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As the novel draws to a close, Pierre's wife Elena dies sometime during the last throes of Napoleon's invasion and Pierre is reunited with Natasha while the victorious Russians rebuild Moscow. Pierre finds love at last and marries Natasha, while Nikolai, whose dilemma between his heart's choices is now firmly set on Princess Maria, is released from his oath by Sonya. He marries Maria Bolkonskaya but provides for Sonya for the rest of her life. Prince Andrei's son is brought up by Nicolai and Maria.
As the novel draws to a close, Pierre's wife Elena dies sometime during the last throes of Napoleon's invasion and Pierre is reunited with Natasha while the victorious Russians rebuild Moscow. Pierre finds love at last and marries Natasha, while Nikolai, whose dilemma between his heart's choices is now firmly set on Princess Maria, is released from his oath by Sonya. He marries Maria Bolkonskaya but provides for Sonya for the rest of her life. Prince Andrei's son is brought up by Nicolai and Maria.
==Tolstoy's View of History==
==Tolstoy's View of History==
Tolstoy doesn't subscribe to the "great man" view of history: the notion that history is the story of strong personalities that move events and shape societies. He believes that events shape themselves, caused by social and other forces; and great men take advantage of them, changing them but not creating them. As an example, he compares Npoleon and Kutuzov. Napoleon, the Great Man, thought he created the French Revolution, but he simply happened along at the right time and usurped it. Kutuzov was more modest and more effective.
Tolstoy doesn't subscribe to the "great man" view of history: the notion that history is the story of strong personalities that move events and shape societies. He believes that events shape themselves, caused by social and other forces; and great men take advantage of them, changing them but not creating them. As an example, he compares Napoleon and Kutuzov. Napoleon, the Great Man, thought he created the French Revolution, but he simply happened along at the right time and usurped it. Kutuzov was more modest and more effective.
Napoleon believes that he could control the course of a battle through giving orders by [[courier]]s, while Kutuzov admits all he could do was to plan the initial disposition, and let subordinates direct the field of action. typically, Napolean would be frantically sending out orders throughout the course of a battle, carried by dashing young lieutenants—which were often misinterpreted or made irrelevant by changing conditions—while Kutuzov would sit quietly in his tent and often sleep through the battle. Ultimately, Napoleon chooses wrongly, opting to march on to [[Moscow]] and occupy it for five fatal weeks, when he would have been better off destroying the Russian army in a decisive battle. General Kutuzov believes time to be his best ally, and refrains from engaging the French. He declares Moscow an [[open city]], and the residents evacuate the city: the nobles flee to their country estates, taking their treasures with them; lesser folk flee wherever they can, taking food and supplies. The French march into Moscow and disperse to find housing and supplies, then ultimately destroy themselves as they accidentally burn the city to the ground and then abandon it in late Fall, then limp back toward the French border in the teeth of a Russian Winter. They are all but destroyed by a final [[Cossack]] attack as they straggle back toward [[Paris]]. (Tolstoy observes that Kutuzuv didn't burn Moscow as a "scorched-earth policy," nor did Napolean; but after taking the city, Napolean moved his troops in, to find housing more or less by chance in the abandoned houses: generals appropriated the grander houses, lesser men took what was left over; units were dispersed, and the chain of command dissolved into chaos. Quickly, his tightly disciplined army dissolved into a disorganized rabble; and of course, if one leaves a wooden city in the hands of strangers who naturally use fire to warm themselves, cook food, and smoke pipes, and have not learned how particular Russian families safely used their stoves and lamps (some of which they had taken with them as they fled the city), fires will break out. In the absence of an organized fire department, the fires will spread; so the city was distroyed, by chance.)
Napoleon believes that he could control the course of a battle through giving orders by [[courier]]s, while Kutuzov admits all he could do was to plan the initial disposition, and let subordinates direct the field of action. typically, Napolean would be frantically sending out orders throughout the course of a battle, carried by dashing young lieutenants—which were often misinterpreted or made irrelevant by changing conditions—while Kutuzov would sit quietly in his tent and often sleep through the battle. Ultimately, Napoleon chooses wrongly, opting to march on to [[Moscow]] and occupy it for five fatal weeks, when he would have been better off destroying the Russian army in a decisive battle. General Kutuzov believes time to be his best ally, and refrains from engaging the French. He declares Moscow an [[open city]], and the residents evacuate the city: the nobles flee to their country estates, taking their treasures with them; lesser folk flee wherever they can, taking food and supplies. The French march into Moscow and disperse to find housing and supplies, then ultimately destroy themselves as they accidentally burn the city to the ground and then abandon it in late Fall, then limp back toward the French border in the teeth of a Russian Winter. They are all but destroyed by a final [[Cossack]] attack as they straggle back toward [[Paris]]. (Tolstoy observes that Kutuzuv didn't burn Moscow as a "scorched-earth policy," nor did Napolean; but after taking the city, Napolean moved his troops in, to find housing more or less by chance in the abandoned houses: generals appropriated the grander houses, lesser men took what was left over; units were dispersed, and the chain of command dissolved into chaos. Quickly, his tightly disciplined army dissolved into a disorganized rabble; and of course, if one leaves a wooden city in the hands of strangers who naturally use fire to warm themselves, cook food, and smoke pipes, and have not learned how particular Russian families safely used their stoves and lamps (some of which they had taken with them as they fled the city), fires will break out. In the absence of an organized fire department, the fires will spread; so the city was distroyed, by chance.)

==Characters in "War and Peace"==
==Characters in "War and Peace"==
*[[Pierre Bezukhov]] — A freethinking [[Freemasonry|Freemason]], though weak and at times reckless, is capable of decisive action and great displays of willpower when circumstances demand it.
*[[Pierre Bezukhov]] — A freethinking [[Freemasonry|Freemason]], though weak and at times reckless, is capable of decisive action and great displays of willpower when circumstances demand it.

Revision as of 05:49, 17 October 2007

War and Peace
Cover to the English first edition
Cover to the English first edition
AuthorLeo Tolstoy
Original titleВойна и миръ (Voyna i mir)
LanguageRussian
GenreHistorical, Romance, War novel
PublisherRusski Vestnik (series)
Publication date
1865 to 1869 (series)
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback) & Audio book
ISBNNA Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character

War and Peace (Russian: Война и миръ, Voyna i mir) is a novel by Leo Tolstoy, first published from 1865 to 1869 in Russki Vestnik, which tells the story of Russian society during the Napoleonic Era. It is usually described as one of Tolstoy's two major masterpieces (the other being Anna Karenina) as well as one of the world's greatest novels.

War and Peace offered a new kind of fiction, with a great many characters caught up in a plot that covered nothing less than the grand subjects indicated by the title, combined with the equally large topics of youth, marriage, age, and death. While today it is considered a novel, it broke so many novelistic conventions of its day that many critics of Tolstoy's time did not consider it as such. Tolstoy himself considered Anna Karenina (1878) to be his first attempt at a novel in the European sense.

Title

The Russian words for "peace" (pre-1918: "миръ") and "world" (pre-1918: "міръ", including "world" in the sense of "secular society"; see mir (social)) are homonyms and since the 1918 reforms have been spelled identically, which led to an urban legend in the Soviet Union saying that the original manuscript was called "Война и міръ" (so the novel's title would be correctly translated as "War and the World" or "War and Society").[1] However, Tolstoy himself translated the title into French as "La guerre et la paix" ("War and Peace"). The confusion has been promoted by the popular Soviet TV quiz show Что? Где? Когда? (Chto? Gde? Kogda? - What? Where? When?), which in 1982 presented as a correct answer the "society" variant, based on a 1913 edition of "War and Peace" with a misprint in a single page. This episode was repeated in 2000, which refuelled the legend. There is also an (unrelated) poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky called "Война и міръ" (i.e. "міръ" as "society"), written in 1916.

War and Peace or La Guerre et la Paix was also the title of an earlier political work by French anarchist Pierre Proudhon, published in 1864. It has been speculated that the title War and Peace was inspired by Proudhon's La Guerre et la Paix.[2]

Origin

Tolstoy initially intended to write a novel about the Decembrist revolt.[3] His investigation of the causes of this revolt led him all the way back to Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, and ultimately the history of that war. All that remains of that intention is a foreshadowing in the first epilogue that Pierre Bezukhov and Prince Andrei Bolkonski's son are going to be members of the Decembrists.

Language

Although Tolstoy wrote the bulk of the book, including all the narration, in Russian, significant pockets of dialogue throughout the book (including its opening sentence) are written in French. This merely reflected reality, as the Russian aristocracy in the nineteenth century all knew French, then the lingua franca of the European upper classes, and often spoke French rather than Russian among themselves. Indeed, Tolstoy makes one reference to an adult Russian aristocrat who has to take Russian lessons to try to master the national language. Less realistically, the Frenchmen portrayed in the novel, including Napoleon himself, sometimes speak in French, sometimes in Russian.

Context

File:Voinaimir.jpg
A scene from Sergei Bondarchuk's production of War and Peace (1968).

The novel tells the story of five aristocratic families, particularly the Bezukhovs, the Bolkonskis, and the Rostovs, and the entanglements of their personal lives with the history of 18051813, principally Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. As events proceed, Tolstoy systematically denies his subjects any significant free choice: the onward roll of history determines happiness and tragedy alike.

The standard Russian text is divided into four books (fifteen parts) and two epilogues – one mainly narrative, the other wholly thematic. While roughly the first half of the novel is concerned strictly with the fictional characters, the later parts, as well as one of the work's two epilogues, increasingly consist of highly controversial nonfictional essays about the nature of war, political power, history, and historiography. Tolstoy interspersed these essays into the story in a way that defies fictional convention. Certain abridged versions removed these essays entirely, while others (published even during Tolstoy's life) simply moved these essays into an appendix.

Plot summary

War and Peace depicts a huge cast of characters, both historical and fictional, the majority of whom are introduced in the first book. At a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer in July 1805, the main players and families of the novel are made known. Pierre Bezukhov is the illegitimate son of a wealthy count who is dying of a stroke, and becomes unexpectedly embroiled in a tussle for his inheritance. The intelligent and sardonic Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, husband of a charming wife Lise, finds little comfort in married life, instead choosing to be aide-de-camp of Prince Mikhail Kutuzov in their coming war against Napoleon. We learn too of the Moscow Count Rostov family, with four adolescent children, of whom the vivacious younger daughter Natalya Rostova ("Natasha") and impetuous older Nikolai Rostov are the most memorable. At Bald Hills, Prince Andrei leaves his pregnant wife to his eccentric father and religiously devout sister Maria Bolkonskaya and leaves for war.

File:First page of war and peace.JPG
The first page of War and Peace in an early edition

At the Schöngrabern engagement, Nikolai Rostov, conscripted as ensign in a squadron of hussars, has his first baptism of fire upfront in battle. Like all young soldiers he is attracted by Tsar Alexandr's charisma. He gambles recklessly and consorts with the lisping Denisov. Briefly returning home to Moscow, he finds the Rostov family facing financial ruin due to poor management. Nikolai refuses to accede to his mother's request to find a rich heiress for wife and promises to marry his childhood sweetheart, the orphaned and self-obliterating cousin Sonya.

If there is a central character to War and Peace it is Pierre Bezukhov who, upon receiving an unexpected inheritance, is suddenly burdened with the responsibilities and conflicts of a Russian nobleman. His former carefree behavior vanishes and he enters upon a philosophical quest particular to Tolstoy: how should one live a moral life in an ethically imperfect world? He attempts to free his peasants, but ultimately achieves nothing. He enters into marriage with Prince Kuragin's beautiful and immoral daughter Elena, against his own better judgement. He joins the Freemasons but is helpless in the face of his wife's numerous affairs.

Pierre is vividly contrasted with Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, Tolstoy's intelligent and ambitious alter ego. At the Battle of Austerlitz Andrei is inspired by glory to lead a charge of a struggling army, but is nearly fatally wounded. Rescued by Napoleon, all the visions of his of life are shattered in the face of death and Napoleon's apparent vanity, his earlier hero. His wife Lise dies during childbirth. Burdened with nihilistic disillusionment Prince Andrei is led to a philosophical argument with Pierre – where is God in this amoral world? Pierre points to panentheism and an afterlife. Young Natasha briefly reinvigorates Andrei, but their plan to marry has to be postponed with a year-long engagement.

Elena and her handsome brother Anatoly conspire together for Anatoly to seduce and dishonor the young and beautiful Natasha Rostova. This plan fails, yet, for Pierre, it is the cause of an important meeting with Natasha, when he realizes he is in love with her, during the time when the Great Comet of 1811–2 streaks the sky. Natasha, shamed by her seduction, has had her wedding engagement broken off by Andrei. Meanwhile Nikolai unexpectedly acts as a knight to beleaguered Maria Bolkonskaya, whose father's death has left her in the mercy of an estate of hostile, rebelling peasants. He reconsiders marriage, and finds Maria's devotion, honesty, and inheritance extremely attractive.

As Napoleon pushes through Russia, Pierre decides to watch the Battle of Borodino near the battle next to a Russian artillery crew. There, he realizes just how terrible and fatal war can be. When Napoleon's Grand Army occupies an abandoned and burning Moscow, Pierre takes off on a quixotic mission to assassinate Napoleon and is captured as a prisoner of war. After witnessing French soldiers sacking Moscow and shooting Russian civilians, including his saintly cell-mate Karataev, Pierre is forced to march with the Grand Army during its disastrous retreat from Moscow. He is later freed by a Russian raiding party.

Meanwhile Andrei, wounded during Napoleon's invasion, is taken in as a casualty by the fleeing Rostovs when he is reunited with Natasha and sister Maria before the end of the war. Having lost all will to live after forgiving Natasha, he dies, much like the death scene at the end of The Death of Ivan Ilych.


As the novel draws to a close, Pierre's wife Elena dies sometime during the last throes of Napoleon's invasion and Pierre is reunited with Natasha while the victorious Russians rebuild Moscow. Pierre finds love at last and marries Natasha, while Nikolai, whose dilemma between his heart's choices is now firmly set on Princess Maria, is released from his oath by Sonya. He marries Maria Bolkonskaya but provides for Sonya for the rest of her life. Prince Andrei's son is brought up by Nicolai and Maria.

Tolstoy's View of History

Tolstoy doesn't subscribe to the "great man" view of history: the notion that history is the story of strong personalities that move events and shape societies. He believes that events shape themselves, caused by social and other forces; and great men take advantage of them, changing them but not creating them. As an example, he compares Napoleon and Kutuzov. Napoleon, the Great Man, thought he created the French Revolution, but he simply happened along at the right time and usurped it. Kutuzov was more modest and more effective. Napoleon believes that he could control the course of a battle through giving orders by couriers, while Kutuzov admits all he could do was to plan the initial disposition, and let subordinates direct the field of action. typically, Napolean would be frantically sending out orders throughout the course of a battle, carried by dashing young lieutenants—which were often misinterpreted or made irrelevant by changing conditions—while Kutuzov would sit quietly in his tent and often sleep through the battle. Ultimately, Napoleon chooses wrongly, opting to march on to Moscow and occupy it for five fatal weeks, when he would have been better off destroying the Russian army in a decisive battle. General Kutuzov believes time to be his best ally, and refrains from engaging the French. He declares Moscow an open city, and the residents evacuate the city: the nobles flee to their country estates, taking their treasures with them; lesser folk flee wherever they can, taking food and supplies. The French march into Moscow and disperse to find housing and supplies, then ultimately destroy themselves as they accidentally burn the city to the ground and then abandon it in late Fall, then limp back toward the French border in the teeth of a Russian Winter. They are all but destroyed by a final Cossack attack as they straggle back toward Paris. (Tolstoy observes that Kutuzuv didn't burn Moscow as a "scorched-earth policy," nor did Napolean; but after taking the city, Napolean moved his troops in, to find housing more or less by chance in the abandoned houses: generals appropriated the grander houses, lesser men took what was left over; units were dispersed, and the chain of command dissolved into chaos. Quickly, his tightly disciplined army dissolved into a disorganized rabble; and of course, if one leaves a wooden city in the hands of strangers who naturally use fire to warm themselves, cook food, and smoke pipes, and have not learned how particular Russian families safely used their stoves and lamps (some of which they had taken with them as they fled the city), fires will break out. In the absence of an organized fire department, the fires will spread; so the city was distroyed, by chance.)

Characters in "War and Peace"

Many of Tolstoy's characters in War and Peace were based on real-life people known to Tolstoy himself. Nikolai Rostov and Maria Bolkonskaya were based on Tolstoy's own memories of his father and mother, while Natasha was modeled after Tolstoy's wife and sister-in-law. Pierre and Prince Andrei bear much resemblance to Tolstoy himself, and many commentators have treated them as alter egos of the author.

Film, TV, theatrical and other adaptations

  • The first Russian film adaptation of War and Peace was the 1915 film Voyna i mir, directed by Vladimir Gardin and starring Gardin and the Russian ballerina Vera Karalli.
  • First successful stage adaptations of War and Peace were produced by Alfred Neumann and Erwin Piscator (1942, revised 1955, published by Macgibbon & Kee in London 1963, and staged in 16 countries since) and R. Lucas (1943). A second film adaptation was produced by F. Kamei in Japan (1947).
  • War and Peace (1968): Soviet director Sergei Bondarchuk made a critically acclaimed four-part film version (Vojna i mir) of the novel, released individually in 1965-1967, and as a re-edited whole in 1968, starring Lyudmila Savelyeva (as Natasha Rostova) and Vyacheslav Tikhonov (as Andrei Bolkonsky). Bondarchuk himself played the character of Pierre Bezukhov. By the time Bondarchuk made this film, the flawless image of Natasha as created by Audrey Hepburn had achieved an almost iconic status among Western audiences,[citation needed] and it was therefore a challenge for the director to select an actress for this role. The actress he chose, Lyudmila Savelyeva, looked very similar to Hepburn.[citation needed] The film was almost seven hours long; it involved thousands of actors and extras, and it took seven years to finish the shooting, as a result of which the actors age dramatically from scene to scene. It won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for its authenticity and massive scale. [2]
  • In December 1970, Pacifica Radio station WBAI broadcast a reading of the entire novel (the 1968 Dunnigan translation) read by over 140 celebrities and ordinary people. [3]
  • In one episode of Seinfeld, Jerry jokes to Elaine that War and Peace was originally called War, What is it Good For?. Elaine believes him and goes on to tell this to a Russian writer—called upon to write a manuscript for Pendant Publishing—who proceeds to throw her organizer out of the limo.

Translations into other languages

Into English:

Into Macedonian:

  • Simon Drakul (1985)

Editions

The Iner Sanctum Edition Simon and Schuster. 1945-1954, I (ISBN: 0679600841) Hard Cover, 2. A Reader's Guide and Bookmark for the Inner Sanctum Edition of War and Peace is included, containing

    • a list of characters arranged in family groups;
  • a chronological table of principal historical events, 1805 to 1812, the period covered by War and Peace;
    • a map of the Campaign of 1805; a map showing the Napoleonic Invasion of Russia and a Plan of Moscow in 1812;
    • a list of characters, arranged in order of their appearance, with full identifications and a note on Russian names and titles. The book is translated, with a preface and introductory notes, by Aylmer Maude, with a foreword by Clifton Fadiman. Includes detailed Table of Contents, various famous authors' praises of War and Peace, a list of dates of principal historical events, and 7 maps throughout text, as well as maps on the front & rear paste-down endpapers.

See also

References

External links

Online text

Study guides

Other information

Listening