In the novel “War and Peace,” Leo Tolstoy conveyed the author’s vision of morals, the state of thoughts and worldview of the advanced stratum of Russian society at the beginning of the 19th century. Problems of the state arise as a result of great world events and become the concern of every conscious citizen. The main characters of the novel “War and Peace” are representatives of influential families at the emperor’s court.

Andrey Bolkonsky

The image of a Russian patriot who died in the fight against the French occupiers. He is not attracted to a quiet family life, social receptions and balls. The officer takes part in every military campaign of Alexander I. The husband of Kutuzov's niece, he becomes the adjutant of the famous general.

In the Battle of Schoenberg, a soldier rises to attack, carrying a fallen banner, like a real hero. In the Battle of Austerlitz, Bolkonsky is wounded and captured, freed by Napoleon. In the Battle of Borodino, a shell fragment hits a brave warrior in the stomach. The ladle died in agony in the arms of his beloved girl.

Tolstoy showed a man life priorities which are national duty, military valor and the honor of the uniform. Representatives of the Russian aristocracy have always been bearers of the moral values ​​of monarchical power.

Natasha Rostova

The young countess grew up in luxury, surrounded by parental care. A noble upbringing and excellent education could provide a girl with a profitable match and a cheerful life in high society. The war changed the carefree Natasha, who suffered the loss dear people.

Having married Pierre Bezukhov, she became a mother of many children, finding peace in family concerns. Leo Tolstoy created a positive image of the Russian noblewoman, patriot and keeper of the hearth. The author is critical of the fact that after giving birth to four children, Natasha stopped taking care of herself. The author wants to see a woman unfading, fresh and well-groomed throughout her life.

Maria Bolkonskaya

The princess was raised by her father, Potemkin’s contemporary and friend of Kutuzov, Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky. The old general attached importance to education, especially the study of technical sciences. The girl knew geometry and algebra and spent many hours reading books.

The father was strict and biased, he tormented his daughter with lessons, this is how he demonstrated his love and care. Marya sacrificed her youth to her parent's old age and was with him until his last days. She replaced the mother of her nephew Nikolenka, trying to surround him with parental tenderness.

Maria met her fate during the war in the person of her savior Nikolai Rostov. Their relationship developed for a long time, both did not dare to take the first step. The gentleman was younger than his lady, this embarrassed the girl. The princess had a large inheritance from the Bolkonskys, which stopped the guy. They made a good family.

Pierre Bezukhov

The young man was educated abroad and was allowed to return to Russia at the age of twenty. High society received the young man with caution, because he was the illegitimate son of a noble nobleman. However, before his death, the father asked the king to recognize Pierre as the legal heir.

In an instant, Bezukhov became a count and the owner of a huge fortune. The inexperienced, slow and gullible Pierre was used in selfish intrigues; he was quickly married to his daughter by Prince Vasily Kuragin. The hero had to go through the pain of betrayal, humiliation of his wife's lovers, a duel, Freemasonry and drunkenness.

The war cleansed the count’s soul, saved him from empty mental ordeals, and radically changed his worldview. Having gone through fire, captivity and the loss of dear people, Bezukhov found the meaning of life in family values, in the ideas of new post-war political reforms.

Illarion Mikhailovich Kutuzov

Kutuzov's personality is a key figure in the events of 1812, because he commanded the army defending Moscow. Leo Tolstoy in the novel “Vona and Peace” presented his vision of the general’s character, his assessment of his actions and decisions.

The commander looks like a kind, fat old man who, with his experience and knowledge of conducting large battles, is trying to lead Russia out of a difficult retreat situation. The Battle of Borodino and the surrender of Moscow was a cunning military combination that led to victory over the French army.

The author described the famous Kutuzov as ordinary person, a slave to his weaknesses, who has experience and wisdom accumulated over many years of life. The general is an example of an army commander who takes care of the soldiers, worries about their uniforms, food and sleep.

Leo Tolstoy tried to convey through the image of the main characters of the novel difficult fate representatives of Russian high society who survived the European military storm of the early 19th century. Then a generation of Decembrists was formed, who would lay the foundation for new reforms, the result of which would be the abolition of serfdom.

The main feature that unites all the heroes is patriotism, love for the Motherland, and respect for parents.

All characters can be divided into the following groups:

• Bolkonsky family;
• Rostov family;
• Bezukhov family;
• Drubetsky family;
• Kuragin family;
• Historical figures;
• Heroes 2 plans;
• Other heroes.

Characteristics of the Bolkonskys

• The first “camp” was headed by Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky. His opinion was shared by Mademoiselle Bourien and Mikhail Ivanovich, the prince's architect.
• The second group included: the prince’s daughter Marya, Andrei Bolkonsky’s son Nikolai and all the nannies and maids.

Characteristics of Andrei Bolkonsky

Characteristics of Marya Bolkonskaya

Characteristics of Lisa Bolkonskaya

Characteristics of Nikolai Bolkonsky

Characteristics of the Rostov family

Characteristics of Count Ilya Rostov

Characteristics of Countess Natalia Rostova

Characteristics of Natasha Rostova

Important! Natasha has a good understanding of people, but when it comes to... love relationship, she gets lost (like falling in love with Kuragin).

Characteristics of Sonya Rostova

Characteristics of Pierre Bezukhov

Characteristics of the Kuragin family

Characteristics of Vasily Kuragin

Characteristics of Anatoly Kuragin

Characteristics of Ellen Kuragina

M. M. Blinkina

AGE OF CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL "WAR AND PEACE"

(Izvestia AN. Series of literature and language. - T. 57. - No. 1. - M., 1998. - P. 18-27)

1. INTRODUCTION

The main goal of this work is the mathematical modeling of certain aspects of plot development and the establishment of relationships between real and novel time, or more precisely, between the real and novel ages of the characters (and, in this case, the connection will be predictable and linear).

The very concept of “age” certainly has several aspects. Firstly, the age of a literary character is determined by novel time, which often does not coincide with real time. Secondly, numerals in the designation of age, in addition to their main (actually numerical) meaning, often have a number of additional meanings, that is, they carry an independent semantic load. They can, for example, contain a positive or negative assessment of the hero, reflect his individual characteristics, or introduce an ironic shade into the story.

Sections 2-6 describe how Leo Tolstoy changes the age characteristics of the characters in War and Peace depending on their function in the novel, how young they are, what gender they are, and also on some other individual characteristics.

Section 7 proposes a mathematical model that reflects the features of the “aging” of Tolstoy’s heroes.

2. AGE PARADOXES: TEXT ANALYSIS

Reading Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace", one cannot help but pay attention to some strange inconsistencies in the age characteristics of his characters. Consider, for example, the Rostov family. It's August 1805 - and we meet Natasha for the first time:... ran into the room thirteen year old girl, wrapping something in her muslin skirt...

In the same August 1805, we meet all the other children from this family, in particular, the older sister Vera: Eldest daughter the countess was four years older than my sister and behaved like a big girl.

Thus, in August 1805 Vere seventeen years. Now fast forward to December 1806: There was faith twenty years old beautiful girl... Natasha is half young lady, half girl...

We see that over the past year and four months Vera has managed to grow by three years. She was seventeen, and now she is neither eighteen nor nineteen; she's twenty at once. Natasha’s age in this fragment is given metaphorically, and not by number, which, as it turns out, is also not without reason.

Exactly three more years will pass before we receive the last message about the ages of these two sisters:

Natasha was sixteen years, and it was 1809, the same year that she and Boris counted on her fingers four years ago, after she kissed him.

So, over these four years, Natasha has grown by three, as, indeed, was expected. Instead of seventeen or even eighteen, she is now sixteen. And there won't be any more. This is the last mention of her age. Meanwhile, what happens to her unfortunate older sister?

I had faith twenty four years old, she went everywhere, and, despite the fact that she was undoubtedly good and sensible, until now no one had ever proposed to her.

As we can see, over the past three years, Vera has grown by four. If we count from the very beginning, that is, from August 1805, it turns out that in just over four years Vera grew by seven years. During this time period, the age difference between Natasha and Vera doubled. Vera is now not four, but eight years older than her sister.

This was an example of how the ages of two characters change relative to each other. Now let's look at a hero who at some point in time has different ages for different characters. This hero is Boris Drubetskoy. His age is never stated directly, so we will try to calculate it indirectly. On the one hand, we know that Boris is the same age as Nikolai Rostov: Two young men, a student and an officer, friends since childhood, were one year old ...

Nicholas was nineteen or twenty years old in January 1806:

How strange it was for the countess that her son, who was barely noticeable with his tiny limbs, was moving inside her twenty years ago, now a courageous warrior...

It follows that in August 1805 Boris was nineteen or twenty years old. Now let’s estimate his age from Pierre’s perspective. At the beginning of the novel, Pierre is twenty years old: Pierre from the age of ten was sent abroad with the tutor-abbot, where he stayed up to twenty years of age .

On the other hand, we know that Pierre left Boris fourteen year old boy and definitely didn’t remember him.

Thus, Boris is four years older than Pierre and at the beginning of the novel he is twenty-four years old, that is, he is twenty-four years old for Pierre, while for Nikolai he is still only twenty.

And finally, another, completely funny example: the age of Nikolenka Bolkonsky. In July 1805, his future mother appears before us: ... little princess Volkonskaya, who got married last winter and now did not go out into the big world because of her pregnancy... waddled around the table with small, quick steps....

From universal human considerations, it is clear that Nikolenka should be born in the fall of 1805: but, contrary to everyday logic, this does not happen, he is born March 19, 1806 It is clear that such a character will have problems with age until the end of his novel life. So in 1811 he will be six years old, and in 1820 - fifteen.

How can such discrepancies be explained? Maybe the exact age of his characters is not important for Tolstoy? On the contrary, Tolstoy has a passion for numbers and, with amazing accuracy, sets the ages of even the most insignificant heroes. So Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova exclaims: Fifty eight years old lived in the world...: No, life is not over at thirty-one, - says Prince Andrey.

Tolstoy has numbers everywhere, and exact, fractional numbers. Age in War and Peace is undoubtedly functional. No wonder Dolokhov, beating Nikolai at cards, I decided to continue the game until this entry increased to forty-three thousand. He chose this number because forty-three was the sum of his years added up with Sonya's years .

Thus, all the age discrepancies described above, and there are about thirty of them in the novel, are intentional. What are they due to?

Before starting to answer this question, I note that on average, over the course of the novel’s time, Tolstoy makes each of his characters a year older than they should be (this is shown by calculations that will be discussed later). Usually the hero classic novel will always be twenty-one years old instead of twenty-one years and eleven months, and on average, therefore, such a hero turns out to be six months younger than his years.

However, even from the above examples it is already clear, firstly, that the author “ages” and “youngens” his heroes unequally, and secondly, that this does not happen randomly, but in a systemic, programmed way. How exactly?

From the very beginning, it becomes obvious that positive and negative characters age differently and disproportionately. (“Positive and negative” is, of course, a relative concept, but in Tolstoy, in most cases, the polarity of a character is defined almost unambiguously. The author of “War and Peace” is surprisingly frank in his likes and dislikes). As shown above, Natasha matures more slowly than expected, while Vera, on the contrary, grows up faster. Boris, as Nikolai's friend and friend of the Rostov family, appears to be twenty years old; In the role of Pierre's social acquaintance and Julie Karagina's future husband, he simultaneously turns out to be much older. The ages of the heroes seem to have been given a certain loose order, or rather, an anti-order. There is a feeling that the heroes are being “fined” by increasing their age. Tolstoy seems to punish his heroes with disproportionate aging.

There are, however, characters in the novel who grow older strictly in accordance with the years they have lived. Sonya, for example, being, in fact, neither a positive nor a negative heroine, but completely neutral and colorless, Sonya, who always studied well and remembered everything, grows up exceptionally neatly. The whole confusion of ages that takes place in the Rostov family does not affect her at all. In 1805 she fifteen year old girl , and in 1806 - sixteen year old girl in all the beauty of a newly bloomed flower. It is her age that the calculating Dolokhov wins against Rostov at cards, adding to his own. But Sonya is rather an exception.

In general, characters of “different polarities” grow up in different ways. Moreover, the extremely saturated space of age is divided between positive and negative heroes. Natasha and Sonya are mentioned under the age of sixteen. After the age of sixteen - Vera and Julie Karagina. Pierre, Nikolai and Petya Rostov, Nikolenka Bolkonsky are no more than twenty. Boris, Dolokhov, and the “ambiguous” Prince Andrei are strictly over twenty.

The question is not how old the hero is, the question is what age is recorded in the novel. Natasha is not supposed to be over sixteen; Marya is inadmissible for positive heroine old, so not a word is said about her age; Helen, on the other hand, is defiantly young for a negative heroine, therefore we do not know how old she is.

The novel sets a boundary after which only negative heroes exist; a boundary, having crossed which an obviously positive hero simply ceases to exist in the space of age. In a completely symmetrical manner, the negative hero walks through the novel without age until he passes this border. Natasha loses age, reaching sixteen years old. Julie Karagina, on the contrary, is gaining age, being no longer in her first youth:

Julie was twenty seven years old. After the death of her brothers, she became very rich. She was now completely ugly; but I thought that she was not only just as good, but even much more attractive now than she was before... A man who ten years ago would have been afraid to go every day to the house where she was seventeen year old lady, in order not to compromise her and not to tie himself down, now he boldly went to her every day and communicated with her not as a young lady-bride, but as an acquaintance who does not have a gender.

The problem, however, is that Julie was never seventeen in this novel. In 1805, when this chubby young lady guest appears in the Rostovs' house, nothing is said about her age, for if Tolstoy had honestly given her seventeen years old, then now, in 1811, she would not have been twenty-seven, but only twenty-three, which is also, of course, is no longer the age for a positive heroine, but still not yet the time for the final transition to asexual beings. In general, negative heroes, as a rule, are not entitled to childhood and adolescence. This leads to funny misunderstandings:

Well, what, Lelya? - Prince Vasily turned to his daughter with that careless tone of habitual tenderness, which is acquired by parents who caress their children from childhood, but which Prince Violence only guessed through imitation of other parents.

Or maybe Prince Vasily is not to blame? Perhaps his purely negative children had no childhood at all. And it’s not for nothing that Pierre, before proposing to Helene, convinces himself that he knew her as a child. Was she even a child?

If we move from the lyrics to numbers, it turns out that in the novel there are positive characters aged 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 15, 16, 20, as well as 40, 45, 50, 58. Negative characters are 17, 20, 24, 25, 27. That is, positive heroes from early youth immediately end up in venerable old age. U negative heroes old age, of course, also happens, but the fraction of age in their old age is less than in positive ones. So, positive Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova says: Fifty eight years old lived in the world... The negative Prince Vasily evaluates himself with less accuracy: To me sixth decade, My friend...

In general, accurate calculations show that the aging coefficient in the “positive-negative” space is equal to -2.247, i.e. all other things being equal, the positive hero will be two years and three months younger than the negative one.

Let's now talk about two heroines who are emphatically ageless. These heroines are Helen and Princess Marya, which in itself is not accidental.

Helen symbolizes eternal beauty and youth in the novel. Her rightness, her strength in this inexhaustible youth. Time seems to have no power over her: Elena Vasilievna, that’s how it is at fifty years old she will be a beauty. Pierre, persuading himself to marry Helen, also cites her age as her main advantage. He remembers knowing her as a child. He says to himself: No, she's beautiful young woman! She's not bad woman!

Helen is the eternal bride. With a living husband, she chooses a new groom with charming spontaneity, one of the applicants being young and the other old. Helen dies under mysterious circumstances, preferring an old admirer to a young one, that is: as if she herself chooses old age and death, giving up her privilege of eternal youth, and dissolves into oblivion.

Princess Marya also has no age, and it is not possible to calculate it from the final version of the novel. In fact, in 1811, she old dry princess, envies Natasha's beauty and youth. In the finale, in 1820, Marya is a happy young mother, she is expecting her fourth child, and her life, one might say, is just beginning, although at that moment she is no less than thirty-five years old, an age not very suitable for a lyrical heroine; That’s why she lives without age in this novel, thoroughly saturated with numbers.

It is curious that in the first edition of War and Peace, which differs from the final version in its extreme specificity and “ultimate directness,” the uncertainty in the images of Helen and Marya is partly removed. There in 1805 Marya was twenty years old: the old prince himself was engaged in raising his daughter and, in order to develop both main virtues in her, up to twenty years gave her lessons in algebra and geometry and distributed her whole life in continuous studies.

And Helen, too, dies there, not from excess of youth...

4. FIRST COMPLETED VERSION OF THE NOVEL

The first version of War and Peace helps solve many of the mysteries posed in the final version of the novel. What is very vaguely read in the final version appears in the early version with a clarity that is amazing for a novel narrative. The space of age here is not yet imbued with the romantic understatement that the modern reader encounters. Deliberate precision borders on banality. It is not surprising that in the final edition of the novel Tolstoy refuses such meticulousness. Mentions of age become one and a half times less. Behind the scenes there is a mass interesting details, which would be worth mentioning here.

Princess Marya, as already noted, at the beginning of the novel twenty years. Age Helen is not specified, but it is obviously limited from above by the age of her older brother. Moreover, in 1811 Anatoly was 28 years. He was in full splendor of his strength and beauty.

Thus, at the beginning of the novel, Anatole is twenty-two years old, his friend Dolokhov is twenty-five, and Pierre is twenty. Helen no more than twenty-one. Moreover, she probably no more than nineteen, because according to the unwritten laws of that time, she should not be older than Pierre. (The fact, for example, that Julie is older than Boris is especially emphasized.)

So, the scene in which socialite Helen tries to lead young Natasha Rostova astray looks completely comical, considering that Natasha at this moment is twenty years old, and Helen is twenty-four, that is, they actually belong to the same family. age category.

The early version also clarifies the age Boris: Hélène called him mon hage and treated him like a child... Sometimes in rare moments Pierre thought that this patronizing friendship was for an imaginary child who was 23 years old there was something unnatural.

These considerations relate to the autumn of 1809, that is, at the beginning of the novel Boris is nineteen years old, and his future bride Julie - twenty-one years old, if you count her age back from the moment of their wedding. Initially, Julie, apparently, was assigned the role of a more sympathetic heroine in the novel: A tall, plump, proud-looking lady with pretty daughter, rustling with dresses, entered the living room.

This pretty daughter is Julie Karagina, who was initially thought to be younger and more attractive. However, in 1811, Julie Akhrosimova (that’s her original name) will already be the “asexual” creature that we know her in the final version.

In the first version of the novel, Dolokhov wins from Nikolai not forty-three, but only forty-two thousand.

The ages of Natasha and Sonya are given several times. So, at the beginning of 1806 Natasha says: To me fifteenth year, my grandmother got married in my time.

In the summer of 1807, Natasha's age is mentioned twice: Natasha has passed 15 years and she has become very prettier this summer.

“And you sing,” said Prince Andrei. He said these simple words, looking straight into this beautiful eyes 15 year old girls.

This number of age entries allows us to establish that Natasha was born in the fall of 1791. Thus, at her first ball she shines at eighteen, and not at all at sixteen.

To make Natasha younger, Tolstoy also changes Sonya’s age. So, at the end of 1810 Sonya was already twentieth year. She had already stopped getting prettier, she didn’t promise anything more than what was in her, but that was enough.

In fact, Natasha is twenty years old at this moment, and Sonya is at least a year and a half older.

Unlike many other heroes, Prince Andrei does not have an exact age in the first version of the novel. Instead of the textbook thirty-one years old, he about thirty years old.

Of course, the accuracy and directness of the early version of the novel cannot serve as an “official clue” to age shifts, since we have no right to assume that Natasha and Pierre in the first edition are the same characters as Natasha and Pierre in the final version of the novel. By changing the age characteristics of the hero, the author partly changes the hero himself. However, the early version of the novel allows us to check the accuracy of the calculations made on the final text and ensure that these calculations are correct.

5. AGE AS A FUNCTION OF AGE (AGE STEREOTYPES)

There's only so long left to live -

I'm already sixteen years old!

Yu. Ryashentsev

The tradition of aging older characters compared to younger ones goes back centuries. In this sense, Tolstoy did not invent anything new. Calculations show that the coefficient of “aging with age” in the novel is 0.097, which translates into human language means a year of novel aging for ten years lived, that is, a ten-year-old hero may turn out to be eleven years old, a twenty-year-old hero twenty-two, and a fifty-year-old fifty-five. The result is not surprising. It is much more interesting how Tolstoy presents the ages of his heroes, how he evaluates them on the “young - old” scale. Let's start from the very beginning.

5.1. Up to ten years

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy loved children very much.

Sometimes they would bring him a full room. Step by step

There’s nowhere to step, but he keeps shouting: More! More!

D. Kharms

Kharms is certainly right. Characters infancy there are many in the novel. What they have in common, perhaps, is that they do not seem to be independent units, endowed with their own problems and experiences. The age of up to ten years is a signal that the hero will, in fact, be a small mouthpiece for the author. The children in the novel see the world surprisingly subtly and correctly; they engage in systematic “defamiliarization” of their surroundings. They, not spoiled by the burden of civilization, are more successful than adults in solving their moral problems and at the same time seem to be completely devoid of reason. Therefore, such young characters, the number of which will grow to incredible limits by the end, look very artificial:

Five minutes later the little black-eyed three year old Natasha, her father’s favorite, having learned from her brother that daddy was sleeping in the small sofa room, unnoticed by her mother, ran to her father... Nikolai turned around with a tender smile on his face.

- Natasha, Natasha! - the frightened whisper of Countess Marya was heard from the door, - daddy wants to sleep.

“No, mom, he doesn’t want to sleep,” little Natasha answered convincingly, “he’s laughing.”

Such an edifying little character. But the next one is a little older:

Only Andrei’s granddaughter, Malasha, six year old girl, to whom His Serene Highness, having caressed her, gave her a piece of sugar for tea, remained on the stove in the large hut... Malasha... understood the meaning of this advice differently. It seemed to her that it was only a matter of personal struggle between “grandfather” and “long-haired,” as she called Beningsen.

Amazing insight!

The last character in age to show signs of the same “childish-unconscious” behavior as all of Tolstoy’s juvenile characters is the eternally sixteen-year-old Natasha Rostova:

In the middle of the stage sat girls in red bodices and white skirts. They were all singing something. When they finished their song, the girl in white approached the prompter's booth, and a man in tight-fitting silk trousers on thick legs, with a feather and a dagger, approached her and began to sing and spread his arms...

After the village and in the serious mood in which Natasha was, all this was wild and surprising to her.

So, Natasha sees the world in the same childish, unreasonable way. It’s not because of their age that adult children look like young old people. Striving for globality, the author of “War and Peace” loses the little things, the individuality of babies, for example, Lev Nikolaevich’s children do not come individually, but as a set: At the table were her mother, the old woman Belova who lived with her, her wife, three children, governess, tutor, nephew with his tutor, Sonya, Denisov, Natasha, her three children, their governess and the old man Mikhail Ivanovich, the prince’s architect, who lived in Bald Mountains in retirement.

Individuality in this enumeration is due to everyone, even old lady Belova, whom we meet for the first and last time. Even the tutor, and the governess, and also the tutor do not merge into the general concept of “tutors”. And only children, sexless and faceless, go en masse. Kharms had something to parody.

The image of Pierre Bezukhov in the novel “War and Peace”. Essay based on Tolstoy's novel - War and Peace. Pierre Bezukhov, by his character and by his make-up, is predominantly an emotional person. Character traits his is a mind prone to “dreamy philosophizing”, free-thinking, absent-mindedness, weakness of will, lack of initiative. This does not mean that Prince Andrei is not capable of experiencing deep feelings, and Pierre is a weak thinker; both are complex natures. The terms “intellectual” and “emotional” mean in this case the predominant features of the spiritual forces of these extraordinary individuals. Pierre stands out sharply from the crowd of people in the Scherer salon, where we first meet him. This is “a massive, fat young man with a cropped head, glasses, light trousers in the fashion of the time, a high frill and a brown tailcoat.” His look is “intelligent and at the same time timid, observant and natural.” His main feature is the search for “calmness, agreement with oneself.” All life path Pierre - a constant search for the meaning of life, a search for a life that would be in harmony with the needs of his heart and would bring him moral satisfaction. In this he is similar to Andrei Bolkonsky.

Pierre's path, like the path of Prince Andrei, this is the way to the people. Even during the period of his passion for Freemasonry, he decides to devote his energies to the improvement of the peasants. He considers it necessary to set his serfs free; he is thinking about establishing hospitals, orphanages and schools in his villages. True, the cunning manager deceives Pierre and only creates the appearance of reforms. But Pierre is sincerely confident that his peasants are now living well. His real rapprochement with the common people begins in captivity, when he meets the soldiers and Karataev. Pierre begins to feel the desire to become simpler, to completely merge with the people. The lordly life, the social salons, the luxury of the tomyaga do not satisfy Pierre. He painfully feels his isolation from

Images of Natasha and Princess Marie in the novel “War and Peace”. But Natasha and Princess Marya also have common features.. Both of them are patriots. Natasha did not hesitate to sacrifice the wealth of the Moscow Rostov house to save the wounded. And Princess Marya abandons the estate to the mercy of fate as the French approach. When the homeland is in danger, family traits awaken in it - pride, courage, firmness. This is what happened in Bogucharovo, when her French companion invited her to stay on the estate and trust the mercy of the French general, the mercy of the enemies of Russia, her homeland. And “although it didn’t matter to Princess Marya no matter where she stayed and no matter what happened to her, she at the same time felt like a representative of her late father and Prince Andrei. She involuntarily thought with their thoughts and felt them with their feelings.” And there is one more feature that makes Natasha and Princess Marya similar. Princess Marya marries Nikolai Rostov, and Tolstoy, drawing them family life, speaks of the happiness that she, like Natasha, found in the family. This is how Tolstoy solves the question of the purpose of a woman, limiting her interests to the framework of family life.

Let us recall another episode of Nikolai Rostov’s meeting with Sonya, when he, having arrived on vacation, does not know how to behave with his beloved girl. “He kissed her hand and called her you - Sonya, but their eyes, having met, said “you” to each other and kissed tenderly.”

Tolstoy's favorite heroes are people with a complex spiritual world. In revealing such characters, Tolstoy resorts to various techniques: direct characterization from the author, self-characterization of the hero, internal dialogues and reflections, etc. Internal monologues and internal dialogues allow the author to discover such innermost thoughts and the moods of the characters, which would be difficult to convey in another way (for example, using direct authorial characterization) without violating the laws of artistic realism. Tolstoy resorts to such monologues and dialogues very often. An example of an “internal monologue” with elements of dialogue can be the reflections of the wounded Prince Andrei in Chapter XXXII of the third volume of the novel. Here is another example of an “inner monologue” - the reflections of Natasha, childishly and spontaneously reasoning about herself: “What a charm this Natasha is!” - she said again to herself in the words of some third collective male person. “She’s good, she has a voice, she’s young, and she doesn’t bother anyone, just leave her alone” (Chapter XXIII of the second volume).

The image of Andrei Bolkonsky. External world with his things and phenomena is also skillfully used by Tolstoy to characterize the heroes. Thus, describing Natasha’s mood after the unexpected departure of Andrei Bolkonsky (before the matchmaking), Tolstoy reports that Natasha completely calmed down and “put on that old dress that she was especially known for the joy it brought in the morning.” Tolstoy is a brilliant landscape painter. He will note the young “green sticky leaves” of the birch, and the bush turning green somewhere, and the “juicy, dark green of the oak,” and the moonlight bursting into the room, and the freshness of the spring night. Let us remember the wonderfully described hunt in Otradnoye. Both people, animals, and nature appear here as indicators of the powerful force of life, its plethora. The landscape serves various functions in the novel. Most common feature Tolstoy's landscape is the correspondence of this landscape to the mood of the hero. The disappointment and gloomy mood of Prince Andrei after the break with Natasha colors the surrounding landscape in gloomy tones. “He looked at the strip of birch trees, with their motionless yellow, green and white bark, glistening in the sun. “To die... so that they would kill me, tomorrow, so that I wouldn’t exist... so that all this would happen, but I wouldn’t exist...” He is tormented by terrible premonitions and painful thoughts about death. And these birches with their light and shadow, and these curly clouds, and this smoke from the fires - all this around was transformed for him and seemed something terrible and threatening. And the poetry of Natasha’s nature, on the contrary, is revealed against the backdrop of a spring moonlit night in Otradnoye. In other cases, the landscape directly affects a person, enlightening and making him wise. Prince Andrei, wounded at Austerlitz, looks at the sky and thinks: “Yes! Everything is empty, everything is deception, except this endless sky.” The oak tree, which Prince Andrei meets twice on his way, reveals to him the “meaning of life” in completely different ways: in one case it seems to Prince Andrei the personification of hopelessness, in the other - a symbol of joyful faith in happiness.

Finally, Tolstoy uses landscape as a means of characterizing the real situation. Let us just remember the heavy fog that spread like a continuous milky-white sea over the outskirts of Austerlitz. Thanks to this fog, which covered the French positions, the Russian and Austrian troops were put in a worse position, since they did not see the enemy and unexpectedly came face to face with him. Napoleon, standing at a height where it was completely light, could accurately lead his troops.

The image of Napoleon in the novel "War and Peace". Napoleon confronts in the novel Napoleon. Tolstoy debunks this commander and outstanding historical figure. Drawing appearance Napoleon, the author of the novel says that it was " small man” with an “unpleasantly feigned smile” on his face, with “fat breasts,” a “round belly,” and “fat spoons of short legs.” Tolstoy shows Napoleon as a narcissistic and arrogant ruler of France, intoxicated with success, blinded by glory, attributing to his personality a driving role in the course of historical events. Even in small scenes, in the slightest gestures, one can feel, according to Tolstoy, the insane pride of Napoleon, his acting, the conceit of a man accustomed to believing that every movement of his hand scatters happiness or sows grief among thousands of people. The servility of those around him raised him to such a height that he truly believed in his ability to change the course of history and influence the destinies of nations.

In contrast to Kutuzov, who does not attach decisive importance to his personal will, Napoleon puts himself, his personality above all else, and considers himself a superman. “Only what happened in his soul was of interest to him. Everything that was outside of him did not matter to him, because everything in the world, as it seemed to him, depended only on his will.” The word "I" - favorite word Napoleon. Napoleon emphasizes selfishness, individualism and rationality - traits that are absent in Kutuzov, the people's commander, who thinks not about his own glory, but about the glory and freedom of the fatherland. Revealing the ideological content of the novel, we have already noted the originality of Tolstoy's interpretation of individual themes of the novel. Thus, we have already said that Tolstoy, going against the revolutionary peasant democracy, obscures in the novel the severity of the class contradictions between the peasantry and the landowners; revealing, for example, the restless thoughts of Pierre Bezukhov about the plight of the serf slaves, he at the same time paints pictures of the idyllic relationships between landowners and peasants on the Rostov estate and house. We also noted the features of idealization in the image of Karataev, the originality of the interpretation of the role of the individual in history, etc.

How can these features of the novel be explained? Their source must be sought in Tolstoy’s worldview, which reflected the contradictions of his time. Tolstoy was great artist. His novel “War and Peace” is one of the greatest masterpieces of world art, a work of genius in which the breadth of epic scope was combined with an amazing depth of insight into spiritual life of people. But Tolstoy lived in Russia in a transitional era, in an era of disruption of the social and economic foundations of life, when the country was moving from a feudal-serf system to capitalist forms of life, violently protesting, in the words of Lenin, “against all class domination.” Tolstoy, landowner and aristocrat , found a way out for himself in the transition to the position of the patriarchal peasantry. Belinsky, in his articles about Tolstoy, revealed with remarkable depth all the contradictions that affected Tolstoy’s worldview and work in connection with his transition to the position of the patriarchal peasantry. These contradictions could not help but be reflected in the artistic structure of the novel War and Peace. Tolstoy, the great realist and Protestant, ultimately defeated Tolstoy, the religious philosopher, and created a work that has no equal in world literature. But reading the novel, we still cannot help but feel the contradictions in the worldview of its author.

The image of Kutuzov in the novel "War and Peace". In the novel, Tolstoy ridicules the cult of “great personalities” created by bourgeois historians. He correctly believes that the course of history is decided by the masses. But his assessment of the role of the masses takes on a religious overtones. He comes to the recognition of fatalism, arguing that all historical events are predetermined from above. Tolstoy makes the commander Kutuzov the exponent of his views in the novel. The basis of his view is the consciousness that the creator of history and historical events is the people, and not individuals (heroes), and that all sorts of rationalistically constructed theories, no matter how good they may seem, are nothing compared to the force that is the mood, the spirit of the masses.

"Long years of military experience“, Tolstoy writes about Kutuzov, “he knew and with his senile mind understood that it was impossible for one person to lead hundreds of thousands of people fighting death, and he knew that the fate of the battle is not decided by the orders of the commander-in-chief, not by the place where the troops stand, not by the number guns and killed people, and that elusive force called the spirit of the army, and he watched over this force and led it, as far as it was in his power.” Tolstoy also attributed to Kutuzov his erroneous fatalistic view of history, according to which the outcome of historical events was predetermined. Andrei Bolkonsky says about Kutuzov: “He won’t come up with anything, won’t do anything, but he will listen to everything, remember everything, put everything in its place, won’t interfere with anything useful and won’t allow anything harmful. He understands that there is something stronger and more significant than his will - this is the inevitable course of events - and he knows how to see them, knows how to understand their meaning and, in view of this meaning, knows how to renounce participation in these events, from his personal will aimed at other..."

Denying the role of personality in history, Tolstoy sought to make Kutuzov only a wise observer of historical events, only a passive contemplator of them. This, of course, was Tolstoy's mistake. It inevitably had to lead to a contradictory assessment of Kutuzov. And so it happened. The novel features a commander who extremely accurately assesses the course of military events and unerringly directs them. With the help of a well-thought-out plan of counter-offensives, Kutuzov destroys Napoleon and his army. Consequently, in a number of essential features, Kutuzov is shown historically correctly in the novel: he has great strategic skill, spends long nights thinking through the campaign plan, acts as an active figure, hiding enormous volitional tension behind external calm. This is how the realist artist overcame the philosophy of fatalism. A bearer of the people's spirit and people's will, Kutuzov deeply and correctly understood the course of things, in the midst of events he gave them the correct assessment, which was confirmed later. Thus, he correctly assessed the significance of the Battle of Borodino, saying that it was a victory. As a commander, Kutuzov stands above Napoleon. To wage a people's war, such as the war of 1812, such a commander was needed, says Tolstoy. With the expulsion of the French, Kutuzov's mission was completed. Transferring the war to Europe required a different commander in chief. “The representative of the Russian people, after the enemy was destroyed, Russia was liberated and placed on the highest level of its glory, the Russian person, as a Russian, had nothing more to do. The representative of the people's war had no choice but death. And he died."

Portraying Kutuzov as people's commander, as the embodiment of people's thoughts, will and feelings. Tolstoy never falls into schematism. Kutuzov is a living person. We get this impression primarily because Tolstoy clearly, vividly paints us a portrait of Kutuzov - his figure, gait and gestures, facial expressions, his eyes, now glowing with a pleasant, affectionate smile, now taking on a mocking expression. Tolstoy gives it to us either in the perception of persons of different character and social status, or draws it from himself, delving into the psychological analysis of his hero. What makes Kutuzov deeply human and alive are scenes and episodes depicting the commander in conversations with people close and pleasant to him, such as Bolkonsky, Denisov, Bagration, his behavior at military councils, in the battles of Austerlitz and Borodino. Kutuzov's speech is diverse in its lexical composition and syntactic structure. He is fluent in high society speech when speaking or writing to the tsar, generals and other representatives of aristocratic society. “I say only one thing, General,” says Kutuzov with a pleasant elegance of expressions and intonations, forcing you to listen carefully to every leisurely spoken word. “I only say one thing, General, that if the matter depended on my personal desire, then the will of His Majesty Emperor Franz would have been completed long ago." But he also has an excellent command of simple folk language. “Here’s what, brothers. I know it’s difficult for us, but what can we do! Be patient: there’s not long left... We’ll see the guests out, then we’ll rest,” he told the soldiers, meeting them on the road from Krasny to Dobroye. And in a letter to the old man Bolkonsky, he reveals the archaic features of the clerical style of this era: “I flatter myself and you with hope that your son is alive, for otherwise, among the officers found on the battlefield, about whom the list was submitted to me through parliamentarians, he would was named."

Field Marshal Prince, aide-de-camp Count, son-in-law of commander Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov. All three led the soldiers into the attack under heavy fire with a battle flag in their hands. All three were wounded, only Prince Volkonsky survived. 1

Tolstoy about the hero: “I will be sent there,” he thought, “with a brigade or division, and there, with a banner in my hand, I will go forward and crush everything that is in front of me.”

"At this time, a new face entered the living room. The new face was the young Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, the husband of the little princess. Prince Bolkonsky was short in stature, a very handsome young man with definite and dry features. ... He, apparently, everyone who was in the living room not only were they familiar, but they bored him so much that looking at them and listening to them was very boring for him.”

Take a look at Adolphe Ladurner's painting "The Armorial Hall of the Winter Palace", where Prince Peter Volkonsky is in the center. See how accurate Tolstoy is.

All photographs of the novel's characters are taken from the film "War and Peace" (1965).

Count Nikolai Rostov

Prototype: the writer's father, Count.

Tolstoy about the hero: "... So much nobility, true youth, which you see so rarely in our age among our twenty-year-olds!.."

Count Pierre Bezukhov

Tolstoy about the hero:“...When moments of cruelty came upon him, like those in which he tied up a policeman with a bear and set him afloat, or when he challenged a man to a duel without any reason, or killed a coachman’s horse with a pistol...”; "...Dolokhov (also a partisan with a small party)."

Princess Helen Kuragina (Countess Bezukhova)

Prototype: N; beloved of Chancellor Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov, who became the morganatic wife of Duke Nikolai Maximilianovich of Leuchtenberg, grandson of Nicholas I (Tolstoy has “a young blond man with a long face and nose”) 3.

Tolstoy about heroin: "In St. Petersburg, Helen enjoyed the special patronage of a nobleman who occupied one of senior positions in the state. In Vilna, she became close to a young foreign prince. When she returned to St. Petersburg, the prince and nobleman<>both claimed their rights, and for Helen a new task presented itself in her career: to maintain the closeness of her relationship with both, without offending either.”

Vasily Denisov

Prototype:, a participant in the Patriotic War of 1812, a hussar who, like the hero of the novel, fought in a partisan detachment.

Tolstoy about the hero: “... Denisov, to Rostov’s surprise, in a new uniform, pomaded and perfumed, appeared in the living room looking the same dandy as he had been in battle...”

Artillery Staff Captain Tushin

Prototypes: Major General of Artillery Ilya Timofeevich Radozhitsky and Staff Captain of Artillery Yakov Ivanovich Sudakov. In character he resembled the brother of the writer Nikolai Nikolaevich.

Tolstoy about the hero:"...Tushin appeared on the threshold, timidly making his way from behind the generals. Walking around the generals in a cramped hut, embarrassed, as always, at the sight of his superiors..."

Baron Alfons Karlovich Berg

Prototype: Field Marshal General, Baron, then Count 4. With the rank of second lieutenant of the Semenovsky Life Guards Regiment, he was wounded in the right hand at Austerlitz, but, having transferred the sword to left hand, remained in service until the end of the battle. For this he was awarded the Golden Sword "For Bravery" 5.

Tolstoy about the hero: “It was not for nothing that Berg showed everyone his wounded Battle of Austerlitz right hand and held a completely unnecessary sword in his left. He told everyone this concealment so persistently and with such significance that everyone believed in the expediency and dignity of this act - and Berg received two awards for Austerlitz.”

Anna Pavlovna Sherer

Prototype: maid of honor of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, daughter of the great poet.

Tolstoy about heroin:"...The famous Anna Pavlovna Scherer, maid of honor and close associate of Empress Maria Feodorovna..."

Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova

Prototype:, which had in high society scandalous reputation. “As you know, L.N. Tolstoy depicted her with photographic precision, right down to her surname and the roll-up of her sleeves, in War and Peace 6 .

Tolstoy about heroin:Akhrosimova is known “not for wealth, not for honors, but for directness of mind and frank simplicity of address.”

LEVOCHKA MAY BE DESCRIBING US WHEN HE IS 50 YEARS OLD. S.A. TOLSTAYA - TO SISTER. NOVEMBER 11, 1862

1. Patriotic War 1812 and the liberation campaign of the Russian army of 1813-1814. Encyclopedia: In 3 volumes. T. 1. M.: Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN), 2012. P. 364; Right there. T. 3. P. 500.
2. The Patriotic War of 1812 and the liberation campaign of the Russian army of 1813-1814. Encyclopedia: In 3 volumes. T. 1. M.: Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN), 2012. P. 410.
3. Ekshtut S.A. Nadine, or the novel of a high society lady through the eyes of the secret political police. M.: Consent, 2001. P. 97-100.
4. The Patriotic War of 1812 and the liberation campaign of the Russian army of 1813-1814. Encyclopedia: In 3 volumes. T. 1. M.: Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN), 2012. P. 623.
5. Ekshtut S.A. Everyday life Russian intelligentsia from the era of the Great Reforms to Silver Age. M.: Young Guard, 2012. P. 252.
6. Gershenzon M.O. Griboyedovskaya Moscow. M.: Moscow worker, 1989. P. 83.