How Tolstoy depicts the Russian nation. Essay on the topic The image of the common people in the novel “War and Peace”

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is the most widely known Russian writer, first of all, a folk writer. Let us consider the theme of the people in, perhaps, his greatest work - the novel “War and Peace”.

What are people for Tolstoy? These are not only peasants, not only nobles, not even just Russians. A people is people united with each other, united by a common thought, a common feeling, a common cause.

We can also trace the connection of the main characters with the people. Natasha Rostova herself, it is unclear when and where, absorbed the Russian spirit, was able to understand everything that was in every Russian person. And in the future, she only proves her connection with the people by freeing carts for the wounded, instead of saving the family’s property. Or Andrei Bolkonsky, who felt the people in his soldiers, led them with him and did not abandon them in favor of a more prestigious assignment.

We also see representatives of the people among the secondary characters.

This, of course, is Platon Karataev, met by Pierre, who opened the path to happiness for him, this is Kutuzov, who feels the spirit of the Russian army like no other, the merchant Ferapontov and others, who are ready to burn their property so that the French do not get it, these are many, many people, who are not indifferent to the fate of their country, their Motherland.

In the novel, Tolstoy repeatedly notes that, despite what is usually said about historical figures, particularly prominent people, rulers and generals, it is the people who are the main characters of history. And the Patriotic War of one thousand eight hundred and twelve showed this to the whole world. Because it was not the generals and rulers who won it - it was the Russian people who won it. The people who did not allow themselves to be captured, who resisted with all their might - organized partisan detachments, deprived the French of booty and simply, openly, fought with them.

It is not without reason that the theme of the people, Tolstoy’s favorite, sounds with all its might in this novel.

The people in the novel "War and Peace"

It is believed that wars are won and lost by generals and emperors, but in any war, a commander without an army is like a needle without a thread. After all, it is soldiers, officers, generals - people who serve in the army and take part in battles and battles - who become the very thread with which history is embroidered. If you try to sew with only one needle, the fabric will be pierced, perhaps even marks will remain, but there will be no result of the work. Likewise, a commander without his regiments is just a lonely needle, which is easily lost in the haystacks formed by time, if there is no string of his troops behind him. It is not sovereigns who fight, it is the people who fight. Sovereigns and generals are just needles. Tolstoy shows that the theme of the people in the novel “War and Peace” is the main theme of the entire work. The people of Russia are people of different classes, both high society and those who make up the middle class, and ordinary people. They all love their homeland and are ready to give their lives for it.

The image of the people in the novel

The two main plot lines of the novel reveal to readers how the characters are formed and the destinies of two families - the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys. Using these examples, Tolstoy shows how the intelligentsia developed in Russia; some of its representatives came to the events of December 1825, when the Decembrist uprising occurred.

The Russian people in War and Peace are represented by different characters. Tolstoy seemed to have collected the traits inherent in ordinary people and created several collective images, embodying them in specific characters.

Platon Karataev, whom Pierre met in captivity, embodied the characteristic features of serfs. Kind, calm, hard-working Plato, talking about life, but not thinking about it: “He, apparently, never thought about what he said and what he would say...”. In the novel, Plato is the embodiment of a part of the Russian people of that time, wise, submissive to fate and the tsar, loving their homeland, but going to fight for it only because they were caught and “given as soldiers.” His natural kindness and wisdom revive the “master” Pierre, who is constantly looking for the meaning of life and cannot find and comprehend it.

But at the same time, “When Pierre, sometimes amazed by the meaning of his speech, asked to repeat what was said, Plato could not remember what he said a minute ago.” All these searches and tossing are alien and incomprehensible to Karataev, he knows how to accept life as it is at this very moment, and he accepts death humbly and without grumbling.

The merchant Ferapontov, an acquaintance of Alpatych, is a typical representative of the merchant class, on the one hand stingy and cunning, but at the same time burning his property so that it does not fall to the enemy. And he doesn’t want to believe that Smolensk will be surrendered, and he even beats his wife for her requests to leave the city.

And the fact that Ferapontov and other merchants themselves set fire to their shops and houses is a manifestation of patriotism and love for Russia, and it already becomes clear that Napoleon will not be able to defeat the people who are ready to do anything to save their Motherland.

The collective image of the people in the novel “War and Peace” is created by many characters. These are partisans like Tikhon Shcherbaty, who fought the French in their own way, and, as if playfully, destroyed small detachments. These are wanderers, humble and religious, such as Pelageyushka, who walked to holy places. The militia men, dressed in simple white shirts, “to prepare for death,” “with loud talking and laughter,” were digging trenches on the Borodino field before the battle.

In difficult times, when the danger of being conquered by Napoleon loomed over the country, one main goal came to the fore for all these people - the salvation of Russia. Before her, all other matters turned out to be petty and unimportant. At such moments, people show their true colors with stunning clarity, and in War and Peace Tolstoy shows the difference between ordinary people who are ready to die for their country and other people, careerists and opportunists.

This is especially evident in the description of the preparations for the battle on the Borodino field. A simple soldier with the words: “They want to attack all the people...”, some officers, for whom the main thing is that “for tomorrow big rewards were to be given out and new people were brought forward,” soldiers praying in front of the icon of the Smolensk Mother of God, Dolokhov, asking Pierre for forgiveness - all these are strokes of the overall picture that confronted Pierre after his conversation with Bolkonsky. “He understood that hidden... warmth of patriotism that was in all those people he saw, and which explained to him why all these people were calmly and seemingly frivolously preparing for death” - this is how Tolstoy describes the general state of people before the Battle of Borodino.

But the author does not at all idealize the Russian people; in the episode where the Bogucharov men, trying to preserve their acquired wealth, do not let Princess Marya out of Bogucharov, he clearly shows the meanness and baseness of these people. In describing this scene, Tolstoy shows the behavior of the peasants as alien to Russian patriotism.

Conclusion

In an essay on the topic “The Russian people in the novel “War and Peace”” I wanted to show Lev Nikolaevich Tolstov’s attitude towards the Russian people as a “whole and unified” organism. And I want to end the essay with a quote from Tolstov: “... the reason for our triumph was not accidental, but lay in the essence of the character of the Russian people and troops, ... this character should have been expressed even more clearly in an era of failures and defeats...”

Work test

June 26 2010

The people in “War and Peace” are Tikhon Shcherbaty, Tushin and Timokhin, Pierre Bezukhoe and Nikolai Rostov and. The Kuragins and Drubetskys also belong to the historical people. The people in War and Peace are not only morally healthy and positive. For the author of the historical epic dedicated to the Patriotic era with Napoleon, the concept of “people” contained a complex and contradictory unity, heterogeneous both morally and socially. Throughout Tolstoy's life, many of his concepts changed radically. Including the concept of “people”. Perhaps it was this change in Tolstoy’s understanding of what a people is that most clearly expressed the nature and direction of Tolstoy’s special and historically significant path.

In the 80s, after the crisis he experienced and his transition to the position of defender of peasant interests, only “working people”, only the working classes will be recognized with the right to be called the people. Then the concepts of “man” and “master” will become deeply opposite for him in their social and moral meaning and value. In “War and Peace” this has not yet and could not happen. It could not be due to the peculiarities of the historical material of the work, and due to the peculiarities of Tolstoy’s worldview at that time. It is worth noting that in “The Landowner’s Morning,” written in the 50s, Tolstoy calls the peasants not a people, as he would do starting in the 80s, but a “class of people.” , The people in “War and Peace” - as it should be with a historical people - are many-sided and multidimensional. On the pages of Tolstoy's novel people of different characters and different social positions collide, meet and part, diverge and come together, love and hate, live and die. These are landowners and peasants, officers and soldiers, merchants and townspeople, etc. However, Tolstoy devotes the most attention and space to the depiction of people belonging to the noble class. This is explained not only by the fact that, as Tolstoy himself admits, the nobles, their way of life, customs, their deeds and thoughts were better known to him. This is also justified by purely objective circumstances: the action of Tolstoy’s historical novel takes place at a time when it was the nobility that was the main conscious participant in the historical process and therefore, not only in Tolstoy’s imagination, but also in reality, in reality, found itself in the foreground of events. Let us remember that the era that Tolstoy depicted in the novel was attributed by V.I. Lenin to the noble period in the development of the Russian revolutionary movement.

The fact that Tolstoy treats the nobility with special attention does not at all mean that Tolstoy, the author of War and Peace, has the same attitude towards various people from among the nobility. To Tolstoy, some characters are clearly attractive, sweet, and spiritually close, and this immediately becomes noticeable to the reader. Other heroes are alien and unpleasant to Tolstoy, and this is also felt by the reader immediately and in the most direct way. The author’s “purity of moral feeling” is evident, which has an organic ability to infect in an artistic sense. As in his earlier works, so in War and Peace, Tolstoy is never morally indifferent to his heroes. Like Pierre Bezukhov, he constantly asks himself questions: “What is bad? What well? What should you love, what should you hate? These are the most fundamental questions of Tolstoy's artistic worldview. For him, these are the most fundamental questions of history, of all human illumination and reproduction of history.

1867 L. M. Tolstoy finished work on the epoch-making novel of his work "". The author noted that in “War and Peace” he “loved the people’s thought,” poetizing the simplicity, kindness and morality of the Russian people. This “folk thought” is revealed by depicting the events of the Patriotic War of 1812. It is no coincidence that L. Tolstoy describes the war of 1812 only on the territory of Russia. The historian and realist artist L. Tolstoy showed that the Patriotic War of 1812 was a just war. In defense, the Russians raised "the club of people's war, which would punish the French until the invasion was stopped." The war radically changed the life of the entire Russian people.

The author introduces The novel contains many images of men, Soldiers, whose thoughts and considerations together make up the people's worldview. The irresistible power of the Russian people is fully felt in the heroism and patriotism of the residents of Moscow, forced to abandon their hometown, their treasure, but not conquered in their souls; peasants refuse to sell food and hay to enemies and create partisan detachments. L. Tolstoy showed real heroes, persistent and firm in fulfilling their military duties, in the images of Tushin and Timokhin. The theme of the people's element is revealed more expressively in the depiction of guerrilla warfare. Tolstoy creates a vivid image of the partisan Tikhon Shcherbatov, who voluntarily joined Denisov’s detachment and was “the most useful person in the detachment.” - a generalized image of the Russian peasant. In the novel, he appears on those pages where Pierre's stay in captivity is depicted. The meeting with Karataev changes a lot of things in Pierre's attitude towards life. Deep folk wisdom seems to be concentrated in the image of Plato. This is calm, sensible wisdom, without tricks and cruelty. From her, Pierre changes, begins to experience life in a new way, and is renewed in his soul.

Hatred for the enemy representatives of all layers of Russian society felt equally, and the patriotism and closeness to the people most inherent in Tolstoy’s favorite heroes -,. The simple Russian woman Vasilisa, the merchant Feropontov, and the family of Count Rostov feel unity in their desire to help the country. The spiritual strength that the Russian people showed in the Patriotic War of 1812 is the same strength that supported their activity as a talented Russian and commander. He was elected commander-in-chief “against the will of the sovereign and in accordance with the will of the people.” This is why, Tolstoy believes, he was able to fulfill his great historical mission, since each person is worth something not on his own, but only when he is part of his people. Thanks to unity, high patriotic enthusiasm and moral strength, the Russian people won the war.

"People's Thought"- the main idea of ​​the novel "War and Peace". Tolstoy knew that the simple life of people, with its “personal” destinies, vicissitudes, joy, constitutes the fate and history of the country. “I tried to write the history of the people,” said Tolstoy, of the people in the broad sense of the word. Therefore, “people's thought” plays a huge role for the author, affirming the place of the people as a decisive force in history.

The author of War and Peace pays a lot of attention to the depiction of ordinary people. The peasantry appears before us in the person of serfs, corvées and courtyard workers, and in the person of soldiers who retain their peasant traits, and in the person of partisans.
As Tolstoy's worldview changes, he is interested in different aspects of the external and internal life of the peasants, but he always draws them unusually truthfully and vividly. The crowd scenes with their diversity of behavior and relationships of individual characters are amazing in their skill; speech characteristics amaze with their life truth.
When describing the campaign of 1805 in Austria, Russian peasants appear as living people, dressed in soldiers' greatcoats, but without losing their special peasant appearance. They go to fight, not knowing exactly why, with whom and where. On a hike, people show their usual endurance, simplicity, good nature, cheerfulness - a sign of great physical and moral strength. Making a tedious transition, they exchange separate phrases among themselves. At the command of the captain, the songwriters ran forward, sang a song, and after that the soldier ran forward and began to dance. But now the soldiers are shown in battle, in action, in hard work in a year of mortal danger hanging over Russia, and a new feature of the people’s character is immediately felt - perseverance and courage.

During the heroic battle of Shengraben, the battery that was left without cover continued to fire and was not taken by the French. Within an hour, seventeen out of forty servants were killed,” but the soldiers, led by their officer, continued to courageously fight against the superior forces of the enemy. Over the course of several years of work on War and Peace, Tolstoy’s interest in the peasantry increased and the nature of his portrayal changed somewhat. The plight of the people is becoming increasingly clearer. On Bezukhov’s estates and after his “reforms,” “the peasants continue to give with work and money everything that they give from others, that is, everything they can date.

The old Prince Bolkonsky orders his servant to be handed over to the soldiers because he mistakenly served coffee first to the prince’s daughter, and not to the Frenchwoman who was currently enjoying the old man’s favor. Such manifestations of lordly tyranny were not isolated
phenomena, as is clear from Andrei Bolkonsky’s conversation with Pierre during their trip to Bald Mountains. Describing the Rostovs' hunt, Tolstoy introduces a new, episodic person - the landowner Ilagin, the owner of a wonderful hunting dog, for which the “representable, courteous gentleman” “a year ago gave three families of servants to his neighbor.”
The discontent of the peasants is manifested repeatedly in War and Peace. The dissatisfaction of the peasants with their position, the awareness of the injustice of the existing system is emphasized by such a small episode. When the wounded Prince Andrei was brought to the dressing station and the doctor ordered him to be immediately carried into the tent, “a murmur arose in the crowd of waiting wounded.

"It is seen. and in the next world the gentlemen will live alone. – said one.”

The proximity of the French shook the lordly power. and men begin to talk openly about it. that they have been sick for a long time. The hatred of the peasants for the landowners was so great. as well as “the last stay of Prince Andrei in Bogucharovo. with his innovations hospitals. schools and relief of rent. – did not soften their morals, but... against. strengthened those character traits in them. which the old prince called savagery."

Princess Marya’s promises to give them bread and care in new places did not inspire confidence in them either. where she suggested they move.

However, the nobles do not feel calm either. The meaning of this concern is clearly expressed by Pierre. speaking in the epilogue to Nikolai Rostov. that it is necessary to prevent possible Pugachevism. But. despite his difficult situation. the peasants do not want to give up their homeland to the power of the French invaders and at the same time show boundless courage and fortitude. Mobilized men -
Before the Battle of Borodino, the militia put on clean shirts: they prepared for death. but not to retreat.
The expression of this simple and sincere. alien...