War and Peace central characters. "War and Peace": characters

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy in his epic novel “War and Peace” provided a wide system of images. His world is not limited to a few noble families: real historical characters are mixed with fictional ones, major and minor. This symbiosis is sometimes so confusing and unusual that it is extremely difficult to determine which heroes perform a more or less important function.

The novel features representatives of eight noble families, almost all of them occupy a central place in the narrative.

Rostov family

This family is represented by Count Ilya Andreevich, his wife Natalya, their four children together and their pupil Sonya.

The head of the family, Ilya Andreevich, is a sweet and good-natured person. He has always been wealthy, so he does not know how to save; he is often deceived by friends and relatives for selfish purposes. The Count is not a selfish person, he is ready to help everyone. Over time, his attitude, reinforced by his addiction to card games, became disastrous for his entire family. Because of the father's squandering, the family for a long time is on the verge of poverty. The Count dies at the end of the novel, after the wedding of Natalia and Pierre, a natural death.

Countess Natalya is very similar to her husband. She, like him, is alien to the concept of self-interest and the race for money. She is ready to help people who find themselves in difficult situations; she is filled with feelings of patriotism. The Countess had to endure many sorrows and troubles. This state of affairs is associated not only with unexpected poverty, but also with the death of their children. Of the thirteen born, only four survived, and subsequently the war took another one - the youngest.

Count and Countess Rostov, like most of the characters in the novel, have their own prototypes. They were the writer’s grandfather and grandmother – Ilya Andreevich and Pelageya Nikolaevna.

The Rostovs' eldest child's name is Vera. This unusual girl, unlike all the other family members. She is rude and callous at heart. This attitude applies not only to strangers, but also to close relatives. The rest of the Rostov children subsequently make fun of her and even come up with a nickname for her. The prototype of Vera was Elizaveta Bers, daughter-in-law of L. Tolstoy.

The next oldest child is Nikolai. His image is depicted in the novel with love. Nikolai is a noble man. He approaches any activity responsibly. Tries to be guided by the principles of morality and honor. Nikolai is very similar to his parents - kind, sweet, purposeful. After the disaster he experienced, he was constantly concerned about not being in a similar situation again. Nikolai takes part in military events, he is repeatedly awarded, but still he leaves military service after the war with Napoleon - his family needs him.

Nikolai marries Maria Bolkonskaya, they have three children - Andrei, Natasha, Mitya - and a fourth is expected.

The younger sister of Nikolai and Vera, Natalya, is the same in character and temperament as her parents. She is sincere and trusting, and this almost destroys her - Fyodor Dolokhov fools the girl and persuades her to escape. These plans were not destined to come true, but Natalya's engagement to Andrei Bolkonsky was terminated, and Natalya fell into deep depression. Subsequently, she became the wife of Pierre Bezukhov. The woman stopped watching her figure, people around her began to speak of her as unpleasant woman. The prototypes of Natalya were Tolstoy’s wife, Sofya Andreevna, and her sister, Tatyana Andreevna.

The Rostovs' youngest child was Petya. He was the same as all the Rostovs: noble, honest and kind. All these qualities were enhanced by youthful maximalism. Petya was a sweet eccentric to whom all pranks were forgiven. Fate was extremely unfavorable for Petya - he, like his brother, went to the front and died there very young and young.

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Another child was raised in the Rostov family - Sonya. The girl was related to the Rostovs; after the death of her parents, they took her in and treated her like their own child. Sonya was in love with Nikolai Rostov for a long time; this fact did not allow her to get married on time.

Presumably she remained alone until the end of her days. Its prototype was L. Tolstoy’s aunt, Tatyana Alexandrovna, in whose house the writer was brought up after the death of his parents.

We meet all the Rostovs at the very beginning of the novel - they all actively act throughout the entire narrative. In the “Epilogue” we learn about the further continuation of their family.

Bezukhov family

The Bezukhov family is not represented in such a large number as the Rostov family. The head of the family is Kirill Vladimirovich. The name of his wife is not known. We know that she belonged to the Kuragin family, but it is unclear who exactly she was to them. Count Bezukhov has no children born in marriage - all his children are illegitimate. The eldest of them, Pierre, was officially named by his father as heir to the estate.

After such a statement by the count, the image of Pierre Bezukhov begins to actively appear in the public sphere. Pierre himself does not impose his company on others, but he is a prominent groom - the heir to unimaginable wealth, so they want to see him always and everywhere. Nothing is known about Pierre's mother, but this does not become a reason for indignation and ridicule. Pierre received a decent education abroad and returned home full of utopian ideas, his vision of the world is too idealistic and divorced from reality, so all the time he faces unimaginable disappointments - in social activities, personal life, family harmony. His first wife was Elena Kuragina, a minx and a fidgety woman. This marriage brought a lot of suffering to Pierre. The death of his wife saved him from the unbearable - he did not have the power to leave Elena or change her, but he also could not come to terms with such an attitude towards his person. The second marriage - with Natasha Rostova - became more successful. They had four children - three girls and a boy.

Princes Kuragin

The Kuragin family is persistently associated with greed, debauchery and deceit. The reason for this was the children of Vasily Sergeevich and Alina - Anatol and Elena.

Prince Vasily was not a bad person, he had a number of positive qualities, but his desire for enrichment and gentleness of character towards his son brought all the positive aspects to naught.

Like any father, Prince Vasily wanted to provide a comfortable future for his children; one of the options was an advantageous marriage. This position not only had a negative impact on the reputation of the entire family, but also later played a tragic role in the lives of Elena and Anatole.

Little is known about Princess Alina. At the time of the story, she was a rather ugly woman. Her distinguishing feature was her hostility towards her daughter Elena out of envy.

Vasily Sergeevich and Princess Alina had two sons and a daughter.

Anatole became the cause of all the family’s troubles. He led the life of a spendthrift and a rake - debts and rowdy behavior were a natural pastime for him. This behavior left an extremely negative imprint on the family’s reputation and financial situation.

Anatole was noticed to be amorously attracted to his sister Elena. Possibility of occurrence Serious relationships between brother and sister were suppressed by Prince Vasily, but, apparently, they still took place after Elena’s marriage.

The Kuragins' daughter Elena had incredible beauty, like her brother Anatoly. She skillfully flirted and after marriage had affairs with many men, ignoring her husband Pierre Bezukhov.

Their brother Hippolytus was completely different from them in appearance - he was extremely unpleasant in appearance. In terms of the composition of his mind, he was not much different from his brother and sister. He was too stupid - this was noted not only by those around him, but also by his father. Still, Ippolit was not hopeless - he knew foreign languages ​​well and worked at the embassy.

Princes Bolkonsky

The Bolkonsky family occupies far from the last place in society - they are rich and influential.
The family includes Prince Nikolai Andreevich, a man of the old school and unique morals. He is quite rude in his interactions with his family, but still not devoid of sensuality and tenderness - he is kind to his grandson and daughter, in a peculiar way, but still, he loves his son, but he is not very good at showing the sincerity of his feelings.

Nothing is known about the prince's wife; even her name is not mentioned in the text. The Bolkonskys’ marriage produced two children – son Andrei and daughter Marya.

Andrei Bolkonsky is somewhat similar in character to his father - he is hot-tempered, proud and a little rude. He is distinguished by his attractive appearance and natural charm. At the beginning of the novel, Andrei is successfully married to Lisa Meinen - the couple gives birth to a son, Nikolenka, but his mother dies the night after giving birth.

After some time, Andrei becomes Natalya Rostova’s fiancé, but there was no need to have a wedding - Anatol Kuragin translated all the plans, which earned him personal hostility and exceptional hatred from Andrei.

Prince Andrei takes part in the military events of 1812, is seriously wounded on the battlefield and dies in the hospital.

Maria Bolkonskaya - Andrei's sister - is deprived of such pride and stubbornness as her brother, which allows her, not without difficulty, but still to get along with her father, who is not distinguished by an easy-going character. Kind and meek, she understands that she is not indifferent to her father, so she does not hold a grudge against him for his nagging and rudeness. The girl is raising her nephew. Outwardly, Marya does not look like her brother - she is very ugly, but this does not prevent her from marrying Nikolai Rostov and living happy life.

Lisa Bolkonskaya (Meinen) was the wife of Prince Andrei. She was an attractive woman. Her inner world was not inferior to her appearance - she was sweet and pleasant, she loved to do needlework. Unfortunately, her fate did not work out in the best way - childbirth turned out to be too difficult for her - she dies, giving life to her son Nikolenka.

Nikolenka lost his mother early, but the boy’s troubles did not stop there - at the age of 7 he lost his father. Despite everything, he is characterized by the cheerfulness inherent in all children - he grows up as an intelligent and inquisitive boy. The image of his father becomes key for him - Nikolenka wants to live in such a way that his father can be proud of him.

Mademoiselle Burien also belongs to the Bolkonsky family. Despite the fact that she is just a hangout companion, her importance in the context of the family is quite significant. First of all, it consists of pseudo friendship with Princess Maria. Mademoiselle often acts meanly towards Maria and takes advantage of the girl’s favor towards her person.

Karagin family

Tolstoy does not talk much about the Karagin family - the reader gets acquainted with only two representatives of this family - Marya Lvovna and her daughter Julie.

Marya Lvovna first appears before readers in the first volume of the novel, and her daughter also begins to act in the first volume of the first part of War and Peace. Julie has an extremely unpleasant appearance, she is in love with Nikolai Rostov, but the young man does not pay any attention to her. Her enormous wealth does not help the situation either. Boris Drubetskoy actively draws attention to her material component; the girl understands that the young man is being nice to her only because of money, but does not show it - for her, this is actually the only way not to remain an old maid.

Princes Drubetsky

The Drubetsky family is not particularly active in the public sphere, so Tolstoy avoids a detailed description of the family members and focuses readers’ attention only on the active characters - Anna Mikhailovna and her son Boris.

Princess Drubetskaya belongs to an old family, but now her family is going through difficult times. better times– Poverty became the Drubetskys’ constant companion. This state of affairs gave rise to a sense of prudence and self-interest in the representatives of this family. Anna Mikhailovna tries to benefit as much as possible from her friendship with the Rostovs - she lives with them for a long time.

Her son, Boris, was Nikolai Rostov's friend for some time. As they grow older, their views on life values and the principles began to differ greatly, which led to distance in communication.

Boris begins to show more and more selfishness and the desire to get rich at any cost. He is ready to marry for money and successfully does so, taking advantage of the unenviable position of Julie Karagina

Dolokhov family

Representatives of the Dolokhov family are also not all active in society. Fedor stands out brightly among everyone. He is the son of Marya Ivanovna and best friend Anatoly Kuragin. In his behavior, he also did not go far from his friend: carousing and an idle way of life are a common occurrence for him. Moreover, he is famous for his love affair with Pierre Bezukhov’s wife, Elena. A distinctive feature of Dolokhov from Kuragin is his attachment to his mother and sister.

Historical figures in the novel "War and Peace"

Since Tolstoy’s novel takes place against the backdrop of historical events associated with the war against Napoleon in 1812, it is impossible to do without at least partial mention of real-life characters.

Alexander I

The activities of Emperor Alexander I are most actively described in the novel. This is not surprising, because the main events take place on the territory Russian Empire. First we learn about the positive and liberal aspirations of the emperor, he is an “angel in the flesh.” The peak of its popularity falls during the period of Napoleon's defeat in the war. It was at this time that Alexander’s authority reached incredible heights. The Emperor could easily make changes and improve the lives of his subjects, but he doesn't. As a result, such an attitude and inactivity become the reason for the emergence of the Decembrist movement.

Napoleon I Bonaparte

On the other side of the barricade in the events of 1812 is Napoleon. Since many Russian aristocrats received their education abroad, and French was an everyday language for them, the attitude of the nobles towards this character at the beginning of the novel was positive and bordered on admiration. Then disappointment occurs - their idol from the category of ideals becomes the main villain. Connotations such as egocentrism, lies, and pretense are actively used with the image of Napoleon.

Mikhail Speransky

This character has important not only in Tolstoy’s novel, but also during the real era of Emperor Alexander.

His family could not boast of antiquity and significance - he is the son of a priest, but still he managed to become the secretary of Alexander I. He is not a particularly pleasant person, but everyone notes his importance in the context of events in the country.

In addition, the novel features historical characters of lesser importance than the emperors. These are the great commanders Barclay de Tolly, Mikhail Kutuzov and Pyotr Bagration. Their activities and the revelation of the image take place on the battlefield - Tolstoy tries to describe the military part of the story as realistically and captivating as possible, therefore these characters are described not only as great and unsurpassed, but also in the role of ordinary people who are subject to doubts, mistakes and negative character traits.

Other characters

Among the other characters, the name of Anna Scherer should be highlighted. She is the “owner” of a secular salon - the elite of society meet here. Guests are rarely left to their own devices. Anna Mikhailovna always strives to provide her visitors with interesting interlocutors; she often pimps - this arouses her special interest.

Characteristics of the heroes of the novel “War and Peace”: images of the characters

In his novel, Tolstoy depicted whole line heroes. It is not for nothing that the author presented detailed characteristics characters. "War and Peace" is a novel in which entire noble families represent to the reader a reflection of the people who lived during the war with Napoleon. In "War and Peace" we see the Russian spirit, features historical events, characteristic of the period of the late 18th - early 19th centuries. The greatness of the Russian soul is shown against the background of these events.

If you make a list of characters ("War and Peace"), you will only get about 550-600 heroes. However, they are not all equally important to the narrative. "War and Peace" is a novel whose characters can be divided into three main groups: main characters, secondary characters, and those simply mentioned in the text. Among them there are both fictional and historical figures, as well as heroes who have prototypes among the writer’s circle. This article will introduce the main characters. "War and Peace" is a work in which the Rostov family is described in detail. So let's start with it.

Ilya Andreevich Rostov

This is a count who had four children: Petya, Nikolai, Vera and Natasha. Ilya Andreevich is a very generous and kind-hearted person who loved life. As a result, his excessive generosity led to wastefulness. Rostov is a loving father and husband. He is a good organizer of receptions and balls. But living in grand style, as well as selfless assistance to wounded soldiers and the departure of Russians from Moscow dealt fatal blows to his condition. Ilya Andreevich’s conscience constantly tormented him because of the approaching poverty of his relatives, but he could not help himself. After the death of Petya, his youngest son, the count was broken, but perked up as he prepared the wedding of Pierre Bezukhov and Natasha. Count Rostov dies a few months after these characters get married. “War and Peace” (Tolstoy) is a work in which the prototype of this hero is Ilya Andreevich, Tolstoy’s grandfather.

Natalya Rostova (wife of Ilya Andreevich)

This 45-year-old woman, the wife of Rostov and the mother of four children, had some oriental. Those around her regarded the focus of sedateness and slowness in her as solidity, as well as her high significance for the family. However, the real reason for these manners lies in the weak and exhausted physical condition due to childbirth and the energy devoted to raising children. Natalya loves her family and children very much, so she was almost driven crazy by the news of Petya’s death. Countess Rostova, like Ilya Andreevich, loved luxury and demanded that everyone follow her orders. In her you can find the features of Tolstoy’s grandmother, Pelageya Nikolaevna.

Nikolay Rostov

This hero is the son of Ilya Andreevich. He is a loving son and brother, respects his family, but at the same time faithfully serves in the army, which is a very important and significant feature in his characterization. He often saw even his fellow soldiers as a second family. Although Nikolai was in love for a long time with Sonya, his cousin, he still marries Marya Bolkonskaya at the end of the novel. Nikolai Rostov is a very energetic man, with open and curly hair. His love for the Russian emperor and patriotism never dried up. Having gone through the hardships of the war, Nikolai becomes a brave and courageous hussar. He retires after the death of Ilya Andreevich in order to improve financial situation of the family, pay off debts and finally become a good husband for his wife. Tolstoy sees this hero as a prototype of his own father. As you have probably already noticed, the presence of prototypes in many heroes characterizes the character system. "War and Peace" - a work in which the morals of the nobility are presented through the characteristics of the family of Tolstoy, who was a count.

Natasha Rostova

This is the Rostovs' daughter. A very emotional and energetic girl who was considered ugly, but attractive and lively. Natasha is not very smart, but at the same time she is intuitive, as she could “guess people” well, their character traits and mood. This heroine is very impetuous and prone to self-sacrifice. She dances and sings beautifully, which was an important characteristic of a girl belonging to secular society at that time. Leo Tolstoy repeatedly emphasizes Natasha's main quality - closeness to the Russian people. It absorbed nations and Russian culture. Natasha lives in an atmosphere of love, happiness and kindness, but after a while the girl is faced with a harsh reality. Blows of fate, as well as heartfelt experiences, make this heroine an adult and ultimately give her true love to her husband, Pierre Bezukhov. The story of the rebirth of Natasha’s soul deserves special respect. She began attending church after becoming the victim of a deceitful seducer. Natasha is a collective image, the prototype of which was Tolstoy’s daughter-in-law, Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskaya, as well as her sister (the author’s wife) Sofya Andreevna.

Vera Rostova

This heroine is the daughter of the Rostovs ("War and Peace"). The character portraits created by the author are distinguished by their diversity of characters. Vera, for example, was famous for her strict disposition, as well as for the inappropriate, although fair, remarks she made in society. Her mother, for some unknown reason, did not love her very much, and Vera felt this acutely, and therefore often went against everyone. This girl later became the wife of Boris Drubetsky. The prototype of the heroine is Lev Nikolaevich (Elizabeth Bers).

Peter Rostov

The Rostovs' son, still just a boy. Petya, growing up, was eager to go to war as a young man, and his parents could not stop him. He escaped from their tutelage and joined Denisov’s regiment. In the very first battle, Petya dies before he has even had time to fight. The death of their beloved son greatly devastated the family.

Sonya

With this heroine we finish the description of the characters ("War and Peace") belonging to the Rostov family. Sonya, a nice miniature girl, was Ilya Andreevich’s own niece and lived her whole life under his roof. Love for Nikolai became fatal for her, since she failed to marry him. Natalya Rostova, the old countess, was against this marriage, since the lovers were cousins. Sonya acted nobly, refusing Dolokhov and deciding to love only Nikolai all her life, freeing him from the promise given to her. She spends the rest of her life in the care of Nikolai Rostov, under the old countess.

The prototype of this heroine is Tatyana Aleksandrovna Ergolskaya, the writer’s second cousin.

Not only the Rostovs in the work are the main characters. "War and Peace" is a novel in which the Bolkonsky family also plays a large role.

Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky

This is the father of Andrei Bolkonsky, general-in-chief in the past, in the present - a prince who has earned a nickname in Russian secular society"Prussian king" He is socially active, strict like a father, pedantic, and a wise owner of the estate. Outwardly, he is a thin old man with thick eyebrows that hang over intelligent and penetrating eyes, wearing a powdered white wig. Nikolai Andreevich does not like to show his feelings even to his beloved daughter and son. He torments Marya with constant nagging. Prince Nicholas, sitting on his estate, follows the events taking place in the country, and only before his death he loses the idea of ​​the scale of the Russian war with Napoleon. Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky, the writer’s grandfather, was the prototype of this prince.

Andrey Bolkonsky

This is the son of Nikolai Andreevich. He is ambitious, like his father, and is restrained in expressing his feelings, but he loves his sister and father very much. Andrei is married to Lisa, the “little princess.” He made a successful military career. Andrey philosophizes a lot about the meaning of life, the state of his spirit. He is in constant search. In Natasha Rostova, after the death of his wife, he found hope for himself, because he saw a real girl, and not a fake one, as in secular society, and that’s why he fell in love with her. Having proposed to this heroine, he was forced to go abroad for treatment, which became a test of their feelings. The wedding ended up being cancelled. Andrei went to war with Napoleon, where he was seriously wounded and died as a result. Until the end of his days, Natasha devotedly looked after him.

Marya Bolkonskaya

This is Andrei's sister, daughter of Prince Nikolai. She is very meek, ugly, but kind-hearted and also very rich. Her devotion to religion serves as an example of meekness and kindness to many. Marya unforgettably loves her father, who often pesters her with his reproaches and ridicule. This girl also loves her brother. She did not immediately accept Natasha as her future daughter-in-law, since she seemed too frivolous for Andrei. After all the hardships, Marya marries Nikolai Rostov.

Its prototype is Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya, Tolstoy’s mother.

Pierre Bezukhov (Peter Kirillovich)

The main characters of the novel "War and Peace" would not be fully listed if Pierre Bezukhov were not mentioned. This hero plays one of the critical roles. He has experienced a lot of pain and mental trauma, and has a noble and kind disposition. Lev Nikolaevich himself loves Pierre very much. Bezukhov, as a friend of Andrei Bolkonsky, is very responsive and devoted. Despite the intrigues weaving under his nose, Pierre did not lose trust in people and did not become embittered. By marrying Natasha, he finally found the happiness and grace that he lacked with his first wife, Helen. At the end of the work, his desire to change the political foundations in Russia is noticeable; one can even guess from afar Pierre’s Decembrist sentiments.

These are the main characters. "War and Peace" is a novel in which a large role is given to such historical figures as Kutuzov and Napoleon, as well as some other commanders-in-chief. Other social groups besides the nobility are also represented (merchants, burghers, peasantry, army). The list of characters ("War and Peace") is quite impressive. However, our task is to consider only the main characters.

Like everything in the epic War and Peace, the character system is extremely complex and very simple at the same time.

It is complex because the composition of the book is multi-figured, dozens of plot lines, intertwining, form its dense artistic fabric. Simple because all the heterogeneous heroes belonging to incompatible class, cultural, and property circles are clearly divided into several groups. And we find this division at all levels, in all parts of the epic.

What kind of groups are these? And on what basis do we distinguish them? These are groups of heroes who are equally far from people’s life, from the spontaneous movement of history, from the truth, or equally close to them.

We have just said: Tolstoy’s novel epic is permeated by the end-to-end idea that the unknowable and objective historical process is controlled directly by God; that a person can choose the right path both in private life and in great history not with the help of a proud mind, but with the help of a sensitive heart. The one who guessed right, felt the mysterious course of history and the no less mysterious laws of everyday life, is wise and great, even if he is small in his social status. Anyone who boasts of his power over the nature of things, who selfishly imposes his personal interests on life, is petty, even if he is great in his social position.

In accordance with this harsh opposition, Tolstoy’s heroes are “distributed” into several types, into several groups.

In order to understand exactly how these groups interact with each other, let's agree on the concepts that we will use when analyzing Tolstoy's multi-figure epic. These concepts are conventional, but they make it easier to understand the typology of heroes (remember what the word “typology” means; if you have forgotten, look up its meaning in the dictionary).

Those who, from the author’s point of view, are furthest from the correct understanding of the world order, we will agree to call life wasters. Those who, like Napoleon, think that they control history, we will call leaders. They are opposed by the sages who comprehended the main secret of life and understood that man must submit to the invisible will of Providence. We will call those who simply live, listening to the voice of their own heart, but do not particularly strive for anything, ordinary people. Those favorite Tolstoy heroes! - those who painfully search for the truth will be defined as truth-seekers. And finally, Natasha Rostova does not fit into any of these groups, and this is fundamental for Tolstoy, which we will also talk about.

So, who are they, Tolstoy’s heroes?

Livers. They are busy only with chatting, arranging their personal affairs, serving their petty whims, their egocentric desires. And at any cost, regardless of the fate of other people. This is the lowest of all ranks in Tolstoy's hierarchy. The heroes belonging to him are always of the same type; to characterize them, the narrator demonstratively uses the same detail over and over again.

The head of the capital's salon, Anna Pavlovna Sherer, appearing on the pages of War and Peace, each time with an unnatural smile moves from one circle to another and treats the guests to an interesting visitor. She is sure that she is forming public opinion and influences the course of things (although she herself changes her beliefs precisely in response to fashion).

The diplomat Bilibin is convinced that it is they, the diplomats, who control the historical process (but in fact he is busy with idle talk); from one scene to another, Bilibin gathers wrinkles on his forehead and utters a pre-prepared sharp word.

Drubetsky's mother, Anna Mikhailovna, who persistently promotes her son, accompanies all her conversations with a mournful smile. In Boris Drubetsky himself, as soon as he appears on the pages of the epic, the narrator always highlights one feature: his indifferent calm of an intelligent and proud careerist.

As soon as the narrator starts talking about the predatory Helen Kuragina, he certainly mentions her luxurious shoulders and bust. And whenever Andrei Bolkonsky’s young wife, the little princess, appears, the narrator will pay attention to her slightly open lip with a mustache. This monotony of narrative technique does not indicate a poverty of artistic arsenal, but, on the contrary, a deliberate goal set by the author. The playmakers themselves are monotonous and unchanging; only their views change, the being remains the same. They don't develop. And the immobility of their images, the resemblance to death masks is precisely emphasized stylistically.

The only one of the epic characters belonging to this group who is endowed with a moving, lively character is Fyodor Dolokhov. “Semyonovsky officer, famous gambler and buster,” he is distinguished by his extraordinary appearance - and this alone sets him apart from the general ranks of playmakers.

Moreover: Dolokhov is languishing, bored in that whirlpool of worldly life that sucks in the rest of the “burners.” That’s why he indulges in all sorts of bad things and ends up in scandalous stories (the plot with the bear and the policeman in the first part, for which Dolokhov was demoted to the rank and file). In the battle scenes, we witness Dolokhov's fearlessness, then we see how tenderly he treats his mother... But his fearlessness is aimless, Dolokhov's tenderness is an exception to his own rules. And hatred and contempt for people becomes the rule.

It is fully manifested both in the episode with Pierre (having become Helen’s lover, Dolokhov provokes Bezukhov to a duel), and at the moment when Dolokhov helps Anatoly Kuragin prepare the kidnapping of Natasha. And especially in the card game scene: Fyodor cruelly and dishonestly beats Nikolai Rostov, vilely taking out on him his anger at Sonya, who refused Dolokhov.

Dolokhov’s rebellion against the world (and this is also “the world”!) of wasters of life turns into the fact that he himself is wasting his life, letting it go to waste. And this is especially offensive for the narrator to realize, who, by singling out Dolokhov from the general crowd, seems to be giving him a chance to break out of the terrible circle.

And in the center of this circle, this funnel that sucks human souls, - the Kuragin family.

The main “ancestral” quality of the entire family is cold selfishness. It is especially characteristic of his father, Prince Vasily, with his courtly self-awareness. It is not for nothing that for the first time the prince appears before the reader “in a courtly, embroidered uniform, in stockings, shoes, with the stars, with a bright expression on his flat face.” Prince Vasily himself does not calculate anything, does not plan ahead, one can say that instinct acts for him: when he tries to marry Anatole’s son to Princess Marya, and when he tries to deprive Pierre of his inheritance, and when, having suffered an involuntary defeat along the way, he imposes on Pierre his daughter Helen.

Helen, whose “unchanging smile” emphasizes the uniqueness, one-dimensionality of this heroine, seems to have been frozen for years in the same state: static deathly sculptural beauty. She, too, does not specifically plan anything, she also obeys almost animal instinct: bringing her husband closer and further away, taking lovers and intending to convert to Catholicism, preparing the ground for divorce and starting two novels at once, one of which (either) must culminate in marriage.

External beauty replaces Helen's inner content. This characteristic also applies to her brother, Anatoly Kuragin. A tall, handsome man with “beautiful big eyes,” he is not gifted with intelligence (although not as stupid as his brother Hippolytus), but “but he also had the ability of calm and unchangeable confidence, precious for the world.” This confidence is akin to the instinct of profit that controls the souls of Prince Vasily and Helen. And although Anatole does not pursue personal gain, he hunts for pleasure with the same unquenchable passion and with the same readiness to sacrifice any neighbor. This is what he does to Natasha Rostova, making her fall in love with him, preparing to take her away and not thinking about her fate, about the fate of Andrei Bolkonsky, whom Natasha is going to marry...

Kuragins play in the vain dimension of the world the same role that Napoleon plays in the “military” dimension: they personify secular indifference to good and evil. At their whim, the Kuragins draw the surrounding life into a terrible whirlpool. This family is like a pool. Having approached him at a dangerous distance, it is easy to die - only a miracle saves Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei Bolkonsky (who would certainly have challenged Anatole to a duel if not for the circumstances of the war).

Leaders. The lowest “category” of heroes - playmakers in Tolstoy's epic corresponds to the upper category of heroes - leaders. The method of depicting them is the same: the narrator draws attention to one single trait of the character’s character, behavior or appearance. And at every meeting of the reader with this hero, he persistently, almost insistently points out this trait.

The playmakers belong to the “world” in the worst of its meanings, nothing in history depends on them, they revolve in the emptiness of the salon. Leaders are inextricably linked with war (again in the bad sense of the word); they stand at the head of historical collisions, separated from mere mortals by an impenetrable veil of their own greatness. But if the Kuragins really involve the surrounding life in a worldly whirlpool, then the leaders of nations only think that they are dragging humanity into a historical whirlpool. In fact, they are just toys of chance, pathetic instruments in the invisible hands of Providence.

And here let's stop for a second to agree on one thing important rule. And once and for all. In fiction, you have already encountered and will encounter images of real historical figures more than once. In Tolstoy's epic, this is Emperor Alexander I, and Napoleon, and Barclay de Tolly, and Russian and French generals, and the Moscow Governor-General Rostopchin. But we should not, we have no right to confuse “real” historical figures with their conventional images that act in novels, stories, and poems. And the sovereign emperor, and Napoleon, and Rostopchin, and especially Barclay de Tolly, and other Tolstoy characters depicted in “War and Peace” are the same fictional heroes as Pierre Bezukhov, like Natasha Rostova or Anatol Kuragin.

The external outline of their biographies can be reproduced in a literary work with scrupulous, scientific accuracy - but the internal content is “put into” them by the writer, invented in accordance with the picture of life that he creates in his work. And therefore, they are not much more similar to real historical figures than Fyodor Dolokhov is to his prototype, the reveler and daredevil R.I. Dolokhov, and Vasily Denisov is to the partisan poet D.V. Davydov.

Only by mastering this iron and irrevocable rule can we move on.

So, discussing the lowest category of heroes in War and Peace, we came to the conclusion that it has its own mass (Anna Pavlovna Scherer or, for example, Berg), its own center (Kuragins) and its own periphery (Dolokhov). The highest level is organized and structured according to the same principle.

The main leader, and therefore the most dangerous, the most deceitful of them, is Napoleon.

There are two Napoleonic images in Tolstoy's epic. Odin lives in the legend of a great commander, which is retold to each other by different characters and in which he appears either as a powerful genius or as an equally powerful villain. Not only visitors to Anna Pavlovna Scherer’s salon believe in this legend at different stages of their journey, but also Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov. At first we see Napoleon through their eyes, we imagine him in the light of their life ideal.

And another image is a character acting on the pages of the epic and shown through the eyes of the narrator and the heroes who suddenly encounter him on the battlefields. For the first time, Napoleon as a character in War and Peace appears in the chapters dedicated to the Battle of Austerlitz; first the narrator describes him, then we see him from the point of view of Prince Andrei.

The wounded Bolkonsky, who recently idolized the leader of the peoples, notices on the face of Napoleon, bending over him, “a radiance of complacency and happiness.” Having just experienced a spiritual upheaval, he looks into the eyes of his former idol and thinks “about the insignificance of greatness, about the insignificance of life, the meaning of which no one could understand.” And “his hero himself seemed so petty to him, with this petty vanity and joy of victory, in comparison with that high, fair and kind sky that he saw and understood.”

The narrator - both in Austerlitz's chapters, and in Tilsit's, and in Borodin's - invariably emphasizes the ordinariness and comic insignificance of the appearance of the man whom the whole world idolizes and hates. The “fat, short” figure, “with broad, thick shoulders and an involuntarily protruding belly and chest, had that representative, dignified appearance that forty-year-old people living in the hall have.”

In the novel's image of Napoleon there is not a trace of the power that is contained in his legendary image. For Tolstoy, only one thing matters: Napoleon, who imagined himself as the mover of history, is in fact pathetic and especially insignificant. Impersonal fate (or the unknowable will of Providence) made him an instrument of the historical process, and he imagined himself to be the creator of his victories. The words from the historiosophical ending of the book refer to Napoleon: “For us, with the measure of good and bad given to us by Christ, there is nothing immeasurable. And there is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.”

A smaller and worsened copy of Napoleon, a parody of him - the Moscow mayor Rostopchin. He fusses, fusses, hangs up posters, quarrels with Kutuzov, thinking that the fate of Muscovites, the fate of Russia, depends on his decisions. But the narrator sternly and unflinchingly explains to the reader that Moscow residents began to leave the capital not because someone called them to do so, but because they obeyed the will of Providence that they had guessed. And the fire broke out in Moscow not because Rostopchin wanted it (and especially not contrary to his orders), but because it could not help but burn down: in abandoned wooden houses where the invaders settled, sooner or later a fire inevitably breaks out.

Rostopchin has the same attitude towards the departure of Muscovites and the Moscow fires that Napoleon has towards the victory on the Field of Austerlitz or the flight of the valiant French army from Russia. The only thing that is truly in his power (as well as in the power of Napoleon) is to protect the lives of the townspeople and militias entrusted to him, or to throw them away out of whim or fear.

The key scene in which the narrator’s attitude to the “leaders” in general and to the image of Rostopchin in particular is concentrated is the lynching execution of the merchant son Vereshchagin ( volume III, part three, chapters XXIV-XXV). In it, the ruler is revealed as a cruel and weak person, mortally afraid of an angry crowd and, out of horror of it, ready to shed blood without trial.

The narrator seems extremely objective; he does not show his personal attitude to the actions of the mayor, does not comment on them. But at the same time, he consistently contrasts the “metallic-ringing” indifference of the “leader” with the uniqueness of an individual human life. Vereshchagin is described in great detail, with obvious compassion (“bringing shackles... pressing the collar of his sheepskin coat... with a submissive gesture”). But Rostopchin doesn’t look at his future victim - the narrator specifically repeats several times, with emphasis: “Rostopchin didn’t look at him.”

Even the angry, gloomy crowd in the courtyard of the Rostopchin house does not want to rush at Vereshchagin, accused of treason. Rostopchin is forced to repeat several times, setting her against the merchant’s son: “Beat him!.. Let the traitor die and not disgrace the name of the Russian!” ...Ruby! I order!". But even after this direct call-order, “the crowd groaned and moved forward, but stopped again.” She still sees Vereshchagin as a man and does not dare to rush at him: “A tall fellow, with a petrified expression on his face and with a stopped raised hand, stood next to Vereshchagin.” Only after, obeying the officer’s order, the soldier “with a face distorted with anger hit Vereshchagin on the head with a blunt broadsword” and the merchant’s son in a fox sheepskin coat “shortly and in surprise” cried out - “the barrier of human feeling stretched to the highest degree, which still held the crowd , broke through instantly.” Leaders treat people not as living beings, but as instruments of their power. And therefore they are worse than the crowd, more terrible than it.

The images of Napoleon and Rostopchin stand at opposite poles of this group of heroes from War and Peace. And the main “mass” of leaders here are formed by various kinds of generals, chiefs of all stripes. All of them, as one, do not understand the inscrutable laws of history, they think that the outcome of the battle depends only on them, on their military talents or political abilities. It doesn’t matter which army they serve - French, Austrian or Russian. And the personification of this entire mass of generals in the epic is Barclay de Tolly, a dry German in Russian service. He understands nothing of the spirit of the people and, together with other Germans, believes in a scheme of correct disposition.

The real Russian commander Barclay de Tolly, unlike the artistic image created by Tolstoy, was not German (he came from a Scottish family that had been Russified a long time ago). And in his activities he never relied on a scheme. But here lies the line between a historical figure and his image, which is created by literature. In Tolstoy's picture of the world, the Germans are not real representatives of a real people, but a symbol of foreignness and cold rationalism, which only interferes with understanding the natural course of things. Therefore, Barclay de Tolly, as a novel hero, turns into a dry “German”, which he was not in reality.

And at the very edge of this group of heroes, on the border separating the false leaders from the sages (we’ll talk about them a little later), stands the image of the Russian Tsar Alexander I. He is so isolated from the general series that at first it even seems that his image is devoid of boring unambiguity, that it is complex and multi-component. Moreover: the image of Alexander I is invariably presented in an aura of admiration.

But let's ask ourselves a question: whose admiration is this, the narrator's or the heroes'? And then everything will immediately fall into place.

Here we see Alexander for the first time during a review of Austrian and Russian troops (volume I, part three, chapter VIII). At first, the narrator describes him neutrally: “The handsome, young Emperor Alexander... with his pleasant face and sonorous, quiet voice attracted all the attention.” Then we begin to look at the tsar through the eyes of Nikolai Rostov, who is in love with him: “Nicholas clearly, down to all the details, examined the beautiful, young and happy face Emperor, he experienced a feeling of tenderness and delight, the likes of which he had never experienced before. Everything - every feature, every movement - seemed charming to him about the sovereign.” The narrator discovers ordinary traits in Alexander: beautiful, pleasant. But Nikolai Rostov discovers in them a completely different quality, a superlative degree: they seem beautiful, “lovely” to him.

But here is chapter XV of the same part; here the narrator and Prince Andrei, who is by no means in love with the sovereign, alternately look at Alexander I. This time there is no such internal gap in emotional assessments. The Emperor meets with Kutuzov, whom he clearly dislikes (and we do not yet know how highly the narrator values ​​Kutuzov).

It would seem that the narrator is again objective and neutral:

“An unpleasant impression, just like the remnants of fog in a clear sky, ran across the young and happy face of the emperor and disappeared... the same charming combination of majesty and meekness was in his beautiful gray eyes, and on his thin lips the same possibility of various expressions and the prevailing expression complacent, innocent youth."

Again the “young and happy face”, again the charming appearance... And yet, pay attention: the narrator lifts the veil over his own attitude towards all these qualities of the king. He says directly: “on thin lips” there was “the possibility of a variety of expressions.” And “the expression of complacent, innocent youth” is only the predominant one, but by no means the only one. That is, Alexander I always wears masks, behind which his real face is hidden.

What kind of face is this? It's contradictory. There is kindness and sincerity in him - and falsity, lies. But the fact of the matter is that Alexander is opposed to Napoleon; Tolstoy does not want to belittle his image, but cannot exalt it. Therefore, he resorts to the only possible method: he shows the king primarily through the eyes of heroes devoted to him and worshiping his genius. It is they, blinded by their love and devotion, who pay attention only to best manifestations Alexander's different faces; it is they who recognize him as a real leader.

In Chapter XVIII (volume one, part three), Rostov again sees the Tsar: “The Tsar was pale, his cheeks were sunken and his eyes sunken; but there was even more charm and meekness in his features.” This is a typically Rostov look - the look of an honest but superficial officer in love with his sovereign. However, now Nikolai Rostov meets the Tsar far from the nobles, from thousands of eyes fixed on him; in front of him is a simple suffering mortal, gravely experiencing the defeat of the army: “Tolya said something for a long time and passionately to the sovereign,” and he, “apparently crying, closed his eyes with his hand and shook Tolya’s hand.” Then we will see the tsar through the eyes of the obligingly proud Drubetsky (volume III, part one, chapter III), the enthusiastic Petya Rostov (volume III, part one, chapter XXI), Pierre Bezukhov at the moment when he is captured by the general enthusiasm during the Moscow meeting of the sovereign with deputations of the nobility and merchants (volume III, part one, chapter XXIII)...

The narrator, with his attitude, remains for the time being in a deep shadow. He only says through clenched teeth at the beginning of the third volume: “The Tsar is a slave of history,” but he refrains from direct assessments of the personality of Alexander I until the end of the fourth volume, when the Tsar directly encounters Kutuzov (chapters X and XI, part four). Only here, and even then not for long, does the narrator show his restrained disapproval. After all, we are talking about the resignation of Kutuzov, who had just won, together with the entire Russian people, a victory over Napoleon!

And the result of the “Alexandrov’s” plot line will be summed up only in the Epilogue, where the narrator will try with all his might to maintain justice in relation to the tsar, bringing his image closer to the image of Kutuzov: the latter was necessary for the movement of peoples from west to east, and the former for the return movement peoples from east to west.

Ordinary people. Both the wasters and the leaders in the novel are contrasted with “ordinary people”, led by the lover of truth, the Moscow lady Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova. In their world, she plays the same role that the St. Petersburg lady Anna Pavlovna Sherer plays in the world of the Kuragins and Bilibins. Ordinary people have not risen above the general level of their time, their era, have not learned the truth of people's life, but instinctively live in conditional harmony with it. Although they sometimes act incorrectly, and human weaknesses are fully inherent in them.

This discrepancy, this difference in potential, the combination in one person of different qualities, good and not so good, distinguishes ordinary people from both the wasters of life and the leaders. Heroes classified in this category, as a rule, are shallow people, and yet their portraits are painted in different colors and are obviously devoid of unambiguity and uniformity.

This is, in general, the hospitable Moscow Rostov family, the mirror opposite of the St. Petersburg Kuragin clan.

The old Count Ilya Andreich, the father of Natasha, Nikolai, Petya, Vera, is a weak-willed man, he allows his managers to rob him, he suffers at the thought of ruining his children, but he can’t do anything about it. Going to the village for two years, trying to move to St. Petersburg and get a job changes little in the general state of affairs.

The count is not very smart, but at the same time he is fully endowed by God with heartfelt gifts - hospitality, cordiality, love for family and children. Two scenes characterize him from this side, and both are imbued with lyricism and rapture of delight: a description of a dinner in a Rostov house in honor of Bagration and a description of a dog hunt.

And one more scene is extremely important for understanding the image of the old count: the departure from burning Moscow. It is he who first gives the reckless (from the point of view of common sense) order to let the wounded into the carts. Having removed their acquired goods from the carts for the sake of Russian officers and soldiers, the Rostovs deal the last irreparable blow to their own condition... But they not only save several lives, but also, unexpectedly for themselves, give Natasha a chance to reconcile with Andrei.

Ilya Andreich's wife, Countess Rostova, is also not distinguished by any special intelligence - that abstract, scientific mind, which the narrator treats with obvious distrust. She is hopelessly behind modern life; and when the family is completely ruined, the countess is not even able to understand why they should abandon their own carriage and cannot send a carriage for one of her friends. Moreover, we see the injustice, sometimes cruelty of the Countess towards Sonya - who is completely innocent of the fact that she is without a dowry.

And yet, she also has a special gift of humanity, which separates her from the crowd of wasters and brings her closer to the truth of life. This is the gift of love for one's own children; instinctively wise, deep and selfless love. The decisions she makes in relation to children are dictated not simply by the desire for profit and saving the family from ruin (although also for her); they are aimed at improving the lives of the children themselves the best way. And when the countess learns about the death of her beloved youngest son in the war, her life essentially ends; Having barely escaped insanity, she instantly ages and loses active interest in what is happening around her.

All the best Rostov qualities were passed on to the children, except for the dry, calculating and therefore unloved Vera. Having married Berg, she naturally moved from the category of “ordinary people” to the number of “wasters of life” and “Germans”. And also - except for the Rostovs’ pupil Sonya, who, despite all her kindness and sacrifice, turns out to be an “empty flower” and gradually, following Vera, slides from the rounded world of ordinary people into the plane of wasters of life.

Particularly touching is the youngest, Petya, who completely absorbed the atmosphere of the Rostov house. Like his father and mother, he is not very smart, but he is extremely sincere and sincere; this soulfulness is especially expressed in his musicality. Petya instantly gives in to the impulse of his heart; therefore, it is from his point of view that we look from the Moscow patriotic crowd at Emperor Alexander I and share his genuine youthful delight. Although we feel: the narrator’s attitude towards the emperor is not as clear as the young character. Petya's death from an enemy bullet is one of the most poignant and most memorable episodes of Tolstoy's epic.

But just as the people who live their lives, the leaders, have their own center, so do the ordinary people who populate the pages of War and Peace. This center is Nikolai Rostov and Marya Bolkonskaya, whose life lines, separated over three volumes, eventually still intersect, obeying the unwritten law of affinity.

“A short, curly-haired young man with an open expression,” he is distinguished by “impetuousness and enthusiasm.” Nikolai, as usual, is shallow (“he had that common sense of mediocrity that told him what should have been done,” the narrator says bluntly). But he is very emotional, impetuous, warm-hearted, and therefore musical, like all the Rostovs.

One of key episodes Nikolai Rostov's storyline - crossing the Enns, and then being wounded in the arm during the Battle of Shengraben. Here the hero first encounters an insoluble contradiction in his soul; he, who considered himself a fearless patriot, suddenly discovers that he is afraid of death and that the very thought of death is absurd - him, whom “everyone loves so much.” This experience not only does not reduce the image of the hero, on the contrary: it is at that moment that his spiritual maturation occurs.

And yet it’s not for nothing that Nikolai likes it so much in the army and is so uncomfortable in everyday life. The regiment is a special world (another world in the middle of war), in which everything is arranged logically, simply, unambiguously. There are subordinates, there is a commander, and there is a commander of commanders - the Emperor, whom it is so natural and so pleasant to adore. And the life of civilians consists entirely of endless intricacies, of human sympathies and antipathies, clashes of private interests and common goals of the class. Arriving home on vacation, Rostov either gets confused in his relationship with Sonya, or loses completely to Dolokhov, which puts the family on the brink of financial disaster, and actually flees from ordinary life to the regiment, like a monk to his monastery. (He doesn’t seem to notice that the same rules apply in the army; when in the regiment he has to solve complex moral problems, for example, with officer Telyanin, who stole a wallet, Rostov is completely lost.)

Like any hero who claims in the novel space to have an independent line and actively participate in the development of the main intrigue, Nikolai is endowed with a love plot. He is a kind fellow, an honest man, and therefore, having made a youthful promise to marry the dowryless Sonya, he considers himself bound for the rest of his life. And no amount of persuasion from his mother, no hints from his loved ones about the need to find a rich bride can sway him. Moreover, his feeling for Sonya goes through different stages, then completely fading away, then returning again, then disappearing again.

Therefore, the most dramatic moment in Nikolai’s fate comes after the meeting in Bogucharovo. Here, during the tragic events of the summer of 1812, he accidentally meets Princess Marya Bolkonskaya, one of the richest brides in Russia, whom he would dream of marrying. Rostov selflessly helps the Bolkonskys get out of Bogucharov, and both of them, Nikolai and Marya, suddenly feel mutual attraction. But what is considered the norm among “life-lovers” (and most “ordinary people” too) turns out to be an almost insurmountable obstacle for them: she is rich, he is poor.

Only Sonya’s refusal of the word given to her by Rostov, and the power of natural feeling are able to overcome this obstacle; Having gotten married, Rostov and Princess Marya live in perfect harmony, just as Kitty and Levin will live in Anna Karenina. However, this is the difference between honest mediocrity and the impulse of truth-seeking, that the former does not know development, does not recognize doubts. As we have already noted, in the first part of the Epilogue, between Nikolai Rostov, on the one hand, Pierre Bezukhov and Nikolenka Bolkonsky, on the other, an invisible conflict is brewing, the line of which stretches into the distance, beyond the boundaries of the plot action.

Pierre, at the cost of new moral torment, new mistakes and new quests, is drawn into another turn in big history: he becomes a member of the early pre-Decembrist organizations. Nikolenka is completely on his side; it is not difficult to calculate that by the time of the uprising in Senate Square he will be a young man, most likely an officer, and with such a heightened sense of morality he will be on the side of the rebels. And the sincere, respectable, narrow-minded Nikolai, who has once and for all stopped developing, knows in advance that if anything happens he will shoot at the opponents of the legitimate ruler, his beloved sovereign...

Truth seekers. This is the most important of the categories; without truth-seeking heroes, there would be no epic “War and Peace” at all. Only two characters, two close friends, Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov, have the right to claim this special title. They also cannot be called unconditionally positive; To create their images, the narrator uses a variety of colors, but it is precisely because of their ambiguity that they seem especially voluminous and bright.

Both of them, Prince Andrei and Count Pierre, are rich (Bolkonsky - initially, the illegitimate Bezukhov - after the sudden death of his father); smart, although in different ways. Bolkonsky's mind is cold and sharp; Bezukhov's mind is naive, but organic. Like many young people in the 1800s, they are in awe of Napoleon; a proud dream of a special role in world history, and therefore the conviction that it is the individual who controls the course of things, is equally inherent in both Bolkonsky and Bezukhov. From this common point, the narrator draws two very different storylines, which at first diverge very far, and then connect again, intersecting in the space of truth.

But this is where it turns out that they become truth-seekers against their will. Neither one nor the other is going to seek the truth, they do not strive for moral improvement, and at first they are sure that the truth is revealed to them in the form of Napoleon. They are pushed to an intense search for truth by external circumstances, and perhaps by Providence itself. It’s just that the spiritual qualities of Andrei and Pierre are such that each of them is able to answer the call of fate, to respond to its silent question; it is only because of this that they ultimately rise above the general level.

Prince Andrey. Bolkonsky is unhappy at the beginning of the book; he does not love his sweet but empty wife; is indifferent to the unborn child, and even after his birth does not show any special paternal feelings. The family “instinct” is as alien to him as the secular “instinct”; he cannot fall into the category of “ordinary” people for the same reasons that he cannot be among the “wasters of life.” But he not only could have broken into the number of elected “leaders,” but he would have really wanted to. Napoleon, we repeat again and again, for him life example and landmark.

Having learned from Bilibin that the Russian army (this takes place in 1805) was in a hopeless situation, Prince Andrei was almost happy about the tragic news. “... It occurred to him that he was precisely destined to lead the Russian army out of this situation, that here he was, that Toulon, who would lead him out of the ranks of unknown officers and open for him the first path to glory!” (volume I, part two, chapter XII).

You already know how it ended; we analyzed the scene with the eternal sky of Austerlitz in detail. The truth reveals itself to Prince Andrey, without any effort on his part; he does not gradually come to the conclusion about the insignificance of all narcissistic heroes in the face of eternity - this conclusion appears to him immediately and in its entirety.

It would seem that Bolkonsky’s storyline is exhausted already at the end of the first volume, and the author has no choice but to declare the hero dead. And here, contrary to ordinary logic, the most important thing begins - the search for truth. Having accepted the truth immediately and in its entirety, Prince Andrei suddenly loses it and begins a painful, long search, taking a side road back to the feeling that once visited him on the field of Austerlitz.

Arriving home, where everyone thought he was dead, Andrei learns about the birth of his son and - soon - about the death of his wife: the little princess with a short upper lip disappears from his life horizon at the very moment when he is ready to finally open his heart to her! This news shocks the hero and awakens in him a feeling of guilt towards his dead wife; Having abandoned military service (along with a vain dream of personal greatness), Bolkonsky settles in Bogucharovo, takes care of the household, reads, and raises his son.

It would seem that he anticipates the path along which at the end of the fourth Tom will do Nikolai Rostov with Andrei's sister Princess Marya. Compare for yourself the descriptions of the economic concerns of Bolkonsky in Bogucharovo and Rostov in Bald Mountains. You will be convinced of the non-random similarity and will discover another plot parallel. But this is the difference between the “ordinary” heroes of “War and Peace” and the truth-seekers, that the former stop where the latter continue their unstoppable movement.

Bolkonsky, having learned the truth of eternal heaven, thinks that it is enough to give up personal pride in order to find peace of mind. But really country life cannot contain his unspent energy. And the truth, received as if as a gift, not personally suffered, not acquired as a result of long searches, begins to elude him. Andrei is languishing in the village, his soul seems to be drying up. Pierre, who arrived in Bogucharovo, is amazed at the terrible change that has occurred in his friend. Only for a moment does the prince awaken to a happy feeling of belonging to the truth - when for the first time after being wounded he pays attention to the eternal sky. And then a veil of hopelessness again obscures his life horizon.

What happened? Why does the author “doom” his hero to inexplicable torment? First of all, because the hero must independently “ripen” to the truth that was revealed to him by the will of Providence. Prince Andrei has a difficult job ahead of him; he will have to go through numerous trials before he regains his sense of unshakable truth. And from that moment on, Prince Andrei’s storyline becomes like a spiral: it goes towards new round, repeating at a more complex level the previous stage of his fate. He is destined to fall in love again, again to indulge in ambitious thoughts, again to be disappointed in both love and thoughts. And finally, come to the truth again.

The third part of the second volume opens with a symbolic description of Prince Andrey's trip to the Ryazan estates. Spring is coming; upon entering the forest he notices an old oak on the edge of the road.

“Probably ten times older than the birches that made up the forest, it was ten times thicker and twice as tall as each birch. It was a huge oak tree, twice the girth, with branches that had been broken off for a long time and with broken bark overgrown with old sores. With his huge, clumsily, asymmetrically splayed, gnarled arms and fingers, he stood like an old, angry and contemptuous freak between the smiling birch trees. Only he alone did not want to submit to the charm of spring and did not want to see either spring or the sun.”

It is clear that in the image of this oak tree Prince Andrei himself is personified, whose soul does not respond to the eternal joy of renewed life, has become dead and extinguished. But on the affairs of the Ryazan estates, Bolkonsky must meet with Ilya Andreich Rostov - and, having spent the night in the Rostovs’ house, the prince again notices the bright, almost starless spring sky. And then he accidentally hears an excited conversation between Sonya and Natasha (volume II, part three, chapter II).

A feeling of love latently awakens in Andrei’s heart (although the hero himself does not understand this yet). Like a character in a folk tale, he seems to be sprinkled with living water - and on his way back, already in early June, the prince again sees an oak tree, personifying himself, and remembers the Austerlitz sky.

Returning to St. Petersburg, Bolkonsky joins with renewed vigor in social activities; he believes that he is now driven not by personal vanity, not by pride, not by “Napoleonism,” but by a selfless desire to serve people, to serve the Fatherland. The young energetic reformer Speransky becomes his new hero and idol. Bolkonsky is ready to follow Speransky, who dreams of transforming Russia, in the same way as before he was ready to imitate Napoleon in everything, who wanted to throw the entire Universe at his feet.

But Tolstoy constructs the plot in such a way that the reader feels from the very beginning that something is not entirely right; Andrei sees a hero in Speransky, and the narrator sees another leader.

The judgment about the “insignificant seminarian” who holds the fate of Russia in his hands, of course, expresses the position of the enchanted Bolkonsky, who himself does not notice how he transfers the features of Napoleon to Speransky. And the mocking clarification - “as Bolkonsky thought” - comes from the narrator. Speransky’s “disdainful calmness” is noticed by Prince Andrei, and the arrogance of the “leader” (“from an immeasurable height...”) is noticed by the narrator.

In other words, Prince Andrei, in a new round of his biography, repeats the mistake of his youth; he is again blinded by the false example of someone else's pride, in which his own pride finds food. But here a significant meeting takes place in Bolkonsky’s life - he meets the same Natasha Rostova, whose voice on a moonlit night in the Ryazan estate brought him back to life. Falling in love is inevitable; matchmaking is a foregone conclusion. But since his stern father, old Bolkonsky, does not give consent to a quick marriage, Andrei is forced to go abroad and stop collaborating with Speransky, which could seduce him and entice him to his previous path. And the dramatic break with the bride after her failed escape with Kuragin completely pushes Prince Andrei, as it seems to him, to the margins of the historical process, to the outskirts of the empire. He is again under the command of Kutuzov.

But in fact, God continues to lead Bolkonsky in a special way, known to Him alone. Having overcome the temptation by the example of Napoleon, happily avoided the temptation by the example of Speransky, having again lost hope of family happiness, Prince Andrei repeats the “pattern” of his fate for the third time. Because, having fallen under the command of Kutuzov, he is imperceptibly charged with the quiet energy of the old wise commander, as before he was charged with the stormy energy of Napoleon and the cold energy of Speransky.

It is no coincidence that Tolstoy uses the folklore principle of testing the hero three times: after all, unlike Napoleon and Speransky, Kutuzov is truly close to the people and forms one whole with them. Until now, Bolkonsky was aware that he worshiped Napoleon, he guessed that he was secretly imitating Speransky. And the hero doesn’t even suspect that he follows Kutuzov’s example in everything. The spiritual work of self-education occurs in him hidden, latent.

Moreover, Bolkonsky is confident that the decision to leave Kutuzov’s headquarters and go to the front, to rush into the thick of the battles, comes to him spontaneously, of course. In fact, he takes over from the great commander a wise view of the purely folk character war, which is incompatible with court intrigues and the pride of the “leaders”. If the heroic desire to pick up the regimental banner on the field of Austerlitz was the “Toulon” of Prince Andrei, then the sacrificial decision to participate in the battles of the Patriotic War is, if you like, his “Borodino”, comparable on the small level of an individual human life with the great Battle of Borodino, morally won Kutuzov.

It is on the eve of the Battle of Borodino that Andrei meets Pierre; the third (again folklore number!) significant conversation takes place between them. The first took place in St. Petersburg (volume I, part one, chapter VI) - during it, Andrei for the first time dropped the mask of a contemptuous socialite and frankly told a friend that he was imitating Napoleon. During the second (volume II, part two, chapter XI), held in Bogucharovo, Pierre saw before him a man mournfully doubting the meaning of life, the existence of God, internally dead, having lost the incentive to move. This meeting with a friend became for Prince Andrei “the era from which, although in appearance it was the same, but in the inner world his new life began.”

And here is the third conversation (volume III, part two, chapter XXV). Having overcome their involuntary alienation, on the eve of the day when, perhaps, both of them will die, the friends again openly discuss the most subtle, most important topics. They do not philosophize - there is neither time nor energy for philosophizing; but every word they say, even a very unfair one (like Andrei’s opinion about the prisoners), is weighed on special scales. And Bolkonsky’s final passage sounds like a premonition of imminent death:

“Ah, my soul, lately it has become difficult for me to live. I see that I have begun to understand too much. But it is not good for a person to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil... Well, not for long! - he added.”

The wound on the Borodin field compositionally repeats the scene of Andrei's wound on the Austerlitz field; both there and here the truth is suddenly revealed to the hero. This truth is love, compassion, faith in God. (Here is another plot parallel.) But in the first volume we had a character to whom the truth appeared in spite of everything; Now we see Bolkonsky, who has managed to prepare himself to accept the truth at the cost of mental anguish and tossing. Please note: the last person Andrei sees on the Field of Austerlitz is the insignificant Napoleon, who seemed great to him; and the last person he sees on the Borodino field is his enemy, Anatol Kuragin, also seriously wounded... (This is another plot parallel that allows us to show how the hero has changed during the time that passed between three meetings.)

Andrey has a new date with Natasha ahead; last date. Moreover, the folklore principle of triple repetition “works” here too. For the first time Andrey hears Natasha (without seeing her) in Otradnoye. Then he falls in love with her during Natasha’s first ball (volume II, part three, chapter XVII), explains to her and proposes. And here is the wounded Bolkonsky in Moscow, near the Rostovs’ house, at the very moment when Natasha orders the carts to be given to the wounded. The meaning of this final meeting is forgiveness and reconciliation; having forgiven Natasha and reconciled with her, Andrei has finally comprehended the meaning of love and is therefore ready to earthly life to part... His death is depicted not as an irreparable tragedy, but as a solemnly sad result of his earthly career.

It is not for nothing that it is here that Tolstoy carefully introduces the theme of the Gospel into the fabric of his narrative.

We are already accustomed to the fact that the heroes of Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century often pick up this main book of Christianity, which tells about the earthly life, teaching and resurrection of Jesus Christ; Just remember Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment.” However, Dostoevsky wrote about his modernity, while Tolstoy turned to the events of the beginning of the century, when educated people those from high society turned to the Gospel much less often. For the most part, they read Church Slavonic poorly, and rarely resorted to the French version; Only after the Patriotic War did work begin on translating the Gospel into living Russian. It was headed by the future Metropolitan of Moscow Filaret (Drozdov); The publication of the Russian Gospel in 1819 influenced many writers, including Pushkin and Vyazemsky.

Prince Andrey is destined to die in 1812; nevertheless, Tolstoy decided to radically violate chronology, and in Bolkonsky’s dying thoughts he placed quotes from the Russian Gospel: “The birds of the air do not sow or reap, but your Father feeds them...” Why? Yes, for the simple reason that Tolstoy wants to show: the wisdom of the Gospel entered Andrei’s soul, it became part of his own thoughts, he reads the Gospel as an explanation of his own life and his own death. If the writer had “forced” the hero to quote the Gospel in French or even in Church Slavonic, this would have immediately separated Bolkonsky’s inner world from the Gospel world. (In general, in the novel, the heroes speak French more often, the further they are from the national truth; Natasha Rostova generally utters only one line in French over the course of four volumes!) But Tolstoy’s goal is exactly the opposite: he seeks to forever connect the image of Andrei, who found the truth , with a Gospel theme.

Pierre Bezukhov. If the storyline of Prince Andrei is spiral-shaped, and each subsequent stage of his life in a new turn repeats the previous stage, then the storyline of Pierre - right up to the Epilogue - is similar to a narrowing circle with the figure of the peasant Platon Karataev in the center.

This circle at the beginning of the epic is immensely wide, almost like Pierre himself - “a massive, fat young man with a cropped head and glasses.” Like Prince Andrei, Bezukhov does not feel like a truth-seeker; he, too, considers Napoleon a great man and is content with the common idea that history is controlled by great men, heroes.

We meet Pierre at the very moment when, from an excess of vitality, he takes part in carousing and almost robbery (the story with the policeman). Life force- his advantage over the dead light (Andrei says that Pierre is the only “living person”). And this is his main problem, since Bezukhov does not know what to apply his heroic strength to, it is aimless, there is something Nozdrevsky in it. Pierre initially has special spiritual and mental needs (which is why he chooses Andrey as his friend), but they are scattered and do not take on a clear and precise form.

Pierre is distinguished by energy, sensuality, reaching the point of passion, extreme artlessness and myopia (literally and figuratively); all this dooms Pierre to rash steps. As soon as Bezukhov becomes the heir to a huge fortune, the “wasters of life” immediately entangle him in their networks, Prince Vasily marries Pierre to Helen. Of course, family life is not set; Pierre cannot accept the rules by which high-society “burners” live. And so, having parted ways with Helen, he for the first time consciously begins to look for the answer to the questions that torment him about the meaning of life, about the purpose of man.

“What’s wrong? What well? What should you love, what should you hate? Why live and what am I? What is life, what is death? What force controls everything? - he asked himself. And there was no answer to any of these questions, except one, not a logical answer, not to these questions at all. This answer was: “If you die, everything will end. You die and you’ll find out everything, or you’ll stop asking.” But it was scary to die” (volume II, part two, chapter I).

And then on his life’s path he meets the old Mason-mentor Osip Alekseevich. (Freemasons were members of religious and political organizations, “orders,” “lodges,” who set themselves the goal of moral self-improvement and intended to transform society and the state on this basis.) In the epic, the road along which Pierre travels serves as a metaphor for the path of life; Osip Alekseevich himself approaches Bezukhov at the postal station in Torzhok and starts a conversation with him about the mysterious destiny of man. From the genre shadow of the family-everyday novel we immediately move into the space of the novel of education; Tolstoy barely noticeably stylizes the “Masonic” chapters into novel prose late XVIII- beginning of the 19th century. Thus, in the scene of Pierre’s acquaintance with Osip Alekseevich, much makes one remember the “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” by A. N. Radishchev.

In Masonic conversations, conversations, reading and reflections, the same truth is revealed to Pierre that appeared on the field of Austerlitz to Prince Andrei (who, perhaps, also at some point went through the “Masonic art”; in a conversation with Pierre, Bolkonsky mockingly mentions gloves, which Masons receive before marriage for their chosen one). The meaning of life is not in heroic deeds, not in becoming a leader like Napoleon, but in serving people, feeling involved in eternity...

But the truth is just revealed, it sounds dull, like a distant echo. And gradually, more and more painfully, Bezukhov feels the deceit of the majority of Freemasons, the discrepancy between their petty social life and the proclaimed universal ideals. Yes, Osip Alekseevich forever remains a moral authority for him, but Freemasonry itself eventually ceases to meet Pierre’s spiritual needs. Moreover, the reconciliation with Helen, which he agreed to under Masonic influence, does not lead to anything good. And having taken a step in the social field in the direction set by the Freemasons, having started a reform in his estates, Pierre suffers an inevitable defeat: his impracticality, gullibility and lack of system doom the land experiment to failure.

The disappointed Bezukhov first turns into a good-natured shadow of his predatory wife; it seems that the pool of “life-lovers” is about to close over him. Then he again starts drinking, carousing, returns to the bachelor habits of his youth, and eventually moves from St. Petersburg to Moscow. You and I have noted more than once that in Russian XIX literature century, St. Petersburg was associated with the European center of official, political, and cultural life in Russia; Moscow - with a rustic, traditionally Russian habitat of retired nobles and lordly idlers. The transformation of Petersburger Pierre into a Muscovite is tantamount to his abandonment of any aspirations in life.

And here the tragic and Russia-cleansing events of the Patriotic War of 1812 are approaching. For Bezukhov they have a very special, personal meaning. After all, he has long been in love with Natasha Rostova, hopes of an alliance with whom were twice crossed out by his marriage to Helen and Natasha’s promise to Prince Andrei. Only after the story with Kuragin, in overcoming the consequences of which Pierre played a huge role, does he actually confess his love to Natasha (volume II, part five, chapter XXII).

It is no coincidence that immediately after the scene of explanation with Natasha Tolstaya, through the eyes of Pierre, he shows the famous comet of 1811, which foreshadowed the beginning of the war: “It seemed to Pierre that this star fully corresponded to what was in his blossoming to a new life, softened and encouraged soul.” The theme of national testing and the theme of personal salvation merge together in this episode.

Step by step, the stubborn author leads his beloved hero to comprehend two inextricably linked “truths”: the truth of sincere family life and the truth of national unity. Out of curiosity, Pierre goes to the Borodin field just on the eve of the great battle; observing, communicating with the soldiers, he prepares his mind and his heart to perceive the thought that Bolkonsky will express to him during their last Borodin conversation: the truth is where they are, ordinary soldiers, ordinary Russian people.

The views that Bezukhov professed at the beginning of War and Peace are turned upside down; Previously, he saw in Napoleon the source of the historical movement; now he sees in him the source of transhistorical evil, the embodiment of the Antichrist. And he is ready to sacrifice himself to save humanity. The reader should understand: spiritual path Pierre is passed only to the middle; the hero has not yet “grown up” to the point of view of the narrator, who is convinced (and convinces the reader) that the matter is not about Napoleon at all, that the French emperor is just a toy in the hands of Providence. But the experiences that befell Bezukhov in French captivity, and most importantly, his acquaintance with Platon Karataev, will complete the work that has already begun in him.

During the execution of prisoners (a scene that refutes Andrei’s cruel arguments during Borodin’s last conversation), Pierre himself recognizes himself as an instrument in the wrong hands; his life and his death do not really depend on him. And communication with a simple peasant, a “rounded” soldier of the Absheron regiment Platon Karataev, finally reveals to him the prospect of a new philosophy of life. The purpose of a person is not to become a bright personality, separate from all other personalities, but to reflect the people’s life in its entirety, to become a part of the universe. Only then can you feel truly immortal:

“Ha, ha, ha! - Pierre laughed. And he said out loud to himself: “The soldier didn’t let me in.” They caught me, they locked me up. They are holding me captive. Who me? Me? Me - my immortal soul! Ha, ha, ha!.. Ha, ha, ha!.. - he laughed with tears welling up in his eyes... Pierre looked into the sky, into the depths of the receding, playing stars. “And all this is mine, and all this is in me, and all this is me!..” (volume IV, part two, chapter XIV).

It is not for nothing that these reflections of Pierre sound almost like folk poetry; they emphasize and strengthen the internal, irregular rhythm:

The soldier didn't let me in.
They caught me, they locked me up.
They are holding me captive.
Who me? Me?

The truth sounds like a folk song, and the sky into which Pierre directs his gaze makes the attentive reader remember the ending of the third volume, the appearance of the comet, and, most importantly, the sky of Austerlitz. But the difference between the Austerlitz scene and the experience that visited Pierre in captivity is fundamental. Andrei, as we already know, at the end of the first volume comes face to face with the truth, contrary to his own intentions. He just has a long, roundabout way to get to her. And Pierre comprehends it for the first time as a result of painful quests.

But there is nothing final in Tolstoy’s epic. Remember when we said that Pierre’s storyline only seems circular, and that if you look at the Epilogue, the picture will change somewhat? Now read the episode of Bezukhov’s arrival from St. Petersburg and especially the scene of the conversation in the office with Nikolai Rostov, Denisov and Nikolenka Bolkonsky (Chapters XIV-XVI of the first Epilogue). Pierre, the same Pierre Bezukhov, who has already comprehended the fullness of the national truth, who has renounced personal ambitions, again starts talking about the need to correct social ills, about the need to counter the government’s mistakes. It is not difficult to guess that he became a member of the early Decembrist societies and that a new storm began to swell on the historical horizon of Russia.

Natasha, with her feminine instincts, guesses the question that the narrator himself would clearly like to ask Pierre:

“Do you know what I’m thinking about? - she said, - about Platon Karataev. How is he? Would he approve of you now?..

No, I wouldn’t approve,” Pierre said after thinking. - What he would approve of is our family life. He so wanted to see beauty, happiness, tranquility in everything, and I would be proud to show him us.”

What happens? Has the hero begun to evade the acquired and hard-won truth? And is the “average”, “ordinary” person Nikolai Rostov right, who speaks with disapproval of the plans of Pierre and his new comrades? Does this mean Nikolai is now closer to Platon Karataev than Pierre himself?

Yes and no. Yes, because Pierre, undoubtedly, deviates from the “rounded”, family-oriented, national peaceful ideal, and is ready to join the “war”. Yes, because he had already gone through the temptation of striving for the public good in his Masonic period, and through the temptation of personal ambitions - at the moment when he “counted” the number of the beast in the name of Napoleon and convinced himself that it was he, Pierre, who was destined to rid humanity of this villain. No, because the entire epic “War and Peace” is permeated with a thought that Rostov is unable to comprehend: we are not free in our desires, in our choice, to participate or not to participate in historical upheavals.

Pierre is much closer than Rostov to this nerve of history; among other things, Karataev taught him by his example to submit to circumstances, to accept them as they are. Entering secret society, Pierre moves away from the ideal and, in a certain sense, returns several steps back in his development, but not because he wants it, but because he cannot evade the objective course of things. And, perhaps, having partially lost the truth, he will come to know it even more deeply at the end of his new path.

That is why the epic ends with a global historiosophical argument, the meaning of which is formulated in its last phrase: “it is necessary to abandon the perceived freedom and recognize the dependence that we do not feel.”

Sages. You and I talked about people who live their lives, about leaders, about ordinary people, about truth-seekers. But there is another category of heroes in War and Peace, the opposite of the leaders. These are the sages. That is, characters who have comprehended the truth of national life and set an example for other heroes seeking the truth. These are, first of all, Staff Captain Tushin, Platon Karataev and Kutuzov.

Staff Captain Tushin first appears in the scene of the Battle of Shengraben; We see him first through the eyes of Prince Andrei - and this is no coincidence. If circumstances had turned out differently and Bolkonsky had been internally prepared for this meeting, it could have played the same role in his life as the meeting with Platon Karataev played in Pierre’s life. However, alas, Andrey is still blinded by the dream of his own Toulon. Having defended Tushin (volume I, part two, chapter XXI), when he guiltily remains silent in front of Bagration and does not want to betray his boss, Prince Andrei does not understand that behind this silence lies not servility, but an understanding of the hidden ethics of people's life. Bolkonsky is not yet ready to meet “his Karataev.”

“A small, stooped man,” commander of an artillery battery, Tushin makes a very favorable impression on the reader from the very beginning; external awkwardness only sets off his undoubted natural intelligence. It is not for nothing that, when characterizing Tushin, Tolstoy resorts to his favorite technique, drawing attention to the hero’s eyes, this is the mirror of the soul: “Silent and smiling, Tushin, stepping from bare foot to foot, looked questioningly with large, smart and kind eyes...” (vol. I, part two, chapter XV).

But why does the author pay attention to such an insignificant figure, and in a scene that immediately follows the chapter dedicated to Napoleon himself? The guess does not come to the reader right away. Only when he reaches Chapter XX does the image of the staff captain gradually begin to grow to symbolic proportions.

“Little Tushin with a straw bitten to one side”, along with his battery, was forgotten and left without cover; he practically does not notice this, because he is completely absorbed in the common cause and feels himself an integral part of the entire people. On the eve of the battle, this little awkward man spoke of the fear of death and complete uncertainty about eternal life; now he is transforming before our eyes.

The narrator shows this little man in close-up: “...He had his own fantasy world, which was his pleasure at that moment. The enemy’s guns in his imagination were not guns, but pipes, from which an invisible smoker released smoke in rare puffs.” At this second, it is not the Russian and French armies that are confronting each other; Opposing each other are little Napoleon, who imagines himself great, and little Tushin, who has risen to true greatness. The staff captain is not afraid of death, he is only afraid of his superiors, and immediately becomes timid when a staff colonel appears at the battery. Then (Chapter XXI) Tushin cordially helps all the wounded (including Nikolai Rostov).

In the second volume we will once again meet with Staff Captain Tushin, who lost his arm in the war.

Both Tushin and another Tolstoy sage, Platon Karataev, are endowed with the same physical properties: they vertically challenged, they have similar characters: they are affectionate and good-natured. But Tushin feels himself an integral part of the general life of the people only in the midst of war, and in peaceful circumstances he is a simple, kind, timid and very ordinary person. And Plato is always involved in this life, in any circumstances. And in war and especially in a state of peace. Because he carries peace in his soul.

Pierre meets Plato at a difficult moment in his life - in captivity, when his fate hangs by a thread and depends on many accidents. The first thing that catches his eye (and in a strange way calms), - this is Karataev’s roundness, a harmonious combination of external and internal appearance. In Plato, everything is round - the movements, the way of life that he creates around him, and even the homely smell. The narrator, with his characteristic persistence, repeats the words “round”, “rounded” as often as in the scene on the Field of Austerlitz he repeated the word “sky”.

During the Battle of Shengraben, Andrei Bolkonsky was not ready to meet “his Karataev,” staff captain Tushin. And Pierre, by the time of the Moscow events, had matured enough to learn a lot from Plato. And above all, a true attitude towards life. That is why Karataev “remained forever in Pierre’s soul as the strongest and dearest memory and personification of everything Russian, kind and round.” After all, on the way back from Borodino to Moscow, Bezukhov had a dream, during which he heard a voice:

“War is the most difficult task of subordinating human freedom to the laws of God,” said the voice. - Simplicity is submission to God; you cannot escape Him. And they are simple. They don't talk, but they do. The spoken word is silver, and the unspoken word is golden. A person cannot own anything while he is afraid of death. And whoever is not afraid of her belongs to him everything... To unite everything? - Pierre said to himself. - No, don't connect. You cannot connect thoughts, but connecting all these thoughts is what you need! Yes, we need to mate, we need to mate!” (volume III, part three, chapter IX).

Platon Karataev is the embodiment of this dream; everything is connected in him, he is not afraid of death, he thinks in proverbs, which summarize centuries-old folk wisdom - it is not for nothing that Pierre hears in his dreams the proverb “The spoken word is silver, and the unspoken is golden.”

Can Platon Karataev be called a bright personality? No way. On the contrary: he is not a person at all, because he does not have his own special, separate from the people, spiritual needs, no aspirations and desires. For Tolstoy he is more than a person; he is a piece of the people's soul. Karataev does not remember his own words spoken a minute ago, since he does not think in the usual meaning of this word. That is, he does not organize his reasoning in a logical chain. It’s just that, as modern people would say, his mind is connected to the general consciousness of the people, and Plato’s judgments reproduce the personal wisdom of the people.

Karataev does not have a “special” love for people - he treats all living beings equally lovingly. And to Master Pierre, and to French soldier, who ordered Plato to sew a shirt, and to the lame dog that clings to him. Not being a person, he does not see the personalities around him; everyone he meets is the same particle of a single universe as he himself. Death or separation therefore has no meaning for him; Karataev is not upset when he learns that the person with whom he became close has suddenly disappeared - after all, nothing changes from this! The eternal life of the people continues, and its constant presence will be revealed in every new person they meet.

The main lesson that Bezukhov learns from his communication with Karataev, the main quality that he strives to adopt from his “teacher”, is voluntary dependence on the eternal life of the people. Only it gives a person a real sense of freedom. And when Karataev, having fallen ill, begins to lag behind the column of prisoners and is shot like a dog, Pierre is not too upset. Individual life Karataev’s life has ended, but the eternal, national one, in which he is involved, continues, and there will be no end to it. That is why Tolstoy completes Karataev’s storyline with the second dream of Pierre, who was seen by the captive Bezukhov in the village of Shamshevo:

And suddenly Pierre introduced himself to a living, long-forgotten, gentle old teacher who taught Pierre geography in Switzerland... he showed Pierre a globe. This globe was a living, oscillating ball that had no dimensions. The entire surface of the ball consisted of drops tightly compressed together. And these drops all moved, moved and then merged from several into one, then from one they were divided into many. Every drop sought to spill over, to capture largest space, but others, striving for the same thing, squeezed it, sometimes destroyed it, sometimes merged with it.

This is life, said the old teacher...

In the middle is God, and every drop strives to expand in order to reflect Him in the greatest possible size... Here he is, Karataev, overflowed and disappeared” (volume IV, part three, chapter XV).

In the metaphor of life as a “liquid oscillating ball” made up of individual drops, everything is connected symbolic images“War and Peace”, which we talked about above: and the spindle, and the clockwork, and the anthill; a circular movement connecting everything to everything - this is Tolstoy’s idea of ​​the people, of history, of the family. The meeting of Platon Karataev brings Pierre closer to understanding this truth.

From the image of Staff Captain Tushin we rose, as if a step up, to the image of Platon Karataev. But from Plato in the space of the epic one more step leads upward. The image of People's Field Marshal Kutuzov is raised here to an unattainable height. This old man, gray-haired, fat, walking heavily, with a face disfigured by a wound, towers over both Captain Tushin and even Platon Karataev. He consciously comprehended the truth of the nationality, which they perceived instinctively, and elevated it to the principle of his life and his military leadership.

The main thing for Kutuzov (unlike all the leaders led by Napoleon) is to deviate from a personal proud decision, to guess the correct course of events and not to interfere with their development according to God's will, in truth. We first meet him in the first volume, in the scene of the review near Brenau. Before us is an absent-minded and cunning old man, an old campaigner, who is distinguished by an “affection of respect.” We immediately understand that the mask of an unreasoning servant, which Kutuzov puts on when approaching the ruling people, especially the tsar, is just one of the many ways of his self-defense. After all, he cannot, must not allow these self-righteous persons to really interfere in the course of events, and therefore he is obliged to affectionately evade their will, without contradicting it in words. So he will avoid the battle with Napoleon during the Patriotic War.

Kutuzov, as he appears in the battle scenes of the third and fourth volumes, is not a doer, but a contemplator; he is convinced that victory requires not intelligence, not a scheme, but “something else, independent of intelligence and knowledge.” And above all, “it takes patience and time.” The old commander has both in abundance; he is endowed with the gift of “calm contemplation of the course of events” and sees his main purpose in not doing harm. That is, listen to all the reports, all the main considerations: support the useful ones (that is, those that agree with the natural course of things), reject the harmful ones.

A main secret, which Kutuzov comprehended, as he is depicted in “War and Peace,” is the secret of maintaining the national spirit, the main force in the fight against any enemy of the Fatherland.

That is why this old, weak, voluptuous man personifies Tolstoy’s idea of ​​an ideal politician who has comprehended the main wisdom: the individual cannot influence the course of historical events and must renounce the idea of ​​freedom in favor of the idea of ​​necessity. Tolstoy “instructs” Bolkonsky to express this thought: watching Kutuzov after his appointment as commander-in-chief, Prince Andrei reflects: “He will have nothing of his own... He understands that there is something stronger and more significant than his will - this is the inevitable course of events ... And the main thing ... is that he is Russian, despite the novel by Zhanlis and French sayings" (volume III, part two, chapter XVI).

Without the figure of Kutuzov, Tolstoy would not have solved one of the main artistic tasks of his epic: to contrast the “false form of the European hero, supposedly controlling people, which history has come up with,” with the “simple, modest and therefore truly majestic figure” of the people’s hero, which will never settle into this "false form"

Natasha Rostova. If we translate the typology of epic heroes into traditional language literary terms, then an internal pattern will reveal itself. The world of everyday life and the world of lies are opposed by dramatic and epic characters. The dramatic characters of Pierre and Andrey are full of internal contradictions, always in motion and development; the epic characters of Karataev and Kutuzov amaze with their integrity. But there is in portrait gallery, created by Tolstoy in War and Peace, a character that does not fit into any of the listed categories. This is a lyrical character main character epic, Natasha Rostova.

Does she belong to the “life-wasters”? It is impossible to even imagine this. With her sincerity, with her heightened sense of justice! Does it relate to " ordinary people", like your relatives, Rostov? In many ways, yes; and yet it is not without reason that both Pierre and Andrei seek her love, are drawn to her, and stand out from the crowd. At the same time, you can’t call her a truth-seeker. No matter how much we re-read the scenes in which Natasha acts, we will not find anywhere a hint of the search for a moral ideal, truth, truth. And in the Epilogue, after marriage, she even loses the brightness of her temperament, the spirituality of her appearance; baby diapers replace what Pierre and Andrei give to reflection on the truth and the purpose of life.

Like the rest of the Rostovs, Natasha is not endowed with a sharp mind; when in chapter XVII of part four last volume, and then in the Epilogue we see her next to the emphatically intelligent woman Marya Bolkonskaya-Rostova, this difference is especially striking. Natasha, as the narrator emphasizes, simply “didn’t deign to be smart.” But she is endowed with something else, which for Tolstoy is more important than the abstract mind, more important even than truth-seeking: the instinct of knowing life through experience. It is this inexplicable quality that brings Natasha’s image very close to the “sages”, primarily to Kutuzov, despite the fact that in all other respects she is closer to ordinary people. It is simply impossible to “attribute” it to one particular category: it does not obey any classification, it breaks out beyond any definition.

Natasha, “dark-eyed, with a big mouth, ugly, but alive,” is the most emotional of all the characters in the epic; That’s why she is the most musical of all Rostovs. The element of music lives not only in her singing, which everyone around recognizes as wonderful, but also in Natasha’s voice itself. Remember, Andrei’s heart trembled for the first time when he heard Natasha’s conversation with Sonya on a moonlit night, without seeing the girls talking. Natasha's singing heals brother Nikolai, who falls into despair after losing 43 thousand, which ruined the Rostov family.

From the same emotional, sensitive, intuitive root grow both her egoism, fully revealed in the story with Anatoly Kuragin, and her selflessness, which is manifested both in the scene with carts for the wounded in burning Moscow, and in the episodes where she is shown caring for a dying man Andrey, how he cares for his mother, shocked by the news of Petya’s death.

And the main gift that is given to her and which raises her above all other heroes of the epic, even the best, is a special gift of happiness. They all suffer, suffer, seek the truth, or, like the impersonal Platon Karataev, affectionately possess it. Only Natasha unselfishly enjoys life, feels its feverish pulse and generously shares her happiness with everyone around her. Her happiness is in her naturalness; That’s why the narrator so harshly contrasts the scene of Natasha Rostova’s first ball with the episode of her meeting and falling in love with Anatoly Kuragin. Please note: this acquaintance takes place in the theater (volume II, part five, chapter IX). That is, where play and pretense reign. This is not enough for Tolstoy; he forces the epic narrator to “descend” down the steps of emotions, use sarcasm in descriptions of what is happening, and strongly emphasize the idea of ​​​​the unnatural atmosphere in which Natasha’s feelings for Kuragin arise.

It is not for nothing that the most famous comparison of “War and Peace” is attributed to the lyrical heroine, Natasha. At that moment when Pierre, after a long separation, meets Rostova together with Princess Marya, he does not recognize Natasha - and suddenly “the face, with attentive eyes, with difficulty, with effort, like a rusty door opening, - smiled, and from this open door suddenly it smelled and doused Pierre with forgotten happiness... It smelled, enveloped and absorbed him all” (volume IV, part four, chapter XV).

But Natasha’s true calling, as Tolstoy shows in the Epilogue (and unexpectedly for many readers), was revealed only in motherhood. Having gone into children, she realizes herself in them and through them; and this is no accident: after all, the family for Tolstoy is the same cosmos, the same holistic and saving world, like the Christian faith, like the life of the people.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, with his pure Russian pen, gave life to a whole world of characters in the novel “War and Peace.” His fictional characters, who are intertwined into entire noble families or family ties between families, show the modern reader a real reflection of those people who lived in the times described by the author. One of greatest books"War and Peace" of world significance with the confidence of a professional historian, but at the same time, as if in a mirror, presents to the whole world that Russian spirit, those characters of secular society, those historical events that were invariably present at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries.
And against the backdrop of these events, the greatness of the Russian soul is shown, in all its power and diversity.

L.N. Tolstoy and the heroes of the novel “War and Peace” experience the events of the past nineteenth century, but Lev Nikolaevich begins to describe the events of 1805. The coming war with the French, the decisively approaching the whole world and the growing greatness of Napoleon, the turmoil in Moscow secular circles and the apparent calm in St. Petersburg secular society - all this can be called a kind of background against which, like a brilliant artist, the author drew his characters. There are quite a lot of heroes - about 550 or 600. There are main and central figures, and there are others or just mentioned ones. In total, the heroes of War and Peace can be divided into three groups: central, secondary and mentioned characters. Among all of them, there are both fictional characters, prototypes of people who surrounded the writer at that time, and real historical figures. Let's look at the main characters novel.

Quotes from the novel “War and Peace”

- ... I often think how unfairly the happiness of life is sometimes distributed.

A person cannot own anything while he is afraid of death. And whoever is not afraid of her, everything belongs to him.

Until now, thank God, I have been a friend of my children and enjoy their complete trust,” said the countess, repeating the misconception of many parents who believe that their children have no secrets from them.

Everything, from napkins to silver, earthenware and crystal, bore that special imprint of novelty that happens in the household of young spouses.

If everyone fought only according to their convictions, there would be no war.

Being an enthusiast became her social position, and sometimes, when she didn’t even want to, she, in order not to deceive the expectations of people who knew her, became an enthusiast.

Everything, to love everyone, to always sacrifice oneself for love, meant not loving anyone, meant not living this earthly life.

Never, never marry, my friend; Here's my advice to you: don't get married until you tell yourself that you did everything you could, and until you stop loving the woman you chose, until you see her clearly; otherwise you will make a cruel and irreparable mistake. Marry an old man who is worthless...

The central figures of the novel "War and Peace"

Rostov - counts and countesses

Rostov Ilya Andreevich

Count, father of four children: Natasha, Vera, Nikolai and Petya. Very kind and generous man who loved life very much. His exorbitant generosity ultimately led him to wastefulness. Loving husband and father. A very good organizer of various balls and receptions. However, his life on a grand scale, and selfless assistance to the wounded during the war with the French and the departure of the Russians from Moscow, dealt fatal blows to his condition. His conscience constantly tormented him because of the impending poverty of his family, but he could not help himself. After the death of his youngest son Petya, the count was broken, but nevertheless revived during the preparations for the wedding of Natasha and Pierre Bezukhov. Literally a few months pass after the Bezukhovs’ wedding when Count Rostov dies.

Rostova Natalya (wife of Ilya Andreevich Rostov)

The wife of Count Rostov and the mother of four children, this woman, aged forty-five, had oriental features. The concentration of slowness and sedateness in her was regarded by those around her as solidity and the high importance of her personality for the family. But the real reason for her mannerisms probably lies in her exhausted and weak physical condition from giving birth and raising four children. She loves her family and children very much, so the news of the death of her youngest son Petya almost drove her crazy. Just like Ilya Andreevich, Countess Rostova was very fond of luxury and the fulfillment of any of her orders.

Leo Tolstoy and the heroes of the novel “War and Peace” in Countess Rostova helped reveal the prototype of the author’s grandmother, Pelageya Nikolaevna Tolstoy.

Rostov Nikolay

Son of Count Rostov Ilya Andreevich. A loving brother and son who honors his family, at the same time he loves to serve in the Russian army, which is very significant and important for his dignity. Even in his fellow soldiers, he often saw his second family. Although he was in love with his cousin Sonya for a long time, at the end of the novel he marries Princess Marya Bolkonskaya. A very energetic young man, with curly hair and an “open expression.” His patriotism and love for the Emperor of Russia never dried up. Having gone through many hardships of war, he becomes a brave and courageous hussar. After the death of Father Ilya Andreevich, Nikolai retires in order to improve the family’s financial affairs, pay off debts and, finally, become a good husband for Marya Bolkonskaya.

Introduced to Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich as a prototype of his father.

Rostova Natasha

Daughter of Count and Countess Rostov. A very energetic and emotional girl, considered ugly, but lively and attractive, she is not very smart, but intuitive, because she knew how to perfectly “guess people,” their mood and some character traits. Very impulsive towards nobility and self-sacrifice. She sings and dances very beautifully, which at that time was an important characteristic for a girl from secular society. Natasha’s most important quality, which Leo Tolstoy, like his heroes, repeatedly emphasize in the novel “War and Peace” is her closeness to the ordinary Russian people. And she herself completely absorbed the Russianness of culture and the strength of the spirit of the nation. However, this girl lives in her illusion of goodness, happiness and love, which, after some time, brings Natasha into reality. It is these blows of fate and her heartfelt experiences that make Natasha Rostova an adult and ultimately give her a mature, true love for Pierre Bezukhov. The story of the rebirth of her soul deserves special respect, how Natasha began to attend church after succumbing to the temptation of a deceitful seducer. If you are interested in Tolstoy's works, which take a deeper look at the Christian heritage of our people, then you need to read a book about Father Sergius and how he fought temptation.

A collective prototype of the writer’s daughter-in-law Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskaya, as well as her sister, Lev Nikolaevich’s wife, Sofia Andreevna.

Rostova Vera

Daughter of Count and Countess Rostov. She was famous for her strict disposition and inappropriate, albeit fair, remarks in society. It is unknown why, but her mother did not really love her and Vera felt this acutely, apparently, which is why she often went against everyone around her. Later she became the wife of Boris Drubetsky.

She is the prototype of Tolstoy’s sister Sophia, the wife of Lev Nikolaevich, whose name was Elizaveta Bers.

Rostov Peter

Just a boy, the son of Count and Countess Rostov. Growing up, Petya, as a young man, was eager to go to war, and in such a way that his parents could not restrain him at all. Having finally escaped from parental care and joined Denisov’s hussar regiment. Petya dies in the first battle, without having had time to fight. His death greatly affected his family.

Sonya

The miniature, nice girl Sonya was the niece of Count Rostov and lived all her life under his roof. Her long-term love for Nikolai Rostov became fatal for her, because she never managed to unite with him in marriage. In addition, the old count Natalya Rostova was very against their marriage, because they were cousins. Sonya acts nobly, refusing Dolokhov and agreeing to love only Nikolai for the rest of her life, while freeing him from his promise to marry her. She lives the rest of her life under the old countess in the care of Nikolai Rostov.

The prototype of this seemingly insignificant character was Lev Nikolaevich’s second cousin, Tatyana Aleksandrovna Ergolskaya.

Bolkonsky - princes and princesses

Bolkonsky Nikolai Andreevich

The father of the main character, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. In the past, the current general-in-chief, in the present, a prince who earned himself the nickname “Prussian king” in Russian secular society. Socially active, strict like a father, tough, pedantic, but wise master of his estate. Outwardly, he was a thin old man in a powdered white wig, thick eyebrows hanging over penetrating and intelligent eyes. He doesn’t like to show feelings even to his beloved son and daughter. He constantly torments his daughter Marya with nagging and sharp words. Sitting on his estate, Prince Nikolai is constantly on the alert for events taking place in Russia, and only before his death does he lose a full understanding of the scale of the tragedy of the Russian war with Napoleon.

The prototype of Prince Nikolai Andreevich was the writer’s grandfather Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky.

Bolkonsky Andrey

Prince, son of Nikolai Andreevich. He is ambitious, just like his father, restrained in the manifestation of sensual impulses, but loves his father and sister very much. Married to the “little princess” Lisa. He had a good military career. He philosophizes a lot about life, meaning and the state of his spirit. From which it is clear that he is in some kind of constant search. After the death of his wife, in Natasha Rostova he saw hope for himself, a real girl, and not a fake one as in secular society, and some light of future happiness, so he was in love with her. Having proposed to Natasha, he was forced to go abroad for treatment, which served as a real test for both of their feelings. As a result, their wedding fell through. Prince Andrey went to war with Napoleon and was seriously wounded, after which he did not survive and died from a serious wound. Natasha devotedly looked after him until the end of his death.

Bolkonskaya Marya

Daughter of Prince Nikolai and sister of Andrei Bolkonsky. A very meek girl, not beautiful, but kind-hearted and very rich, like a bride. Her inspiration and devotion to religion serves as an example of good morals and meekness to many. She unforgettably loves her father, who often mocked her with his ridicule, reproaches and injections. And he also loves his brother, Prince Andrei. She did not immediately accept Natasha Rostova as her future daughter-in-law, because she seemed too frivolous for her brother Andrei. After all the hardships she has experienced, she marries Nikolai Rostov.

The prototype of Marya is the mother of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy - Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya.

Bezukhovs - counts and countesses

Bezukhov Pierre (Peter Kirillovich)

One of the main characters who deserves close attention and the most positive assessment. This character has experienced a lot of emotional trauma and pain, possessing a kind and highly noble disposition. Tolstoy and the heroes of the novel “War and Peace” very often express their love and acceptance of Pierre Bezukhov as a man of very high morals, complacent and a man of a philosophical mind. Lev Nikolaevich loves his hero, Pierre, very much. As a friend of Andrei Bolkonsky, the young Count Pierre Bezukhov is very loyal and responsive. Despite the various intrigues weaving under his nose, Pierre did not become embittered and did not lose his good nature towards people. And having married Natalya Rostova, he finally found the grace and happiness that he so lacked in his first wife, Helen. At the end of the novel, his desire to change the political foundations in Russia can be traced, and from afar one can even guess his Decembrist sentiments. (100%) 4 votes

The epic novel “War and Peace” is a grandiose work in its design, idea, and scale of the events depicted. It operates great amount characters, along with real ones historical figures Here fictional ones coexist, which nevertheless seem to us no less real. Their psychological authenticity is such that there were often attempts to find in these heroes, created by the creative imagination of the writer using the method of realistic typification, the features of real people - prototypes of the heroes of the novel "War and Peace".

In the works of realist writers, it is indeed not uncommon to find characters who have such prototypes. Let us consider in the article the question of whether it is possible to find them in individual characters in the novel “War and Peace”.

Prototypes of heroes hardly existed. Tolstoy himself spoke out sharply negatively about this issue more than once. But nevertheless, his characters were so typical and lifelike, the degree of reliability of their depiction was so extraordinary that the writer’s contemporaries, and even readers of a later time, continued to wonder: had such people never existed in the world and the writer simply invented them. That is why Tolstoy had to explain himself on this matter in a separate article - “A few words about the book “War and Peace.” Here he once again emphasized that one should not look for prototypes of the heroes of the novel "War and Peace." It is this clearly expressed writer’s position that allows us to fairly accurately assess those “candidates” for their role that we know about.

Researchers of Tolstoy’s work have established that in depicting the characters in the novel, the writer proceeded from a kind of “questionnaire” information: he determined them by business abilities, by the nature of love relationships, by artistic tastes, etc. At the same time, the heroes were not taken in isolation, but were distributed among families: Rostov, Bolkonsky, Kuragin. Then, in the process of creating the novel, the characters' characters became more defined, sometimes changing and becoming more precise. At the same time, the writer adhered to the principle of historical and psychological authenticity of each of the characters he drew.

This largely explains the choice of the main characters' surnames. Tolstoy deliberately used traditional surnames familiar to the nobility of that era, only slightly modifying them: this is how, for example, the surnames Drubetskoy appeared by analogy with Trubetskoy, Bolkonsky - Volkonsky, etc. All this prompted the writer’s contemporary readers to draw certain parallels. So one lady from the family of Prince Volkonsky turned to the writer with a question about Prince Andrei as a possible relative. This caused a fair objection from the writer, which is very important for us to understand whether the heroes of the novel “War and Peace” had prototypes.

And yet, attempts to connect Tolstoy’s heroes with certain individuals continued. Sometimes you can see in them traces of Tolstoy’s real idea, which he later abandoned for one reason or another. This happened with the image of an aristocrat, the owner of a fashionable St. Petersburg salon, maid of honor Anna Pavlovna Sherer. Her salon in the novel is a vivid expression of the anti-national essence of the aristocracy and high society, and Anna Pavlovna herself is the embodiment of primness, deceit, and false courtesy characteristic of this environment. But according to the original plan, this character was supposed to play a completely different role; the heroine, who was called the maid of honor Annette D., seemed quite a sweet and pretty lady. It is likely that in this initial version Tolstoy imagined a real person - his aunt maid of honor Alexandra Andreevna Tolstoy, whose friendship he was proud of. This is how he writes about the supposed heroine of the novel in terms of work: “She was smart, mocking and sensitive and, if she was not positively truthful, she differed from the crowd of her kind in her truthfulness.” The initial version of the novel largely retains the features of the prototype in this heroine. This image underwent truly radical changes in the final edition of the novel, becoming its complete opposite.

Of course, other examples can be found that do not involve such a dramatic change. Everyone remembers the image of Denisov, whose very name is clearly intended to evoke an association with Denis Davydov, a participant in the Patriotic War of 1812, a hussar who, like the hero of the novel, fought in a partisan detachment. Here the similarity between the character and the prototype is quite obvious, although, of course, in this case we cannot talk about simple copying. Also indicative is the image of Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, whose prototype is considered to be an influential and wealthy noble lady known in Moscow who lived on Povarskaya - Ofrosimova: the consonance of surnames here is quite obvious. By the way, there is a similar image in Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit” - this is the formidable Moscow lady Khlestova, whom even Famusov is afraid of.

A number of similar examples could be continued further, but perhaps the most interesting from the point of view of the problem of prototypes is the story associated with the image of Tolstoy’s most beloved and dear heroine - Natasha Rostova. According to one version, her prototype could be a girl close to the Tolstoy family - Tatyana Bers, married Kuzminskaya. She subsequently wrote a book of memoirs, “My Life at Home and in Yasnaya Polyana,” in which she claimed that Tolstoy wrote Natasha from her; accordingly, she considered her mother to be the prototype of Countess Rostova, etc. There is several evidence from the writer that gives reason to consider such a version as possible. But still they do not give reason to say that the fate of T.A. Kuzminskaya and her character exactly corresponded to the life of his heroine. Perhaps it was only a question of portrait resemblance. Moreover, as researchers of the writer’s work have established, Tolstoy’s work on this image followed a completely different path.

It is known that at first this heroine appears in the drafts of the unfinished novel “The Decembrists,” which was supposed to tell about the return from exile of the old Decembrist Peter and his wife Natasha. Both of them, naturally, are already quite middle-aged people. So, when working on the image of Natasha Rostova from War and Peace, Tolstoy started from the final phase of the development of the character of the heroine: the Decembrist’s wife, who followed her husband to Siberia and shared all the hardships that befell him. It can hardly be assumed that a very young girl could serve as a prototype for such Natasha, although this does not exclude the possibility that the writer closely followed the life of his friend Tatyana. Rather, we can talk about the opposite effect. Perhaps, after the appearance of Tolstoy’s novel, Kuzminskaya was able to evaluate herself, her youth differently, and better understand her life. However, many of the images from Tolstoy’s novel could have the same meaning for other people, and not only his contemporaries.

This is precisely the essence of creative writing - to find individual facts in life, on the basis of which types of people are created that are close and understandable to many. And the more perfect the artistic creation, the deeper this connection can be. It is no coincidence that they so often try to find prototypes of the pinnacle works of literature, be it “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, “Eugene Onegin”, “Fathers and Sons” or “The Brothers Karamazov”. But of course, none of the heroes of these classic works of Russian literature can be completely reduced to their possible prototypes, although identifying them makes it possible to better understand the writer’s creative laboratory.