War and Peace

   

War and Peace (Война и мир [Voyna i mir]) is an epic novel of Russian history and society by Leo Tolstoy, first published from 1865 to 1869, which tells the story of Russia during the Napoleonic Era. The Russian words for 'peace' and 'world' are homonyms, so the novel's title can also be translated as 'War and the World'.

War and Peace offered a new kind of fiction, with a great many characters caught up in a plot that covered nothing less than the grand subjects indicated by the title, combined with the equally large topics of youth and age. While today it is considered a novel, it broke so many novelistic conventions of its day that many critics did not consider it as such. Tolstoy himself considered Anna Karenina (1878) to be his first attempt at a novel in the European sense.

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

The novel tells the story of five aristocratic families and the entanglement of their personal lives with the history of 1805-1813, specifically Napoleon's invasion of Russia. As events proceed, Tolstoy systematically denies his subjects any significant free choice: the onward roll of history determines happiness and tragedy alike.

In his 365 chapters (roughly 1500 pages), some only a few pages in length, Tolstoy tells of birth and death, balls and battles, gossip and tragedy, military strategy and political philosophy. While roughly the first two-thirds of the novel concern themselves strictly with the fictional characters, the later parts of the novel, as well as one of the work's two epilogues, increasingly contain highly controversial, nonfictional essays about the nature of war, political power, history, and historiography. Tolstoy interspersed these essays seamlessly into the story in a way which defies conventional fiction. Certain abridged versions removed these essays entirely, while others (published even during Tolstoy's life) simply moved these essays into an appendix.

If there is a central character to War and Peace it is Pierre Bezuhov, the illegitimate son of a wealthy count, who upon receiving an unexpected inheritance is suddenly thrust upon with the responsibilities and conflicts of a Russian nobleman. His formerly carefree behavior vanishes and he enters upon a philosophical quest particular to Tolstoy: how should one live a moral life in an imperfect world? He attempts to free his peasants and improve his estate, but ultimately acheives nothing. He enters into marriage with Prince Kuragin's beautiful, immoral daughter Helene, against his own better judgement.

Helene and her brother Anatole then conspire together for Anatole to ruin the beautiful Natasha Rostova. Pierre rescues her, but recoils from his feeling of love for her. He later takes off on a quixotic mission to assassinate Napoleon and is captured as a prisoner of war. His wife dies and Pierre is reunited with Natasha. They find love at last and marry.

Tolstoy vividly depicts the conflict between the Russian general Kutuzov and Napoleon Bonaparte, both in terms of personality and in the clash of armies. Napoleon chose wrongly, opting to march on Moscow and occupy it for five fatal weeks, when he would have been better off destroying the Russian army in a decisive battle. General Kutuzov, believes time to be his best enemy, and refrains from engaging the French, who ultimately destroy themselves as they limp back towards the French border. They are all but destroyed by a final Cossack attack as they straggle back towards Paris.

War and Peace was recast as an opera by Sergei Prokofiev. In 1956, this novel was released as a motion picture, directed by King Vidor. The USSR produced a critically acclaimed four part film version (Vojna i mir) of the novel in 1968 that was almost nine hours long. 1 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063794/)

External links


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