beautiful feat, therefore, during the foreign campaign of 1805, he sought to serve on Kutuzov’s headquarters and looked everywhere for his “Toulon.” After analyzing the historical events in which he personally participated, Bolkonsky came to the conclusion that history is made not by headquarters orders, but by direct participants in the events. Prince Andrey tells Pierre about this on the eve of the Battle of Borodino: “... if anything depended on the orders of the headquarters, then I would be there and make orders, but instead I have the honor of serving here, in the regiment, with these gentlemen, and I believe that tomorrow will really depend on us, and not on them...” (3, 2, XXV).
The people, according to Tolstoy, have the most correct view of the world and man, since the people's view is not formed in one head of some sage, but undergoes a “polishing” test in the heads of a huge number of people and only after that is established as national (community) sight. Goodness, simplicity, truth - these are the real truths that have been developed by the people's consciousness and to which Tolstoy's favorite heroes strive.
