Literary genre war and peace. What is a literary genre? "War and Peace": the genre originality of the work
War and Peace. Genre features, history of creation
In 1862, Tolstoy married and took his wife from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana, where the order of his life was established for decades.
Tolstoy began writing “War and Peace” directly at the end of 1863, having completed work on the story “Cossacks”. In 1869 the novel was written; published in the thick magazine M.N. Katkov "Russian Bulletin". The basis of the novel is historical military events, artistically translated by the writer. Historians argue that the novel War and Peace is not only historically plausible, but also historically valid.
Genre features
“War and Peace” is a unique genre phenomenon (the work contains more than 600 characters, of which 200 are historical figures, countless everyday scenes, 20 battles). Tolstoy understood perfectly well that his work did not fit into any of the genre canons. In the article “A few words about the book “War and Peace”” (1868), Tolstoy wrote: “This is not a novel, still less a poem, even less a historical chronicle.” He immediately added: “Starting from Gogol’s “Dead Souls” to Dostoevsky’s “House of the Dead,” in the new period of Russian literature there is not a single outstanding prose work of art that would fully fit into the form of a novel, poem or story.” Tolstoy is right in that Russian literature boldly experimented with genre form.
“War and Peace” has been assigned the genre definition of an epic novel, which reflects the combination of the characteristics of a novel and an epic in the work. Romannoe the beginning is associated with the depiction of the family life and private destinies of the heroes, their spiritual quest. But, according to Tolstoy, individual self-affirmation is disastrous for him. Only in unity with others, in interaction with “common life,” can one develop and improve. The main features of the epic: a large volume of work that creates a picture of the life of the nation at a historically turning point for it (1812), as well as its comprehensiveness. But if the essence of the ancient epic, Homer’s Iliad, for example, is the primacy of the general over the individual, then in Tolstoy’s epic “common life” does not suppress the individual principle, but is in organic interaction with it.
It is no coincidence that the water globe-globe that Pierre Bezukhov sees in a dream is called an analogue model of the genre and the artistic world of the epic novel as a whole. A living globe consisting of individual drops flowing into each other. Pierre Bezukhov is the first Tolstoy hero who embodied in its entirety that idea of Man, which was formulated by Tolstoy only in the last years of his life, but which was formed in him starting from his first literary experiments: “Man is Everything” and “part of Everything.”
The same images are repeated in Petya Rostov’s dream, when he, falling asleep, hears a “harmonious choir of music”: “Each instrument, sometimes similar to a violin, sometimes like trumpets - but better and cleaner than violins and trumpets - each instrument played its own and , not yet finishing the tune, merged with another, which began almost the same way, and with a third, and with a fourth, and they all merged into one and scattered again, and again merged, now into the solemn church, now into the brightly brilliant and victorious.
Unlike the ancient epic, Tolstoy's epic novel depicts not only the spiritual movement of the heroes, but also their involvement in the continuous and endless stream of life. In "War and Peace" there are no beginnings and endings of action in the usual sense. The scene that opens the novel in Anna Scherer’s salon, strictly speaking, does not “ties up” anything in the action, but immediately introduces the heroes and readers into the movement of history - from the Great French Revolution to the “immediate.” The entire aesthetics of the book is subject to one law: “True life is always only in the present.”
In the second part of the epilogue, Tolstoy sets out his concept of the philosophy of history:
1. history is made by the masses themselves;
2. people make history individually, not together;
3. people make history unconsciously.
In the novel there is an antithesis between Napoleon and Kutuzov. Tolstoy draws a portrait of Napoleon somewhat reduced. Napoleon plays in everything; he is an actor.
Kutuzov does not consider himself the demiurge of history. It's simple everywhere. Tolstoy reduces his external greatness, but emphasizes his internal activity. Kutuzov is the external embodiment of popular thought.
Genre of the novel "War and Peace"
Tolstoy himself did not give a specific definition of the genre of the work. And he was completely right in this, because the traditional genres that existed before the writing of War and Peace could not fully reflect the artistic structure of the novel. The work combines elements of family life, socio-psychological, philosophical, historical, battle novels, as well as documentary chronicles, memoirs, etc. This allows us to characterize it as an epic novel. It was Tolstoy who first discovered this genre form in Russia.
"War and Peace" as an epic novel has the following characteristics:
Combining a story about national events with a story about the destinies of individual people.
Description of the life of Russian and European society of the nineteenth century.
There are images of various types of characters of all social strata of society in all manifestations.
The novel is based on grandiose events, thanks to which the author depicted the main trends of the historical process of that time.
A combination of realistic pictures of life in the 19th century, with the author’s philosophical reasoning about freedom and necessity, the role of the individual in history, chance and regularity, etc.
Tolstoy clearly depicted the features of folk psychology in the novel, which he combined with the depiction of the personal characteristics of individual characters; this gave a special polyphony to the work, which is a reflection of a complex and contradictory era.
In addition to the analysis of the War and Peace genre, the following is also available:
- The image of Marya Bolkonskaya in the novel “War and Peace”, essay
- The image of Napoleon in the novel "War and Peace"
- The image of Kutuzov in the novel “War and Peace”
- Comparative characteristics of the Rostovs and Bolkonskys - essay
- Life quests of Natasha Rostova - essay
- Life quests of Pierre Bezukhov - essay
- The life quest of Andrei Bolkonsky - essay
The problem of the genre form of War and Peace, and in connection with this the genre tradition that is connected with War and Peace, is one of the most difficult in academic literary criticism. Naturally, in school teaching, a language teacher also experiences significant difficulties here. Today, the most experienced literature teacher, our regular author Lev Iosifovich Sobolev, offers his approaches to working with the eternal book.
We are printing a chapter from his research - a guide to “War and Peace” intended for schoolchildren, teachers, and students, which is being prepared for release in the new series “Slow Reading” by Moscow State University Publishing House.
Let us remember: a genre is a historically established, stable, repeating type of work; according to M.M. Bakhtin, genre is the memory of literature. We easily understand the differences between the poems of Tibulla, Batyushkov and, for example, Kibirov; it is more difficult to understand what we read in all three poets elegies, that is, in their poems we find regrets about losses, sadness over irretrievable joys or longing for unrequited love. But it is precisely these motives that make the elegy an elegy, it is they that remind us of the continuity of the poetic movement, of the “wandering dreams of other people’s singers” - the “blessed legacy” left to poets and readers.
On September 30, 1865, Tolstoy writes in his Diary: “There is poetry of a novelist<...>in a picture of morals built on a historical event - Odyssey, Iliad, 1805.” Let us pay attention to the series in which Tolstoy’s work (“The Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Five”) falls: these are two Homeric poems, the most indisputable example of the epic genre.
Gorky’s recording of Tolstoy’s confession about “War and Peace” is known: “Without false modesty, it’s like the Iliad” [ Bitter. T. 16. P. 294]. In 1983, in the magazine “Comparative Literature” [T. 35. No. 2] the article “Tolstoy and Homer” was published (authors F.T. Griffiths, S.J. Rabinowitz). The article contains several interesting comparisons: Andrei is a warrior, like Achilles; According to the authors, Tolstoy’s book begins with the predominance of Prince Andrei, then interest shifts to Pierre (corresponds to Odysseus, whose main goal is to return home); then, on the last pages of the first part of the Epilogue, Nikolenka Bolkonsky’s dream takes us back to the beginning of the book - again the center of interest shifts to the warrior (future) - the son of Prince Andrei. Pierre's seven years with the seductress Helen correspond to the seven years that Odysseus spent in captivity (at first voluntary, then, like Pierre, not of his own free will) by Calypso. And even the fact that Odysseus puts on the rags of a beggar in order to return to Ithaca unrecognized finds correspondence in Pierre’s dressing in common clothes (when the hero remains in Moscow with the goal of killing Napoleon). Unfortunately, the authors do not take into account the important work of G.D. Gacheva “The Content of Artistic Forms” [M., 1968], where there are significant comparisons of “War and Peace” with the “Iliad”.
Tolstoy, as Gachev writes, “of course, did not set out to write an epic. On the contrary, he in every possible way distinguished his work from all the usual genres...” [ Gachev. P. 117]. In March 1868, in Bartenev’s “Russian Archive,” Tolstoy published an article “A few words about the book “War and Peace”,” in which he states: “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.” In confirmation of the genre uniqueness of his book, the author refers to the peculiarity of Russian literature in general: “The history of Russian literature since the time of Pushkin not only presents many examples of such a deviation from the European form, but does not even give a single example of the opposite. Starting from Gogol’s “Dead Souls” to Dostoevsky’s “House of the Dead,” in the new period of Russian literature there is not a single artistic prose work that is slightly beyond mediocrity, which would fit completely into the form of a novel, poem or story.”
It seems to me that the key to the genre uniqueness of War and Peace should be found in the draft preface to the book: “...between those semi-historical, semi-public, semi-exalted great characters of the great era, the personality of my hero receded into the background, and in the foreground came, with equal interest to me, both young and old people, both men and women of that time.”[PSS-90. T. 13. P. 55] . Tolstoy stopped writing a book about one hero (or two, three) - and “tried to write the history of the people” [ PSS-90. T. 15. P. 241]. And in the Diary there is an entry: “The epic kind becomes natural to me.”
In the article “Epic and Romance” M.M. Bakhtin characterizes the genre epics three features: “1) the subject of the epic is the national epic past, the “absolute past”, in the terminology of Goethe and Schiller; 2) the source of the epic is national tradition (and not personal experience and free fiction growing on its basis); 3) the epic world is separated from modernity, that is, from the time of the singer (the author and his listeners), by an absolute epic distance” [ Bakhtin–2000. P. 204]. The word “epic”, as we know, has many meanings: epic is a type of literature (along with lyrics and drama); epic - epic genre, epic (here this concept is contrasted not with lyrics or drama, but with novel and story). Let's see how much “War and Peace” meets the characteristics of an epic, as Bakhtin defines them (in the book “Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics” Bakhtin notes that the application of the term “epic” to “War and Peace” has become customary [ Bakhtin–1979. pp. 158–159]).
Let's start with the “national epic past,” the “heroic past,” as Bakhtin writes. It is hardly necessary to prove that the year 1812, “when<...>we spanked Napoleon I” [“Decembrists”], and became such a “heroic past” for Tolstoy. Moreover, Tolstoy's theme is the people in the face of danger, when the question of whether to exist or not is being decided. Tolstoy chooses the climax in the life of the “swarm” (or gradually comes to it); That’s why 1825 could not become the subject of an epic, but 1812 (like the post-reform era in “Who Lives Well in Rus',” the revolution and Civil War in “Quiet Don” and “The Red Wheel”) did. The year 1812 affected the deep foundations of existence - but, as already noted, the 1860s, the time of writing “War and Peace,” were such a special time - when, in the words of Konstantin Levin, “everything turned upside down and is just settling down.”
Gachev wrote about two forms (methods) of uniting people - the people and the state. It is their relationship that gives rise to an epic situation: he sees such a situation in the Iliad (Achilles against Agamemnon) and in War and Peace (Kutuzov against Alexander). In a crisis situation, the state must feel “its complete dependence on the natural course of life and natural society. The state must become dependent on the people, their free will:<...>Will he give his consent, trust, will he forget the feuds and will he take “God’s” weapon in his hands - the shield of Achilles or the first club he comes across? [ Gachev. P. 83]. This reasoning is confirmed, among other things, by reading Tolstoy’s sources - in particular, the stories of the Patriotic War written by A.I. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky and M.I. Bogdanovich. The main character of these descriptions is Alexander I, which, of course, is understandable and does not need explanation; what Tolstoy’s Alexander looks like is a separate topic, but in any case, it is not his will or character, or firmness, or generosity that determines the course of the war. Kutuzov, like Achilles, was called upon to save the state by which he was insulted, “was in retirement and disgrace”; called “not by order of the authorities, but by the will of the people” [ Gachev. P. 119]. It is Tolstoy’s Kutuzov, as a true man of the epic, who is “entirely complete and complete” [ Bakhtin–2000. P. 225]; It is hardly necessary to stipulate that the real Kutuzov could have been (and, apparently, was) completely different and that besides Kutuzov in War and Peace there are many heroes who are not at all complete and incomplete.
It is clear that Tolstoy could not and did not intend to write an epic like the Iliad - after all, twenty-seven centuries lay between them. Therefore, the attitude towards the “national tradition” (the second condition of the epic, according to Bakhtin) was not and could not be the same as in the times of Homer or Virgil (“the reverent attitude of the descendant,” Bakhtin calls it [P. 204]); a substitute for national tradition, historical descriptions, are treated by Tolstoy and disputed precisely as false, but pathetic products of positive science that claim to be true (cf.: “the legend of the past is sacred” [ Bakhtin–2000. P. 206]).
But the epic distance - the third feature of the epic, as Bakhtin describes it - is clearly revealed in Tolstoy’s already quoted preface: from 1856 (modern times) to 1825; then - to 1812 and further - to 1805, when the character of the people was to be revealed in the era of “our failures and our shame.” Why didn’t Tolstoy bring his story not only to 1856 (as he had intended), but even to 1825? Epic time is not so much a specific event as the time of being in general; It’s not so much “then” as it is “always”. The time boundaries of the epic are always blurred - “the epic is indifferent to the formal beginning,” writes Bakhtin, “so any part can be formalized and presented as a whole” [ Bakhtin–2000. P. 223].
Another hallmark of an epic is its extraordinary breadth of scope: it’s not just about the number of characters, although the crowd scenes in War and Peace are unlike anything similar in previous literature; rather, we should talk about the universality of the epic, about its desire to cover the maximum space - the many “stage venues” of the book are connected with this: St. Petersburg, Moscow, Braunau, Otradnoe, Bald Mountains, Mozhaisk, Smolensk... At the same time, for the epic there is no main and secondary - no hierarchy; like a child, the epic is interested in everyone and everything: and the maid of honor Peronskaya (the author considers it necessary to tell us that her “old, ugly body” was just as “perfumed, washed, powdered” and just as “carefully washed behind the ears”, like the Rostovs [Vol. 2. Part 3. Chapter XIV]), and a military doctor, “in a bloody apron and with bloody small hands, in one of which he held a cigar between the little finger and thumb (so as not to stain it)” [T. . 3. Part 2. Ch. XXXVII], and the fact that the captain from Denisov’s detachment has “narrow, light eyes”, which he constantly “narrows” or “squints” [T. 4. Part 3. Ch. VI, VIII]. It is important not only that “War and Peace” is not focused on one hero - in this book, in general, the very division of heroes into main and secondary ones seems very conventional; Another thing is more important - the desire to convey the fullness of existence, when every detail (“and the more random, the more true”) appears as part of an inexhaustible whole - human existence. The same is true for a single episode; as Bocharov accurately noted, the episode “ delays the course of action and attracts our attention on my own, as one of the countless manifestations of life that Tolstoy teaches us to love” [ Bocharov–1963. P. 19]. That is why, probably, “this book stands out in our memory as separate vivid images” [ Ibid.] that in War and Peace there is no novelistic subordination of each episode to the revelation of the character of an individual hero or the revelation of an idea; That “coupling of thoughts”, about which Tolstoy N.N. wrote. Strakhov, or the “conjugation” (remember, in Pierre’s Mozhaisk dream - “it is necessary to conjugate”?) of everything with everything is characteristic of the epic.
The book begins with the appearance of Pierre, a young man without a family; his search - including the search for his true family - will form one of the plots of War and Peace; the book ends with the dream of Nikolenka Bolkonsky, an orphan; his dreams are the possibility of continuing the book; in fact, it does not end, just as life does not end. And, probably, the appearance of his father, Prince Andrei, in Nikolenka’s dream is also important: Tolstoy’s book is written about the fact that there is no death - remember, after the death of Prince Andrei, Tolstoy gives in quotation marks, that is, as the thoughts of Natasha Rostova, the questions: “Where is he gone? Where is he now?..” This is how the philosophy of this book is expressed in the composition of “War and Peace”: the affirmation of the eternal renewal of life, that “general law” that inspired Pushkin’s late lyrics.
Tolstoy could not help but take into account the experience of the previous European and Russian novel - and sophisticated psychological analysis for many readers constitutes the most important aspect of his book. In “War and Peace” “human fate” (novel beginning) and “people's fate” (epic beginning) are “combined into one organic whole (in Pushkin’s words)” [ Lesskis. P. 399]. The new genre name was justified by A.V. Chicherin in the book “The Emergence of the Epic Novel” [Kharkov. 1958; 2nd ed.: M., 1975]. It caused and continues to cause disagreement (for example, G.A. Lesskis suggested considering “War and Peace” an idyll [ Lesskis. P. 399], and B.M. Eikhenbaum saw in the book the features of “an ancient legend or chronicle” [ Eikhenbaum–1969. P. 378]), but if we understand it not as “purely evaluative, laudable, not expressing anything other than the “epic breadth” of coverage of the reflected socio-historical phenomena,” as characterized by E.N. Kupriyanov this term Chicherin [ Kupriyanova. P. 161], but as a name for an epic that includes several novel lines, it may well work. It is significant that in Tolstoy’s book the novel can come into conflict with the epic: thus, Prince Andrei, with his ambitious dreams before the Battle of Austerlitz, ready to sacrifice those closest to him for a moment of glory, hears the coachman teasing Kutuzov’s cook named Titus: ““ Titus, and Titus? “Well,” answered the old man. “Titus, go thresh.” “Low reality” here clearly opposes the hero’s high dreams - but it is she who turns out to be right; this is, perhaps, the voice of the epic itself, of life itself, which (in the form of the high sky) will soon reveal the lies of the Napoleonic dreams of the novel hero.
I will cite Bakhtin’s deep and, in my opinion, very important thought:
“The novelization of literature is not at all the imposition of an alien genre canon on other genres. After all, the novel doesn’t have such a canon at all.<...>Therefore, the novelization of other genres does not mean their subordination to alien genre canons; on the contrary, this is their liberation from everything conventional, deadened, stilted and lifeless that hinders their own development, from everything that turns them next to the novel into some kind of stylization of outdated forms” [ Bakhtin–2000. P. 231].
It is no coincidence that in “War and Peace” we find the following reasoning from Tolstoy:
“The ancients left us examples of heroic poems in which the heroes constitute the entire interest of history, and we still cannot get used to the fact that for our human time a story of this kind has no meaning” [T. 3. Part 2. Ch. XIX].
And although Gachev wittily brings “War and Peace” closer to the “Iliad” - he quite convincingly compares the behavior of Nikolai Rostov during the Bogucharov rebellion with the way Odysseus deals with Thersites, and then likens Kutuzov to the same Odysseus, who disdains the sophistry of Thersites, at the council in Fili : “with power, force, knowing its right, will - Kutuzov and Odysseus solve the situation” [ Gachev. pp. 129–136], even Tolstoy is beyond the power to resurrect the Iliad in all its completeness and simplicity. Genre - point of view on the world; It is hardly possible in the 19th century AD to look at the world as it was seen in the 8th century BC.
Contemporaries felt the genre unfamiliarity of “War and Peace” and, with few exceptions, did not accept it. P.V. Annenkov in a generally sympathetic article “Historical and aesthetic issues in the novel by gr. L.N. Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” having listed many episodes that fascinated him, asks: “Isn’t all this, in fact, a magnificent spectacle, from beginning to end?” - but then he remarks: “Yes, but while it was happening “, the novel, in the literal sense of the word, did not move, or, if it did, it did so with incredible apathy and slowness.” “But where is he, 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 idle a novel to which its own and real interests are alien,” writes the critic [ Annenkov. pp. 44–45]. One can give many examples of the rejection by critics (and therefore by readers) of the genre features of Tolstoy’s book: “We call the work of Count L.N. Tolstoy's novel only to give him some name; but War and Peace, in the strict sense of the word, is not a novel. Don’t look for an integral poetic concept in it, don’t look for unity of action: “War and Peace” is just a series of characters, a series of pictures, sometimes military, sometimes on the battlefield, sometimes everyday, in the living rooms of St. Petersburg and Moscow” [gaz. "Voice". 1868. No. 11. P. 1 (“Bibliography and journalism.” Without signature)]. Responding to the first three volumes, the critic of “The Russian Invalid” (A. I-n) wrote about “War and Peace”: “This is a calm epic written by a poet-artist who brings out living faces in front of you, analyzes their feelings, describes them actions with the dispassion of Pushkin's Pimen. Hence the advantages and disadvantages of the novel” [Journal and bibliographic notes. "War and Peace". Essay by Count L.N. Tolstoy. 3 volumes. M., 1868 // Russian invalid. 1868. No. 11]. The shortcomings will be discussed in some detail. “War and Peace cannot be the Iliad,” writes the critic, “and Homer’s attitude towards heroes and life is impossible.” Modern life is complex - and “it is impossible with the same calmness and self-pleasure to describe the delights of hound hunting along with the virtues of the dog Karai, and the majestic beauty, and the ability of the scoundrel Anatole to control himself, and the toilet of the young ladies going to the ball, and the suffering of the Russian soldier dying of thirst and hunger in the same room with the decomposed dead, and such a terrible massacre as the Battle of Austerlitz” [ Ibid.]. As we see, the critic fully felt the genre uniqueness of Tolstoy’s book - and did not want to accept this originality.
All this was written before the end of the book - the last volumes caused even greater complaints: “His novel, in our opinion, still remained not completely finished, despite the fact that half of the characters in it died, and the rest were legally married to each other. It’s as if the author himself was tired of messing around with his surviving heroes of the novel, and he, hastily, somehow made ends meet in order to quickly launch into his endless metaphysics” [Petersburgskaya Gazeta. 1870. No. 2. P. 2]. However, N. Solovyov noted that Tolstoy’s book is “some kind of poem-novel, a new form and as consistent with the ordinary course of life as it is limitless, like life itself. “War and Peace” cannot simply be called a novel: a novel should be much more definite in its boundaries and more prosaic in content: a poem, as a freer fruit of inspiration, is not subject to any restraint” [ Solovyov. P. 172]. A reviewer of the Birzhevye Vedomosti, ahead of future researchers of the War and Peace genre, wrote: “... Count Tolstoy’s novel could in some respects be considered an epic of the great people’s war, which has its own historians, but far from having its own singer” (and This review reveals a comparison of War and Peace with the Iliad).
However, the sensitive Strakhov, the first and probably the only one of his contemporaries to speak about the unconditional genius of Tolstoy’s new work, defined its genre as a “family chronicle,” and in the last article about “War and Peace” he wrote that it is “an epic in modern forms art" [ Strakhov. P. 224, 268].
Literature
PSS–90 - Tolstoy L.N. Full collection cit.: In 90 volumes. M., 1928–1958.
Annenkov - Annenkov P.V. Historical and aesthetic issues in the novel by gr. L.N. Tolstoy “War and Peace” // Roman L.N. Tolstoy “War and Peace” in Russian criticism. L., 1989.
Bakhtin–1979 - Bakhtin M.M. Problems of Dostoevsky's poetics. M., 1979.
Bakhtin–2000 - Bakhtin M.M. Epic and novel. St. Petersburg, 2000.
Bocharov–1963 - Bocharov S.G. L. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace”. M., 1963.
Gachev - Gachev G.D. Content of artistic forms. M., 1968.
Gorky - Gorky M. Full collection cit.: In 25 vols. M., 1968–1975.
Kupriyanova - Kupriyanova E.N. On the issues and genre nature of L. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” // Russian literature. 1985. No. 1.
Lesskis - Lesskis G.A. Leo Tolstoy (1852–1869). M., 2000.
Solovyov - Solovyov N.I. War or peace? // Roman L.N. Tolstoy “War and Peace” in Russian criticism. L., 1989.
Strakhov - Strakhov N.N. War and Peace. Essay by Count L.N. Tolstoy. Volumes I, II, III and IV // Roman L.N. Tolstoy “War and Peace” in Russian criticism. L., 1989.
Shklovsky–1928 - Shklovsky V.B. Material and style in Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace”. M., 1928.
Eikhenbaum–1969 - Eikhenbaum B.M. Features of chronicle style in literature of the 19th century // Eikhenbaum B.M. About prose. L., 1969.
Writers create their works in various genres. Some literary forms, such as epic, drama and lyric poetry, were used by ancient authors. Others appeared much later. Leo Tolstoy, having combined several directions in his great book, created a new “War and Peace” - an epic novel. This genre is a combination of elements of family life and philosophy. This genre mixture was first used by a Russian classic.
Family and household theme
In his great work, Tolstoy depicts the fate of several generations of representatives of the nobility. And although the lives of these people are inextricably linked with the book, there are clear features of such a literary direction as the family genre. “War and Peace” is a work in which the theme of family plays a significant role. The writer devoted other works to this topic. But the image of the “ideal family” emerges only at the end of the epic novel.
Historicism
Leo Tolstoy's book describes historical events and personalities, which indicates a specific genre. "War and Peace" is a historical work. The legendary characters in Tolstoy's novel are Kutuzov and Napoleon. Although it should be said that the Russian classic’s attitude to history was peculiar. He believed that nothing depends on even the most prominent personalities in history. They are just vivid images. Historical events are spontaneous in nature and cannot depend on the will of even the most active and talented people.
Depiction of battles and battles
The battle scenes in the work indicate that this is a military genre. “War and Peace” is a novel, a significant part of which was devoted to the war, which the author himself called “a bloody massacre, disgusting to human essence.” From these considerations, another aspect of the brilliant work was born, thanks to which the novel became a reflection of the author’s philosophical views.
Philosophical ideas
One of the most patriotic books in Russian literature is “War and Peace.” The literary genre of this work is, first of all, a philosophical novel. The author criticizes the official church, conveying his ideas in the thoughts of the main characters.
He does not give instant answers to the questions that worried Pierre Bezukhov. The search takes years and many mistakes made by the main character. But this character is not devoid of a moral principle, which helps him find himself and find spiritual harmony. The highest task of a person is to exist without unnecessary fuss, to be close to the people - Pierre comes to this conviction already at the end of the work.
Returning to the question of man's inability to decide the destinies of peoples and influence the course of events, Tolstoy argues that anyone who seeks to slow down or speed up the historical process looks ridiculous and naive. The genre of Tolstoy's War and Peace is not easy to define. This is an epic novel, full of philosophical judgments of the author, which force many years later to re-read the work not only in his homeland, but also abroad.
Socio-psychological novel
This genre differs from others in its psychological depiction of heroes in difficult life situations, multi-linear plot and large volume. What is the genre of War and Peace? This question does not deserve a definitive answer. Tolstoy's brilliant book is very multifaceted and extremely complex. But the features of a socio-psychological novel, along with the features of other genres, are present in it.
The problems of society and questions about its structure worried Leo Tolstoy. The author of the novel examines the relationship of the nobles to the peasants from a completely realistic point of view. His views in this regard are also mixed. But the inner world of an individual was also of considerable importance to the writer. By depicting the character’s external appearance, the author conveyed his spiritual world. Bezukhov's friendly eyes are associated with his gentleness and kindness. Helen Kuragina is the owner of “victoriously effective beauty.” But this beauty is dead and unnatural, since there is no inner content in this heroine.
The genre of the great work “War and Peace” is an epic novel. However, due to the scale of the events and the global nature of the problems, this book is unique in terms of genre.
Any literary work can be classified into any genre - epic, lyrical, dramatic. “War and Peace” is a large and complex work. What genre should it be classified into?
Some see the work primarily as a historical novel, which tells about the invasion of Napoleon's troops in Russia, as well as about the people who lived at that time. But is it? “War and Peace” is not just a narrative about historical events. This is noticeable even if you look closely at the composition of the novel. Descriptions of the lives of ordinary families, such as the Rostovs, Bolkonskys and others, alternate with descriptions of battles, military operations, and stories about the personalities of Napoleon and Kutuzov. At the same time, we see pictures of a completely different kind. People meet, break up, declare their love, marry for love and convenience - that is, they live an ordinary life. A whole string of meetings takes place before the eyes of readers over the course of many years. But history does not stand still. The emperors resolve issues of war and peace, and the War of 1812 begins. The peoples of Europe, forgetting about their home and family, are heading to Russia to conquer it. At the head of these troops is Napoleon. He is confident and thinks highly of himself. And L.N. Tolstoy, as if imperceptibly comparing him with peaceful people, shows that Napoleon is not at all a genius, that he is simply an adventurer, like many others who do not bear a loud title and are not crowned with the crown of an emperor.
One of the features of “War and Peace” is a large number of philosophical digressions. More than once in them the author argues that Napoleon was not the cause of the war. Tolstoy writes: “Just as this or that figure will be drawn in a stencil, not because in which direction and how paint is applied to it, but because the figure cut out in the stencil was smeared with paint in all directions.” One person does not make history. But when peoples gather who, although they have different goals, but act in the same way, then events happen that remain in history. Napoleon did not understand this, considering himself personally the cause of the movement and the clash of peoples.
Count Rostopchin is somewhat similar to Napoleon, confident that he did everything to save Moscow, although, in fact, he did nothing.
There are people in “War and Peace” who are really concerned about the issue of life and death in Russia. One of them is M.I. Kutuzov. He understands the situation and neglects the opinions of others about himself. He perfectly understands both Prince Andrei and the careerist Bennigsen, and, in fact, the whole of Russia. He understands people, their aspirations, desires, and therefore the fatherland. He sees what is good for Russia and for the Russian people.
M.I. Kutuzov understands this, but Napoleon does not. Throughout the novel, the reader sees this difference and sympathizes with Kutuzov.
What does it mean to understand people? Prince Andrei also understands the souls of other people. But he believes that to change the world, everyone must improve themselves first of all. He did not accept war, since war is violence. It is through the image of his beloved hero that Lev Nikolaevich conveys his own thoughts. Prince Andrei is a military man, but does not accept war. Why?
“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,” writes the author.
But why should a person live a second life, where he is lost as a person and serves as an unconscious instrument of history? Why is all this needed?
And L.N. Tolstoy calls in his novel to end unnecessary, senseless wars and live in peace. “War and Peace” is not just a historical novel, it is a project for building a new spiritual world. As a result of wars, people leave their families and become a faceless mass that is destroyed by exactly the same other mass. L.N. Tolstoy dreamed of ending wars on earth, of people living in harmony, surrendering to their sorrows and joys, meetings and partings, and being free spiritually. To convey his thoughts to readers, Lev Nikolaevich wrote a book where he not only consistently sets out his thoughts and views, but also illustrates them using the example of people’s lives during the Patriotic War. Those who read this book do not simply perceive other people’s judgments, but experience it together with the characters, are imbued with their feelings and through them communicate with L.N. Tolstoy. “War and Peace” is a kind of sacred book, similar to the Bible. Its main idea, as Tolstoy wrote, is “the foundation of a new religion... giving bliss on earth.” But how to create this world full of grace? Prince Andrei, who carried the image of this new world, dies. Pierre decided to join a secret society, which, again, through violent measures, will try to change people's lives. This will no longer be an ideal world. So is it even possible?
Apparently, L.N. Tolstoy leaves this question for readers to think about. After all, to change the world you need to change your own soul. How Prince Andrei tried to do it. And each of us has the power to change ourselves.
