War and Peace

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War and Peace  
Cover to the English first edition
Author Leo Tolstoy
Original title Война и мир (Voyna i mir)
Language Russian, with considerable French
Genre(s) Historical, Romance, War novel, Philosophical
Publisher Russkii Vestnik (series)
Publication date 1869
Media type print (hardback & paperback) & audio book
Pages 1,225 (first Published edition) ; 1,475 (2006 paperback issue)
ISBN NA

War and Peace (Russian: Война и мир, Voyna i mir) is a novel by Leo Tolstoy, published in 1869, after portions of a previous version were serialized from 1865-1867 in Russkiy Vestnik (Russian: Русский Вестник, Russian Messenger[1]). It chronicles the epic story of the War of 1812, of the events leading up to it and the reactions of five major aristocratic families within Russian society during the Napoleonic Era. War and Peace, along with Anna Karenina, is usually described as one of Tolstoy's two major masterpieces, as well as one of the world's greatest novels.

War and Peace stretched the boundaries of Russian fiction and world literature[2]. It has a huge cast of characters and many far-reaching themes, including the philosophy of history, the place of the individual in history; youth vs. age and death; love and marriage; and the pros and cons of acting in conventional ways. It broke so many previous conventions of the novel that Tolstoy, who called it an historical novel when working on it, said later that "it was not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less an historical chronicle." [2] "It is all that, and more"[3], says writer-critic Francine Prose. Tolstoy himself eventually came to consider his later Anna Karenina (1878) his first attempt at a novel in the European sense[4], considering War and Peace an epic in prose.

Contents

[edit] Crafting the novel

Tolstoy got the title, and some of his themes, from an 1861 work of Proudhon: La Guerre et la Paix. Tolstoy had served in the Crimean War and written a series of short stories and novellas featuring scenes of war, some of which were unfinished and eventually became part of War and Peace. He began writing War and Peace in the year that he finally married and settled down at his country estate. During the writing of the second half of the book, after the first half had already been published under the name "1805", he read widely, acknowledging Schopenhauer as one of his main inspirations, although he develops his own views of history and the role of the individual within it. [5]

The novel can be generally classified as historical fiction. It contains elements of many types of popular 18th and 19th Century literature, especially the romance novel. War and Peace attains its literary status by transcending genres. Tolstoy was instrumental in bringing a new kind of consciousness to the novel. His narrative structure is noted for its "god-like" ability to hover over and within events, but also to swiftly and seamlessly take a particular character's point of view.[citation needed] His use of visual detail is often cinematic in its scope, using the literary equivalents of panning, wide shots and close-ups, to give dramatic interest to battles and ballrooms alike. There are mental flashbacks, as when Napoleon reconstructs some of his previous victories. There are other temporal devices, such as a future Napoleon writing about the events that are unfolding. These devices, while not exclusive to Tolstoy, are part of the new novel that is arising in the mid-19th century and of which Tolstoy proves himself a master.[citation needed]

Tolstoy incorporated extensive historical research, and he was influenced by many other novels as well.[6] He was quite critical of standard history, especially the standard military history, in War and Peace. It is clear Tolstoy has read all the standard histories available in Russian and French about the Napoleonic Wars. He knew that he was combining more traditional historical writing with the novel form, and explains (in the middle section of War and Peace) how he thinks history should be written. In Tolstoy's view, War and Peace might also be considered a work of real history. In any case, Tolstoy's plan was to blur the line between fiction and history, in order to get closer to the truth, as he states in Volume II. In War and Peace, Tolstoy imagined Napoleon's knowledge of the geography available to him from maps of the time.

Tolstoy is writing about a time that is 60 years earlier than his own life, "in the days of our grandfathers," as he puts it. He had interacted with persons who had lived through the war of 1812, so the book is also, in part, accurate ethnography fictionalized. He read letters, journals, autobiographical and biographical materials pertaining to Napoleon and the dozens of other historical characters in the novel. There are approximately 160 real persons named or referred to in War and Peace.[7].

The first draft of War and Peace was completed in 1863. In 1865, Russkiy Vestnik published the first part of this early version under the title 1805 and the following year published more of the early version. Tolstoy was increasingly dissatisfied with this version, although he allowed several parts of it to be published (with a different ending) in 1867 still under the title "1805" He heavily rewrote the entire novel between 1866 and 1869.[8] Sofie Tolstoi wrote as many as 8 or 9 separate complete drafts before Tolstoy considered it again ready for publication.[9] The version that was published in Russkiy Vestnik had a very different ending than the version eventually published under the title War and Peace in 1869.

The completed novel was then called Voyna i mir (new style orthography; in English War and Peace). War and Peace is one of the longest novels ever written; it is subdivided into four books or volumes, each with subparts containing many chapters. Tolstoy gave the chapters brief descriptions, which do not appear in many of the earliest English translations.

Tolstoy did not destroy the 1805 manuscript (sometimes referred to as "the original War and Peace"), which was re-edited and annotated in Russia in 1983 and since has been translated separately from the "known" version, to English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish and Korean. The fact that so many extant versions of War and Peace survive make it one of the best revelations into the mental processes of a great novelist.

[edit] Reception of the novel

The novel was translated almost immediately after publication into many other languages. Russians, who had read the serialized version, were anxious to acquire the complete first edition, which included epilogues, and it sold out almost immediately.

Isaac Babel said, after reading War and Peace, "If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy."[10] Tolstoy "gives us a unique combination of the 'naive objectivity' of the oral narrator with the interest in detail characteristic of realism. This is the reason for our trust in his presentation." [1]

[edit] Language

Although Tolstoy wrote most of the book, including all the narration, in Russian, significant portions of dialogue (including its opening paragraph) are written in French and speakers would often switch between the languages mid-sentence. This reflected reality, as the Russian aristocracy in the nineteenth century all knew French and often spoke it among themselves, many of them were less competent in Russian. Indeed, Tolstoy refers 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.

It has been pointed out[11] that it is a deliberate strategy of Tolstoy to use French to portray artifice and insincerity, the language of the theater and deceit while Russian emerges as one of sincerity, honesty and seriousness. So as the book progresses the use of French diminishes. When Pierre proposes to Helene he uses French - Je vous aime- so that when the marriage emerges as a sham he blames those words. The progressive elimination of French from the text is a means of demonstrating that Russia has freed itself from foreign cultural domination. It is also, at the level of plot development, a way of showing that a once-admired and friendly nation, France, has turned into an enemy. By midway through the book, some upper class citizens of Petersburg whose witticisms and puns have so spun on their knowledge of French, are in a hurry to find and hire tutors in Russian.

[edit] Context

The novel begins in the year 1805 and its arc leads up to the War of 1812. The era of Catherine the Great is still fresh in the minds of older people. It was Catherine who ordered the Russian court to change to speaking French, a custom that was stronger in Petersburg than in Moscow. Catherine's son and successor, Paul I, is the father of the current Czar, Alexander I. Alexander I came to the throne in 1801 at the age of 24. His mother, Marya Feodorovna, is the most powerful female at court.

Throughout Europe, nationalism is rising. The lines on the map are very much in flux, and many of the peasants - and even small city-dwellers - have never thought much about patriotism, nationalism, or what it means to be in a war. Cannons haven't been heard frequently. Beethoven and Tchaikovsky are both composing music that will later be termed "nationalistic," with Tchaikovsky composing the "1812 Overture" to commemorate one of the main events of this novel, the battle of Borodino. It is an era that shapes the entire modern age to come.

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

The novel tells the story of five aristocratic families — the Bezukhovs, the Bolkonskys, the Rostovs, the Kuragins and the Drubetskoys—and the entanglements of their personal lives with the history of 1805–1813, principally Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. The Bezukhovs, while very rich, are a fragmented family due to the fact that the old Count, Kirill Vladimirovich, has apparently never married, but fathered dozens of illegitimate contenders to his title. The Bolkonskys are well off as well, and aristocratic in every way. Old Prince Bolksonky, Nikolai Andreevich, served as a general under Catherine the Great, in earlier wars. The Rostovs have many estates, but never enough cash. They are a close knit, loving family. The Kuragin family isn't portrayed with the richness of detail that Tolstoy provides for the Rostovs (the mother is never introduced), and its three children are all of questionable character. One of them has even come to the attention of the Dowager Empress due to his breaches of manners and, perhaps, the law. Only two members of the Drubetskoy clan can be considered principle characters, and they are, by contrast to the rest, minor.

All law and honor resides in the person of the Czar. Some translations use the term "Czar" for Alexander I, others use Emperor. Since many upper class persons are speaking French, Tolstoy is using both terms for the Czar, and it is a matter that some translators resolve in favor of consistency, rather than preserving Tolstoy's original use of both titles. The Czar may promote or demote nobility as he sees fit, in theory, and is expected to be an example of all things good and moral.

In addition to these various upper class personages (some with very little wealth), there are a host of other social classes in Russia in 1805. An array of house servants make their appearance, from footmen to maids to cooks, pantry persons and butlers (and many others). There are shop keepers, inn keepers, people who specialize in carts and people who specialize in speedy 'troikas.' There are many different kinds of soldiers, organized in ways that may baffle a new reader, each with its own uniform.[12] There are several different units of hussars (light cavalrymen) for example, and Uhlans are a specialized lance carriers (the 18th century units were Polish, but by 1812, there were Uhlans of varying nationalities). The most prestigious form of military service is in one of the Czar's personal Guards. The state of medicine, while regarded as science, is still quite primitive, with bloodletting still a commonplace procedure. It appears there is no anesthesia available.

Tolstoy spent years researching and rewriting the book. He worked from primary source materials (interviews and other documents), as well as from history books, philosophy texts and other historical novels.[13] He also used a great deal of his own experience in the Crimean War to bring vivid detail and first hand accounts of how the Russian army was structured.[14]

The standard Russian version of 'War and Peace' is divided into four books (fifteen parts) and two epilogues – one mainly narrative, the other 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 essays about the nature of war, power, history, and historiography. Tolstoy interspersed these essays into the story in a way that defies previous fictional convention. Certain abridged versions remove these essays entirely, while others, published even during Tolstoy's life, simply moved these essays into an appendix.

[edit] Plot summary

War and Peace has a huge cast of characters, some historically real, like Napoleon, the majority of whom are introduced in the first book. The scope of the novel is vast, but the focus is primarily on five aristocratic familes and their experiences in life. The interactions of these characters are set in the era leading up to, around and following the French invasion of Russia during the Napoleonic wars[2]

[edit] Book One (Volume One)

The novel begins in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg, at a soirée given in July 1805 by Anna Pavlovna Scherer — the maid of honour and confidante to the queen mother Maria Feodorovna. Many of the main players and aristocratic families of the novel are introduced as they enter Anna Pavlovna's salon. Pierre Bezukhov is the illegitimate son of a wealthy count who is dying after a series of strokes. He is about to become embroiled in a tussle for his inheritance. Educated abroad in France after his mother's death and at his father's expense, Pierre is essentially kindhearted, but socially awkward owing in part to his goodhearted, open nature, and finds it difficult to integrate into the Petersburg society. He is his father's favorite of all the illegitimate children the old count produced, and this is known to everyone at Anna Pavlovna's.

Pierre's friend, the intelligent and sardonic Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, husband of the charming Lisa (the little princess), also attends the soireé. Finding Petersburg society unctuous and finding married life rather boring as well, Prince Andrei makes the fateful choice to be an aide-de-camp (called "adjutant" in many translations) to Prince Mikhail Kutuzov in the coming war against Napoleon.

Tolstoy then takes us to Moscow, Russia's ancient city and former capital, contrasting its provincial, more Russian ways, to the highly mannered society of Petersburg. The Rostov family will be one of the main narrative players of the novel. The Moscow Count Ilya Rostov family has four adolescent children. Young Natasha is supposedly in love with Boris Drubetskoy, a disciplined but boyish officer who is a relative. Nikolai pledges his teenage love to Sonya, his younger cousin. The eldest child of the Rostov family, Vera, is cold and somewhat haughty but has a good prospective marriage in a German officer, Berg. Petya is the youngest of the Rostov family; like his brother he is impetuous and eager to join the army when of age. The heads of the family, Count Ilya Rostov and Countess Natalya Rostova, are an affectionate couple but forever worried about their disordered finances.

At Bald Hills, the Bolkonskys' country estate, Prince Andrei leaves his pregnant wife with his eccentric father Prince Nikolai Andreivitch Bolkonsky and his devoutly religious sister Maria Bolkonskaya. He leaves for war.

The second part opens with descriptions of the impending Russian-French war preparations. At the Schöngrabern engagement, Nikolai Rostov, who is now conscripted as ensign in a squadron of hussars, has his first baptism of fire in battle. He meets Prince Andrei whom he does not really like. Like all young soldiers he is attracted by Tsar Alexander's almost inexplicable charisma. However, Nikolai gambles recklessly and socializes with the lisping Denisov and the ruthless Dolokhov.

[edit] Book Two (Volume Two)

Book Two begins with Nikolai Rostov briefly returning home to Moscow on home leave in early 1806. Nikolai finds the Rostov family facing financial ruin due to poor estate management. He spends an eventful winter at home, accompanied by his friend Denisov, met during the war. Natasha has blossomed into a beautiful young girl. Denisov proposes to her but is rejected. Although his mother pleads with Nikolai to find himself a good financial prospect in marriage, Nikolai refuses to accede to his mother's request. He promises to marry his childhood sweetheart, the orphaned, penniless cousin Sonya.

If there is a central character to War and Peace it is Pierre Bezukhov who, upon finally receiving his massive inheritance, is suddenly burdened with the responsibilities and conflicts of a Russian nobleman. He then enters into marriage with Prince Kuragin's beautiful and immoral daughter Hélène (Elena), against his own better judgment. He is continually helpless in the face of his wife's numerous affairs, has a duel with one of her lovers, and is anguish over whether it is his own character flaws that might be causing his marital woes. He later joins the Freemasons, and becomes embroiled in some of the Freemasonry's politicking. Much of Book Two concerns his struggles with his passions and his spiritual conflicts to be a better man. Now a rich aristocrat, 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? The question constantly baffles and confuses Pierre. He attempts to free his peasants, but ultimately achieves nothing of note.

Pierre is vividly contrasted with the intelligent and ambitious Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. At the Battle of Austerlitz, Andrei is inspired by a vision of glory to lead a charge of a straggling army. He suffers a near fatal artillery wound which renders him unconscious. In the face of death, Andrei realizes all his former ambitions are pointless and his former hero, Napoleon (who rescues him in a horseback excursion to the battlefield), is apparently as vain as himself.

Prince Andrei recovers from his injuries in a military hospital, and returns home, only to find his wife Lise dying during childbirth. He is struck by his guilty conscience for not treating Lise better when she was alive.

Burdened with nihilistic disillusionment, Prince Andrei lives anonymously in his estate, working on a project that would codify military behavior and help solve some of the problems of Russian disorganization that he believes were responsible for the loss of life in battle on the Russian side. Pierre comes to visit him, and brings new questions: where is God in this amoral world? Pierre is interested in panentheism and the possibility of an afterlife.

Prince Andrei feels compelled to take his newly written military notions to Petersburg, naively expecting to be able to influence either the Emperor himself or those close to him. Young Natasha, also in Petersburg, is caught up in the excitement of dressing for her first Grand Ball, where she meets Prince Andrei. Natasha briefly reinvigorates Andrei with her lively vitality. Andrei believes he has found purpose in life again. However, the couple's immediate plan to marry has to be postponed with a year-long engagement, because the Old Prince Bolkonsky threatens to die if any other plan is followed and will in any case oppose the marriage.

When Prince Andrei leaves for his military engagements, Helena and her handsome brother Anatole conspire for Anatole to seduce and dishonor the young, still immature and now beautiful Natasha Rostova. They bait her with plans of an elopement. Thanks to her loyal friends Sonya and Pierre, this plan fails. For Pierre, it is the cause of an important change in relations with Natasha. He realizes he has now fallen in love with her. During the time when the Great Comet of 1811–2 streaks the sky, life appears to begin anew for Pierre.

[edit] Book Three (Volume Three)

Natasha breaks off her engagement with Andrei. Shamed by her near-seduction, she makes a suicide attempt and is left seriously ill. With the help of her family, especially Sonya, and the stirrings of religious faith, she manages to persevere in Moscow through this dark period.

Meanwhile, the whole of Russia is affected by the coming showdown between Napoleon's troops and the Russian army. Pierre convinces himself Napoleon is the Antichrist in the Book of Revelation through numerology. The old prince Bolkonsky dies from a stroke while trying to protect his main estate from French marauders. No organized help from any Russian army seems available to the Bolkonskys, but Nikolai Rostov does manage to show up at their place in time to help put down an incipient revolt of the muzhiks. It occurs to him that Princess Marya is not completely unattractive. Still, he has made a promise to Sonya.

Back in Moscow, war-obsessed Petya manages to snatch a loose piece of the Tsar's biscuit outside the Cathedral of the Assumption; he finally convinces his parents to allow him to enlist.

Napoleon himself is a main character of this section and is presented in vivid detail, both as thinker and would-be strategist. We get to see his toilette, experience his customary attitudes and traits of mind, and watch as Napoleon's well-organized force of over 400,000 (with only 140,000 of them being actually French-speaking) marches quickly through late summer and the Russian countryside outside Smolensk. Pierre decides to leave Moscow and go watch the Battle of Borodino from a vantage point next to a Russian artillery crew. After watching for a time, he begins to join in carrying ammunition. From within the turmoil he experiences first-hand the death and destruction of war. The battle becomes a horrible slaughter for both armies and ends up a standoff. The Russians, however, have won a moral victory by standing up to Napoleon's seemingly invincible army. Having suffered huge losses and for strategic reasons, the Russian army withdraws the next day, allowing Napoleon to march on to Moscow. Two casualties include Anatole and Prince Andrei. Anatole loses a leg in a memorable scene of amputation in a military hospital and Prince Andrei takes a random cannon ball to the gut. Both are reported dead, but their families are in such disarray that no one can be notified.

[edit] Book Four (Volume Four)

The Rostovs have waited until the last minute to abandon Moscow, even after it is clear that Kutusov has retreated past Moscow and Muscovites are being given contradictory, often propagandistic, instructions on how to either flee or fight. Count Rastopchin is publishing posters, riling up the citizens and urging them to put their faith in Holy Iberian icons, or at least, their own icons, while at the same time urging them to fight with pitch forks if necessary. Before fleeing himself, he gives orders to burn the town. The Rostovs have a difficult time deciding what to take with them, and in the end, Natasha and her father overrule mother's desire to take some of the good china - they end up loading their carts with the wounded and dying from the Battle of Borodino. Unbeknownst to Natasha, Prince Andrei is amongst the wounded and not dead at all, yet.

When Napoleon's Grand Army finally occupies an abandoned and burning Moscow, Pierre takes off on a quixotic mission to assassinate Napoleon. He becomes an anonymous man in all the chaos, shedding his responsibilities by wearing peasant clothes and shunning his duties and lifestyle. The only people he sees while in this garb are Natasha and some of her family, as they depart Moscow. Natasha recognizes and smiles at him, and he in turn realizes the full scope of his love for her.

His plan fails, and he is captured in Napoleon's headquarters as a prisoner of war after saving a child from a burning building and assaulting a French legionnaire for attacking a woman. He becomes friends with his cell-mate Platòn Karataev, a peasant with a saintly demeanor, who is incapable of malice. In Karataev, Pierre finally finds what he is looking for, an honest, "rounded" person who is totally without pretense. Karataev is unlike those from the Petersburg aristocratic society, and also notably a member of the working class, with whom Pierre finds meaning in life simply by living and interacting with him. After witnessing French soldiers sacking Moscow and shooting Russian civilians arbitrarily, Pierre is forced to march with the Grand Army during its disastrous retreat from Moscow owing to the harsh winter. After months of trial and tribulation — during which Karataev is capriciously shot by the French — Pierre is later freed by a Russian raiding party, after a small skirmish with the French that sees the young Petya Rostov killed in action.

Meanwhile, Andrei, wounded during Napoleon's invasion, has been taken in as a casualty cared for by the fleeing Rostovs. He is reunited with Natasha and sister Marya before the end of the war. Having lost all will to live, he forgives Natasha in a last act before finally dying. He had been thought dead twice before in the novel, but now it has come to pass.

As the novel draws to a close, Pierre's wife Helena dies after receiving medical treatment (it is implied that she tried to have an abortion); and Pierre is reunited with Natasha, while the victorious Russians rebuild Moscow. Natasha speaks of Prince Andrei's death and Pierre of Karataev's. Both are aware of a growing bond with each other in their bereavement. Matchmade by Princess Marya, Pierre finds love at last and, revealing his love after being released from his former wife's death, marries Natasha.

[edit] Epilogues

The first epilogue begins with the wedding of Pierre and Natasha, in 1813. It is the last happy event for the Rostov family which is going through a transition. Count Ilya Rostov dies soon after, leaving the eldest son Nikolai to take charge of the debt-ridden estate.

Nikolai finds himself with the task of maintaining the family on the verge of bankruptcy. His pride almost gets in the way of him, but Nikolai finally accedes to his mother's wish. He marries the now-rich Marya Bolkonskaya in winter 1813 - both out of feeling and the necessity to save his family from ruin.

Nikolai Rostov and Marya then move to Bald Hills with his mother and Sonya, whom he supports for the rest of their life. Buoyed on by his wife's funds, Nikolai pays off all his family's debts. They also raise Prince Andrei's orphaned son, Nikolai Bolkonsky.

As in all good marriages, there are misunderstandings, but the couples – Pierre and Natasha, Nikolai and Marya – remain devoted to their spouses. Pierre and Natasha visit Bald Hills in 1820, much to the jubilation of everyone concerned. There is a hint in the closing chapters that the idealistic, boyish Nikolai Bolkonsky (15-year-old in 1820) and Pierre would both become part of the Decembrist Uprising. The first epilogue concludes with Nikolai Bolkonsky promising he would do something which even his late father "would be satisfied..." (presumably as a revolutionary in the Decembrist revolt).

The second epilogue contains Tolstoy's critique of all existing forms of mainstream history. He attempts to show that there is a great force behind history, which he first terms divine. He offers the entire book as evidence of this force, and critiques his own work. God, therefore, becomes the word Tolstoy uses to refer to all the forces that produce history, taken together, and operating behind the scenes.

[edit] Principal characters in War and Peace

Main article: List of characters in War and Peace
War and Peace character tree
  • Count Pyotr Kirillovich (Pierre) Bezukhov — He is, most think, the most major character. He is one of several illegitimate children of Count Bezukhov; he is his father's favorite offspring. Tolstoy describes him as fat.
  • Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky — a strong but cynical, thoughtful and philosophical soldier in the Napoleonic Wars.
  • Princess Marya Nikolaevna Bolkonskaya — A pious woman whose eccentric father attempted to give her a good education. The caring, nurturing nature of her large eyes in her otherwise thin and severe face are frequently mentioned.
  • Count Ilya Andreevich Rostov, the pater-familias of the Rostov family; terrible with finances, generous to a fault.
  • Countess Natalya (no patronymic), wife of Count Ilya Rostov, mother of the four Rostov children.
  • Countess Natasha Ilinichna Rostova — introduced as a beautiful and romantic young girl, she evolves through trials and suffering and eventually finds happiness. She is an accomplished singer and dancer.[citation needed]
  • Count Nikolai Ilyich Rostov — a hussar, he is the beloved eldest son of the Rostov family.
  • Sonya Alexandrovna (no family name) — Orphaned cousin of Vera, Nikolai, Natasha and Petya Rostov. Also called Sofya and Sophie.
  • Countess Vera Ilynichna Rostova, eldest of the Rostov children, she marries the German career soldier, Berg.
  • Petya Rostov — youngest son of Count Ilya Adreyitch Rostov and Natalya Rostova.
  • Prince Vasily Sergeevich Kuragin, - one of the first characters, a man who is determined to marry his children well, despite having doubts about the character of some of them.
  • Princess Helene Vassilievna Kuragina — One of the most beautiful and well-dressed women of Petersburg, her star qualities do not bring her marital happiness.
  • Prince Anatole Vassilievich Kuragin — Another of Prince Vassily's Greco-named children, he is Helene's brother and a very handsome, wild-living soldier who is secretly married yet tries to elope with Natasha Rostova.
  • Prince Hippolite Vassilievich - the eldest and perhaps most dim-witted of the Kuragin children.
  • Prince Boris (no patronymic) Drubetskoy - an early suitor of the lovely Natasha, he is a career soldier of the Guard.
  • Princess Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoya - the mother of Boris.
  • Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov — an arrogant, once-disgraced officer in the Semyenov Regiment who later regains his rank, he is initially friends with Denisov and Nikolai Rostov.
  • Alphonse Karlovich Berg - a young Russian officer (sometimes called Adolph).
  • Anna Pavlovna Sherer - also known as Annette or Anetta, she is the hostess of the salon that is the site of much of the novel's action in Petersburg.
  • Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimov - an older Moscow society maven, she is an elegant dancer and trend-setter, despite her age and size.
  • Amalia Evgenievna Bourienne - a French woman who lives with the Bolkonskys, primarily as Princess Marya's companion.
  • Vasiliy Denisov — Nikolai Rostov's friend and brother officer, who proposes to Natasha. He is an excellent dancer. He has a lisp.
  • Platon Krataev - the archetypal good Russian peasant, whom Pierre meets in the prisoner of war camp, he's a jack of all trades.



Many of Tolstoy's characters in War and Peace were based on real-life people known to Tolstoy himself. His grandparents and their friends were the models for many of the main characters, his great-grandparents would have been of the generation of Prince Vasilly or Count Ilya Rostov. Some of the characters, obviously, are actual historic figures.

[edit] Adaptations

[edit] Film

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. It was followed in 1968 by the critically acclaimed four-part film version War and Peace, by the Soviet director Sergei Bondarchuk, released individually in 1965-1967, and as a re-edited whole in 1968. This starred Lyudmila Savelyeva (as Natasha Rostova) and Vyacheslav Tikhonov (as Andrei Bolkonsky). Bondarchuk himself played the character of Pierre Bezukhov. The film was almost seven hours long; it involved thousands of actors, 120 000 extras, and it took seven years to finish the shooting, as a result of which the actors age changed dramatically from scene to scene. It won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for its authenticity and massive scale. [3]

The novel has been adapted twice for cinema outside of Russia. The first of these was produced by F. Kamei in Japan (1947). The second was the 208-minute long 1956 War and Peace, directed by the American King Vidor. This starred Audrey Hepburn (Natasha), Henry Fonda (Pierre) and Mel Ferrer (Andrei). Audrey Hepburn was nominated for a BAFTA Award for best British actress and for a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a drama production.

[edit] Opera

[edit] Music

  • Composition by Nino Rota [4]

[edit] Theatre

The 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 stage adaptation by Helen Edmundson, first produced in 1996 at the Royal National Theatre, was published that year by Nick Hern Books, London. Edmundson added to and amended the play[5] for a 2008 production as two 3-hour parts by Shared Experience, directed by Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale.[6] This was first put on at the Nottingham Playhouse, then toured in the UK to Liverpool, Darlington, Bath, Warwick, Oxford, Truro, London (the Hampstead Theatre) and Cheltenham.

[edit] Radio and television

  • 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. [7]
  • La Guerre et la paix (TV) (2000) by François Roussillon. Robert Brubaker played the lead role of Pierre.[9]

[edit] Editions

The Inner 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.

[edit] In Pop Culture

War and Peace is often mentioned in drama or comedy writing as the stereotypical long and difficult book to read, its length being well over 1400 pages and its story extremely complicated.

Woody Allen: "I read War & Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia." [10]

See Woody Allen's Love and Death, fictional Russians during the Napoleonic Era.

War & Peace in MySpace:Music [11]

Natasha, the main female character, is often the name used to signify an attractive Russian woman in many aspects of pop culture in English, such as Natasha Fatale in The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show.

Natasha in paper dolls [12]

Yes's song The Gates of Delirium, about the futility of war, is based on the book.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Knowles, A.V. Leo Tolstoy, Routledge 1997.
  2. ^ a b "Introduction?". War and Peace. Wordsworth Editions. 1993. http://books.google.com/books?id=c4HEAN-ti1MC&pg=PR10&lpg=PR10&dq=%22war+and+peace%22+%2B+%22not+a+novel%22&source=bl&ots=4j-97vXWXK&sig=03iVR9gI2645UqPP5kn8I9P_Hm4&hl=en&ei=w2W-SfmXN5-3twf7mcH3Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result. Retrieved on 2009-03-24. 
  3. ^ Francine Prose (2007-10-14). "Ambition and Heroism". Reading Room Blog. New York Times. http://readingroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/ambition-and-heroism/. Retrieved on 2009-03-24. 
  4. ^ Neil Cornwell (2004-06-21). "Anna Karenina". Literary Encyclopedia. The Literary Dictionary Company Limited. http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6589. Retrieved on 2009-03-24. 
  5. ^ Feuer, Kathryn.
  6. ^ Feuer, Kathryn B. 1996
  7. ^ Pearson and Volokhonsky
  8. ^ cf. Knowles 1997, Feuer 1996
  9. ^ Feuer 1996
  10. ^ "Introduction to War and Peace" by Richard Peaver in Peaver, Richard and Larissa Volokhonsky, War and Peace, 2008, Vintage Classics.
  11. ^ Figes, O, Tolstoy's Real Hero. NYRB 22 Nov 2007,pp 4-7.
  12. ^ http://www.xenophon-mil.org/rusarmy/shenk/shenklist.htm
  13. ^ Feuer, Kathryn B. Tolstoy and the Genesis of War and Peace, Cornell University Press, 1996 (First Edition)
  14. ^ Troyat, Henri. Tolstoy, a biography. Doubleday, 1967.

[edit] External links

Wikisource
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Works by Leo Tolstoy
Biography · Bibliography · Tolstoyan · Tolstoy · Texts
Novels and novellas:

Childhood (1852) · Boyhood (1854) · Youth (1856) · Family Happiness (1859) · The Cossacks (1863) · War and Peace (1869) · Anna Karenina (1877) · The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) · The Kreutzer Sonata (1889) · Resurrection (1899) · The Forged Coupon (1911) · Hadji Murat (1912)

Philosophical works:
Plays:
Short stories:
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