Tolstoy's war and peace interpretation of words. The meaning of the title of the novel "War and Peace"
The novel “War and Peace” was originally conceived as a novel about a Decembrist who returned from exile, revised his views, condemned the past and became a preacher of moral self-improvement. The creation of the epic novel was influenced by the events of that time (60s of the 19th century) - Russia’s failure in the Crimean War, the abolition of serfdom and its consequences.
The theme of the work is formed by three main issues: the problems of the people, the noble community and the personal life of a person, determined by ethical standards. The main artistic device used by the writer is antithesis. This technique is the core of the entire novel: the novel contrasts two wars (1805-1807 and 1812), and two battles (Austerlitz and Borodino), and military leaders (Kutuzov and Napoleon), and cities (St. Petersburg and Moscow ), and the characters. This opposition is already embedded in the very title of the novel: “War and Peace.”
This name has a deep philosophical meaning. The fact is that in the word “world” before the revolution there was a different letter designation for the sound “and” - i is decimal, and the word was written “mir” - that is, it also had the meaning “society, people, people”. The topics touched upon in the novel highlight important aspects folk life, views, ideals, life and customs of various layers of society.
But both then and now the title of the novel is interpreted based on the whole variety of meanings contained in these concepts. Just as “war” means not only the military actions of warring armies, but also the bellicose hostility of people in peaceful life, separated by social and moral barriers, the concept of “peace” appears and is revealed in the epic in its various meanings. Peace is the life of a people who are not in a state of war. The world is a peasant gathering that started a riot in Bogucharovo. The world is everyday interests, which, unlike mortal life, so prevent Nikolai Rostov from being a “wonderful person” and so annoy him when he comes on vacation and does not understand anything in this “stupid world.” Peace is a person’s immediate environment, which is always next to him, no matter where he is: in war or in peaceful life.
But the world is the whole world, the universe. Pierre speaks about him, proving to Prince Andrey the existence of the “kingdom of truth.” Peace is the brotherhood of people, regardless of national and class differences, to which Nikolai Rostov proclaims greetings when meeting with the Austrians. The world is life. The world is also a worldview, a circle of ideas of heroes.
The epic beginning in the novel connects the pictures of war and peace into a single picture with invisible threads. Peace and war go side by side, intertwine, interpenetrate and condition each other. IN general concept In the novel, the world denies war, because the content and need of peace is work and happiness, a free and natural and therefore joyful manifestation of personality. And the content and need of war is disunion, alienation and isolation, hatred and hostility of people defending their selfish individual interests, this is the self-affirmation of their egoistic “I”, bringing destruction, grief, and death to others. The horror of the death of hundreds of people on the dam during the retreat of the Russian army after Austerlitz is all the more shocking because Tolstoy compares all this horror with the sight of the same dam at another time, when “the old miller sat here for so long with fishing rods while his grandson, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, was fingering a silver quivering fish in a watering can.”
The terrible result of the Borodino battle is depicted in the following picture: “Several tens of thousands of people lay dead in different positions in the fields and meadows, where for hundreds of years the peasants of the villages of Borodino, Gorok, Kovardina and Sechenevsky". Here the horror of murder in war becomes clear to Rostov when he sees “the enemy’s roomy face with a hole in the chin and blue eyes.”
To tell the truth about the war, Tolstoy concludes, is very difficult. His innovation is connected not only with the fact that he showed man in war, but mainly with the fact that, having debunked the false one, he was the first to discover the heroism of war, presenting war as an everyday matter and at the same time as a test for everyone. mental strength person. And it inevitably happened that the bearers of true heroism were simple, modest people, such as Captain Tushin or Timokhin, forgotten by history; “sinner” Natasha, who achieved the allocation of transport for the Russian wounded; General Dokhturov and Kutuzov, who never spoke about his exploits. They are the ones who forget about themselves and save Russia.
The very combination of “war and peace” has already been used in Russian literature, in particular, in A. S. Pushkin’s tragedy “Boris Godunov”:
Describe, Not philosophizing slyly,
All That, why witness V life you will:
War And world, council sovereigns,
Ugodnikov the Saints miracles.
Tolstoy, like Pushkin, uses the combination “war and peace” as a universal category.
There was fierce debate about the meaning of the title of Tolstoy's novel War and Peace. Now it seems that everyone has come to more or less definite interpretations.
Antithesis in the broad sense of the word
Indeed, if you read just the title of the novel, then the simplest contrast immediately catches your eye: a peaceful, calm life and military battles, which occupy a very significant place in the work. The meaning of the title “War and Peace” lies, as it were, on the surface. Let's consider this side of the issue. Of the four volumes of the novel, only the second covers exclusively peaceful life. In the remaining volumes, the war is interspersed with descriptions of episodes from the life of various parts of society. It is not for nothing that the count himself, calling his epic in French, wrote only La guerre et la paix, which is translated without additional interpretation: “war is war, and peace is only everyday life.” There is reason to think that the author considered the meaning of the title “War and Peace” without additional subtext. Nevertheless, it is embedded in it.
Old disputes
Before the reform of the Russian language, the word “peace” was written and interpreted in two ways. These were “mir” and “mir” through i, which in Cyrillic was called “and”, and izhitsa, which was written as “and”. These words differed in meaning. “Mir” is a time without military events, and the second option meant the universe, the globe, society. Spelling could easily change the meaning of the title "War and Peace." Employees of the country's main Russian Language Institute found out that the old spelling, which appeared in a single rare publication, was nothing more than a typo. There was also one typo found in a business document that caught the attention of some commentators. But the author wrote only “peace” in his letters. How the title of the novel came about has not yet been reliably established. Again we will refer to our leading institute, in which linguists have not established exact analogies.
Problems of the novel
What issues are addressed in the novel?
- Noble society.
- Private life.
- Problems of the people.
And all of them are in one way or another connected with wars and peaceful life, which reflects the meaning of the name “War and Peace”. Artistic technique author - opposition. In the 1st part of the first volume, the reader has just plunged into the life of St. Petersburg and Moscow, when the 2nd part immediately takes him to Austria, where preparations are underway for the Battle of Shengraben. The 3rd part of the first volume mixes Bezukhov’s life in St. Petersburg, Prince Vasily’s trip with Anatoly to the Bolkonskys and the battle of Austerlitz.
Contrasts of society
The Russian nobility is a unique layer. In Russia, the peasantry perceived him as foreigners: they spoke French, their manners and way of life were different from the Russian. In Europe, on the contrary, they were looked at as “Russian bears.” They were strangers in any country.
IN home country they could always expect a peasant revolt. Here is another contrast in society that reflects the meaning of the title of the novel “War and Peace.” As an example, let's give an episode from the third volume, part 2. When the French approached Bogucharov, the men did not want to let Princess Marya go to Moscow. Only the intervention of N. Rostov, who happened to pass by with a squadron, saved the princess and pacified the peasants. Military and Peaceful time in Tolstoy they are intertwined, as it happens in modern life.
Movement from west to east
The author describes two wars. One is alien to the Russian person, who does not understand its meaning, but fights the enemy, as his superiors order, without sparing himself, even without the necessary uniform. The second is clear and natural: defense of the Fatherland and the fight for their families, for a peaceful life in native land. This is also indicated by the meaning of the title of the novel “War and Peace”. Against this background, the opposite, antagonistic qualities of Napoleon and Kutuzov are revealed, and the role of the individual in history is clarified.
The epilogue of the novel tells a lot about this. It compares emperors, commanders, generals, and also analyzes issues of will and necessity, genius and chance.
Contrast between battles and peaceful life
In general, L. Tolstoy divides peace and war into two polar parts. War, which completely fills the history of mankind, is disgusting and unnatural. It causes hatred and hostility in people and brings destruction and death.
Peace is happiness and joy, freedom and naturalness, work for the benefit of society and the individual. Each episode of the novel is a song of the joys of peaceful life and a condemnation of war as an indispensable attribute human life. This opposition is the meaning of the title of the epic novel “War and Peace.” The world, not only in the novel, but also in life, denies war. The innovation of L. Tolstoy, who himself participated in the battles of Sevastopol, lies in the fact that he showed not its heroism, but the reverse side - everyday, genuine, testing all the spiritual strength of a person.
Noble society, its contrasts
The nobles do not form a single cohesive mass. Petersburg, elite, looks down on the stubborn, good-natured Muscovites. The Scherer salon, the Rostov house and the unique, intellectual, standing apart from Bogucharovo - this is so different worlds that they will always be separated by a gulf.
The meaning of the title “War and Peace”: essay
L. Tolstoy devoted six years of his life (1863 - 1869) to writing an epic novel, which he later spoke about with disdain. But we appreciate this masterpiece for opening the widest panorama of life, which includes everything that surrounds a person day after day.
The main technique that we see in all episodes is antithesis. The entire novel, even the description of peaceful life, is built on contrasts: the ceremonial salon of A. Scherer and the cold family life of Lisa and Andrei Bolkonsky, the patriarchal warm family of the Rostovs and the rich intellectual life in God-forgotten Bogucharovo, the beggarly quiet existence of Dolokhov’s adored family and his external, empty, flashy life of an adventurer, Pierre’s unnecessary meetings with the Freemasons, who do not ask deep questions about the reconstruction of life, like Bezukhov.
War also has polar sides. The foreign campaign of 1805-1806, meaningless for Russian soldiers and officers, and the terrible year 12, when, retreating, they had to give a bloody battle near Borodino and surrender Moscow, and then, having liberated their homeland, drive the enemy across Europe to Paris, leaving him in integrity.
A coalition that was formed after the war when all countries united against Russia, fearing its unexpected power.
L. N. Tolstoy (“War and Peace”) invested an infinite amount of his philosophical reasoning into the epic novel. The meaning of the name is not amenable to unambiguous interpretation.
It is multidimensional and multifaceted, like the life itself that surrounds us. This novel has been and will be relevant at all times and not only for Russians, who understand it more deeply, but also for foreigners who turn to it again and again, making feature films.
What does the title of the novel "War and Peace" mean?
The novel “War and Peace” was initially conceived by Tolstoy as a story about the Decembrists. The author wanted to talk about these wonderful people and their families.
But not just talk about what happened in December 1825 in Russia, but show how the participants in these events came to them, which pushed the Decembrists to revolt against the Tsar. The result of Tolstoy’s study of these historical events was the novel “War and Peace,” which tells about the birth of the Decembrist movement against the backdrop of the War of 1812.
What is the meaning of Tolstoy's War and Peace? Is it only to convey to the reader the moods and aspirations of people for whom the fate of Russia was important after the war against Napoleon? Or to show once again that “war... is contrary to human reason and all human nature event"? Or maybe Tolstoy wanted to emphasize that our life consists of contrasts between war and peace, meanness and honor, evil and good.
One can now only guess about why the author named his work this way and what the meaning of the title “War and Peace” is. But, reading and re-reading the work, you are once again convinced that the entire narrative in it is built on the struggle of opposites.
Contrasts of the novel
In the work, the reader is constantly faced with opposition various concepts, characters, destinies.
What is war? And is it always accompanied by the death of hundreds and thousands of people? After all, there are wars that are bloodless, quiet, invisible to many, but no less significant to one specific person. Sometimes it even happens that this person is not aware that military operations are taking place around him.
For example, while Pierre was trying to figure out how to behave correctly with his dying father, in the same house there was a war between Prince Vasily and Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskaya. Anna Mikhailovna “fought” on Pierre’s side only because it was beneficial to herself, but still, largely thanks to her, Pierre became Count Pyotr Kirillovich Bezukhov.
In this “battle” for the briefcase with the will, it was decided whether Pierre would be unknown, useless to anyone, thrown overboard the ship of life as a bastard, or become a rich heir, a count and an enviable groom. In fact, it was here that it was decided whether Pierre Bezukhov could eventually become what he became at the end of the novel? Perhaps, if he had to survive from bread to water, then life priorities his would be completely different.
Reading these lines, you clearly feel how contemptuously Tolstoy treats the “military actions” of Prince Vasily and Anna Mikhailovna. And at the same time, one can feel good-natured irony in relation to Pierre, who is absolutely unadapted to life. What is this if not the contrast between the “war” of meanness and the “peace” of good-natured naivety?
What is “world” in Tolstoy’s novel? The world is the romantic universe of young Natasha Rostova, the good nature of Pierre, the religiosity and kindness of Princess Marya. Even old prince Bolkonsky, with his paramilitary arrangement of life and nagging towards his son and daughter, is on the side of the author’s “peace”.
After all, in his “world” reigns decency, honesty, dignity, naturalness - all those qualities that Tolstoy endows with his favorite heroes. These are the Bolkonskys and Rostovs, and Pierre Bezukhov, and Marya Dmitrievna, and even Kutuzov and Bagration. Despite the fact that readers meet Kutuzov only on the battlefields, he is clearly a representative of the “world” of goodness and mercy, wisdom and honor.
What do soldiers protect in war when they fight against invaders? Why do completely illogical situations sometimes occur, when “one battalion is sometimes stronger than a division,” as Prince Andrei said? Because when defending their country, soldiers are defending more than just “space.” And Kutuzov, and Bolkonsky, and Dolokhov, and Denisov, and all the soldiers, militias, partisans, they all fight for the world in which their relatives and friends live, where their children grow up, where their wives and parents remain, for their country. This is precisely what causes that “warmth of patriotism that was in all... people... and which explained... why all these people were calmly and seemingly frivolously preparing for death.”
The contrast, emphasized by the meaning of the title of the novel “War and Peace,” is manifested in everything. Wars: the war of 1805, alien and unnecessary to the Russian people, and the Patriotic War people's war 1812.
The confrontation between honest and decent people - the Rostovs, Bolkonskys, Pierre Bezukhov - and the “drones”, as Tolstoy called them - the Drubetskys, Kuragins, Berg, Zherkov, is sharply revealed.
Even within each circle there are contrasts: the Rostovs are contrasted with the Bolkonskys. The noble, friendly, albeit bankrupt Rostov family - to the rich, but at the same time lonely and homeless, Pierre.
A very vivid contrast between Kutuzov, calm, wise, natural in his weariness from life, an old warrior and a narcissistic, decoratively pompous Napoleon.
It is the contrasts on which the plot of the novel is built that capture and lead the reader throughout the entire narrative.
Conclusion
In my essay “The meaning of the title of the novel “War and Peace”” I wanted to talk about these contrasting concepts. About amazing understanding human psychology Tolstoy, the ability to logically build the history of the development of many personalities over such a long narrative. Lev Nikolaevich tells a story Russian state not just as a historian-scientist, the reader seems to live life along with the characters. And gradually he finds answers to eternal questions about love and truth.
Work test
/ / / The meaning of the title of Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace”
The title can tell a lot about the work. Typically the name literary text hints at the main problem, the character of the hero, a historical event, or some significant episode of the plot. The meaning of the title of the epic novel by L.N. Tolstoy's War and Peace is, at first glance, transparent. In fact, it needs to be interpreted from different angles. After all, the author himself examines social events as such, they influence the people as a whole and on individuals.
Tolstoy's work has gone through many revisions by the author. At first it was conceived as the history of the Decembrist, but in the process of work, Lev Nikolaevich abandoned the original plan. The first name was also different from the one that the whole world knows today. The writer borrowed an English proverb: “All's well that ends well.” In this version, by the way, Andrei Bolkonsky and Petya remained alive. After several revisions, when the central event of the novel was the war with Napoleon, and not the Decembrist movement, the work received the name we know.
Indeed, the novel depicts military actions and times of truce. Historical events influence the lives of the heroes of the work. Most of the characters return to peacetime as completely different people after hostilities. A striking example transformation - . The injury helped the hero realize that his life priorities were false, and that if he were guided by them, he would live his life in vain. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy shows that war poses problems for people that we don’t even think about in the everyday bustle of peaceful life. These are questions about true values, exploits, heroism, true love and friendship.
Scenes of military and peaceful life are arranged in the novel so that the reader can easily follow how historical events influence society and individuals. We see how and thanks to what the desire of Russians for victory increases, how the attitude towards the state and language changes, and patriotism becomes more pronounced.
The title of the novel by L.N. Tolstoy can also be considered in the context family dramas, internal struggle. For example, the imminent death of old Count Bezukhov gives rise to family war for a substantial inheritance. At the same time, the illegitimate son Pierre does not even know how his fate is being decided; his thoughts are occupied with something completely different.
Heroes who know how to listen to their feelings sometimes fight with themselves. For example, Andrei Bolkonsky feels that he cannot live fully among aristocrats, constant lies and intrigue. However, for some time, he has to dampen his desire for freedom. contradict herself when she starts a relationship with Anatole. After all, in fact, the girl’s heart belongs to Andrei Bolkonsky. Peace in the souls of the heroes comes only when they find happiness and find the meaning of life.
Thus, the title of the novel “War and Peace” must be considered in broad and narrow meanings.
From his father, member foreign trips Russian army during Patriotic War, L. Tolstoy inherited a sense of his own dignity, independence of judgment, pride. Having entered Kazan University, he showed extraordinary abilities in studying foreign languages, but quickly became disillusioned with student life. At the age of 19 he leaves the university and goes to Yasnaya Polyana, deciding to devote himself to improving the lives of peasants. The time begins for Tolstoy to search for a purpose in life. He is either getting ready to go to Siberia, or going first to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg; then he decides to join the Horse Guards Regiment... During these same years, L. Tolstoy was seriously involved in music, pedagogy, and philosophy. In a painful search, Tolstoy comes to the main task of his life - literary creativity. Total great writer created over 200 works, including the epic novel War and Peace. According to I. S. Turgenev, “nothing better has ever been written by anyone.” It is enough to note that the text of the novel was rewritten 7 times; its composition is striking in its complexity and harmony.
The novel “War and Peace” was conceived as a novel about a Decembrist who returned from exile, reconsidered his views, condemned the past and became a preacher of moral self-improvement.
The creation of the epic novel was influenced by the events of that time (60s of the 19th century) - Russia’s failure in the Crimean War, the abolition of serfdom and its consequences.
The theme of the work is formed by three circles of questions: the problems of the people, the noble community and the personal life of a person, determined by ethical standards. The main artistic device used by the writer is antithesis. This technique is the core of the entire novel: the novel contrasts two wars (1805-1807 and 1812), and two battles (Austerlitz and Borodino), and military leaders (Kutuzov and Napoleon), and cities (St. Petersburg and Moscow ), And characters. But in fact, this opposition is already inherent in the very title of the novel: “War and Peace.”
This name reflects the deep philosophical meaning. The fact is that the word “world” before the revolution had a different letter designation for the sound [i] - i decimal, and the word was written “mir”. This spelling of the word indicated that it had many meanings. Indeed, the word “peace” in the title is not simple notation concepts of peace,
a state opposite to war. In the novel, this word carries many meanings and illuminates important aspects of people’s life, views, ideals, life and morals of various strata of society.
The epic beginning in the novel “War and Peace” connects the pictures of war and peace into a single whole with invisible threads. In the same way, the word “war” means not only the military actions of warring armies, but also the belligerent hostility of people in peaceful life, separated by social and moral barriers. The concept of “peace” appears and is revealed in the epic in its various meanings. Peace is the life of a people who are not in a state of war. The world is a peasant gathering that started a riot in Bogucharovo. The world is everyday interests, which, unlike abusive life, so prevent Nikolai Rostov from being a “wonderful man” and so annoy him when he comes on vacation and understands nothing in this “stupid world.” Peace is a person’s immediate environment, which is always next to him, no matter where he is: in war or in peaceful life.
But the world is the whole world, the universe. Pierre speaks about him, proving to Prince Andrei the existence of the “kingdom of truth.” Peace is the brotherhood of people, regardless of national and class differences, to which Nikolai Rostov proclaims his toast when meeting with the Austrians. The world is life. The world is also a worldview, a circle of ideas of heroes.
The study of human consciousness and the process of self-observation allowed Tolstoy to become a deep psychologist. In the images he created, especially in the images of the main characters of the novel, the inner life of a person is revealed - a complex contradictory process, usually hidden from prying eyes. Tolstoy, according to N. G. Chernyshevsky, reveals the “dialectic human soul”, i.e. “barely perceptible phenomena of inner life”, replacing one another with extreme speed...
Peace and war go side by side, intertwine, interpenetrate and condition each other. In the general concept of the novel, the world denies war, because the content and need of the world is work and happiness, a free and natural and therefore joyful manifestation of personality. And the content and properties of war are disunion, alienation and isolation of people, hatred and hostility, defending one’s selfish interests, this is the self-affirmation of one’s egoistic “I” - bringing destruction, grief, and death to others. The horror of the death of hundreds of people on the dam during the retreat of the Russian army after Austerlitz is shocking, especially since Tolstoy compares all this horror with peaceful pictures, with the view of the same dam at another time, when an old miller sat here with fishing rods , and his grandson, having rolled up the sleeve of his shirt, was sorting through a silver quivering fish in a watering can.
The terrible result of the Borodino battle is depicted in the following picture: “Several tens of thousands of people lay dead in different positions in the fields and meadows... on which for hundreds of years the peasants of the villages of Borodino, Gorok, Kovardin and Sechenevsky." Here the horror of murder in war becomes clear to Rostov when he sees “the roomy face of the enemy with a hole in the chin and blue eyes.”
To tell the truth about the war, Tolstoy concludes, is very difficult. And here the writer was an innovator, truthfully showing a man at war. He was the first to discover the heroism of war, at the same time presenting war as an everyday matter and as a test of all the spiritual strength of a person. And it inevitably happened that the bearers of true heroism were simple, modest people, such as Captain Tushin or Timokhin, forgotten by history; “sinner” Natasha, who achieved the allocation of transport for the Russian wounded; General Dokhturov and Kutuzov, who never spoke about his exploits.
The very combination of “war and peace” was not new in Russian literature. In particular, it was used in A. S. Pushkin’s tragedy “Boris Godunov”:
Describe without further ado,
All that you will witness in life:
War and peace, the rule of sovereigns,Holy miracles for the saints.
Tolstoy, like Pushkin, uses the combination “war and peace” as a universal category.
The problems raised in the novel “War and Peace” have universal significance. This novel, according to Gorky, is “a documentary presentation of all the quests that a strong personality undertook in the 19th century in order to find a place and business for himself in the history of Russia...”
