By Leo Tolstoy
Epic novel of Napoleonic Russia
Subject
Themes
In the summer of 1805, the Russian aristocracy gathers in Petersburg drawing rooms to discuss the Napoleonic threat in French, the language of civilization they fear is being weaponised against them. Among them are Pierre Bezukhov, an awkward illegitimate young man who is about to inherit an enormous fortune, and Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, brilliant and contemptuous, who flees a hollow marriage by joining Kutuzov's army. The Rostov family in Moscow embodies a warmer, more impulsive Russia: generous, improvident, overflowing with life, sending their son Nikolai off to the hussar regiment with tears and embraces.
In the summer of 1805, the Russian aristocracy gathers in Petersburg drawing rooms to discuss the Napoleonic threat in French, the language of civilization they fear is being weaponised against them. Among them are Pierre Bezukhov, an awkward illegitimate young man who is about to inherit an…
The novel is set against one of the most transformative periods in European history: the Napoleonic Wars of 1803-1815, and most intensely the French invasion of Russia in 1812. To understand the world the novel depicts requires some grasp of what made this period so extraordinary, both militarily…
One of the novel's most sustained intellectual arguments is its attack on the great man theory of history: the idea, common in historiography and especially in the heroic narratives built around Napoleon, that great events are caused by the decisions of exceptional individuals. Tolstoy returns to…
The novel presents war not primarily as a test of courage or a theatre of glory but as the condition that strips away the comfortable fictions by which its characters have organised their lives. Before the campaigns begin, nearly every significant figure in the novel is living inside an illusion of…
Love in the novel is not primarily a social institution or a romantic convention. It is a form of spiritual perception: a capacity to see another person clearly and to be changed by what you see. The characters who love most fully are also those who have undergone the most significant…
The two central families in the novel, the Bolkonskys and the Rostovs, are not simply settings for the personal stories of individual characters. They are civilisations in miniature, each embodying a distinct set of values and a distinct version of what Russian life at its best might be. The novel…
Running through the novel's philosophical argument is a paradox about fate and freedom that none of its characters resolves but that many of them approach, from different directions, during the course of the story. The paradox is this: the characters who fight hardest against the conditions of their…
Pierre Bezukhov enters the novel as its most awkward figure: large, short-sighted, illegitimate, unsure of himself in every social situation, and dangerously susceptible to the influence of stronger personalities. He is the illegitimate son of the immensely wealthy Count Bezukhov, uncertain of his…
Prince Andrei Bolkonsky begins the novel as a man of intense ambition and cold pride, trapped in a marriage he regards as a mistake and a social world he despises. His early scenes in the Petersburg salons establish him as someone who sees through the vanity around him but has not yet found anything…
Natasha Rostova is introduced as a thirteen-year-old girl careening through her family's country house with unstoppable energy, already fully herself in a way that the novel's adults rarely manage. She is the emotional centre of the Rostov family and, in many ways, of the novel as a whole. Where…
Princess Mary Bolkonskaya lives under the absolute authority of her father, the old Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky, at the family estate of Bald Hills. She is plain, devout, and outwardly submissive to a degree that might seem like passivity, but the novel carefully distinguishes submission from weakness.…
Nikolai Rostov is introduced as a young hussar officer burning with patriotism and the desire to prove himself in battle. He is good-looking, energetic, sociable, and entirely conventional in his values. He loves his family, loves his regiment, loves hunting, and approaches life with an…
Helene Kuragina is the most purely beautiful person in the novel, and the novel never lets the reader forget that her beauty is the full extent of what she offers. She is marble-smooth in appearance and marble-cold in character, a creature of social performance who has learned to use her physical…
Anatole Kuragin is one of the novel's most dangerous characters precisely because he is not malicious. He causes serious harm to everyone he encounters of significance, and he does so entirely without calculation, driven purely by appetite and the unshakeable conviction that whatever he wants, he is…
Sonya Rostova is a poor relation living in the Rostov household, dependent on the family's generosity and acutely aware of this dependence. She loves Nikolai Rostov with a constancy and selflessness that the novel presents as entirely genuine and, in the end, entirely unrewarded by the conventional…
Kutuzov is the commander-in-chief of the Russian armies and the novel's most important embodiment of a particular philosophy of leadership: that greatness in command consists not in imposing one's will on events but in understanding events well enough to let them take their natural course. He is…
Napoleon appears in the novel as a great historical force that the narrative simultaneously takes seriously as a cause of suffering and systematically diminishes as a person. He is one of the most powerful men in the world, and the novel's argument is that this power has given him the most dangerous…
Dolokhov is one of the novel's most unnerving figures: a man of extraordinary physical courage and cold, deliberate cruelty who is at the same time capable of a fierce, protective love for his mother and sister that sits entirely incongruously beside his conduct toward everyone else. He is handsome,…
Denisov is Nikolai Rostov's commanding officer and closest friend in the early sections of the novel, a cavalry officer of the old stamp: loud, passionate, hard-drinking, recklessly brave, and possessed of a warmth and directness that make him immediately likeable. He speaks with a slight lisp that…
Princess Lise Bolkonskaya, Andrei's wife, is a minor character who nonetheless casts a shadow across a significant portion of the novel's first half. She is young, pretty, socially adept, and deeply unhappy in a marriage to a man who regards her with barely concealed contempt. Her husband is…
The old Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky is a figure from an earlier era, shaped by the reign of Catherine the Great and the Enlightenment values of her court: rigorous, rationalist, contemptuous of sentiment, and possessed of an intellectual pride so fierce it has curdled into tyranny over the years. He is…
Platon Karataev appears in the novel at the moment of Pierre Bezukhov's greatest degradation: he is a prisoner of the French, witnessing executions, stripped of everything that previously defined him, and Karataev is the person he meets in this condition. Karataev is a peasant soldier, round and…
Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova is one of the novel's great minor characters: a force of nature in human form, a woman of complete social fearlessness whose bluntness is so absolute and so consistent that it has become a kind of authority. She says what she thinks to everyone, including people of far…
In July 1805, Anna Pavlovna Scherer's soiree brings together the cream of St Petersburg society to debate the Napoleonic threat. The guests converse almost entirely in French, signalling their cultural distance from the Russia they claim to represent. Prince Vasili Kuragin, polished and calculating,…
In October 1805 the Russian army occupies villages in Austria, and Nikolai Rostov experiences his first true encounter with war. The romance he had imagined dissolves rapidly. In his first engagement he is unhorsed, slightly wounded, and flees in panic, then struggles painfully to reconcile the…
In early 1806, Nikolai Rostov returns home to Moscow on leave with his friend Denisov, the hussar officer. The Rostov household greets him with the warm, uncalculating joy that marks everything the family does. Natasha, now fifteen, is radiant and musical, filling every room she enters. Sonya, her…
In 1808, with Russia and France nominally at peace after Tilsit, Prince Andrei throws himself into government service under the reforming statesman Speransky. He works on a new legal code, captivated by Speransky's cold, powerful intelligence and convinced that rational reform can transform Russia.…
Pierre's disillusionment with Freemasonry reaches its conclusion when he attends a lodge meeting and argues passionately for active philanthropy and resistance to Napoleon's growing influence over Russia. He is met with indifference and self-interest; the brotherhood's ideals, he discovers, are…
Kutuzov is appointed Commander-in-Chief to popular relief. The old general, obese and apparently somnolent, is greeted by the troops with love: they sense in him something authentically Russian, a willingness to feel rather than merely calculate. Prince Andrei, serving under him, comes to understand…
Napoleon occupies a burning, deserted Moscow and waits for the submission that does not come. He issues proclamations, plans charitable institutions, writes and rewrites theatrical speeches for the delegation of nobles that never appears. Russia refuses to perform the role of a defeated…
Petersburg society continues its salons and intrigues while Moscow burns, largely indifferent to the catastrophe to the east. Helene, pursuing two potential second marriages simultaneously and consulting Catholic priests about annulling her first, dies suddenly and somewhat mysteriously from what…
Tolstoy argues in this section that the sequence from Borodino through the occupation of Moscow to the French retreat has been systematically misread by historians. The real forces were moral: the spirit of the Russian army, the people's refusal to accommodate the conqueror, and the fundamental…
Seven years after the war, the surviving characters have settled into domestic life. Pierre and Natasha have been married for seven years and have four children. Natasha has poured herself entirely into family life: nursing her babies, managing her household, and becoming absorbed in the world she…
Pierre Bezukhov enters the novel as its most awkward figure: large, short-sighted, illegitimate, unsure of himself in every social situation, and dangerously susceptible to the influence of stronger personalities. He is the illegitimate son of the immensely wealthy Count Bezukhov, uncertain of his…
Prince Andrei Bolkonsky begins the novel as a man of intense ambition and cold pride, trapped in a marriage he regards as a mistake and a social world he despises. His early scenes in the Petersburg salons establish him as someone who sees through the vanity around him but has not yet found anything…
Natasha Rostova is introduced as a thirteen-year-old girl careening through her family's country house with unstoppable energy, already fully herself in a way that the novel's adults rarely manage. She is the emotional centre of the Rostov family and, in many ways, of the novel as a whole. Where…
Princess Mary Bolkonskaya lives under the absolute authority of her father, the old Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky, at the family estate of Bald Hills. She is plain, devout, and outwardly submissive to a degree that might seem like passivity, but the novel carefully distinguishes submission from weakness.…
Nikolai Rostov is introduced as a young hussar officer burning with patriotism and the desire to prove himself in battle. He is good-looking, energetic, sociable, and entirely conventional in his values. He loves his family, loves his regiment, loves hunting, and approaches life with an…
Helene Kuragina is the most purely beautiful person in the novel, and the novel never lets the reader forget that her beauty is the full extent of what she offers. She is marble-smooth in appearance and marble-cold in character, a creature of social performance who has learned to use her physical…
Anatole Kuragin is one of the novel's most dangerous characters precisely because he is not malicious. He causes serious harm to everyone he encounters of significance, and he does so entirely without calculation, driven purely by appetite and the unshakeable conviction that whatever he wants, he is…
Sonya Rostova is a poor relation living in the Rostov household, dependent on the family's generosity and acutely aware of this dependence. She loves Nikolai Rostov with a constancy and selflessness that the novel presents as entirely genuine and, in the end, entirely unrewarded by the conventional…
Kutuzov is the commander-in-chief of the Russian armies and the novel's most important embodiment of a particular philosophy of leadership: that greatness in command consists not in imposing one's will on events but in understanding events well enough to let them take their natural course. He is…
Napoleon appears in the novel as a great historical force that the narrative simultaneously takes seriously as a cause of suffering and systematically diminishes as a person. He is one of the most powerful men in the world, and the novel's argument is that this power has given him the most dangerous…
Dolokhov is one of the novel's most unnerving figures: a man of extraordinary physical courage and cold, deliberate cruelty who is at the same time capable of a fierce, protective love for his mother and sister that sits entirely incongruously beside his conduct toward everyone else. He is handsome,…
Denisov is Nikolai Rostov's commanding officer and closest friend in the early sections of the novel, a cavalry officer of the old stamp: loud, passionate, hard-drinking, recklessly brave, and possessed of a warmth and directness that make him immediately likeable. He speaks with a slight lisp that…
Princess Lise Bolkonskaya, Andrei's wife, is a minor character who nonetheless casts a shadow across a significant portion of the novel's first half. She is young, pretty, socially adept, and deeply unhappy in a marriage to a man who regards her with barely concealed contempt. Her husband is…
The old Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky is a figure from an earlier era, shaped by the reign of Catherine the Great and the Enlightenment values of her court: rigorous, rationalist, contemptuous of sentiment, and possessed of an intellectual pride so fierce it has curdled into tyranny over the years. He is…
Platon Karataev appears in the novel at the moment of Pierre Bezukhov's greatest degradation: he is a prisoner of the French, witnessing executions, stripped of everything that previously defined him, and Karataev is the person he meets in this condition. Karataev is a peasant soldier, round and…
Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova is one of the novel's great minor characters: a force of nature in human form, a woman of complete social fearlessness whose bluntness is so absolute and so consistent that it has become a kind of authority. She says what she thinks to everyone, including people of far…
In the summer of 1805, the Russian aristocracy gathers in Petersburg drawing rooms to discuss the Napoleonic threat in French, the language of civilization they fear is being weaponised against them. Among them are Pierre Bezukhov, an awkward illegitimate young man who is about to inherit an enormous fortune, and Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, brilliant and contemptuous, who flees a hollow marriage by joining Kutuzov's army. The Rostov family in Moscow embodies a warmer, more impulsive Russia: generous, improvident, overflowing with life, sending their son Nikolai off to the hussar regiment with tears and embraces.