Why Tolstoy's novel is called War and Peace. "War and Peace": a masterpiece or "wordy rubbish"? Movement from west to east

The strength of "War and Peace" lies precisely in the fact that the writer, incomparable in artistic sensitivity, presented the socio-moral, psychological history of the era, recreated the emotional experiences of different people of that time, their spiritual aspirations. A. A. Fet, who often saw Tolstoy in those years, wrote: “Lev Nikolayevich was in the midst of writing War and Peace; and I, who knew him during periods of direct creativity, constantly admired him, admired his sensitivity and impressionability, which could be compared with a large and thin glass bell that sounds at the slightest shaking.

N. N. Strakhov rightly noted that Tolstoy "captured not individual features, but the whole - that life atmosphere, which is different for different people and in different strata of society." This difference in "atmosphere" is clearly and fully disclosed in the novel - for example, in the estate of the old prince Bolkonsky, the disgraced general of the Suvorov era, and the ruined Moscow hospitable Count Rostov; in bureaucratic, "French-German" St. Petersburg and in "Russian" patriarchal Moscow. This is always a historically and socially determined difference.

The most sensitive of Tolstoy's contemporaries caught this spirit of the times, which, according to P. V. Annenkov, "is embodied on the pages of the novel, like the Indian Vishnu, easily and freely, countless times."

Another critic, P. Shchebalsky, wrote in 1868, when only half of the novel was published: “The people of 1805-1812 are almost the same and act in almost the same situation as people of the present generation - this alone almost separates them from us, and this, it seems to us, is quite clearly expressed by Count Tolstoy. Look around you, and you will not find around you either the hussar type, which is bred in the person of Denisov, or the landlords who would go bankrupt as good-naturedly as Count Rostov (now they are also ruined, but at the same time they are angry), or those who arrive, or Masons, or the general babble in a language that is a mixture of French and Nizhny Novgorod.

Tolstoy himself considered the use of French in the Russian noble society of the early 19th century to be a characteristic sign of the times. The article “A Few Words About the Book “War and Peace”” substantiates the historical and artistic legitimacy of the fact that in the Russian essay, not only Russians, but also the French speak partly Russian, partly French. It is known that in 1873, including "War and Peace" in the Collected Works, Tolstoy everywhere replaced the French text with Russian. This replacement caused significant damage to the artistic system of the novel, deprived him of one of the brightest features that recreate the era, and one of Tolstoy's strongest means of social and psychological characterization of characters. Later, the novel was reprinted in the previous edition, with dialogues in French.

Both contemporaries and subsequent generations of readers were struck by the breadth of coverage of life material, the all-encompassing epic nature of the work. No wonder Tolstoy said that he "wanted to seize everything." Reproaches for the incompleteness of the historical picture touched on only three points. I. S. Turgenev was surprised why the entire Decembrist element was omitted; P. V. Annenkov found that there were no commoners who had already declared themselves at that time; radical criticism wondered why the horrors of serfdom were not shown. It can be considered fair, and then in part, only the last reproach.

The Decembrist movement could not be shown, since the narrative is limited to the historical framework of 1805-1812, when this movement did not yet exist. Fast forward to 1820 in the epilogue, Tolstoy briefly but quite clearly speaks of Pierre's involvement in the Decembrist organization (apparently, the Union of Welfare), conveys the political disputes of that time, and in the poetic dream of Nikolay Bolkonsky gives, as it were, a premonition of the December 14 uprising. The same social movement that preceded Decembristism in our country and is really characteristic of the beginning of the 19th century - Freemasonry - is shown in War and Peace in sufficient detail.

It is characteristic that, in general, the noble culture of that time is represented in the novel mainly by the mental and moral quest of the “educated minority”. The inner world of the people of that time is recreated with incomparably greater detail than the culture of noble life, and not only in terms of aristocratic salons and clubs, but even in the local estates dear to the heart of the author. Theatrical life, literary salons are mentioned briefly, although the memoirs of contemporaries (for example, "Notes" by S. Zhikharev) provided abundant material of this kind. Of the writers, only the publisher of the Russian Messenger S. Glinka, N. Karamzin with his Poor Lisa, and the writers of patriotic odes are named. In this attention it was to the pre-Decembrist theme that the same folk thought, penetrating the novel, was reflected.

The novel "War and Peace" is permeated with the thought of the great importance of the nobility in the destinies of the nation, in the history of Russia. At the same time, for the author of the Sevastopol stories, "Morning of the landowner", "Cossacks", the criterion of the truth of the noble culture, moral principles was the attitude of this estate to the people, the degree of responsibility for the common life.

Merchants and seminarians, polemically wrote in one of the drafts of the preface to Tolstoy's novel, he did not want to show them, because they were not interesting to him. It ended, however, with the fact that (episodic, true, but still) both the merchant Ferapontov was shown, burning his shop in Smolensk, and the merchant assembly in the Sloboda Palace, and Speransky, a “seminarian from seminarians”.

Tolstoy portrays the Rostov and Bolkonsky families with great sympathy, because: they are participants in historical events, patriots; they are not attracted by careerism and profit; they are close to the Russian people. Characteristic features of the Rostov Bolkonsky 1. The older generation ....

"Deep knowledge of the secret movements of psychological life and the direct purity of the moral feeling, which now gives a special physiognomy to the works of Count Tolstoy, will always remain essential features of his talent" (N.G. Chernyshevsky) Beautiful ...

1867 L. M. Tolstoy finished work on the landmark novel of his work "War and Peace". The author noted that in "War and Peace" he "loved the thought of the people", poeticizing the simplicity, kindness and morality of the Russian people. This "folk thought" by L. Tolstoy...

The action of Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" begins in July 1805 in the salon of Anna Pavlovna Sherer. This scene introduces us to representatives of the court aristocracy: Princess Elizaveta Bolkonskaya, Prince Vasily Kuragin, his soulless children...

On August 26, 1856, on the day of his coronation, Alexander II issued the Supreme Manifesto, which provided for an amnesty for all Decembrists. In the same year, apparently impressed by this event, Leo Tolstoy decides to write a novel about a Decembrist returning from exile. However, it was not accepted immediately to carry out the plan, but only four years later, in 1860.

Tolstoy informs the publisher of many notes of the Decembrists Alexander Herzen about the beginning of work in a letter from Brussels dated March 14, 1861:

« ... you cannot imagine how interested I am in all the information about the Decembrists in the Polar Star. About four months ago I started a novel, the hero of which was supposed to be a returning Decembrist. I wanted to talk to you about this, but I didn't succeed. l".

In the same letter, he gives a description of the protagonist:

“My Decembrist must be an enthusiast, a mystic, a Christian, returning to Russia in 1956 with his wife, son and daughter and trying on his strict and somewhat ideal view of the new Russia.<…>Turgenev, to whom I read the beginning, liked the first chapters.

By 1861, three chapters had been written, in which the Decembrist Pyotr Ivanovich Labazov was actually brought out, returning with his wife Natalya Nikolaevna, daughter Sonya and son Sergei from Siberian exile to Moscow. However, despite the flattering assessment of Turgenev, the novel "The Decembrists" did not advance beyond these chapters.

The further, the more the desire to paint a large-scale canvas matures in Tolstoy. " The epic kind becomes one natural to me”, he notes in his diary on January 3, 1863. Gradually, the original plan of the "Decembrists" expands and deepens. Tolstoy comes to the conclusion that it is not entirely correct to start the action of the novel from 1856 - it is necessary to include the year of the Decembrist uprising itself in the narrative. In one of the rough drafts of the preface to War and Peace, he writes: "Involuntarily, I passed from the present to 1825, the era of my hero's delusions and misfortunes." Creatively, this "transition to 1825" was not expressed in anything, at least in Tolstoy's papers there is nothing relating to this stage of work. Apparently, the writer really did not stay long on this idea and soon turned to 1812, about which he wrote all in the same preface:

“But even in 1825 my hero was already a mature family man. To understand him, I had to go back to the era of his youth, and his youth coincided with the glorious era for Russia in 1812. Another time I gave up what I had begun and began to write from the time of 1812, whose smell and sound are still audible and dear to us, but which is now already so distant from us that we can think about it calmly.

In the middle of 1863, Tolstoy's search resulted in the idea of ​​the novel "Three Pores" - in his own words, a work "from the time of the 1810s and 20s." The writer intends to consistently lead his hero through the Patriotic War, the uprising on Senate Square and show his return from Siberian exile. Over time, the original idea changed more and more. For example, in the seventh draft (there were fifteen in total), the time of action is shifted to 1805, although 1811 appeared in the early idea. In Tolstoy we read:

“I was ashamed to write about our triumph in the struggle against Bonaparte France without describing our failures and our shame.<…>If the reason for our triumph was not accidental, but lay in the essence of the character of the Russian people and troops, then this character should have been expressed even more clearly in an era of failures and defeats. So, having returned from 1856 to 1805, from now on I intend to lead not one, but many of my heroines and heroes through the historical events of 1805, 1807, 1812, 1825 and 1856.

However, this ambitious plan is also being revised soon: in the twelfth version of the beginning, the time frame is clearly defined and compressed to nine years - from 1805 to 1814. Tolstoy no longer plans to describe the fate of one Decembrist, this idea has receded into the background, and, according to the writer himself, “both young and old people, and men and women of that time” came to the fore, that is, the same “ folk thought».

However, it would be wrong to say that the idea of ​​"War and Peace" had nothing more to do with the "Decembrists". In the same twelfth version of the beginning, there is the following description of Pierre:

“Those who knew Prince Peter Kirillovich B. at the beginning of the reign of Alexander II, in the 1850s, when Peter Kirillich was returned from Siberia as white as a harrier, it would be difficult to imagine him as a carefree, stupid and extravagant young man, what he was at the beginning of the reign of Alexander I, shortly after his arrival from abroad, where, at the request of his father, he completed his education.

This passage testifies to the direct continuity between the novel being created and the work about the Decembrist begun in 1860. In addition, it clearly indicates that this Decembrist was the same Pierre Bezukhov. And although Tolstoy by this time had already abandoned the idea to bring the action of the novel to 1856, he nevertheless intended to maintain a direct connection with the original plan.

In the final version of War and Peace, Tolstoy abandons this idea and carefully disguises all hints about the future of Pierre. It is interesting that this was the reason for contemporaries reproach the writer for the incompleteness of the historical picture. In particular, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was quite surprised that the entire Decembrist element was omitted from the novel. These claims are not entirely fair. Firstly, in 1805-1812 the Decembrist movement did not yet exist, therefore, it could not be reflected in the novel. But at the same time, it tells in detail about the Masonic movement, to which, as you know, many of the future Decembrists belonged. In the epilogue, which takes place in 1820, the writer even gives direct indications of the further fate of his heroes: briefly, but quite clearly, he speaks of Pierre's involvement in the Decembrist organization (apparently, in the Union of Welfare), and in Nikolenka Bolkonsky's poetic dream, an uprising is guessed December 14th.

Having completed War and Peace, Tolstoy nevertheless did not abandon the idea of ​​writing a novel about the Decembrists, about people who, by his definition, were " everything is for selection - as if a magnet was drawn over the top layer of a pile of litter with iron filings, and the magnet pulled them out". He returns to the topic ten years later, in 1877, after the publication of Anna Karenina, and plans to write a novel about a Decembrist who, in exile, recognizes peasant life. For the next few years, Tolstoy actively met with the direct participants in the events of 1825, their relatives, read memoirs, letters and diaries. Such a large-scale activity attracts attention: the publishers of Russkaya Starina, Vestnik Evropy, Novoye Vremya, Slova address letters to Tolstoy and offer to print chapters of the work from them. Interestingly, the future novel "The Decembrists" was not only associated with "War and Peace" by many, but was even conceived as a direct continuation of the epic. For example, Mikhail Stasyulevich writes:

“... I, along with everyone, on the basis, however, of rumors, expected soon to have great pleasure - to read your new novel, which, as they said, would serve as a continuation of War and Peace.”

However, this time the novel, despite the enormous research work done, remained unfinished. Why? There are several reasons. The first, external, which can rather be called a reason, was that Tolstoy was not allowed to get acquainted with the real investigative file about the Decembrists. This seemed to dampen his enthusiasm greatly. The second, internal, according to the writer himself, stemmed from the fact that he did not find in this topic of "universal interest": "This whole story had no roots." The wording is very vague. The information that can be found with Countess Alexandra Andreevna Tolstaya and Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya will help to understand it.

The first recalled that when she asked why Lev Nikolayevich did not continue the novel, he answered: “ Because I found that almost all Decembrists were French". Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya also writes about this:

“But suddenly Lev Nikolayevich became disappointed in this era as well. He argued that the December riot was the result of the influence of the French aristocracy, most of which emigrated to Russia after the French Revolution. She later brought up the entire Russian aristocracy as tutors. This explains why many of the Decembrists were Catholics. If all this was grafted and not created on purely Russian soil, Lev Nikolaevich could not sympathize with this.

The same thought slips through the letter of Vladimir Stasov, who in 1879 asked Tolstoy:

“Here we had a hundred ridiculous rumors that you abandoned the Decembrists, because, they say, you suddenly saw that the whole of Russian society was not Russian, but French ?!!”

One way or another, the theme of Decembrism will be forgotten by the writer for 25 years.

Tolstoy once again turned to the history of the Decembrists already in 1903–1904 in connection with the idea of ​​writing a novel about Nicholas I. But, like the previous ones, this plan would also remain unfulfilled.

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 XIX century) - the failure of Russia 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 society and the personal life of a person, determined by ethical standards. The main artistic technique used by the writer is the antithesis. This technique is the core of the entire novel: the novel contrasts two wars (1805-1807 and 1812), and two battles (Austerlitz and Borodi-no), and military leaders (Kutuzov and Napoleon), and cities (Petersburg and Moscow ), and actors. 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 "peace" before the revolution there was another letter designation of the sound "and" - i decimal, and the word was written "peace" - that is, it also had the meaning "society, people, people." The themes touched upon in the novel illuminate the important aspects of folk life, the views, ideals, way of life and customs of various strata of society.

But both then and now the title of the novel is interpreted on the basis of the whole variety of meanings contained in these concepts. Just as “war” means not only the military actions of the warring armies, but also the militant hostility of people in a 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 not in a state of war. The world is a peasant gathering that started a revolt 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”. The world is the immediate environment of a person, which is always next to him, wherever he is: in war or in civilian life.

But the world is also the whole world, the universe. Pierre speaks of him, proving to Prince Andrey the existence of a "kingdom of truth." The world is a brotherhood of people, regardless of national and class differences, to which Nikolai Rostov proclaims good health when meeting with the Austrians. The world is life. The world is also a worldview, a circle of heroes' ideas.

The epic beginning in the novel links the pictures of war and peace into a single thread with invisible threads. 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 the personality. And the content and need of war is disunity, alienation and isolation, hatred and hostility of people who defend their selfish separate interests, this is the self-affirmation of their egoistic “I”, which brings destruction, grief, 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 view of the same dam at another time, when “the old miller sat there with fishing rods for so long while his grandson, having rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, sorted through a silver quivering fish in a watering can.

The terrible outcome of the Battle of Borodino is drawn 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 the war becomes clear to Rostov when he sees "the enemy's room-sized face with a hole in his 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 a 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 affair and at the same time as a test of all the mental strength of a person. And it inevitably happened that the carriers of true heroism were simple, modest people, such as Captain Tushin or Timokhin, forgotten by history; the “sinner” Natasha, who achieved the allocation of transport for the Russian wounded; General Dokhturov and Kutuzov, who never talked about his exploits. It is they who forget about themselves and save Russia.

The very combination of "war and peace" has already been used in Russian literature, in particular, in the tragedy of A. S. Pushkin "Boris Godunov":

Describe, not philosophizing slyly,

All then, what witness in 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.

What does the title of the novel "War and Peace" mean?

The novel "War and Peace" was originally conceived by Tolstoy as a story about the Decembrists. The author wanted to talk about these wonderful people and their families.

But not just to talk about what happened in December 1825 in Russia, but to show how the participants in these events came to them, which prompted 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 after the war against Napoleon was important? Or is it to show once again that "war ... is an event that is contrary to human reason and all human nature"? Or maybe Tolstoy wanted to emphasize that our life consists of contrasts between war and peace, meanness and honor, evil and good.

About why the author called his work that way, what is the meaning of the name "War and Peace", now one can only guess. But, reading and rereading the work, you are once again convinced that the whole narrative in it is built on the struggle of opposites.

The contrasts of the novel

In the work, the reader is constantly faced with the opposition of 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 for one particular person. Sometimes it even happens that this person is not even aware that military operations are taking place around him.

For example, while Pierre was trying to figure out how to behave properly with his dying father, in the same house there was a war between Prince Vasily and Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskaya. Anna Mikhailovna “fought” on the side of Pierre only because it was beneficial to herself, but still, thanks to her, Pierre became Count Peter Kirillovich Bezukhov.

In this “battle” for a portfolio with a will, it was decided whether Pierre would be an unknown, useless, bastard thrown overboard the ship of life, or become a rich heir, count and 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 live on bread and water, then his life priorities 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, a good-natured irony is felt in relation to Pierre, who is absolutely unadapted to life. What is this if not a contrast between the "war" of meanness and the "peace" of good-natured naivete?

What is the "world" in Tolstoy's novel? The world is the romantic universe of the young Natasha Rostova, the good nature of Pierre, the religiosity and kindness of Princess Mary. Even the old prince Bolkonsky, with his semi-military arrangement of life and nitpicking of his son and daughter, is on the side of the author's "peace".

After all, decency, honesty, dignity, naturalness reign in his “world” - all the qualities that Tolstoy endows his favorite heroes. These are the Bolkonskys and the Rostovs, and Pierre Bezukhov, and Marya Dmitrievna, and even Kutuzov and Bagration. Despite the fact that readers meet with Kutuzov only on the battlefields, he is clearly a representative of the "world" of kindness and mercy, wisdom and honor.

What do soldiers defend in war when they fight against invaders? Why do sometimes absolutely illogical situations occur when “one battalion is sometimes stronger than a division,” as Prince Andrei used to say? Because in defending their country, soldiers are protecting more than just "space". And Kutuzov, and Bolkonsky, and Dolokhov, and Denisov, and all the soldiers, militiamen, partisans, they all fight for the world in which their relatives and friends live, where their children grow up, where their wives and parents are left, for their country. This is what causes that "warmth of patriotism, which was in all ... people ... and which explained ... why all these people calmly and as if thoughtlessly prepared for death."

The contrast, emphasized by the meaning of the title of the novel "War and Peace", is manifested in everything. Wars: alien and unnecessary to the Russian people, the war of 1805 and the Patriotic People's War of 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 manifested.

Even within each circle there are contrasts: the Rostovs are opposed to the Bolkonskys. The noble, friendly, albeit ruined Rostov family - to the rich, but at the same time lonely and homeless, Pierre.

A very striking contrast between Kutuzov, calm, wise, natural in his fatigue from life, an old warrior and a narcissistic, decoratively pompous Napoleon.

It is the contrasts on the basis of which the plot of the novel is built that capture and lead the reader throughout the story.

Conclusion

In my essay “The Meaning of the Title of the Novel “War and Peace,” I wanted to discuss these contrasting concepts. About Tolstoy's amazing understanding of human psychology, the ability to logically build the history of the development of many personalities throughout such a long narrative. Lev Nikolaevich tells the history of the Russian state not just as a historian-scientist, the reader seems to live life together with the characters. And gradually finds answers to eternal questions about love and truth.

Artwork test

Tolstoy's "War and Peace" as an epic novel

Tolstoy began work on the novel in 1863, immediately after the fiftieth anniversary of the victory over the French in the Patriotic War of 1812, and finished in 1869.

Tolstoy went to the idea of ​​"War and Peace" for quite a long time. At first, he conceived a work called "The Decembrists", the main character of which was to be the Decembrist Volkhonsky-Lobazov, returning from Siberian exile. According to the author's idea, this energetic man of advanced age had to stand out very strongly against the background of compatriots who had lost their "thoughts of high aspiration" and were not capable of decisive action. Given that the center of the work would be a description of Russian social and everyday life of that time, and the basis of the novel was such a satirical opposition, "The Decembrists" could be called a socio-psychological novel.

But the events of 1825 led the author to 1812, because it was the public upsurge after the victory over Napoleon that gave rise to the Decembrist uprising. Thus, Tolstoy comes to the idea of ​​a new work - the historical novel "Three Pores", in which the process of formation and formation of the character of the protagonist proceeded against the backdrop of historical events of the early 19th century.

Tolstoy, working on this work, is fond of depicting sketches of the Patriotic War, and the novel begins to look more and more like a historical chronicle, where the facts are arranged in strict chronological sequence. So the author understands that history has already become an independent subject of narration, and the work more and more resembles a heroic poem. So the idea of ​​\u200b\u200ba work called "All's well that ends well" appears. This novel already includes not only a description of the life of a noble society, but also sketches of peasant life. Familiar heroes are already meeting there - the Rostovs, Bezukhov and Bolkonsky. This is the penultimate version of Tolstoy's novel, and after rejecting this version, the author begins work on War and Peace. Thus, the work retained the features of the genres of all previous ideas: a novel, a heroic poem, as well as a historical chronicle, where the people are the main character of history, and the Patriotic War is not the background, but the ideological and compositional center of the work.

“The epic kind becomes only natural to me,” Tolstoy writes in his diary on January 3, 1863, shortly before writing the novel. Two and a half years later (September 30, 1865), Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “There is poetry of the novelist: 1) [...] 2) in the picture of morals built on a historical event - the Odyssey, the Iliad, 1805”, that is, he drew a parallel between the works of Homer and his novel.

Tolstoy appreciated the epic for the fact that at its center are the fates of not one or several heroes, but of the whole people and even peoples. In 1868, Tolstoy wrote an article "A few words about the book" War and Peace "", where he tried to answer the question of what exactly his novel is. Reflecting on the genre, he wrote: “This is not a novel, even less a poem, even less a historical chronicle. "War and Peace" is what the author wanted and could express in the form in which it was expressed. And Tolstoy goes on to write that the genre-defining problem that War and Peace faced is common to many other works: “The history of Russian literature since Pushkin not only presents many examples of such a departure from the European form, but does not even give one an example of the contrary. From Gogol's "Dead Souls" to Dostoyevsky's "House of the Dead", in the new period of Russian literature there is not a single artistic prose work that is a little out of mediocrity, which would fit perfectly into the form of a novel, poem or short story. That is, according to Tolstoy, all the great works of Russian literature do not fit into the traditional ideas about the European novel.

In the 20th century, literary scholars nevertheless managed to agree on the issue of the genre definition of the novel: they called the work an epic novel, primarily because War and Peace is an integral work of art, but many features of many novels can be seen in it.

1. Historical novel. The reader understands that this is a historical work when he sees a reference to the past, and also meets real historical figures in the novel, such as Kutuzov, Napoleon, Alexander I. Tolstoy used many historical sources while working on the novel. For example, the author turned to books about Freemasonry, to the works of war historians (both Russian and French), and to historical chronicles. But Tolstoy's interaction with historians is more reminiscent of a dispute than full-fledged cooperation, which is why the author often refers to the memoirs of his contemporaries - to the works of Russian and French memoirists.
2. Psychological novel. The combination of historical and psychological works seemed strange to contemporaries. A. S. Pushkin followed this path in the novel The Captain's Daughter and in the drama Boris Godunov. There are many fictional characters in Tolstoy's novel, but there were prototypes for them: Denisov - Denis Davydov; the prototype of the old prince Bolkonsky is Tolstoy's maternal grandfather Volkonsky, etc. Tolstoy built the characters so that their actions and way of thinking did not conflict with the real heroes of the era, that is, there is no contradiction between the actions of real heroes and fictional ones. N. G. Chernyshevsky very accurately defined the features of Tolstoy's psychologism. According to him, the author of "War and Peace" is interested in "the mental process itself, its forms, its laws, the dialectics of the soul." The critic called "the dialectic of the soul" the detailed reproduction in a work of art of a feeling in motion: the process of the birth of a feeling, then development, then transfer to another hero. Readers will go through the stages of spiritual quest of the main characters, such as Pierre Bezukhov, Andrei Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova.
3. The novel also has features of a battle novel. Tolstoy describes in great detail the Shengraben, Austerlitz and Borodino battles, the number of soldiers, the disposition of troops, the losses in killed and prisoners, and so on.
4. Features of a love or family romance are also present in War and Peace in large numbers. In the novel, you can count more than ten love lines, each of which is described in sufficient detail.

In "War and Peace" one can also see the features of many other novels, for example, an educational novel, secular, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and so on. A variety of plot directions, a large number of characters and storylines, coverage of a large time period, reference to historical sources and the presence of real historical figures in the work make it possible to call War and Peace an epic novel with all confidence.

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