The question of the “War and Peace” genre is one of the most difficult topics in school lessons. Usually, students find it difficult to answer due to the large volume of this work, which does not allow them to understand all the features of the book the first time. Therefore, while reading, it is necessary to draw students’ attention to the main points in the construction of the composition, which will help determine the genre features of the novel.
Plot Features
The problem of the “War and Peace” genre directly rests on the plot of the work. The novel covers several decades in the lives of the main characters. The author pays main attention to the period of the struggle of the Russian people with the French army of Napoleon. The epic scope of events determined the structure of the work, which consists of several storylines dedicated to different families, whose destinies are intertwined during the course of the narrative.
However, the Russian people are considered the main character of the work. Therefore, the genre of War and Peace should be defined as an epic. The wide scope of events also determined the features of the plot. The heroes of the work act against the backdrop of historical events of the early 19th century. They find themselves drawn into the military events of the period under review, and their destinies and lives turn out to be dependent on the vicissitudes of the war.
Historical background
When determining the genre of War and Peace, the historical basis of the plot should also be taken into account. The author not only limited himself to describing the struggle of the Russian people for liberation from the French invasion, but also depicted a panorama of Russian social life at the beginning of the 19th century. It focuses on the life of several noble families (Rostov, Bolkonsky and others). However, he did not ignore the lives of ordinary people.
His book contains sketches of peasant and village life, a description of the life of ordinary people. All this allows us to say that the novel “War and Peace” is a broad epic of people’s life. The book can be called a kind of encyclopedia of Russian history from the beginning of the reign of Alexander I. L.N. Tolstoy used a large amount of archival material to depict real events and historical figures. Therefore, his work is distinguished by truthfulness and authenticity.
Characters
It is traditional to single out three main characters of the work - Natasha Rostova, Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov. It was in their images that the writer embodied the best qualities inherent in the noble class of the time in question. In addition, supporting characters also played a large role in the development of the plot: Natasha’s brother Nikolai Rostov, the family of Prince Andrei and other representatives of the noble class who appear from time to time during the narrative.
Such a large number of characters gave scale to the work of art, which once again proves that the novel “War and Peace” is a work of epic nature.
Storylines
To determine the genre of a book, it is also necessary to pay attention to the large number of plot narratives in the work. In addition to the main stories - the lines of Pierre, Natasha and Prince Andrei - the novel contains a large number of additional auxiliary sketches from the life of society of the time in question. Tolstoy describes a number of noble families who in one way or another influence the main plot.
The heroes of the novel “War and Peace” belong to very different strata of society, and this complicates the composition of the narrative. In addition to secular paintings, the writer very truthfully shows the rise of the people's spirit during the French invasion. Therefore, military themes occupy a prominent, perhaps even the main place in the narrative.
Image of war
Tolstoy in his work focused on the popular nature of the war. It is the ordinary Russian people who are rightfully considered the main character of the entire book. That is why the work is usually called an epic. This idea of the author determined the features of the plot. In the text, the life of the nobles during a common disaster is closely intertwined with the life of ordinary people.
The heroes of the novel “War and Peace” are for some time torn out of the usual circle of their lives and find themselves in the most terrible epicenter of events. Prince Andrei is mortally wounded, Pierre is captured by the French and, together with his new friend, an ordinary peasant peasant Platon Karataev, endures all the hardships of captivity, Natasha and her family leave Moscow and care for the wounded. Thus, the writer showed how, in a moment of danger, the entire population of Russia united to fight. This once again proves that the work “War and Peace” is an epic novel.
Main events
The fact that the book is written in the spirit of an epic is evidenced by the fact that the most important key events of the narrative are large-scale in nature. For example, the wounding of Prince Andrei on the Field of Austerlitz, when a revolution took place in his worldview, is a scene that amazes the reader with the grandeur and breadth of the panorama. After all, this battle was one of the most important during the Napoleonic wars, a large number of participants were involved in it, and it was of great importance for strengthening the success of France. The same can be said about the Battle of Borodino. "War and Peace" - It's novel, in which the author sought, first of all, to show the common impulse of the entire Russian people in the fight against the enemy. And the scene of this battle best shows the patriotic uplift of all participants. Pierre helps ordinary soldiers as best he can during an artillery attack, and although he does not know how to handle weapons at all, he nevertheless acts to the best of his ability in order to help the soldiers.
Thus, the author places his heroes at the very epicenter of events in order to show their unity with the people. This once again proves the epic nature of the work. Coverage of all aspects of society is an important feature of the work. The writer showed the history of Russia at the beginning of the 19th century by depicting the social and cultural life of all its classes. Therefore, his book is rightfully considered the most famous and significant epic in the literature of this century. And only in the 20th century M. Sholokhov managed to create an equally grandiose canvas of folk life in the novel “Quiet Don”.
“War and Peace” is a broad historical epic, the main character of which is the Russian people. In the diaries of S. A. Tolstoy, direct statements about this by L. N. Tolstoy are recorded. “I try to write the history of the people,” he said. “For a work to be good, you must love the main, fundamental idea in it. So... in “War and Peace” I loved popular thought...”
The main idea of the work is the invincible power of people's patriotism. The theme and ideological orientation of the work here, as elsewhere, determine its genre, composition, figurative system, and language.
“War and Peace” vividly reflected the life of Russia and partly Western Europe in the first two decades of the 19th century. Great historical events transfer the course of action from Russia to Austria, Prussia, Poland, the Balkans, from Smolensk to Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Russian and German villages, from the royal palace, the high society drawing room, the estate of the landowner on the battlefield, to the hospital, to the barracks of prisoners of war. The reader hears echoes of the bourgeois French Revolution, the European wars of 1805-1807 and 1812-1813 take place before him, great battles of nations flare up, and Napoleon's empire collapses. Along with this, the author shows dissatisfaction with their position as serfs, the legislative activities of Speransky, the general patriotic upsurge of 1812, the onset of reaction, and the organization of the first secret revolutionary society.
The culmination of “War and Peace” is the Battle of Borodino. This bloody battle, in which the forces of the warring parties were strained to the last limit, became the starting point for the salvation of Russia, on the one hand, the death of Napoleon’s army and the collapse of his power, on the other. The epilogue, from which we learn about the organization of a secret society, is perceived as the beginning of a new novel.
The heroes of the novel are both fictional characters and famous historical figures.
In the light of all these historical events and phenomena, Tolstoy depicts the peasantry and urban poor, the court and local nobility, and the advanced noble intelligentsia.
The depiction of the life and characters of people is given liveliness and brightness by wide everyday canvases: the regimental life of soldiers and officers, the hospital, the life of a fortress village, ceremonial dinner parties in Moscow, receptions and balls in St. Petersburg, lordly hunting, mummers, etc.
The main characters of the novel are taken from the nobility, and the plot develops in the same direction. The entire novel runs through the story of four families: the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys, the Kuragins, and the Bezukhov family, which changed its composition several times, except for the main character. These four narrative lines form the basis of the plot of War and Peace. However, not only the Rostovs, Bolkonskys, Kuragins, Bezukhovs, who are invariably in the author’s field of vision, not only such major historical figures as Kutuzov and Napoleon, attract his attention: all 559 characters find their specific place in the novel, their characters and behavior are social and historically determined. Some of them appear briefly and then are lost in the general mass, others pass through the entire work, but all of them are perceived by the reader as living people. It is impossible to forget or confuse each other if they are outlined even by a few features, such as Lavrushka, officer Telyanin, Princess Kuragina, headman Dron, a soldier dancing in the cold without a sole and an infinite number of others.
But the main character here is the people, the author’s focus is on their mass image. In “War and Peace” there are clearly defined characters who almost do not protrude from the general mass background. They announce themselves with one or two lines, receive an apt but instantaneous outline, sometimes in two or three strokes, appear on stage only once within a few lines and then disappear, never to return. Showing with exceptional strength and persuasiveness the patriotism, humanity, sense of truth and justice of the Russian people and the best part of the noble intelligentsia gravitating towards them, Tolstoy contrasts them with the court aristocracy, which has become detached from the people and is in a state of hopeless moral decay. While the masses, experiencing severe suffering and hardship, are straining all their strength to fight the enemy, the courtiers are busy fishing for rubles, crosses and ranks; Countess Bez-ukhova negotiates with the Jesuits and enters the “bosom of the Catholic Church” in order to marry a foreign prince, etc. Thus, two social worlds appear before the reader in terms of antithesis.
The technique of contrast is also used by Tolstoy when comparing the people's commander Kutuzov and the conqueror Napoleon.
This compositional technique is also of great importance when depicting other characters, such as Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre, as well as entire groups of different internal makeup of people (officers of different types, such as Tushin, Timokhin, Dokhturov, on the one hand, and Berg, Zherkov, Bennigsen, etc. - on the other).
Reading the novel, you notice that images that have an accusatory character, such as Kuragins, Dolokhov, Berg, Napoleon, Alexander I, are presented statically; the characters of the positive heroes, like Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova, Marya Bolkonskaya, are shown in development, in all the complexity and inconsistency of their inner life. This amazing art of depicting the inner life of a person in its constant movement, this brilliant ability to penetrate into the very recesses of mental life, the like of which we do not know before Tolstoy, was first noted by Chernyshevsky. He wrote about the works of L.N. Tolstoy that the writer is interested “most of all in the psychological process itself, its forms, its laws, the dialectics of the soul.” And further: “This depiction of an internal monologue must, without exaggeration, be called amazing... that side of Count Tolstoy, which gives him the opportunity to capture these mental monologues, constitutes a special strength in his talent, unique to him.”
During his stay in Yasnaya Polyana, V. G. Korolenko once said to Lev Nikolaevich: “You know how to grab this moving thing in human nature and capture it, and this is the most difficult thing.”
This internal dynamics of thoughts, feelings, and aspirations of Tolstoy’s beloved heroes throughout the novel is mainly determined by their search for those opportunities in which life would be filled with content, comprehended by broad useful activity, and although their path is uneven, their whole life is moving forward.
And next to them “acted” people with deadened souls:
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Composition of the novel "War and Peace"
“War and Peace” is a broad historical epic, the main character of which is the Russian people. In the diaries of S. A. Tolstoy, direct statements about this by L. N. Tolstoy are recorded. “I try to write the history of the people,” he said. “For a work to be good, you must love the main, fundamental idea in it. So... in “War and Peace” I loved popular thought...”
The main idea of the work is the invincible power of people's patriotism. The theme and ideological orientation of the work here, as elsewhere, determine its genre, composition, figurative system, and language.
“War and Peace” vividly reflected the life of Russia and partly Western Europe in the first two decades of the 19th century. Great historical events transfer the course of action from Russia to Austria, Prussia, Poland, the Balkans, from Smolensk to Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Russian and German villages, from the royal palace, the high society drawing room, the estate of the landowner on the battlefield, to the hospital, to the barracks of prisoners of war. The reader hears echoes of the bourgeois French Revolution, the European wars of 1805-1807 and 1812-1813 take place before him, great battles of nations flare up, and Napoleon's empire collapses. Along with this, the author shows dissatisfaction with their position as serfs, the legislative activities of Speransky, the general patriotic upsurge of 1812, the onset of reaction, and the organization of the first secret revolutionary society.
The culmination of “War and Peace” is the Battle of Borodino. This bloody battle, in which the forces of the warring parties were strained to the last limit, became the starting point for the salvation of Russia, on the one hand, the death of Napoleon’s army and the collapse of his power, on the other. The epilogue, from which we learn about the organization of a secret society, is perceived as the beginning of a new novel.
The heroes of the novel are both fictional characters and famous historical figures.
In the light of all these historical events and phenomena, Tolstoy depicts the peasantry and urban poor, the court and local nobility, and the advanced noble intelligentsia.
The depiction of the life and characters of people is given liveliness and brightness by wide everyday canvases: the regimental life of soldiers and officers, the hospital, the life of a fortress village, ceremonial dinner parties in Moscow, receptions and balls in St. Petersburg, lordly hunting, mummers, etc.
The main characters of the novel are taken from the nobility, and the plot develops in the same direction. The entire novel runs through the story of four families: the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys, the Kuragins, and the Bezukhov family, which changed its composition several times, except for the main character. These four narrative lines form the basis of the plot of War and Peace. However, not only the Rostovs, Bolkonskys, Kuragins, Bezukhovs, who are invariably in the author’s field of vision, not only such major historical figures as Kutuzov and Napoleon, attract his attention: all 559 characters find their specific place in the novel, their characters and behavior are social and historically determined. Some of them appear briefly and then are lost in the general mass, others pass through the entire work, but all of them are perceived by the reader as living people. It is impossible to forget or confuse each other if they are outlined even by a few features, such as Lavrushka, officer Telyanin, Princess Kuragina, headman Dron, a soldier dancing in the cold without a sole and an infinite number of others.
But the main character here is the people, the author’s focus is on their mass image. In “War and Peace” there are clearly defined characters who almost do not protrude from the general mass background. They announce themselves with one or two lines, receive an apt but instantaneous outline, sometimes in two or three strokes, appear on stage only once within a few lines and then disappear, never to return. Showing with exceptional strength and persuasiveness the patriotism, humanity, sense of truth and justice of the Russian people and the best part of the noble intelligentsia gravitating towards them, Tolstoy contrasts them with the court aristocracy, which has become detached from the people and is in a state of hopeless moral decay. While the masses, experiencing severe suffering and hardship, are straining all their strength to fight the enemy, the courtiers are busy fishing for rubles, crosses and ranks; Countess Bez-ukhova negotiates with the Jesuits and enters the “bosom of the Catholic Church” in order to marry a foreign prince, etc. Thus, two social worlds appear before the reader in terms of antithesis.
The technique of contrast is also used by Tolstoy when comparing the people's commander Kutuzov and the conqueror Napoleon.
This compositional technique is also of great importance when depicting other characters, such as Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre, as well as entire groups of different internal makeup of people (officers of different types, such as Tushin, Timokhin, Dokhturov, on the one hand, and Berg, Zherkov, Bennigsen, etc. - on the other).
Reading the novel, you notice that images that have an accusatory character, such as Kuragins, Dolokhov, Berg, Napoleon, Alexander I, are presented statically; the characters of the positive heroes, like Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova, Marya Bolkonskaya, are shown in development, in all the complexity and inconsistency of their inner life. This amazing art of depicting the inner life of a person in its constant movement, this brilliant ability to penetrate into the very recesses of mental life, the like of which we do not know before Tolstoy, was first noted by Chernyshevsky. He wrote about the works of L.N. Tolstoy that the writer is interested “most of all in the psychological process itself, its forms, its laws, the dialectics of the soul.” And further: “This depiction of an internal monologue must, without exaggeration, be called amazing... that side of Count Tolstoy, which gives him the opportunity to capture these mental monologues, constitutes a special strength in his talent, unique to him.”
During his stay in Yasnaya Polyana, V. G. Korolenko once said to Lev Nikolaevich: “You know how to grab this moving thing in human nature and capture it, and this is the most difficult thing.”
This internal dynamics of thoughts, feelings, and aspirations of Tolstoy’s beloved heroes throughout the novel is mainly determined by their search for those opportunities in which life would be filled with content, comprehended by broad useful activity, and although their path is uneven, their whole life is moving forward.