Dmitry Bykov
Russian writer, poet, publicist, journalist, literary critic, teacher of literature, radio and TV presenter.
Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" is included in the majority of world ratings of the best books: Newsweek put it on the first NEWSWEEK'S TOP 100 BOOKS. place, BBC - 20 The Big Read. TOP 100 books., and the Norwegian Book Club included The top 100 books of all time. novel in the list of the most significant works of all time.
In Russia, a third "War and Peace" is the main book for schoolchildren. residents considers "War and Peace" to be a work that forms "the worldview that holds the nation together." At the same time, the president of the Russian Academy of Education Lyudmila Verbitskaya said that 70% RAO President: More than 70% of school literature teachers have not read War and Peace. school teachers did not read War and Peace. There are no statistics for the rest of the Russians, but, most likely, it is even more deplorable.
Bykov claims that even teachers do not understand everything that is written in the book, not to mention schoolchildren. “I think that Leo Tolstoy himself did not understand everything, did not realize what a gigantic force drove his hand,” he added.
Why read War and Peace
According to Bykov, each nation should have its own Iliad and Odyssey. Odyssey is a novel about wanderings. He tells how the country works. In Russia, this is "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol.
War and Peace is the Russian Iliad. It tells how to behave in the country in order to survive.
Dmitry Bykov
What is "War and Peace"
Tolstoy takes as the main theme the most irrational period in Russian history - the Patriotic War of 1812. Bykov notes that Napoleon Bonaparte realized all his tasks: he entered Moscow, did not lose the general battle, but the Russians won.
Russia is a country where success is not the same as victory, where they win irrationally. This is what the novel is about.
Dmitry Bykov
The key episode of the book, according to Bykov, is not the Battle of Borodino, but a duel between Pierre Bezukhov and Fyodor Dolokhov. Dolokhov has all the advantages on his side: society supports him, he is a good shooter. Pierre holds the pistol for the second time in his life, but it is his bullet that hits his opponent. This is an irrational victory. And Kutuzov wins in the same way.
Dolokhov is definitely a negative character, but not everyone understands why. Despite his merits, he is an evil that is conscious of himself, admiring himself, a "narcissistic reptile." So did Napoleon.
Tolstoy shows the mechanism of Russian victory: the winner is the one who gives more, who is more ready for sacrifice, who trusted in fate. To survive, you need:
- not to be afraid of anything;
- do not calculate anything;
- do not admire yourself.
How to read War and Peace
According to Bykov, this irrational novel was written by a rationalist, so it has a rigid structure. Getting to know her makes reading fun.
The action of "War and Peace" takes place in four planes simultaneously. Each plane has a character who performs a specific role, is endowed with special qualities and has a corresponding destiny.
* The life of the Russian nobility is a household plan with dramas, relationships, suffering.
** Macrohistorical plan - events of "big history", state level.
*** The people are the key scenes for understanding the novel (according to Bykov).
**** The metaphysical plane is an expression of what is happening through nature: the sky of Austerlitz, oak.
Moving along the lines of the table, you can see which characters correspond to the same plan. The columns will show stunt doubles at different levels. For example, the Rostovs are the line of a kind, fertile Russian family. Their strength lies in irrationality. They are the soul of the novel.
On the popular plane, they are matched by the same ingenuous captain Tushin, on the metaphysical plane - the element of the earth, solid and fertile. At the state level, there is neither soul nor kindness, therefore there is no correspondence.
The Bolkonskys and everyone who is in the same column with them is intelligence. Pierre Bezukhov personifies that very irrational and ready for sacrifice winner, and Fyodor Dolokhov is a “narcissistic reptile”: he is the character who has no forgiveness, since he puts himself above the rest, fancies himself a superman.
Armed with Bykov's table, you can not only better understand the idea of \u200b\u200bthe novel, but also make it easier to read, turning it into an exciting game of finding matches.
Lev Nikolaevich's novel was called "War and Peace". When the commies arrived, they simplified the language by removing the "superfluous" letter from the alphabet in their proletarian view - here the "mirror of the Russian revolution" turned around, because the meaning of the name changed. But still - what was he like in Tolstoy?
Somehow long ago I heard the version that the word "peace" meant "society" as opposed to "peace" - the absence of war. This means that Leo Tolstoy's novel describes the behavior of Russian society during the war with Napoleon, and not the difference in life during war and in peace. The emphasis has shifted, although there is a large coverage of the time - before, during the war and after, so the "new" name seems appropriate.
But today in M. Zadornov's blog () I read: "... When Tolstoy wrote "War and Peace", then in the word "peace" (this is not enough, who now knows), instead of our "and" there was the letter "i", which is still in Belarusian and Ukrainian. "Mir" meant roughly what the word "Cosmos" means today. What has always existed. Universe. ... When the Bolsheviks carried out the reform and replaced the "i" with our "i", the title of the novel "War and Peace" became simpler. Because the word "peace" in contrast to "peace" meant a signed treaty of friendship between peoples after the war. And the greatest literary work, which meant war and the Universe, (if translated into today's flatter language), has become simply a war and a truce.“He does not explain at the same time what secret meaning is hidden in the novel with such an interpretation.
I went online. I find on the website of the Leo Tolstoy School () confirmation of the words of Mikhail Zadorny:
World
Universe; our Earth, the globe; the whole world, all people, the whole human race; community - a society of peasants, their gathering,
Examples: Mir is a golden mountain, Death is red to the world. Live in the world (in light, in vanity). In the world that is in the sea. Peace, God help!
World
Lack of quarrels, hostility, disagreement, war; harmony, harmony, unanimity, affection, friendship, silence, peace, tranquility.
Examples: Peace to your house. Accept in peace. Peace of mind. Peaceful conversation. Conclude a peace treaty, etc.
Still, the word "world" has the meaning of "community". And what the secular (secular), in contrast to the religious, means for us what is happening in society. I look further and find a sample of a school essay on this particular topic (), where it is written: " The fact is that, in contrast to the modern Russian language, in which the word "mir" is a homonymous pair and denotes, firstly, the state of society opposite to war, and, secondly, human society in general, in the Russian language of the 19th century there were two spellings of the word "peace": "peace" - a state of absence of war and "peace" - human society, community. The title of the novel in the old spelling included precisely the form "world". From this one could conclude that the novel is devoted primarily to the problem, which is formulated as follows: “War and Russian society”.
And then what I did not know about: "However, as it was established by researchers of Tolstoy's work, the title of the novel did not get into print from the text written by Tolstoy himself. However, the fact that Tolstoy did not correct the spelling that did not agree with him suggests that both versions of the name of the writer were fine."
The final part kind of reconciles the two points of view:
"And finally," world "for Tolstoy is a synonym for the word" universe ", and it is no coincidence that the novel contains a large amount of reasoning of a general philosophical plan. Thus, the concepts of" world "and" world "in the novel merge into one. That is why the word" world " in the novel takes on an almost symbolic meaning. "
This is the kind of riddle the classic put to us in a word of three letters ...
P.S. religious people exclude a compromise in the interpretation of these words (): "... It is also no coincidence that the words" peace "and" peace "were written differently before the post-revolutionary reform. Now this spelling has survived only in Church Slavonic. radically opposite: "The world" is the very sea of \u200b\u200blife on which the ship of salvation - the Church - sails. And "peace" is the peace of Christ, the Kingdom of God ... "
Once, at a literature lesson, a teacher told us that in the old spelling, when the Russian alphabet consisted of 35 letters (see V. I. Dal, "Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language"), some words that were pronounced the same way had different spellings. and this changed the meaning. So, the word "peace", written as it is written now, really meant a time of peace, without war. And written through "and with a dot" ("i") - the world in the sense of the universe and human society.
At that time we were studying Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace", and, continuing to discuss "and" with a dot, the teacher told us that Lev Nikolaevich called his novel "War and Peace", as he opposed war and society, war and people.
This story so struck my imagination that I remembered it, and all my life I was sure that it was so. And just recently, wanting to get involved in a dispute on defending my point of view, I began to look for supporting facts on the Internet.
What was found there? A lot of abstracts that rewrite the above from each other (of course, great, but unreliable), chatter in the forums (the opinion of the laity against the peaceful in a ratio of 10: 1), help on gramota.ru, which changes its mind, and - no facts! Well, purely opinions, and that's it!
On one forum they wrote that, it turns out, this novel is a study of the influence of war on human actions and destinies. On the other, they were indignant that “peace” is not a human society, but a rural community, and Tolstoy could not name his novel “War and Peace”, since he wrote not about the rural community, but about the upper world.
The only reliable message on this topic I found was from Artemy Lebedev with the image of the first page of the 1874 edition, commented on with the words: "Well, what could be easier than just taking and seeing how it was?"
Let's follow this advice.
At first, let's look in the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” by V. I. Dal: what do the words “mir” and “mir” actually mean?
WORLD (written with i) (m.) Universe; substance in space and force in time (Khomyakov). || One of the lands of the universe; special || our earth, globe, light; || all people, all the world, the human race; || community, society of peasants; || gathering. In the last meaning. the world is rural and rural. Putting on the world, giving a verdict at a meeting; in the rural world there is a muzhik from the smoke, in the volost world or in a circle there are two owners from a hundred. Worlds, earths, planets. The years from the creation of the world, our land, were counted in the old days. Go to the world or in the world, with a bag. Death is red in the world, in public. Live in the world, in worldly concerns, in vanity; generally in the light; prtvop. spiritual life, monastic life. Peace, God help! the hail of barge haulers, the Volga, when ships meet; answer: God help you! The world is a wave. The world is a golden mountain. In the world at sea. In the world that is in the pool (no bottom, no cover). A world in evil (in a lie) No matter what the world blinks, it blinks, about envy. A foolish mind lets it go around the world. Rich in a feast, poor in the world (in the world). We do not go around the world, and do not serve the poor. She found a place for the children: she let one go around the world, gave the other one to the swineherd in science. To go into the world (around the world), and take it with a dough. The baptized world, but a canvas bag: beg under one window, eat under another. The world is thin, but long. The world has bellies and thin, yes debts. What does not fall on the world, the world will not lift. You can't bake a pie about the world; the world of wine is not enough. You cannot please the whole world (at all). In the world at a drunken feast. with the world on a thread, a naked shirt. One cannot eat the world. In the world, as in a feast: there is a lot of everything (both good and bad). And in a feast, and in the world, all in one (about clothes). Not in a feast, not in peace, not in good people. To live in the world - to live in peace. (full text of the article, fig. 1.2 Mb.)
To reconcile with whom, to reconcile, to agree, to eliminate the quarrel, to settle disagreement, enmity, forcing to become amicable. Why put up with someone who does not know how to swear! Going to reconcile yourself is not good; and send the ambassador - people will know. The mare put up with the wolf but did not return home.<…> Peace is the absence of quarrel, enmity, disagreement, war; harmony, harmony, unanimity, affection, friendship, goodwill; silence, calmness, calmness. Peace has been concluded and signed. They have peace and grace in their home. Accept someone in peace, spend in peace. Peace to you! From the greetings of the beggars: peace be with this house. Peace to you, and I to you! Good people scold the world. On the day there is a feast, and on the night there is peace with walls and thresholds. The neighbor will not want to, and the world will not. Peace for the deceased, but a feast for the healer. Chernyshev's (violent) peace (among the people of Kaluga, whom Chernyshev stopped feuds, under Peter I) (full text of the article, fig. 0.6 Mb.)
Secondly - encyclopedias, as well as links and lists of L. N. Tolstoy's works, compiled by pre-revolutionary researchers of his work.
1. Encyclopedic Dictionary, volume XXXIII, publishers F. A. Brockhaus and I. A. Efron, St. Petersburg, 1901
The article about Count Leo Tolstoy begins on page 448, and there the title "War and Peace" appears only once, written with an "i":
Brockhaus and Efron. Leo Tolstoy, "War and Peace"
Note that at the end of the quotation, the second mention of the novel is typed with the letter "and".
2. Bodnarsky B. S. "Bibliography of the works of Leo Tolstoy", 1912, Moscow, p. 11:
3. ibid., P. 18:
4. Bibliographic index of L.N. Tolstoy's creations, compiled by A.L.Behm, 1926 (started by typing in 1913 - finished with printing in September 1926), page 13:
5. Count LN Tolstoy in literature and art. Compiled by Yuri Bitovt. Moscow, 1903:
notice on page 120:
Compared to the rest of the references (full text pp. 116-125, image 0.8Mb) it looks like a typo.
Thirdly, title pages of pre-revolutionary editions of the novel:
I First edition: T. Rhys printing house, at the Myasnitsky Gate, Voeikov's house, Moscow, 1869:
II Edition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Borodino: publication of I.D.Sytin's company, Moscow, 1912:
III Publishing house I.P. Ladyzhnikov, Berlin, 1920:
IV Edition of Vinnitsa, Odessa, 1915:
V PETROGRAD. A type. Peter. T-va Pecs. and Ed. case "Trud", Kavalergardskaya, 40.1915:
It is easy to notice the difference in the spelling of the title of the novel on the cover and on the first page.
And in conclusion, a quote from "Descriptions of manuscripts of artistic works of L. N. Tolstoy", Moscow, 1955, (compiled by V. A. Zhdanov, E. E. Zaydenshnur, E. S. Serebrovskaya):
“The idea of \u200b\u200bWar and Peace is connected with the story of the Decembrist, which was started in 1860. In the outline of the foreword to the journal publication of the first part of the future novel "War and Peace", Tolstoy wrote that when he began the story about the Decembrist, he needed to understand his hero, "transfer" to his youth, and "his youth coincided with the glorious for Russia in the era of 1812 ”. Starting to create a novel from the era of 1812, Tolstoy once again postponed the action of his novel, starting in 1805. "
Summarizing
LN Tolstoy called the novel "War and Peace", another version is beautiful, but - alas! - a legend generated by an annoying typo.
Other Internet Sources:
My comment.
I would not declare so categorically that Leo Tolstoy, a Jew, did not know his own Hebrew language to be mistaken with the title of his book. We were told at school that a publisher's mistake had crept into modern publications. Because the original version was called: "War and Peace". War and Society. That is: Mir.
Because I saw living books on the Internet, where the title of the novel was written: "War and Peace".
In another Jewish book, I read the phrase of a Jew to his fellow villagers:
Where are you driving me, Mir?
That is, the later modified spelling of "Mir", as "Society", began to be spelled with an error as "Peace". The followers and publishers of Leo Tolstoy were mistaken, but not Tolstoy himself, with the writing of the second word in the title of the novel: "War and Peace" - "War and Society" (State).
But ... the Hebrew word "Mir" has a different interpretation, which does not fit in any way with the History of the Army (Peace) rewritten by the Cossacks (intelligentsia). It does not fit into the picture of the World (Army), which was created for us by writers with their literary hoaxes. By the way, Leo Tolstoy was one of such mystifying writers.
As I have already proved that in order to describe the stay of the Russian (Jewish) Cossacks in Paris with Alexander I Baron von Holstein, Leo Tolstoy had to write his novel after 1896, when the Jews (London) group seized power in Germany and the protege of this of the London (Coburg) group, in Petersburg, captured by the Cossacks, Nikolai Holstein (Kolya Pitersky) first appeared.
Yes, Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya rewrote the novel "War and Peace" eight (!) Times. Of the eight versions of the novel "War and Peace", the author of which is believed to be Leo Tolstoy, there was not a single page written by Tolstoy himself. All eight versions were written by Sofya Andreevna's hand.
Further, in the novel, the dates are given in three different Chronologies. According to the Army (Kondruskaya), in which the war was in 512 A.D. According to the Elston (Cossack) war in which the war was in 812 and the Jewish (Coburg) Chronology, when the 512 war moved to 1812. Although Tolstoy says that he is writing about the war of 1864-1869. That is, the war of 512.
And the Cossacks captured Paris from Kondrusov only during the next Kondrusko-Cossack war of 1870-1871.
That is, we see reprints of books where the dates of publication are indicated retroactively. Books were published after 1896, and dates were set as if they were published in 1808, in 1848, in 1868, and so on.
You should not blindly trust our fellow Slavs, Jewish Christians, Soviet old red (Prussian) guards, Hohenzollerns, Holstein, Bronstein and Blank, lads, when they compose new and newest stories for us about Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad (Holstein) they captured. After all, our Red Army men are extremely criminally interested in the fact that no one in captured Russia would learn the truth about what happened throughout the captured Russia up to 1922 inclusive?
We do not know the truth even about what happened with Stalin alive. And you are talking about the 19th century, which after the Bolsheviks turned out to be completely closed, like a state secret.
During his last visit to China in September this year, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev puzzled a student at the Dalian Institute of Foreign Languages, immersed in Leo Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace. “It's very interesting, but voluminous. There are four volumes, ”the Russian leader warned her.
Without a doubt, the almost 1900 pages of War and Peace are somewhat straining in their volume, like a guard at the entrance to a disco.
If in Russia this work is compulsory for studying in secondary school, then in Spain it is read at best until the middle. Perhaps this is one of the best novels of all time. "When you read Tolstoy, you read because you cannot leave the book," said Vladimir Nabokov, convinced that the volume of the work should not at all conflict with its attractiveness
In connection with the centenary of the death of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, celebrated this year in Spain, his immortal novel (publishing house "El Aleph", translation by Lydia Cooper), which many rightly consider the Bible of literature, has been republished. It is a veritable encyclopedia of nineteenth-century Russian life, exploring the innermost depths of the human soul.
“War and Peace” captures us because it explores the age-old philosophical problems that worry people: what love means and what evil is. These questions arise before Bezukhov when he thinks about why evil people unite so quickly, but good people do not, ”said in an interview with the newspaper El Mundo a specialist in the art of Tolstoy, professor of literature at Moscow State University. Lomonosova Irina Petrovitskaya.
Ten years ago, Petrovitskaya was in Barcelona, \u200b\u200bwhere she suffered an allergy attack, as a result of which she experienced a state of clinical death and ended up in one of the hospitals in Tarragona. “When I was there, I was struck by the Spanish doctors. When they learned that I was a teacher at Moscow University, they, fighting for my life, said: “Tolstoy,“ War and Peace ”, Dostoevsky ... It was very touching,” she recalls.
While in a hospital bed, she experienced the same experience that Prince Andrei Bolkonsky experienced when he lay wounded on the battlefield after the battle of Austerlitz, gaze at the sky and Napoleon approaching him. Then he suddenly realized the secret of the height, the infinite height of the firmament and the short stature of the French emperor ("Bonaparte seemed to him a small and insignificant creature compared to what was happening in his soul and the high and endless sky through which the clouds floated").
"War and Peace" is an electroshock for the soul. The pages of this novel are replete with hundreds of advices (“Rejoice in these moments of happiness, try to be loved, love others! There is no greater truth in the world than this”), reflections, reflections (“I know only two real evils in life: torment and illness ”, Says Andrey), as well as live dialogues about death.
War and Peace is not only an excellent textbook on the history of the Napoleonic wars (in 1867, Tolstoy personally visited the Borodino field to get acquainted with the place where the battle took place), but, perhaps, the book of the most useful advice ever written, which always ready to come to your aid.
"Who am I? Why do I live? Why was he born? These questions about the meaning of life were asked by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, explains Irina Petrovitskaya, returning to Tolstoy's thought (reflected in War and Peace) about a person's sense of responsibility for the fate of the world. This is one of the characteristic features of the Russian soul, to which many classical works are dedicated, in particular Anna Karenina, another of Tolstoy's masterpieces.
"They do not strive only for personal well-being in this world, but want to understand what they can do for all of humanity, for the world," Petrovitskaya stresses.
His characters
Endowing his heroes with eternal life, Tolstoy completes his miracle like the creator, "Creator God" of literature. Since the heroes of his works leave the pages and merge into our lives with each new reading of the novel. Life energy gushes out of them when they love, think, fight in duels, hunt hares or dance at secular balls; they radiate life when they fight to death with the French on the Borodino field, when they gaze in amazement at the vision of Tsar Alexander I (“My God! How happy I would be if he ordered me to throw myself into the fire right now,” thinks Nikolai Rostov), \u200b\u200bor when they think about love or glory (“I will never confess this to anyone, but, my God, what can I do if I do not want anything but the glory and love of people?”, Prince Andrey asks himself).
“In War and Peace, Tolstoy tells us that there are two levels of existence, two levels of understanding life: war and peace, understood not only as the absence of war, but also as mutual understanding between people. Either we are opposed to ourselves, people and the world, or we are in reconciliation with it. And in this case, the person feels happy. It seems to me that this should attract any reader of any country, ”says Irina Petrovitskaya, adding that she envies those who have not yet enjoyed this work, so Russian in spirit.
The heroes of War and Peace, who are constantly in search of themselves, always see life in their eyes (Tolstoy's favorite trick). Even when their eyelids are closed, as, for example, in the case of Field Marshal Kutuzov, who appears before us as the most ordinary person, falling asleep during the presentation of the plans for the battle of Austerlitz. However, in Tolstoy's epic novel, not everything boils down to questions of being and tragedy.
Humor
Humor hovers over the pages of War and Peace, like smoke over a battlefield. It is impossible to refrain from smiling when we see the father of Prince Andrei, who has fallen into senile dementia and every evening changes the position of his bed, or when we read the following paragraph: “They said that [the French] took all government institutions with them from Moscow, and [.. .] if only for this, Moscow should be grateful to Napoleon. "
“In the 21st century, this book should be regarded as a cult book, as a touching bestseller, because first of all it is a book about love, about love between such a memorable heroine as Natasha Rostova and Andrei Bolkonsky, and then Pierre Bezukhov. This woman who loves her husband, her family. These are concepts that no one can live without. The novel is filled with tenderness, love, everything earthly, love for people, for each of us, "the writer Nina Nikitina, head of the Yasnaya Polyana House-Museum, where Leo Tolstoy was born, lived, worked and was buried, with enthusiasm, explains. year in the house of the head of the Astapovo railway station.
According to Nikitina, all four volumes of War and Peace radiate optimism, because “this novel was written in the happy years of Tolstoy's life, when he felt like a writer with all the forces of his soul, as he himself argued, thanks to the help of his family, above all his wife Sophia, who constantly rewrote the drafts of his works ”.
World work
Why is War and Peace considered such a worldwide work? How did it become possible for a handful of Russian counts, princes and princesses of the 19th century to still dominate the souls and hearts of the 21st century readership? “My 22-23 year old students are most interested in the issues of love and family. Yes, in our time it is possible to create a family, and this is one of the thoughts inherent in the work of Tolstoy, ”sums up Petrovitskaya.
“Never marry, never, my friend; I advise you. Do not marry until you can tell yourself that you have done everything to stop loving the woman you have chosen [...] ”, says Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, the prototype of the Russian hero, Pierre Bezukhov, a diametrically opposite character, awkward and melancholic ( his glasses all the time move out, on the battlefield he constantly stumbles upon the dead). He was played by Henry Fonda in the cinematic adaptation of the 1956 novel. The conversation between them takes place in one of the Moscow secular salons shortly before the Napoleonic invasion of Russia in 1812, but if you strain your ears, you can still hear it today on the bus on the way to work.
What does the title of the novel "War and Peace" mean?
The novel "War and Peace" was initially conceived by Tolstoy as a story about the Decembrists. The author wanted to tell about these wonderful people and their families.
But not just tell about what happened in December 1825 in Russia, but show how the participants in these events came to them, which prompted the Decembrists to revolt against the tsar. Tolstoy's study of these historical events resulted in the novel War and Peace, which tells about the birth of the Decembrist movement against the backdrop of the war of 1812.
What is the meaning of Tolstoy's War and Peace? Is it only to convey to the reader the sentiments and aspirations of people for whom the fate of Russia after the war against Napoleon was important? Or is it to show once again that "a war ... an event contrary to human reason and all human nature"? Or maybe Tolstoy wanted to emphasize that our life consists of contrasts between war and peace, meanness and honor, evil and good.
Why the author named his work that way, what is the meaning of the title "War and Peace", now one can only guess. But, reading and rereading the work, you are once again convinced that the whole story in it is built on the struggle of opposites.
The contrasts of the novel
In the work, the reader is constantly faced with the opposition of various concepts, characters, destinies.
What is war? And is it always accompanied by the death of hundreds and thousands of people? After all, there are bloodless, quiet wars, invisible to many, but no less significant for one particular person. Sometimes it even happens that this person does not even realize that military operations are being conducted around him.
For example, while Pierre was trying to figure out how to behave correctly with his dying father, in the same house there was a war between Prince Vasily and Drubetskaya Anna Mikhailovna. Anna Mikhailovna "fought" on the side of Pierre only because it was beneficial to herself, but nevertheless it was largely thanks to her that Pierre became Count Peter Kirillovich Bezukhov.
In this "battle" for the portfolio with the will, it was decided whether Pierre would be unknown, useless to anyone, thrown overboard as a bastard, or would become a rich heir, a count and an enviable groom. In fact, it was here that it was decided whether Pierre Bezukhov could eventually become what he became at the end of the novel? Perhaps, if he had to interrupt from bread to water, then his life priorities would be completely different.
Reading these lines, you clearly feel how contemptuously Tolstoy treats the “military actions” of Prince Vasily and Anna Mikhailovna. And at the same time, there is a good-natured irony in relation to Pierre who is absolutely unadapted to life. What is this if not the contrast between the "war" of meanness and the "peace" of good-natured naivety?
What is "peace" in Tolstoy's novel? The world is the romantic universe of young Natasha Rostova, Pierre's good nature, the religiosity and kindness of Princess Marya. Even the old prince Bolkonsky, with his semi-military arrangement of life and nagging at his son and daughter, is on the side of the author's "world".
Indeed, in his "world" decency, honesty, dignity, naturalness reign - all those qualities that Tolstoy endows his favorite heroes with. These are the Bolkonskys and Rostovs, and Pierre Bezukhov, and Marya Dmitrievna, and even Kutuzov and Bagration. Despite the fact that readers meet with Kutuzov only on the battlefields, he is definitely a representative of the "world" of kindness and mercy, wisdom and honor.
What do soldiers defend in war when fighting against invaders? Why do absolutely illogical situations sometimes occur when “one battalion is sometimes stronger than a division,” as Prince Andrei said? Because in defending their country, soldiers are defending more than just “space”. And Kutuzov, and Bolkonsky, and Dolokhov, and Denisov, and all the soldiers, militias, partisans, they all fight for the world in which their relatives and friends live, where their children grow up, where their wives and parents remain, for their country. This is precisely what causes that “warmth of patriotism, which was in all ... people ... and which explained ... why all these people calmly and as if frivolously prepared for death”.
The contrast, emphasized by the meaning of the title of the novel, War and Peace, manifests itself in everything. Wars: the war of 1805, alien and unnecessary to the Russian people, and the Patriotic People's War of 1812.
The confrontation between honest and decent people - the Rostovs, Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov - and the "drones", as Tolstoy called them - the Drubetskoy, Kuragin, Berg, Zherkov, is sharply manifested.
Even within each circle there are contrasts: the Rostovs are opposed to the Bolkonskys. The noble, friendly, albeit ruined family of the Rostovs - to the rich, but at the same time lonely and homeless, Pierre.
A very vivid contrast between Kutuzov, calm, wise, natural in his weariness from life, an old warrior and a narcissistic, decorative and pompous Napoleon.
It is the contrasts on the basis of which the plot of the novel is built that capture and guide the reader throughout the entire narrative.
Conclusion
In my essay “The Meaning of the Title of the Novel“ War and Peace ”I wanted to speculate about these contrasting concepts. About Tolstoy's amazing understanding of human psychology, the ability to logically build the history of the development of many individuals during such a long story. Lev Nikolaevich tells the history of the Russian state not just as a historian-scientist, the reader seems to live life together with the characters. And gradually he finds answers to eternal questions about love and truth.
Product test
