With its gigantic volume, "War and Peace" can produce
the impression of chaos, scatteredness and uncoordinated multitude
characters, storylines, all the varied content. But
the genius of Tolstoy the artist was manifested in the fact that all this
human community, which is easy to spot with thoughtful,
careful reading.
The genre of "War and Peace" is defined as an epic novel. What's the point
this definition? Through an infinite number of destinies
people taken in different circumstances of life: military and peaceful
time, in youth and in old age, in pleasure and in sorrow, in private and
common, swarm life - and woven into a single artistic whole,
the main artistically mastered antithesis of the book passes through:
natural, simple and conventional, artificial in people's lives;
simple and eternal moments of human existence: birth, love,
death - and the conventions of the world, the class of society, property
understanding of history and life in general, but in his book the characteristic
ancient, classical epic, the concept of fate, fate is replaced
the concept of life in its spontaneous flow and overflow, in the eternal
update. It is not for nothing that there are so many metaphors in the novel related to forever
changing water elements.
In "War and Peace" there is also a main, key verbal and artistic
"image". Impressed by communication with Platon Karataev,
the embodiment of everything eternal and round, Pierre has a dream. "And suddenly
Pierre introduced himself as a living, long-forgotten meek old man
the teacher who taught Pierre geography in Switzerland.
“Wait,” said the old man. And he showed Pierre the globe. This globe was
a living, oscillating ball that has no dimensions. Whole surface
The ball consisted of drops tightly compressed together. And all these drops
moved, moved, and then merged from several into one, then from
one were divided into many. Every drop tried to spill,
to capture the greatest space, but others, striving for the same,
they squeezed it, sometimes destroyed it, sometimes merged with it.
This is life,” said the old teacher. “How simple and clear it is,”
thought Pierre. - How could I not have known this before... Here he is, Karataev,
it overflowed and disappeared." Such an understanding of life is an optimistic one.
pantheism, a philosophy that identifies God with nature. God of the author
“War and Peace” is all of life, all of existence. Such a philosophy
determines the moral assessments of the heroes: the goal and happiness of a person -
reach the roundness of a drop and spill, merge with everyone,
to join everything and everyone. The closest to this ideal is
Platon Karataev, it is not for nothing that he was given the name of the great ancient Greek
the sage who stood at the origins of the world philosophical thought.
Many representatives of the noble and aristocratic world, especially
The court circle depicted in the novel is not capable of this.
The main characters of “War and Peace” come to exactly this, they
overcome Napoleonic egoism, which becomes as described in
in the novel, time became the banner of the era and finally became one during
novel writings. By the way, at the same time he wrote “Crime and Punishment” and
Dostoevsky. The main characters overcome class isolation and
proud singularity. Moreover, at the center of the novel Tolstoy puts such
characters whose movement along this path proceeds especially
dramatic and striking. This is Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre and Natasha.
For them, this path full of drama is the road of acquisitions,
enriching their personality, deep spiritual discoveries and insights.
they lose more on this path. This is Nikolai Rostov, Princess Marya,
Peter. The periphery of "War and Peace" is filled with numerous
figures who, for one reason or another, are unable to take this path.
Numerous women are depicted using the same principle.
characters from War and Peace. The answer to this question will be
specific character, i.e. you just need to know and retell the text,
the concept is not necessary. Tolstoy created the images of Natasha and Sonya,
Princess Marya and "Buryenka", beautiful Helen and old Anna
Pavlovna in the era of the 60s, simultaneously with Chernyshevsky’s novel
“What to do?”, in which the most fully and consistently expressed
ideas of women's freedom and equality with men. All this is Tolstoy,
Naturally, he rejected her and looked at the woman in a patriarchal spirit.
His ideals of female love, family and parental happiness
embodied not only in the character and fate of Natasha, most vividly of all
characters (including male ones) expressing his idea of
"real life", but also reality, having married in 1862
young Sofya Andreevna Bers. And we must admit with regret,
that the “deception that elevates us” of Natasha’s image turned out to be much
prettier and more attractive "themes of low truths" of a family drama
Tolstoy. Despite the fact that Tolstoy purposefully raised
young wife in the spirit of his ideals, the very ones that so convince us
while reading "War and Peace", the wife of the great writer, and then
grown numerous children have done the last thirty years
Tolstoy's life was unbearable. How many times did he make a decision?
get away from them!.. We can say that “real life” with its
"bizarreness, surprises, sudden whims and
whims - what any female nature contains - turned out to be
even more “real” than Tolstoy imagined. And it doesn't matter about whom
we're talking about- about the meekly meek Princess Marya or about the daring
demanding, victoriously confident in her strength Helen. Very
soon after writing "War and Peace" life showed its author that
extremes female characters, so confidently separated by him on the scale
moral assessments (Natasha - “excellent”, Princess Marya -
"mediocre", Helen - "poor") in reality they can agree on the face
one, closest, most beloved person - wife, mother
three children. Thus, for all its depth and comprehensiveness
"living life", "real life" is more complex, richer, with it
you can deal with the stroke of a pen at your discretion, at your request
artistic unity, as Tolstoy did, quickly
"killing" which had become unnecessary for his ideological and moral construction
Helen, so attractive and invincible in her immorality.
The idea of “real life” also permeates the depiction of historical
characters. The spirit of the army, which Kutuzov feels and which dictates
to him, strategic decisions, in essence, are also a form of inclusion,
merging with the ever-flowing life. His antagonists are Napoleon,
Alexander, learned German generals are incapable of this. Simple,
ordinary war heroes - Tushin, Timokhin, Tikhon Shcherbaty, Vaska
Denisov - do not strive to make all humanity happy, because
deprived of a sense of separateness, why, they are already merged with this world.
The antithesis idea revealed above, permeating the entire huge novel,
is already expressed in its name, which is very capacious and polysemantic. Second
the word of the novel's title denotes a community of people, the whole people,
life with the whole world, in the world, with people in contrast
monastic solitude. Therefore, it is wrong to think that the name
the novel indicates the alternation of military and peaceful, non-military
episodes. The above meaning of the word world changes, expands
the meaning of the first capital word: war - not only as a manifestation
militarism, but also in general the struggle of people, the battle of life
disunited, divided into atomic drops of humanity.
In 1805, which opens Tolstoy's epic, human
the community remains disunited, fragmented into classes,
the noble world is alienated from the people as a whole. The culmination of this
conditions - the Tilsit peace, fragile, fraught with a new war.
The antithesis of this state is the year 1812, when “all the people
they want to pile on" on the Borodino field. And then from volumes 3 to 4 the heroes
novels find themselves on the brink of war and peace, every now and then committing
transitions back and forth. They are faced with the real, complete
life, with war and peace. Kutuzov says: “Yes, they reproached me a lot
me... both for war and for peace... and everything came on time,” and these concepts
are connected in his mouth into a single title way of life. In the epilogue
the original state returns, again disunity in
the upper class and the upper class with the common people. Pierre
outraged by the “shagism, settlements - they torture the people, they stifle education,”
he wants "independence and activity." Nikolay Rostov will be here soon
"chop and strangle everything from the shoulder." As a result, “everything is too tense and
will certainly burst." By the way, Platon Karataev would not approve
the moods of the two surviving heroes, and Andrei Volkonsky
would approve. And now his son Nikolenka, born in 1807, reads
Plutarch, highly valued by the Decembrists. His future fate
Unity and inclusion remain a desirable ideal, but an epilogue
Tolstoy shows how difficult the path to it is.
According to Sofia Andreevna, Tolstoy said that he loved
"War and Peace" "people's thought", and in "Anna Karenina" - "thought
family." It is impossible to understand the essence of both Tolstoy formulas without
comparisons of these novels. Like Gogol, Goncharov,
Dostoevsky, Leskov Tolstoy considered his century a time when in the world
people, disunity triumphs among people, the disintegration of the common whole. AND
his two “thoughts” and two novels are about how to return lost
integrity. In the first novel, paradoxical as it may sound, the world
united by war, a single patriotic impulse against a common enemy,
It is against him that individuals unite into a whole people.
In Anna Karenina, a unit of society opposes disunity -
family, the primary form of human unification and inclusion. But
the novel shows that in an era when “everything is mixed up,” “everything
turned upside down," the family with its short-term, fragile merger
only increases the difficulties on the path to the desired ideal of human
unity. Thus, the disclosure of “people's thought” in “War and
world" is closely related and largely determined by Tolstoy's response to
the main question is “what is real life?”
As for the role of the people and the individual in history, the solution to this
issue is particularly heavily contaminated with Marxist-Leninist
literary criticism. Tolstoy, as already mentioned, was often accused of
historical fatalism (the view that the outcome
historical events are predetermined). But it's not fair
Tolstoy insisted only that the laws of history are hidden from
individual human mind. His view on this problem
very accurately expresses the famous quatrain of Tyutchev (1866 - again
time working on "War and Peace"):
"You can't understand Russia with your mind,
The general arshin cannot be measured:
She will become special -
You can only believe in Russia."
For Marxism, the importance of the masses as the engine is not decisive
history and the inability of the individual to influence history otherwise than
how to sit at the tail of these masses was an immutable law.
However, to illustrate this “law” with material from military episodes
"War and Peace" is difficult. In his epic, Tolstoy picks up
relay of the historical views of Karamzin and Pushkin.
Both of themshowed extremely convincingly in their works (Karamzin in
"History of the Russian State"), which, in the words of Pushkin,
chance is a powerful tool of Providence, i.e. fate. It is through
the random act natural and necessary, and even so they
are recognized only retroactively, after their action. And the carrier
An accident turns out to be a personality: Napoleon, who turned destinies upside down
throughout Europe, Tushin, who turned the tide of the Battle of Shengraben. That
there is, to paraphrase famous saying, we can say that if
Napoleon did not exist, it would be worth inventing him, in much the same way as
Tolstoy “invented” his Tushin.
171. CRITICAL IMAGE OF SECULAR SOCIETY ACCORDING TO THE NOVEL "WAR AND PEACE"
The gallery of noble types in the novel "War and
world." "Light" and society are depicted by Tolstoy in generous colors.
High society appears in the novel as the force that rules the country. If
the people live in suffering, then the top of society, despite the losses,
caused by the war, is still thriving.
The center around which they are grouped is the royal court,
and above all Emperor Alexander. Alexander, according to Tolstoy,
just a puppet. The fate of Russia is decided by numerous advisers,
favorites, temporary workers, ministers, courtiers. Ordinariness
the emperor is that he does not have his own opinion, under
under the influence of certain persons makes different decisions. Alexander how
personality is not only weak, he is hypocritical and false, loves to accept
poses. Tolstoy believes that luxury does not contribute to the development of the mind, but
the habit of living in idleness devastates the personality. Around Alexander
The struggle of the “parties” for influence does not stop;
intrigue. The courtyard, headquarters, ministries are filled with a crowd of untalented people,
greedy, power-hungry people. Government and generals
losing one war after another. Army being robbed
quartermasters, starves, dies from epidemics and in senseless
battles. Russia entered the War of 1812 unprepared. On
Throughout the war, Alexander did not commit a single reasonable
action, limiting itself to stupid orders and spectacular
Tolstoy brings courtiers, ministers, diplomats,
generals, staff officers, foreigners working at court in
as the king's confidants. So exhaustively characterizes
Tolstoy the illusory power of the country’s rulers, whose mediocrity
revealed the twelfth year with all the revealing ruthlessness.
The writer denounces the courtiers and high circles with their official
with enthusiasm. This part of high society is infinitely far from fighting
people. Despite the capture of Moscow, life in St. Petersburg goes on
old. It’s still the same in the salons, the highest nobility gathers, it’s still the same
points are given. Empress, Tsarevich, Rumyantsev, all courtiers
drones trumpet in every possible way about the patriotism of the people, but they themselves lead
well-being.
One of the representatives of high society was Prince Vasily Kuragin,
minister His desire for enrichment knows no bounds. Sighing, he
says Scherer: “My children are the burden of my existence.” His son
Ippolit holds the position of diplomat, but he speaks Russian with
with difficulty, he is not able to string together three words, his jokes are always stupid and
are meaningless. Prince Vasily catches a rich groom for his daughter
Ellen Kuragina. In his network of naivety and natural kindness
Pierre hits. Later he will tell Helen: “Where you are, there is depravity and evil.”
Anatole Kuragin, another son of Prince Vasily, lives an idle life.
Anatol is a guards officer who does not know which regiment he is in
According to him, he made the main meaning of his life “a trip to
pleasures." His actions are guided by animal instincts.
Satisfying these instincts is the main driver of his life. Wine
and women, carelessness and indifference to everything except their own
desires become the basis of his existence. Pierre Bezukhov says
about him: “Here is a true sage. Always happy and cheerful.” Experienced in
love affairs Helen Kuragina helps her brother hide it
inner emptiness and worthlessness. Helen herself is depraved, stupid and
deceitful. But despite this, she enjoys enormous success in the world,
the emperor notices her, there is a constant buzz in the countess's house
admirers: the best aristocrats of Russia, poets dedicate poems to her,
diplomats become more sophisticated in their wit, the most prominent government officials
figures dedicate treatises. The brilliant position of the stupid and
depraved Helen is a damning expose of noble morals.
The image of Prince Boris created by Tolstoy deserves special attention.
Drubetsky. This young man on his way to fame and honor
"called upon" to replace older generation Russia. Already according to the first
steps one can understand that Boris will “go far.” He gives birth, has
cold-minded, free of conscience, very attractive in appearance.
His mother helps him take the first steps towards a brilliant career.
hypocrite and hypocrite. The Drubetskys owe a lot to the Rostov family, but
they forget about it very quickly, because Rostov is ruined, not so
influential, and in general, are people of a different circle. Boris is a careerist. His
the moral code is not very complicated: the end justifies the means.
A profitable marriage and useful connections open the doors for him to the very
powerful society. The ending of his life is clear: Boris will reach
high positions and will become a “worthy” replacement for the older generation,
rulers of Russia. He will be a faithful support of autocratic power.
Tolstoy vividly painted the image of the adventurer, nobleman Dolokhov.
Duels, drinking bouts, "pranks" in the company of "golden youth", playing their
and other people's lives become an end in themselves for him. His courage is not
has nothing to do with the heroism of such people as Denisov, Rostov,
Timokhin, Bolkonsky. The image of Dolokhov is an example of noble
adventuristic belligerence.
The image of the Moscow governor Rostopchin is also very remarkable. He
reveals itself with all its brightness in the scenes preceding the introduction
Frenchmen to Moscow. “Rastopchin,” writes Tolstoy, “had neither
the slightest idea of the people he was supposed to govern."
The leaflets he distributes are vulgar, his orders about
organization of people's defense of Moscow. Rastopchin is cruel and proud.
With one stroke of his pen he exiles innocent people suspected of
treason, executes the innocent young man Vereshchagin, handing him over
divert popular anger from the real culprits disasters in the country.
An artistic expression of Tolstoy's view of the people as creators
history, the belief that the people conceal within themselves an inexhaustible source of strength
and talents, recognition as legitimate of all forms of struggle, to which
people resort to defend the Fatherland - all this puts a great
Tolstoy's epic in the category best works world literature. IN
This is the enduring significance of the great epic.
172. IMAGES OF RUSSIAN WOMEN IN THE NOVEL "WAR AND PEACE"
The enormous popularity of Leo Tolstoy’s talent has long crossed boundaries
our country. The whole world knows him. No wonder Gorky wrote: “Without knowing
to the novel? What makes people of different nations turn to him?
distant from his heroes by time, social environment, and other
problems. We never tire of repeating what is equal to Tolstoy in literature
No. Why? A huge gift and artistic uniqueness allowed
To show Tolstoy the life of an entire people, an entire nation, an entire country, the name
which is Russia. History comes to life on the pages of the novel, people stand up
flesh and blood, with their thoughts, joys and sorrows, quests and
delusions, love and hate, with victories and defeats,
Tolstoy's creative quests were always connected with life. Heroes of "War and
world", both positive and negative, relate primarily to
among the highest, ruling nobility. Tolstoy painted a broad picture
life of noble society, depicted it with all its inherent
alienation from the people. The merit of the writer is that, mercilessly drawing
noble society, showed a few families of the best nobles, in
including their enlightened part (Volkonsky and Bezukhov).
Everything advanced among the nobility was an exceptional phenomenon. How
As a rule, Tolstoy’s positive images have precisely the traits
exclusivity, and their destinies in the novel develop in a collision with
the “big world”, which Tolstoy portrays negatively.
Anna Pavlovna Scherer, Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskaya, Julie Karagina, Helen
Bezukhov bear, first of all, the features of his class. Tolstoy
emphasizes that each of his heroes is a product of the environment, flesh of its flesh,
and everyone feels like a fish in water in this environment. According to Tolstoy,
Natasha is the ideal woman.
This is a rich, generously gifted nature. Wheredid this sensitive, touching, wonderful girl come from? The Rostov family, like
the Volkonsky family, and among them Maria Bolkonskaya, stand out sharply among
ordinary noble families. The Rostov family is similar to those families from which
the wives of the Decembrists and many other advanced people XIX century.
The Rostovs’ way of life, customs, likes and dislikes - all this is Russian,
national. They absorbed the spirit of the people with their cheerfulness,
the ability to suffer steadfastly, to easily make sacrifices not for show, but with all
spiritual breadth. The most striking feature in Natasha is her poetic
attitude, kindness, openness to everyone who surrounds her.
Appearing at the ball for the first time, Natasha looks so little like society ladies,
the contrast between her and the “light” is so clear. Having barely crossed the threshold of the family,
Natasha turns out to be deceived. To the Rostovs, and above all to the general
favorite Natasha, the best people are reaching out - Andrei Volkonsky, Pierre
Bezukhov, Vasily Denisov. Natasha's passion for Anatoly Kuragin, this
an empty socialite, speaks of her inexperience. Natasha - nature
generously gifted, her actions are original, no
prejudices, she is guided by her heart. Natasha is a captivating image
Russian woman, Natasha feels lonely, alien among
metropolitan aristocrats. Flattery, playing on gullibility and inexperience
Kuragin captivates her, and his depraved sister Helen helps him in this.
Kuragina. After a serious illness resulting from mental
shocks, Natasha returned to life renewed. Trouble didn't break her
the light did not defeat her. Natasha takes an active part in
events of 1812. Breadth, independence, courage, passion
to all phenomena of life - these are the features that fill this image. He
captivated his contemporaries and captivates us. Stands apart in the Rostov family
Vera is Natasha's older sister. Cold, unkind, a stranger in the circle of brothers and
sisters, she is a foreign body in the Rostovs’ house. Pupil Sonya, plump
selfless and grateful love for the whole family, completes the gallery
Rostov family. Just like Natasha Rostova, Princess Marya -
representative of the galaxy best women noble Russia early XIX
century. This image is unusually complex. In terms of artistic brightness he
occupies one of the first places among Tolstoy's heroes. Moral height,
strength of character and femininity distinguish Princess Marya among many
female characters of world literature.
Tolstoy makes this image, despite the complexity and inconsistency,
unusually poetic, whole, complete, charming. Princess
Marya - artistic embodiment Tolstoy's ideal of femininity.
The best representatives of the nobility, and among them Natasha and Princess Marya,
as a rule, generously gifted natures. They stand out from their environment
class, first of all, humanity, genuine patriotism, high
morality. The traits of the Russian character are clearly manifested in them. And in this
great merit of Tolstoy.
173. PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS IN TOLSTOY'S NOVEL "WAR AND PEACE"
"War and Peace" was written in the 60s of the last century. Government
Alexandra canceled serfdom, but did not give the peasants land,
they rebelled. Russia and the West, the historical destinies of Russia and its
people - these were the most pressing issues of the time. They
constantly worried Tolstoy. Tolstoy was always against the revolution,
but hoped through enlightenment, reforms, constitutions, that is,
to build an ideal social system in a utopian way. "War and
world" is one of the most remarkable works of literature. Years
Working on a novel is a time of intense labor for a writer.
Tolstoy's creative quests were always connected with life. Novel
conceived as a grand study of half a century of history
Russia in its sharp clashes and comparisons with Europe, as
comprehension of the national character of the Russian people and their entire structure
life. The novel deals with psychological, social,
historical, moral issues, speaks about the truth and
false patriotism, about the role of the individual in history, about national
the dignity of the Russian people, about the nobility, in the novel they act from above
two hundred historical figures. Representing events with human,
moral side, the writer often penetrated into their true
historical essence.
Napoleon laid claim to a great role in history and expected to create
history, subordinating it to his own will. Tolstoy says that he
a despot not only by position but also by conviction. He debunks
his greatness. “There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth,”
wrote Tolstoy.
In "War and Peace", this novel-research, a huge role
was devoted to the picture of characters and morals. He recreates spiritual
experiences different people this time, their spiritual aspirations.
The best representatives of the nobility are Pierre Bezukhov and Andrey
Volkonsky. They both strive for a reasonable structure of society, both
tirelessly strive to get to the truth. Eventually they get there
before turning to the people, to the consciousness of the need to serve them,
to merge with it, they deny all forms of liberalism. It is characteristic that
in general, the noble culture of that time is presented in the novel
mainly by these mental and moral quests
"educated minority". The inner world of man, research
souls are one of them philosophical problems that concern Tolstoy. U
Tolstoy's own view of history. Philosophical
reasoning in his novel is his thoughts, his thoughts, his
worldview, his concept of life.
One of the important problems of "War and Peace" is the relationship of personality
and society, the leader and the masses, private life and life
historical. Tolstoy denied the role of personality in history. He
refused to recognize the force guiding historical development
humanity, any "idea", as well as desires or power
individual, even “great” historical figures. He said,
that everything is decided by the “spirit of the army,” argued that there are laws
event managers. These laws are unknown to people. One of
The philosophical problems of the novel are the question of freedom and necessity.
Tolstoy solves this question in his own and original way. He says that
freedom of a person, a historical figure - apparent, person
free only in not going against events, not
impose your will on them, but simply correspond to history, change,
grow and in this way influence its course. Tolstoy's thought is profound:
that a person is less free the closer he is placed to power. IN
In his philosophical and historical views, Tolstoy was close to Herzen.
The novel is called "War and Peace". The meaning of the title: the world denies war.
Peace is work and happiness, war is the separation of people, destruction,
death and grief.
The topic of the essay is very difficult, it is more suitable for graduates
Institute of Philological Faculty or graduate students who
engaged in research into Tolstoy's works.
I did not fully reflect in my essay all the philosophical
problems of the 4-volume novel "War and Peace", and this is understandable: it is impossible
fit all the thoughts of Tolstoy on two sheets, he is a genius, but the main ones are
still reflected.
One could also add about how Tolstoy solves the question of the role
women in society. He had a negative attitude towards emancipation
women, if Turgenev, Chernyshevsky considered a woman in
In another aspect, Tolstoy believes that for a woman the place is
home. Therefore, Natasha Rostova is just a mother and wife in the end
novel. It's a pity! She was not just a girl, but a gifted
a person radiating warmth and light, she sang well. In this position I am with
I can’t agree with being fat, because it’s not enough for a smart woman to be
just a domestic “goose”, she still wants more. And if you
Natasha had a rich spiritual world, then where did it go, went to
home life? In this Tolstoy is a conservative. He wrote little about
the plight of the serf peasantry, just a few
pages for the entire enormous epic. Scene of the Bogucharov riot -
the only bright episode of this plan. I think this would be reflected in
his other novel "The Decembrists".
174. PEOPLE AND PERSONALITY IN TOLSTOY'S NOVEL "WAR AND PEACE"
There is no Greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth. Tolstoy
The great writer and philosopher Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy writes his
theory about the role of personality in history.
Fairly arguing withbourgeois scientists who created the cult of a great personality,
historical hero, by whose will, supposedly, world wars are carried out
events. Tolstoy claims that the course of world events is predetermined
from above, and the influence of the individual on the course of these events is only external,
fictitious. Everything happens not according to the will of people, but according to the will of Providence.
This means that Tolstoy is trying to poeticize spontaneous laws
life. He claims that everything is decided by feelings, not reason, which is
rock, fate. Theory of predestination, fatalism, inevitability
historical events also affected the interpretation of Kutuzov’s images
and Napoleon. Tolstoy considers the role of personality in history insignificant
small role, equating it to the purpose of a “label”, that is, to give
naming events, facts and phenomena.
During his lifetime, Napoleon received the title of invincibility and genius
commander. Tolstoy debunks Napoleon morally,
accusing him of lack of humanity towards ordinary soldiers
and the people. Napoleon - invader, enslaver of the peoples of Europe and
Russia. As a commander, he is the indirect killer of many
thousands of people. This gave him the right to greatness and glory.
Napoleon's state activities in this light of production
the question was simply immoral. Europe could not
to oppose Napoleon, "no reasonable ideal", and only
the Russian people are burying his extravagant plans to take over the world
states. Tolstoy writes: “Instead of genius there is stupidity and
meanness, without example." Napoleon's entire appearance is unnatural and
deceitful He could not meet high moral standards, so he
there is no true greatness in him. The epitome of all this is
Kutuzov. Tolstoy notes in him not only a “wise observer
events", but also the talent of the commander who led the most important thing -
morale of the troops. Tolstoy writes: “For long-term military
he knew from experience that one cannot lead hundreds of thousands of people alone
the person who decides the fate of the battle is not orders
commander-in-chief, not the place where the troops are stationed, not the number of guns
and killed people, and that elusive force called the spirit of the army."
Contradictions in Tolstoy's views on his portrayal of Kutuzov
manifest themselves in the fact that, on the one hand, Kutuzov is wise,
passive observer of the course of military events, leader of the spirit
troops, and, on the other hand, is a commander who actively
interfering in the course of military events. Kutuzov suggested
Napoleon a general battle and with numerical superiority
Napoleon won the military and moral victory of Kutuzov at
the next day orders a counter-offensive to boost morale
troops, but then cancels the order in order to preserve the army and forces. AND
there are many such examples. After Napoleon was expelled from Russia, Kutuzov
resigns, considering his mission completed. So realism
Tolstoy prevailed over the shackles of his fatalistic philosophy and
artistically presented true face great commander, his
ebullient energy, active participation in the course of military events. War
acquired a nationwide national character, so on duty
the commander-in-chief should not have been a foreigner (Barclay), but
Russian commander - Kutuzov. With his arrival to this post, the Russians
perked up. They even made up a proverb: “Kutuzov came
beat the French." The superiority of the Russian army militarily and
the military genius of Kutuzov showed in 1812 that the Russian
the people are invincible. In Pushkin’s vivid assessment of the personality of the great
commander contained the seed of the plan for the image of Kutuzov in the novel
Tolstoy. The indomitable spirit of Suvorov’s “science” lived in the Russian army
to win", the national traditions of the military school were alive
Suvorov. The soldiers remember him both during the battle and around the fire.
Both to the assessment of the actions of individual people, and to the assessment of historical
events, Tolstoy approaches the criteria of good and evil. Unleashing
He considers wars to be the greatest manifestation of evil. "People's Thought"
permeates both Tolstoy's philosophical conclusions and the image
specific historical events, historical figures, and
depicting ordinary people, assessing their moral character.
The most important conclusion that follows from artistic paintings And
theoretical reasoning of the writer - a conclusion about the decisive role
masses in history. Depicting the war of 1805-1807, Tolstoy
explains the reason for the defeat of the Russians precisely because the soldiers
The meaning of this war was unclear to the masses, its goals were alien. Completely different
depicts the mood of the army in the War of 1812. This war was
national character because the Russian people defended their home and
your land. Genuine heroism, unnoticeable and natural, like
life itself - this quality is manifested both in battles and in soldier’s everyday life,
and in the relations of Russian soldiers to each other and to the enemy. The people appear
before us as a bearer of the highest moral values. Common goals
and common misfortune unite people, no matter what
they belong to the class circle, therefore the best national
The traits of a Russian person come to light during a nationwide disaster.
"War and Peace" embodies true nationality - the greatest
Russian conquest classical literature. About people, about life, about
the writer judges historical events from the point of view of the interests of everything
people, who is essentially the main hero of it
works. Trying to understand the patterns of human
life, the historical process, the writer not only draws living
pictures, images and destinies of people, but also argues as a philosopher,
a scientist-historian who speaks the language of science. Writer's Favorite Thought
lives in every image, in every scene, in every detail created by him
great epic.
175. CRITICAL IMAGE OF THE MILITARY-BUREAUCRATIC ENVIRONMENT IN THE NOVEL "WAR AND PEACE"
L.N. Tolstoy created many works, but especially important
his epic novel War and Peace. This novel tells how
mental quests of the most advanced part of the nobility, and about
"society". Portraying these “stupid uselessnesses” and exposing them
mediocre entity in the novel "War and Peace", L.N. Tolstoy reaches
what he did not fully achieve in Anna Karenina and Resurrection,
The most complete image of the “vulgarity of a vulgar person.”
The first thing that catches your eye when you read the novel is this
complete destruction by the writer of any secular authority
society. Before us is the family of Prince Vasily Kuragin with his sons:
Hippolyte, Anatole and daughter Helen.
Prince Vasily Kuragin is a representative of the ruling elite. home
The purpose of the prince's actions is personal gain. He said to himself: “Here is Pierre
rich, I must lure him to marry my daughter..." If a man could
to be useful to the prince, he became close to him, said pleasantries to him,
flattered. According to L.N. Tolstoy, Prince Vasily was constantly attracted to
people are stronger and richer than him. So, the purpose of his stay at the evening
Anna Pavlovna Sherer; there was an intention to arrange for the son of Hippolytus
first secretary in Vienna. When it was not possible to steal the count's will
Bezukhova, Prince Vasily, taking advantage of the impracticality of Pierre and his
inexperience, marries him to his daughter. Prince Vasily enjoys
respect from society, which fully characterizes him. Ippolit, Sr.
the son of a prince is a fool. But this does not prevent him from “doing diplomatic
career." After all, he is rich and noble! The youngest son of Prince Vasily,
Anatole, a narrow-minded, depraved “well done” whose selfishness
manifests itself in an attempt to kidnap Natasha Rostova.
The prince's daughter, Helen, is also worthy of her father, stupid, cunning and
depraved woman. “Where you are, there is debauchery, evil,” Pierre tells her.
We see how mercilessly L.N. Tolstoy lifestyle
high society ladies who deal exclusively with toilets,
men, each of whom consists of "necessary, foolish"
who, surrounded by the "indispensable envoys with extremely intelligent
they look like they are listening to political speeches, which, of course, are incomprehensible to them.”
Salon of Anna Pavlovna Sherer L.N. Tolstoy compares it to a spinning mill
workshop in which “spindles are evenly distributed from different sides and not
falling silent, they made noise." From the first picture of the evening reception, it is felt that
the life of the salon's regulars is filled only with external gloss, everything
living things are extinguished in this soulless environment. Anna Pavlovna with fear
watches Pierre: is he talking too loudly, laughing. AND
when Pierre manages to strike up a conversation with the abbot, Anna Pavlovna
terribly worried.
Beneath the outer brilliance of the highest light is hidden or empty
phrase-mongering, or feigned interest, or intrigue, calculations,
falsehood and hypocrisy always reign in Scherer's salon. Petty intrigues
being an integral part of life secular society, only
complement the whole gallery of his shortcomings and indicate
the unprecedentedly low level of morality of these people. And me
Even love for the Motherland is characteristic. From their side we only observe
the pseudo-patriotism they flaunt. We see these people in
such a difficult time as the period of the war with Napoleon. And these people with
with amazing hypocrisy they were engaged in “pinching lint for
the good of the fatherland." That's all their "love" for the fatherland. Hypocritical
posters calling to “stand up for the fatherland”, once again
prove how contemptuous they are of their people, of
their heroic homeland, existing but not living secular
But these are people who themselves are not involved in waging war. However, not
people present a less disgusting picture
belonging to high society and using war as a means
profit! Let us remember Berg, who, not noticing the horrors of war, is looking for
"mahogany wardrobe". Berg is unfazed by the tragedy
the battle of Austerlitz - he benefited from it: he received
award. He managed to “distinguish himself” in the Finnish war, raising
a fragment of a grenade that killed the adjutant. But this is from the living rooms
light came to active army"golden youth" behind the ranks
and orders, replenishing the ranks of the “drones”. They are not alone. Such
There were a lot of “bergs” and “zherkovs” among the staff officers, they
flooded the army and weakened it. Are those representatives better than them?
military nobility who chose the military field to satisfy their
career desires? They go to war as "to catch happiness and
officials." They are not interested in the fate of the Motherland and the outcome of the war. Such as
Drubetskoy, Zhirkov, Berg, Nesvitsky and many other “heroes” are deaf to
call to Russia. They are not characterized by even short-term emotional
gusts. How unclean their conscience is before their Motherland!
Their life at the front is devoid of the worthlessness of social life, they do not
are heroes of social intrigue, they do not challenge anyone to a duel and
no one is killed, but their animal existence, formal
presence on the battlefield, their monstrous despotism we regard
as an incomparably more serious crime.
But let's return to brilliant St. Petersburg. Of course, it cannot be compared with
Borodin: the whirlwinds of secular gossip and intrigue are in full swing, but
no one remembers those who go to death to save
worthless life of light, for the sake of preserving court tinsel.
Some "advanced" members of secular society, trying
to diversify the life of the court nobility, they introduce unnecessary
innovations: “secret Masonic organizations” appear.
Realism L.N. Tolstoy satirically ridicules "important religious
Masons", stigmatizes such a pastime. What can be
say about organizations if the head of the Masonic lodge was himself
Tsar Alexander II?
The image of Pierre Bezukhov, who, at first carried away by the ideas of the Freemasons,
but then, realizing their insolvency, he leaves the organization, L.N.
Tolstoy calls on people to lead a different way of life, to
the desire to be useful to society, and not to leave real life
problem of contemporary society.
L.N. Tolstoy, as a realist writer, tearing off “all and every mask” from
"existents", calls on progressive people to break with the courtiers
relics, keep up with the times, have a clear goal in front of you.
So Pierre Bezukhov, whose mental quest has undergone great and
difficult changes, becomes a fighter for better life. At the end
novel, he is already, as we assume, a member of one of
secret societies. He firmly believes that the leading people of his time
should be with them. And indeed it is. By content
novel - one feels that if Prince Andrei Volkonsky were alive,
then his place, the place of a real patriotic fighter who gave his
a wonderful life for the liberation of his native land, it would be on
Senate Square, together with the Decembrists.
The action of the novel, the search for the meaning of life by the best representatives
nobility reveal new topic in the works of L..N. Tolstoy - theme
Decembrism, a theme posed by real life.
A huge credit goes to L.N. Tolstoy is that he, like no one else,
the other, managed to show the growth of a leading man of his era, his
thoughts, feelings, experiences. L.N. Tolstoy and his geniuses
works will live forever in the hearts of people.
176. "NATASHA ROSTOVA AND MARYA BOLKONSKAYA"
Leo Tolstoy's four-volume "War and Peace" - grandiose in concept
more than five hundred: from Napoleon, Alexander 1, Kutuzov to simple
Russian peasants, townspeople, merchants. Every character in the novel
even if it is secondary, it is interesting to one’s own,
unique destiny, which has received special significance in the light
significant events.
And Emperor Alexander, and who claimed world domination
Napoleon and the illiterate serf Platon Karataev
unusual worldview.
Speaking about "War and Peace", one cannot, of course, not talk about the main characters
novel: Andrei Volkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Princess Marya, family
Rostov. Their inner world, constant work on oneself,
relationships with others actors the novel is forced
a lot to think about.
ABOUT female images in nineteenth-century novels it is customary
say "captivating". It seems to me that Natasha Rostova and Princess
This definition suits Marya, despite all its
banality.
How different they seem at first glance, thin, agile,
graceful Natasha and clumsy, ugly, uninteresting Marya
Bolkonskaya! Natasha Rostova is the personification of love, life, happiness,
youth and feminine charm. Princess Bolkonskaya is sad,
an unattractive, absent-minded girl who is ready for marriage
can count only thanks to his wealth.
And the characters of both Tolstoy’s heroines are not at all similar.
Princess Marya, brought up by the example of her proud,
arrogant and distrustful father, and she herself soon becomes like that.
His secrecy, restraint in expressing his own feelings and
innate nobility is inherited by the daughter. Natasha
characterized by gullibility, spontaneity, and emotionality.
Old Count Ilya Andreich is good-natured, simple-minded, loves to laugh
from the heart, in the Rostov house it is always noisy and fun, there are many guests,
who sincerely love this hospitable house. In the Rostov family
children are not only loved with natural parental love, but also
pamper, do not restrain their independence and freedom.
The mutual understanding in this family is amazing, its members understand each other
A friend at a glance, without insulting even little Petya and Natasha
suspicion or disrespect, which cannot be said about the prince
Volkonsky in relation to the resigned Marya. The princess is afraid of her father,
does not dare take a step without his knowledge, does not obey him, even when
he's wrong. Marya, who passionately loves her father, cannot, for fear
cause an explosion of fatherly anger, even caress or kiss him.
Her life, still a young and intelligent girl, is very difficult.
Natasha’s existence is only occasionally overshadowed by funny
girlish grievances. Natasha's mother is her best friend. Daughter tells
tell her about all your joys, sorrows, doubts and disappointments. In their
there is something touching about intimate evening conversations. Close
Natasha and her brother Nikolai and her cousin Sonya. And the princess
Marya's only consolation is letters from Julie Karagina, whom Marya and
knows more from letters. In her solitude, the princess only gets closer to
with his companion Miss Bourienne. Forced seclusion
the heavy character of her father and the dreamy nature of Marya herself make her
devout. For Princess Volkonskaya, God becomes everything in life: her
assistant, mentor, strict judge. At times she feels
ashamed of her own earthly actions and thoughts, and she dreams
devote oneself to God, go somewhere far, far away, to
free yourself from everything sinful and alien.
Such thoughts do not occur to Natasha. She is cheerful, cheerful
and full of energy. Her youth, beauty, involuntary coquetry and
one cannot help but admire. Her freshness, grace, poetic appearance,
simplicity and spontaneity in communication contrast with
pomposity and unnatural manners of society ladies and young ladies.
At the very first ball, Natasha was noticed. And Andrei Bolkonskiy suddenly
understands that this young girl, almost a girl, has turned his whole
life, filled it with new meaning, that everything that he had previously considered
important and necessary, has no meaning for him now.
Natasha's love makes her even more beautiful, charming and
more unique. The happiness she dreamed of so much overwhelms her
Princess Marya does not have such an all-consuming feeling of love for
one person, so she tries to love everyone, still
spends a lot of time in prayer and everyday concerns. Her soul is like
and Natasha, waiting for love and ordinary female happiness, but
The princess does not admit this even to herself. Her restraint and
patience helps her in all life's difficulties.
It seems to me that, despite the external dissimilarity, the dissimilarity
characters given not only by nature, but also formed under
the influence of the conditions in which Natasha Rostova and Princess lived
Marya, these two women have a lot in common.
peace, inner beauty, which was so loved in Natasha Pierre
Bezukhov and Andrei Bolkonsky and whom Nikolai Rostov admires
in his wife.
Natasha and Marya give themselves over to every feeling to the end, be it
joy or sadness. Their spiritual impulses are often selfless and
noble. They both think more about others, loved ones and loved ones
people than about yourself.
For Princess Marya, God remained throughout her life the ideal to which
her soul yearned. But Natasha, especially in difficult periods of her
life (for example, after the story with Anatoly Kuragin), was given
a feeling of admiration for the Almighty and Almighty. Both of them
I wanted moral purity, a spiritual life, where there would be no place
resentment, anger, envy, injustice, where everything would be sublime
and wonderful.
In my opinion, the word “femininity” largely defines human
the essence of Tolstoy's heroines. This is Natasha’s charm, tenderness,
passion, and beautiful, filled with some kind of inner light,
radiant eyes of Marya Bolkonskaya.
Leo Tolstoy speaks especially about the eyes of his favorite heroines. At the princess's
Marya they are “big, deep”, “always sad”, “more attractive
beauty." Natasha's eyes are "lively", "beautiful", "laughing",
"attentive", "kind". They say that the eyes are the window to the soul,
Natasha and Marya, they really are a reflection of them
inner world.
The family life of Marya and Natasha is an ideal marriage,
strong family bond. Both Tolstoy heroines devote themselves
husbands and children, giving all their mental and physical strength
raising children and creating home comfort. I think Natasha too
(now Bezukhova), and Marya (Rostova) are happy in their family life,
happy with the happiness of their children and beloved husbands.
Tolstoy emphasizes the beauty of his heroines in a new quality for them
Loving wife and tender mother. Of course, you can not accept
“grounding”, “simplification” of the poetic and lovely Natasha. But she
considers herself happy, having dissolved in her children and husband, which means that
“simplification” is not a simplification at all for Natasha, but just a new one
period of her life. After all, even today they still argue about the purpose of women, about
her role in society. And Tolstoy's solution to this problem, I think, is
one of the options.
The influence of both women on their husbands is striking, their
mutual understanding, mutual respect and love.
I believe that Princess Marya and Natasha became related not only by
blood, but also in spirit. Fate accidentally brought them together, but both of them
realized that they were close to each other, and therefore became true friends.
Even more than just friends, Natasha and Princess Marya,
in my opinion, they became spiritual allies with their persistent
the desire to do good and bring light, beauty and love to people.
Anyone who sincerely wants the truth is already terribly strong...
Dostoevsky
Great works of art - and the novel “The Teenager” is certainly one of the pinnacles of domestic and world literature - have the undeniable property that they, as the author of “The Teenager”, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, argued, are always modern and vital. True, under normal conditions Everyday life We sometimes don’t even notice the constant powerful influence of literature and art on our minds and hearts. But at one time or another, this truth suddenly becomes obvious to us, no longer requiring any proof. Let us at least remember, for example, that truly national, state and even in the full sense of the word - world-historical sound that the poems of Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev, Blok acquired during the Great Patriotic War... Lermontov’s “Borodino” with its immortal patriotic: “ Guys! Isn’t Moscow behind us?!..” or Gogol’s “Taras Bulba” with its future-oriented word-prophecy about the immortality of the Russian spirit, about the strength of Russian camaraderie, which cannot be overcome by any enemy force, have truly gained the power and significance of the spiritual and moral weapons of our people. Many works of Russian classical literature and abroad were interpreted completely anew in that era. For example, in the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition during the war, the edition of Leo Tolstoy’s epic “War and Peace” was published with maps of the Napoleonic and Hitlerian invasions, which “suggested an analogy between the failure of Napoleonic campaign against Moscow and the upcoming defeat of the German fascist army... The main thing in the novel Tolstoy... the key to understanding spiritual qualities was found Soviet people defending their homeland."
Of course, all these are examples of the cutting-edge, civil, patriotic sound of the classics in extreme conditions. But these are still facts. Real historical facts.
And, however, the “Teenager” that will be discussed, in terms of its social civic charge, is obviously far from “Borodino”, not “Taras Bulba” and not “War and Peace” or “What is to be done?” Chernyshevsky or, say, “Quiet Don” by Sholokhov. Is not it?
Before us is an ordinary, I almost said - family, although rather familyless, with elements of a detective story, but still - a fairly ordinary story, and, it seems, nothing more.
In fact: about twenty years ago, then twenty-five-year-old Andrei Petrovich Versilov, an educated, proud man, full of great ideas and hopes, suddenly became interested in eighteen-year-old Sofia Andreevna, the wife of his servant, fifty-year-old Makar Ivanovich Dolgoruky. The children of Versilov and Sofya Andreevna, Arkady and Lisa, were recognized by Dolgoruky as his own, gave them his last name, and he himself, with his bag and staff, went to wander around Rus' in search of the truth and meaning of life. For essentially the same purpose, Versilov sets off to wander around Europe. Having experienced many political and love passions and hobbies in twenty years of wandering, and at the same time squandering three inheritances, Versilov returns to St. Petersburg almost beggarly, but with hopes of finding a fourth, having won the trial against the Sokolsky princes.
Young nineteen-year-old Arkady Makarovich also comes from Moscow to St. Petersburg, who, during his short life, has already accumulated many grievances, painful questions, and hopes. He comes to reveal his father: after all, he will essentially meet Andrei Petrovich Versilov for the first time. But it is not only the hope of finally finding a family that draws his father to St. Petersburg. Sewn into the lining of the teenager's coat is something material - a document, or rather, a letter from a young widow unknown to him, General Akhmakova, the daughter of the old Prince Sokolsky. The teenager knows for sure - Versilov, and Akhmakova, and maybe some others would give a lot to get this letter. So Arkady, about to finally throw himself into what he sees as real life, into the life of St. Petersburg metropolitan society, has plans to penetrate it not sideways, past a gaping doorman, but downright the master of other people's destinies in his hands, or rather, for now - behind the lining of the coat.
And so, almost throughout the entire novel, we are intrigued by the question: what is there in this letter? But this intrigue (by no means the only one in “The Teenager”) is more of a detective nature than a moral or ideological one. And this, you see, is not at all the same interest that haunts us, say, in the same “Taras Bulba”: will Ostap withstand inhuman torture? Will old Taras escape the enemy's pursuit? Or in " Quiet Don“Who will Grigory Melekhov eventually find his way to, on which shore will he find the truth? And in the novel “The Teenager” itself, it turns out in the end that, perhaps, nothing so special will be found in the letter. And we feel that the main interest is not at all in the content of the letter, but in something completely different: will a teenager’s conscience allow him to use the letter for the sake of his own self-affirmation? Will he allow himself to become, at least temporarily, the ruler of the destinies of several people? But he had already been infected with the thought of his own exclusivity, they had already awakened in him pride, a desire to try for himself, by taste, by touch, all the blessings and temptations of this world. The truth is that he is also pure in heart, even naive and spontaneous. He has not yet done anything that his conscience would be ashamed of. He still has the soul of a teenager: it is still open to goodness and heroism. But if such an authority were to be found, if only one soul-shattering impression happened, he would equally, and in good conscience, be ready to go one way or another in life. Or - worse than that - he will learn to reconcile good and evil, truth and lies, beauty and ugliness, heroism and betrayal, and even justify himself according to his conscience: I’m not the only one, everyone is the same, and nothing - they are healthy, and others are the same are thriving.
Impressions, temptations, surprises of the new, adult, St. Petersburg life literally overwhelm young Arkady Makarovich, so that he is hardly even ready to fully perceive its lessons, to catch behind the stream of facts falling upon him, each of which is almost a discovery for him - their inner communications. The world either begins to take on pleasant forms in the consciousness and feelings of the teenager, and then suddenly, as if collapsing all at once, it again plunges Arkady Makarovich into chaos, into a disorder of thoughts, perceptions, and assessments.
What is this world like in Dostoevsky’s novel?
The socio-historical diagnosis that Dostoevsky made to the bourgeois-feudal society of his time, and, moreover, as always, he put it in proportion to the future, trying, and in many ways managing to unravel the future results of its current state, this diagnosis was impartial and even cruel, but also historically correct. “I’m not a master of lulling,” Dostoevsky responded to accusations that he was exaggerating things too much. What, according to Dostoevsky, are the main symptoms of the disease of society? “The idea of decomposition is in everything, because everything is apart... Even the children are apart... Society is chemically decomposing,” he writes down thoughts for the novel “Teenager” in a notebook. Increase in murders and suicides. Family breakdown. Random families dominate. Not families, but some kind of marital cohabitation. “Fathers drink, mothers drink... What generation can be born from drunkards?”
Yes, the social diagnosis of society in the novel “The Teenager” is given primarily through the definition of the state of the Russian family, and this state, according to Dostoevsky, is as follows: “...never has the Russian family been more shaken, disintegrated...as it is now. Where will you now find such “Childhood and Adolescence” that could be recreated in such a harmonious and clear presentation, in which, for example, Count Leo Tolstoy presented to us his era and his family, or as in his own “War and Peace”? Nowadays this is not the case... The modern Russian family is becoming more and more a random family.”
The random family is a product and indicator of the internal decomposition of society itself. And, moreover, an indicator that testifies not only to the present, but also to an even greater extent depicts this state, again - in proportion to the future: after all, “the main pedagogy,” Dostoevsky rightly believed, “is parents' house“, where the child receives first impressions and lessons that form his moral foundations, spiritual strengths, often for the rest of his life.
What “persistence and maturity of convictions” can be demanded from teenagers, asks Dostoevsky, when the overwhelming majority of them are brought up in families where “impatience, rudeness, ignorance prevail (despite their intelligence) and where almost everywhere real education is replaced only by impudent denial from someone else's voice; where material motives dominate over every higher idea; where children are brought up without soil, outside of natural truth, in disrespect or indifference to the fatherland and in mocking contempt for the people... - is it here, from this spring, that our young people will draw the truth and infallibility of the direction of their first steps in life?..”
Reflecting on the role of fathers in raising the younger generation, Dostoevsky noted that most fathers try to fulfill their duties “properly,” that is, they dress, feed, send their children to school, their children, finally, even enter university, but with all this - there was still no father here, there was no family, the young man enters life alone like a finger, he did not live with his heart, his heart is in no way connected with his past, with his family, with his childhood. And that's the best case scenario. As a rule, the memories of adolescents are poisoned: they “remember, until a very old age, the cowardice of their fathers, disputes, accusations, bitter reproaches and even curses on them... and, worst of all, sometimes they remember the meanness of their fathers, base actions for achieving places, money, vile intrigues and vile servility." The majority “carries with them into life not only the dirt of memories, but the dirt itself...” And, most importantly, “modern fathers have nothing in common,” “there is nothing connecting them themselves. There is no great thought... there is no great faith in their hearts in such a thought.” “There is no great idea in society,” and therefore “there are no citizens.” “There is no life in which the majority of the people participate,” and therefore there is no common cause. Everyone is divided into groups, and everyone is busy with their own business. There is no guiding, connecting idea in society. But almost everyone has their own idea. Even Arkady Makarovich. Seductive, not petty: the idea of becoming a Rothschild. No, not just rich or even very rich, but precisely Rothschild - the uncrowned prince of this world. True, to begin with, Arkady only has a hidden letter, but after playing with it, on occasion, you can already achieve something. And Rothschild did not immediately become Rothschild. So it’s important to decide to take the first step, and then things will work out on their own.
“Without a higher idea, neither a person nor a nation can exist,” states Dostoevsky in “A Writer’s Diary” for 1876, as if summing up and continuing the problematics of “The Teenager.” In a society that is unable to develop such an idea, tens and hundreds of ideas for oneself, ideas of personal self-affirmation are born. The Rothschild (essentially bourgeois) idea of the power of money is attractive to the consciousness of a teenager who has no unshakable moral foundations because it does not require either a genius or spiritual feat. It requires, to begin with, only one thing - the rejection of a clear distinction between the boundaries of good and evil.
In a world of destroyed and destructible values, relative ideas, skepticism, and vacillation in the main beliefs - Dostoevsky's heroes still search, suffering and making mistakes. " main idea, - Dostoevsky writes in his preparatory notebooks for the novel. “Although the teenager arrives with a ready-made idea, the whole idea of the novel is that he is looking for the guiding thread of behavior, good and evil, which does not exist in our society...”
It is impossible to live without a higher idea, and society did not have a higher idea. As one of the heroes of “The Teenager,” Kraft, says, “there are no moral ideas at all now; suddenly there wasn’t a single one, and, most importantly, with such an air that it was as if they had never existed... The current time... is a time of the golden mean and insensibility... inability to do anything and the need for everything ready. Nobody thinks; Rarely would anyone survive the idea... Nowadays Russia is being deforested and the soil is being depleted. If a man appears with hope and plants a tree, everyone will laugh: “Will you live to see it?” On the other hand, those who wish well talk about what will happen in a thousand years. The binding idea was completely gone. Everyone is definitely at the inn and is getting ready to leave Russia tomorrow; everyone lives, as long as they have had enough..."
It is this spiritual (more precisely, unspiritual) state of the “inn” that is imposed on a young teenager, looking for solid foundations in life, ready-made ideas, like his “Rothschild” idea, and, moreover, as their own, born, as it were, from his own life experience .
In fact, the real reality of this world of moral relativism, the relativity of all values gives rise to skepticism in a teenager. “Why should I absolutely love my neighbor,” young Arkady Dolgoruky is not so much asserting as he is still provoking a refutation of his statements, “to love my neighbor or your humanity, which will not know about me and which in turn will decay without a trace and memories?..” The eternal question, known since biblical times: “There is no memory of the former; and what will happen will not be remembered by those who come after... for who will bring him to see what will happen after him?
And if so, then the question of the young truth-seeker Arkady Dolgoruky is fair: “Tell me, why do I absolutely have to be noble, especially since everything lasts one minute? No, sir, if that’s the case, then I will live for myself in the most discourteous way, and at least everything will fail!” But a person, if he is a person and not a “louse,” we repeat once again the writer’s cherished thought, “cannot exist without a guiding idea, without solid foundations of life. Losing faith in some, he still tries to find new ones and, not finding them, stops at the first idea that struck his consciousness, as long as it seems to him truly reliable. In a world of destroyed spiritual values, the consciousness of a teenager looks for what seems to him to be the most reliable foundation, an instrument of self-affirmation - money, for “this is the only path that brings even insignificance to the first place... I,” the teenager philosophizes, “maybe not insignificance, but I, for example, know from the mirror that my appearance harms me, because my face is ordinary. But if I were rich, like Rothschild, who would cope with my face, and wouldn’t thousands of women, just whistling, come to me with their beauties?.. I may be smart. But even if I were seven spans in the forehead, there would certainly be a man with eight spans in the forehead right there in society - and I died. Meanwhile, if I were Rothschild, would this smart guy of eight spans mean anything near me?.. I may be witty; but next to me is Talleyrand, Piron - I am darkened, and just as I am Rothschild - where is Piron, and maybe where is Talleyrand? Money, of course, is despotic power..."
The author of “The Teenager” had an idea of the true power of the bourgeois idol, the golden calf, the real, living representative of which, a kind of “prophet and governor” on earth, was Rothschild for Dostoevsky. Not for Dostoevsky alone, of course. The name of Rothschild became a symbol of the spirit and meaning of “this world,” that is, the world of the bourgeoisie, long before Dostoevsky. The Rothschilds profited from the blood of the peoples of those lands where they came to take over the power of money. In the era of Dostoevsky, the most famous was James Rothschild (1792 - 1862), who profited so much from money speculation and state usury that the name Rothschild became a household name.
Heinrich Heine wrote about the power of the true “tsar” of the bourgeois world in his book “On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany,” first published in Russian in Dostoevsky’s journal “Epoch.” “If you, dear reader,” Heine wrote, “...go to rue Lafitte, house 15, you will see a fat man getting out of a heavy carriage in front of a high entrance. He goes up the stairs to a small room where a young blond man sits, in whose lordly, aristocratic disdain there is something so stable, so positive, so absolute, as if all the money in this world were in his pocket. And in fact, all the money in this world is in his pocket. His name is Monsieur James de Rothschild, and the fat man is Monsignor Grimbaldi, the envoy of His Holiness the Pope, in whose name he brought interest on the Roman loan, the tribute of Rome.”
Dostoevsky learned an equally impressive story from Herzen’s book “The Past and Thoughts.” Forced to leave Russia, Herzen the tsarist government refused to give money for his Kostroma estate. Herzen was advised to seek advice from Rothschild. And the all-powerful banker did not fail to demonstrate his power, to show, as they say, with his own eyes who the true “prince of this world” is. The emperor was forced to yield to this power.
“The King of the Jews,” writes Herzen, “sat calmly at his table, looked at the papers, wrote something on them, probably all millions...
Well,” he said, turning to me, “are you satisfied?..
After a month or a month and a half, the St. Petersburg merchant of the 1st guild Nikolai Romanov, frightened ... paid, according to the greatest command of Rothschild, the illegally detained money with interest and interest on interest, justifying himself by ignorance of the laws ... "
How can Rothschild not become an ideal, an idol for a young consciousness that does not have any higher idea in front of it, in a world of general instability of beliefs and the relativity of spiritual values? Here, at least, there really is “something so stable, so positive, so absolute” that, continuing the thought of Arkady Dolgoruky about the insignificance of the greats of this world, all these Pirons and Talleyrands before Rothschild, one can say even more: and almost I’m Rothschild , and where is the Pope and even where is the Russian autocrat?..
The “Rothschild idea” of a teenager, the idea of the power of money - truly the highest and truly guiding idea of the bourgeois consciousness, which took possession of the young Arkady Dolgoruky, was, according to Dostoevsky, one of the most seductive and most destructive ideas of the century.
Dostoevsky reveals in the novel not so much the social, economic and similar essence of this idea, but rather its moral and aesthetic nature. Ultimately, it is nothing more than the idea of the power of nonentity over the world, and above all, over the world of true spiritual values. True, Dostoevsky was fully aware that it was precisely in this very nature of ideas that the power of its seductiveness lay to a large extent. Thus, the young hero of the novel admits: “I loved terribly imagining a creature, namely mediocre and mediocre, standing in front of the world and saying to it with a smile: you are Galileo and Copernicus, Charlemagne and Napoleon, you are Pushkin and Shakespeare... but I am mediocrity and illegality, and yet above you, because you yourself submitted to it.”
In the novel, Dostoevsky also reveals the direct connections of the “Rostildian idea” of a teenager with the psychology of social, moral inferiority, inferiority of Arkady Makarovich as one of the consequences, products of a “random family”, spiritual fatherlessness.
Will a teenager find the strength to rise above mediocrity, overcome the inferiority of consciousness, and defeat the temptation of the ideal of the golden calf? He still has doubts; his pure soul still questions, still seeks truth. Maybe this is also why he is so eager to go to St. Petersburg, to Versilov, because he hopes to find a father in him. Not legal, but above all spiritual. He needs a moral authority who would answer his doubts.
What will Versilov offer him? - the smartest, most educated person, a man of ideas; a person in intelligence and experience, as Dostoevsky intended, is no lower than Chaadaev or Herzen. And the teenager will have other, no less serious meetings with people of ideas. Dostoevsky's novel is, in a certain sense, a kind of teenager's journey through ideological and moral torment in search of truth, in search of a great guiding idea.
As we see, even a seemingly quite detective story with a letter will suddenly turn into the most important social, civil problem: the problem of the first moral act, which determines the spirit and meaning of almost everything that follows life path a young man, the problem of conscience, good and evil. The problem is how to live, what to do and in the name of what? Ultimately - the problem of the future destinies of the country, “for generations are created from teenagers” - the novel “Teenager” ends with this thought-warning.
A family thought will turn into a thought of national, world-historical significance; thoughts about ways to form the spiritual and moral foundations of Russia of the future.
Yes, we repeat once again, the socio-practical idea did not become dominant for Arkady, but at the same time it was precisely this that shook in the teenager’s mind his faith in the “Rothschild idea” as the only real and, moreover, great one.
The teenager is especially shocked by the idea of Kraft, also still a very young thinker, who mathematically deduced that the Russian people are a secondary people and that in the future they are not given any independent role in the destinies of humanity, but are intended only to serve as material for the activities of another, “more noble” one. tribe. And therefore, - Kraft decides, - there is no point in living as a Russian. A teenager is struck by Kraft's idea because he is suddenly convinced of the truth: an intelligent, deep, sincere person can suddenly believe in the most absurd and destructive idea as a great idea. In his mind he must naturally compare it with his own idea; he can't help but wonder if the same thing happened to himself? The idea that a personal life idea can only be truly great when it is at the same time a general idea concerning the destinies of the people, of all of Russia - this thought is perceived by the teenager as a revelation.
Neither the smart Kraft nor the naive Arkady can understand what we, the readers of the novel, take away from Kraft’s experience: “mathematical beliefs,” by which Dostoevsky himself understood positivist beliefs, built on the logic of facts snatched from life, without penetration into their idea, without moral convictions verified with the logic - such “mathematical convictions are nothing,” says the author of “The Teenager.” To what monstrous perversions of thoughts and feelings positivist, immoral beliefs can lead, and Kraft’s fate is clear to us. What will the teenager take away from his experience? He is by no means an immoral person. If only that was all there was to it. Craft itself is also deeply honest and moral person, who sincerely loves Russia, suffers from its pains and troubles much more than from his own.
The origins of the guiding ideas of Kraft and the teenager himself, so different in appearance, but equally related in essence, are in that soulless state of social life, which Kraft himself, let me remind you, defines in the novel as follows: “... everyone lives, if only they have enough... “Kraft is not capable of living with the idea of an “inn.” He doesn’t find any other idea in real life. Will Arkady be able to live “if only he’s had enough”? His soul is confused, it requires, if not a ready-made, final answer, then at least guiding advice, moral support in the person of a living concrete person. He spiritually needs a father. And Versilov even seems to laugh at him, does not take him seriously, in any case, is in no hurry to help him answer the damned questions: how to live? What to do? In the name of what? And does he himself have any higher goals, at least some idea guiding him, at least any moral convictions, for which, as the teenager says, “every honest father should send his son even to death , like the ancient Horace of his sons for the idea of Rome." Living according to the laws of that environment, which increasingly draws him in, Arkady still hopes for a different life in the name of an idea, for a life of heroism. The need for achievement and ideal is still alive in him. True, Versilov finally sets out his cherished idea, a kind of either aristocratic democracy, or democratic aristocracy, the idea of the need for consciousness or the development in Russia of a certain upper class, to which both the most prominent representatives of the ancient clans and all other classes who committed a feat of honor, science, valor, art, that is, in his opinion, all the best people of Russia must unite into unity, which will be the guardian of honor, science and the highest idea. But what is this idea that all these best people, the class of aristocrats of family, thought and spirit, will have to preserve? Versilov does not answer this question. Doesn't want or doesn't know the answer?
But can a teenager be captivated by a utopia, a dream, rather than by Versilov’s idea? Perhaps she would have captivated him - after all, this is something much higher than “you’ve had enough”, “live to your belly”, “after us there may be a flood”, “we live alone” and similar common practical ideas of society , where Arkady lives. Maybe. But for this, he would first need to believe in Versilov himself, as a father, as truly a man of honor, heroism, “a fanatic of a higher, although for the time being hidden by him, idea.”
And finally, Versilov really reveals himself to his son, a teenager, as “the bearer of the highest Russian cultural thought,” according to his own definition. As Versilov himself is aware, he does not just profess an idea, no, he himself is already an idea. He, as a person, is a type of person that was historically created in Russia and unprecedented in the whole world - a type of worldwide pain for everyone, for the fate of the whole world: “This is the Russian type,” he explains to his son, “... I have the honor of belonging to it. It holds within itself the future of Russia. There may be only a thousand of us... but all of Russia has lived so far only in order to produce this thousand.”
The utopia of the Russian European Versilov can and should, in his conviction, save the world from universal decay with the moral thought of the opportunity to live not for oneself, but for everyone - about the “golden age” of the future. But Versilov’s idea of world reconciliation, world harmony is deeply pessimistic and tragic, because, as Versilov himself is aware, no one except him in the whole world understands this idea of his: “I wandered alone. I’m not talking about myself personally, I’m talking about Russian thought.” Versilov himself is clearly aware of the impracticability and, therefore, impracticality of his own idea, at least in the present, because both in Europe and in Russia now everyone is on his own. And then Versilov puts forward a practical, although at the same time no less utopian task as the first step towards realizing the dream of a “golden age”, a task that has long troubled the consciousness of Dostoevsky himself: “The best people must unite.”
This thought also captivates young Arkady. However, it also worries him: “And the people?.. What is their purpose? - he asks his father. “There are only a thousand of you, and you say humanity...” And this question of Arkady is clear evidence of the serious internal maturation of both his thoughts and himself as a person: because this is, according to Dostoevsky, the main question for younger generation, the answer to which will largely determine the paths of Russia’s future development: who should be considered “ the best people" - the nobility, the financial-Rothschild oligarchy or the people? Versilov clarifies: “If I am proud that I am a nobleman, it is precisely as a pioneer of great thought,” and not as a representative of a certain social elite of society. “I believe,” he continues, answering Arkady’s question about the people, “that the time is not far when the entire Russian people will become a nobleman like me and conscious of their highest idea.”
Both Arkady’s question and Versilov’s answer in Dostoevsky’s novel do not arise by chance and have by no means a purely theoretical significance for both. The problem of the people itself arises in the novel in a conversation between Versilov and his son in direct connection with a specific person - the peasant Makar Dolgoruky. Dostoevsky did not set himself the task of discovering a new type of hero in Russian literature. He was well aware that his Makar would produce not so much the impression of surprise as of recognition, typological kinship with Nekrasov’s Vlas, to some extent with Tolstoy’s Platon Karataev, but above all with his own “peasant Marey.” Dostoevsky's artistic and ideological discovery lay in something else: the peasant, a former serf of Versilov, in Dostoevsky's novel is placed on a par with the highest cultural type. And not just from a general humanistic point of view - as a person, but - as a person of ideas, as a type of personality.
Versilov is a European wanderer with a Russian soul, ideologically homeless both in Europe and in Russia. Makar is a Russian wanderer who set off on a journey across Rus' to explore the whole world; the whole of Russia and even the whole universe is his home. Versilov is the highest cultural type of Russian person. Makar is the highest moral type of a Russian person from the people, a kind of “national saint”. Versilov is a Russian product of global “ugliness,” decay, chaos; Versilov's idea opposes this disgrace. Makar is the living embodiment of just good looks; he, according to Dostoevsky’s idea, seems to carry within himself already now, in the present, that “golden age” that Versilov dreams of as the most distant goal of humanity.
The main direction of the central chapters of the novel is created by the dialogue between Makar Ivanovich Dolgoruky and Andrei Petrovich Versilov. This dialogue is not direct, it is mediated by Arkady, conducted as if through him. But this is not only a dialogue, but a real battle between two fathers - adopted and actual - for the soul, for the consciousness of a teenager, a battle for the future generation, and therefore for the future of Russia.
The everyday, purely family situation in the novel also has a different, broader socio-historical content. Versilov - an ideologist, a bearer of the highest Russian cultural thought, a Westernist direction - having failed to understand Russia in Russia, tried to understand it through Europe, as happened, according to Dostoevsky, with Herzen or, morally, with Chaadaev. No, he did not intend to reproduce in his hero the real traits of the fate and personality of Herzen or Chaadaev, but their spiritual quests were reflected in the novel in the very idea of Versilov. In the guise or type of Makar Ivanovich Dolgoruky, according to Dostoevsky, the ancient idea of the Russian people's truth-seeker should have been embodied. He is precisely the type, the image of a truth-seeker from among the people. Unlike Versilov, Makar Ivanovich is looking for the truth not in Europe, but in Russia itself. Versilov and Makar Ivanovich - this is a kind of bifurcation of one Russian idea, which should answer the question about the future fate of Russia: it is no coincidence that in the novel both have the same wife, the mother of their one child - the future generation. To just imagine this kind of symbolic, or rather, socio-historical meaning of this “family” situation, let us recall one extremely revealing thought of Herzen, which did not escape Dostoevsky’s attention and was artistically reflected in the novel “Teenager”:
“They and we, that is, the Slavophiles and Westerners,” wrote Herzen in “The Bell,” “felt with early years one strong... passionate feeling... a feeling of boundless, embracing all existence, love for the Russian people, the Russian way of life, for the way of thinking... They transferred all the love, all the tenderness to the oppressed mother... We were in the arms of a French governess, we learned late that our mother was not she, and a persecuted peasant woman... We knew that her happiness was ahead, that under her heart... - our little brother..."
Versilov is an all-European with a Russian soul - and is now trying spiritually and morally to find this peasant woman and the child she carried under her heart.
And, apparently, neither the idea of Versilov, a Russian European who does not separate the destinies of Russia from the destinies of Europe, who hopes to reconcile and unite in his idea the love of Russia with the love of Europe, nor the idea of the people's truth-seeking of Makar Ivanovich, in themselves, will give the teenager an answer to his question in life: what should he, personally, do? It is unlikely that he will go, like Versilov, to look for the truth in Europe, just as he, obviously, will not go wandering around Rus' following Makar Ivanovich. But, of course, the lessons of spiritual, ideological quests of both cannot fail to leave an imprint on his young soul, on his still-forming consciousness. We cannot, of course, imagine the influence of even impressive moral lessons as something straightforward and immediate. This is an internal movement, sometimes fraught with breakdowns, new doubts, and falls, but still inevitable. And the teenager still has to go through the temptation of Lambert, decide on a monstrous moral experiment - but, seeing its result, the soul, conscience, consciousness of Arkady Makarovich will still shudder, be ashamed, be offended for the teenager, move him to a moral decision, to act according to his conscience.
Dostoevsky's young hero has clearly not yet acquired any higher idea, but, it seems, he has even begun to lose faith in its possibility in general. But just as clearly, he felt the instability and unreliability of even those, if not the foundations of life, then at least the rules of the game of life, honor, conscience, friendship, love, established by this world. Everything is chaos and disorder. Moral chaos and spiritual disorder - above all. Everything is shaky, everything is hopeless, there is nothing to rely on. The teenager feels this disorder inside himself, in his thoughts, views, and actions. He begins to be unable to stand it, causes a scandal, ends up with the police and finally becomes seriously ill and becomes delirious. And so - as a kind of materialization of both this delirium and the very nature of his illness - an illness, of course, more moral than physical - Lambert appears before him. Lambert is the nightmare of Arkady's childhood memories. Everything dark and shameful that the child managed to touch is connected with Lambert. This is a person who is beyond conscience, beyond morality, not to mention spirituality. He doesn’t even have any principles, except for one thing: everything is allowed if there is at least some hope of using anything and anyone for profit, for Lambert is “meat, matter,” as Dostoevsky wrote in the preparatory materials for “The Teenager.”
And such and such a person clung to Arkady: now he needs him - he grabbed something about the document from the scraps of his sick delirium and immediately realized - you can’t refuse him this - that he can make a profit here. And maybe a lot.
Well, what if that’s what it takes? What if Lambert is the person who will guide the teenager to at least something real in this general chaos and disorder? And if there is no higher idea, there is no need for a feat, and somehow he never met a single stunning example of life for the sake of an idea. Craft? So after all, he is a negative idea, the idea of self-destruction, but he wants to live, he passionately wants to live. Although Lambert has a vile idea, immoral, it is still an affirmative idea, the idea of taking life, no matter what the cost. Here is the conclusion drawn by a teenager from life lessons: after all, not a single moral example. Not a single one, but that means something...
But here, it would seem, is far from the central motive of the novel and, however, so important for understanding the inner movement of the soul, the self-awareness of a teenager: in the name of the same, albeit more noblely furnished than Lambert’s, idea of using the blessings of life at any cost, the prince Sergei turned out to be involved in major speculation and forgery of serious documents. He had a way out - he could still pay off, run away - you never know... But - convinced of Arkady’s innocence, Prince Sergei, shocked by the fact that there is still, it turns out, people in this world are pure to the point of naivety, he decides to live according to his conscience .
“Having tried the lackey’s “way out,” Prince Sergei explains to Arkady, and it is no coincidence that it was to him, because no one else would understand, but Arkady - Prince Sergei was convinced of this - had a pure heart, - I thereby lost the right to console at least as much - somehow my soul with the thought that I could finally decide on a just feat. I am guilty before the fatherland and before my family... I don’t understand how I could grasp at the base idea of paying them off with money? Still, before my conscience, I would remain forever a criminal.” And Prince Sergei himself betrayed himself into the hands of justice.
Who knows, maybe in the decision to “live according to conscience” he played main role exactly that moral lesson, which Prince Sergei received, suspecting the teenager of baseness, for everyone is like that, but it turned out - not all. And even if this is just one teenager and nothing special, he still exists, such a person with a pure heart. Still, he exists, and that means not everyone is like that, and that means he also doesn’t want to and cannot be; as everybody. Will Arkady himself learn at least some lesson from this act of the prince? Of course, the act of Prince Sergei is not a feat at all, but it is still just an act. The act is moral. Will it resonate in the teenager’s heart, as his pure heart recently responded in the prince’s current act? For it has long been said: evil multiplies evil, and good multiplies good. But this is ideal. What about in life?
No, apparently not everything will be easy and simple in his life. Arkady Dolgoruky will suddenly find himself in the position of a young knight at a spiritual and moral crossroads, at the prophetic stone, beyond which there are many roads, but only one straight one. Which one? I think Dostoevsky consciously did not want to force his hero to make a final decision. It is important that his teenager is no longer in a moral state of confusion, but is facing the road to truth. Dostoevsky believed that his young readers would recognize themselves partly in the quests and dreams of his hero. They learn and realize the main thing - the need to find the right path of life, the path of heroism, readiness for heroism, not only in the name of self-affirmation, but in the name of the future of Russia. Because a great goal, a great idea cannot be narrowly self-interested; the path to truth cannot lie outside the historical path of the Fatherland. Dostoevsky gradually leads both his young hero and his readers to this truth. In fact, you, of course, noticed that at the center of all the ideas, so different from one another, that determine the actions of the heroes, one way or another lies the thought of Russia, the Motherland, the Fatherland. The European Versilov does not just love Russia. He is well aware that his idea of pan-European and world reconciliation ultimately rests on Russia, and not on Europe, for, as Andrei Petrovich realizes: “Russia alone lives not for itself, but for thought...” And Versilov, like Herzen could say about himself: “Faith in Russia saved me from moral destruction... For this faith in it, for this healing by it, I thank my homeland.” Motherland, Rus' is the central concept of Makar Ivanovich’s spiritual quest. The fate of Russia is determined by Kraft's actions. Consciousness of guilt before the Fatherland is the act of Prince Sergei...
And only in the original, “Rothschild idea” of Arkady Makarovich and in Lambert’s “philosophy of life” the concept of Russia, the Fatherland is completely absent. And it is no coincidence: although both of them are of different scales, they are related in origins and aspirations. Both are bourgeois in essence, anti-human, anti-spiritual. They will no longer seduce a teenager, for he has realized their true value: both of them are outside the truth, both are against the truth. Dostoevsky will leave his hero with the same passionate thirst for a high idea, a high goal in life, but he will leave him already on the path to the truth. What is this path? Life itself will tell you this. This, it seems to me, is the main lesson of Dostoevsky’s novel “The Teenager.”
“In the depth of his plan, in the breadth of the tasks of the moral world developed by him,” Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote about Dostoevsky, “this writer ... not only recognizes the legitimacy of those interests that concern modern society, but even goes further, enters the area of predictions and premonitions, which constitute the goal ... of the most distant quests of humanity.”
These prophetic words of Dostoevsky’s contemporary are addressed, as it were, directly to us, to our time, to our society, to our ideological, moral quest, achievements and aspirations.
The brilliant writer-thinker really knew how to look far ahead. “We undoubtedly have a decaying life. But there is a need for life to take shape again, on new principles. Who will notice them and who will point them out? Who can even slightly define and express the laws of this decomposition and new creation? Where and in what does Dostoevsky see the manifestations of these laws of new creation? What are the guarantees for him of the future revival of Russia from a state of general decay?
Dostoevsky believed in the people, and pinned his hopes on them for a future revival. It is not true that he idealized the people, considered them distilledly pure, not at all affected by the ulcer of bourgeois decay. “Yes, the people are also sick,” he wrote, “but not fatally,” for there lives in them “an unquenchable thirst for truth. The people are looking for the truth and a way out to it.” And if he is looking, he believed, he will find it. He also believed in the country’s young generation, and then he wrote the novel “Teenager.” I also dreamed of writing a novel “Children”. Did not have time. Death did not give. “This is why I, and above all, hope for the youth,” he explained, “because among us they also suffer from a “search for truth” and a longing for it, and, therefore, they are most akin to the people, and will immediately understand that the people looking for the truth."
In the ideological undercurrent of the novel “Teenager” one cannot help but see the writer’s thoughts about the need to unite the search for truth by the younger generation and the people’s thirst for truth; the idea that a truly great, guiding idea, working on the laws of new creation, cannot be other than the people's idea, the idea of a common cause with all the people.
So here we have a really simple family story. But what is behind it? Here, the future citizens of the country, its future leaders, undergo their first life experiences, receive their first moral and ideological lessons. And much, too much in the destinies of the people, the country, the whole world will depend in the future on what this experience is, what these lessons are. Yes, that’s right: Dostoevsky didn’t know this, but you and I know that the younger representatives of the generation of Arkady Makarovich, the hero of the novel “The Teenager,” will become living protagonists in an event of world-historical significance - the October Revolution: let me remind you that in the year of publication “Teenager” on the pages of Nekrasov’s journal “Notes of the Fatherland” Lenin was five years old. And Arkady Makarovich himself could well have lived to see the revolution: in 1917 he would have been 62 years old. Where, on whose side would he be at this historical moment, what role would he play in it? The questions are not idle, because the answers to these questions largely lay, and perhaps were determined, in the main thing, for the rest of my life, here, in the experience and lessons of this ordinary “family history.”
With its gigantic volume, "War and Peace" can give the impression of chaos, scatteredness and uncoordinatedness of many characters, plot lines, and all the varied content. But the genius of Tolstoy the artist was manifested in the fact that all this enormous content was imbued with a single thought, a concept of the life of the human community, which is easy to discern with thoughtful, attentive reading. The genre of "War and Peace" is defined as an epic novel. What is the meaning of this definition? Through the infinite number of destinies of many people, taken in various circumstances of life: in war and peacetime, in youth and in old age, in prosperity and sorrow, in private and general, swarm life - and woven into a single artistic whole, the main artistically mastered the antithesis of the book: natural, simple and conventional, artificial in people's lives; simple and eternal moments of human existence: birth, love, death - and the conventions of the world, the class of society, property differences. The author of "War and Peace" was reproached for a fatalistic understanding of history and life in general, but in his book the concept of fate and fate, characteristic of the ancient, classical epic, was replaced by the concept of life in its spontaneous flow and overflow, in eternal renewal. It is not for nothing that there are so many metaphors in the novel related to the ever-changing water element. There is also a main, key verbal and artistic “image” in “War and Peace”. Under the impression of communication with Platon Karataev, the embodiment of everything eternal and round, Pierre has a dream. “And suddenly Pierre introduced himself to a living, long-forgotten, meek old man, a teacher who taught Pierre geography in Switzerland. “Wait,” said the old man. And he showed Pierre a globe. This globe was a living, oscillating ball, without dimensions. The entire surface the ball consisted of drops tightly compressed among themselves. And these drops all moved, moved, and then merged from several into one, then from one they were divided into many. they squeezed it, sometimes they destroyed it, sometimes they merged with it. “This is life,” said the old teacher. “How simple and clear,” thought Pierre. “How could I not have known this before... Here he is, Karataev, overflowed and disappeared.” Such an understanding of life is optimistic pantheism, a philosophy that identifies God with nature. The God of the author of “War and Peace” is all life, all being. This philosophy determines the moral assessments of the heroes: the goal and happiness of a person is to achieve the roundness of a drop and spill, merge with everyone, join everything and everyone. The closest to this ideal is Platon Karataev; it is not for nothing that he was given the name of the great ancient Greek sage, who stood at the origins of world philosophical thought. Many representatives of the noble-aristocratic world, especially the court circle, depicted in the novel, are not capable of this. The main characters of “War and Peace” come to exactly this, they overcome Napoleonic egoism, which became the banner of the era at the time described in the novel and finally became it during the writing of the novel. By the way, Dostoevsky also wrote “Crime and Punishment” at the same time. The main characters overcome class isolation and proud individuality. Moreover, at the center of the novel Tolstoy places such characters whose movement along this path proceeds especially dramatically and strikingly. These are Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre and Natasha. For them, this path full of drama is the path of acquisitions, enrichment of their personality, deep spiritual ones. discoveries and insights. A little further from the center of the novel are the supporting characters who lose more along the way. These are Nikolai Rostov, Princess Marya, and Petya. The periphery of War and Peace is filled with numerous figures who, for one reason or another, are not able to stand up. this path. Numerous female characters in War and Peace are depicted according to the same principle. The answer to this question will be specific, i.e. you just need to know and retell the text, the content of the novel; there is no need to look for any special ideological concept here. Tolstoy created the images of Natasha and Sonya, Princess Marya and "Buryenka", the beautiful Helen and old Anna Pavlovna in the era of the 60s, simultaneously with Chernyshevsky's novel "What is to be done?", in which the ideas of women's freedom and equality with men. Naturally, Tolstoy rejected all this and looked at women in a patriarchal spirit. He embodied his ideals of female love, family and parental happiness not only in the character and fate of Natasha, who most vividly of all the characters (including male ones) expresses his idea of "real life", but also reality, having married a young woman in 1862 Sofya Andreevna Bers. And we must admit with regret that the “deception that elevates us” of the image of Natasha turned out to be much prettier and more attractive than the “theme of base truths” of Tolstoy’s family drama. Despite the fact that Tolstoy purposefully raised his young wife in the spirit of his ideals, the same ones that so convince us when reading War and Peace, the wife of the great writer, and then the numerous children who grew up, made the last thirty years of Tolstoy’s life unbearable. And how many times did he decide to leave them!.. We can say that “real life” with its “whimsicality, surprises, sudden whims and whims - what every female nature contains - turned out to be even more “real” than Tolstoy intended. And it doesn’t matter who we are talking about - the meek Princess Marya or the daringly demanding Helen, victoriously confident in her strength. Very soon after writing “War and Peace,” life showed its author that the extremes of female characters, so confidently divorced by him on the scale of moral assessments (Natasha - “excellent”, Princess Marya - “mediocre”, Helen - “poor”) in reality they can converge in the person of one, the closest, most beloved person - his wife, mother of three children. Thus, for all its depth and comprehensiveness, the life philosophy of the author of “War and Peace” is quite schematic, “living life”, “real life” is more complex, richer, you cannot deal with it with the stroke of a pen at your own discretion, at the request of artistic unity, as Tolstoy did , quickly “killing” Helen, so attractive and invincible in her immorality, who had become unnecessary for his ideological and moral construction. The idea of “real life” also permeates the depiction of historical characters. The spirit of the army that Kutuzov feels and which dictates strategic decisions to him, in essence, is also a form of communion, merging with the ever-flowing life. His antagonists - Napoleon, Alexander, learned German generals - are incapable of this. Simple, ordinary war heroes - Tushin, Timokhin, Tikhon Shcherbaty, Vaska Denisov - do not strive to make all of humanity happy, because they are deprived of a sense of separateness, why, they are already merged with this world. The antithesis idea revealed above, which permeates the entire huge novel, is already expressed in its title, which is very capacious and polysemantic. The second word of the novel's title denotes a community of people, the whole people, life as a whole, in the world, with people, as opposed to monastic solitude. Therefore, it is incorrect to think that the title of the novel indicates the alternation of military and peaceful, non-military episodes. The above meaning of the word world changes and expands the meaning of the first title word: war is not only a manifestation of militarism, but in general the struggle of people, the life battle of a disconnected humanity, divided into atomic drops. In 1805, with which Tolstoy’s epic opens, the human community remains disunited, fragmented into classes, the noble world is alienated from the national whole. The culmination of this state is the Tilsit Peace, fragile, fraught with a new war. The antithesis of this state is the year 1812, when “the whole people wanted to rush in” on the Borodino field. And then from volumes 3 to 4, the heroes of the novel find themselves on the brink of war and peace, constantly making transitions back and forth. They encounter the real one life to the fullest , with war and peace. Kutuzov says: “Yes, they reproached me a lot... both for the war and for the peace... but everything came on time,” and these concepts are connected in his mouth into a single leading way of life. In the epilogue, the original state returns, again disunity in the upper class and the upper class with the common people. Pierre is outraged by the “shagism, the settlements - they torture the people, they stifle education,” he wants “independence and activity.” Nikolai Rostov will soon be “chopping and strangling everything from the shoulder.” As a result, “everything is too tense and will certainly burst.” By the way, Platon Karataev would not approve of the sentiments of the two surviving heroes, but Andrei Volkonsky would approve. And so his son Nikolenka, born in 1807, reads Plutarch, highly valued by the Decembrists. His future fate is clear. The epilogue of the novel is full of polyphony of different opinions. Unity and inclusion remain a desirable ideal, but with the epilogue Tolstoy shows how difficult the path to it is. According to Sofia Andreevna, Tolstoy said that he loved “people's thought” in “War and Peace”, and “family thought” in “Anna Karenina”. It is impossible to understand the essence of both Tolstoy formulas without comparing these novels. Like Gogol, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, Leskov, Tolstoy considered his age a time when disunity, the disintegration of the common whole, triumphed in the world of people, among people. And his two “thoughts” and two novels are about how to regain lost integrity. In the first novel, paradoxical as it may sound, the world is united by war, a single patriotic impulse against a common enemy, it is against him that individual individuals unite into a whole people. In Anna Karenina, disunity is opposed by the unit of society - the family, the primary form of human unification and inclusion. But the novel shows that in an era when “everything is mixed up,” “everything has turned upside down,” the family, with its short-term, fragile fusion, only increases the difficulties on the path to the desired ideal of human unity. Thus, the disclosure of “folk thought” in “War and Peace” is closely connected and is largely determined by Tolstoy’s answer to the main question - “what is real life?” As for the role of the people and the individual in history, the solution to this issue is especially heavily clogged with Marxist-Leninist literary criticism. Tolstoy, as already mentioned, was often accused of historical fatalism (the view that the outcome of historical events is predetermined). But this is unfair, Tolstoy insisted only that the laws of history are hidden from the individual human mind. His view on this problem is very accurately expressed by the famous quatrain of Tyutchev (1866 - again the time of work on “War and Peace”): “Russia cannot be understood with the mind, nor can it be measured with a common yardstick: She has become special - You can only believe in Russia.” For Marxism, the non-decisive importance of the masses as the engine of history and the inability of the individual to influence history otherwise than by joining the tail of these masses was an immutable law. However, it is difficult to illustrate this “law” with material from military episodes of War and Peace. In his epic, Tolstoy picks up the baton of the historical views of Karamzin and Pushkin. Both of them showed extremely convincingly in their works (Karamzin in “History of the Russian State”) that, in the words of Pushkin, chance is a powerful tool of Providence, i.e. fate. It is through the accidental that the natural and necessary act, and even they are recognized as such only retroactively, after their action. And the bearer of chance turns out to be a person: Napoleon, who turned the destinies of all of Europe, Tushin, who turned the tide of the Battle of Shengraben. That is, to paraphrase a well-known saying, we can say that if Napoleon did not exist, it would be worth inventing him, in much the same way as Tolstoy “invented” his Tushin.
Introduction
The novel “War and Peace” by Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy is considered a historical novel. It describes the real events of the military campaigns of 1805-1807 and the Patriotic War of 1812. It would seem, except battle scenes and discussions about the war should not worry the writer. But central storyline Tolstoy prescribes the family as the basis of all Russian society, the basis of morality and ethics, the basis of human behavior in the course of history. Therefore, the “family thought” in Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” is one of the main ones.
L.N. Tolstoy introduces us to three secular families, which he shows for almost fifteen years, reveals family traditions and the culture of several generations: fathers, children, grandchildren. These are the Rostov, Bolkonsky and Kuragin families. The three families are so different from each other, but the fates of their pupils are so closely intertwined.
Rostov family
One of the most exemplary families of society presented by Tolstoy in the novel is the Rostov family. The origins of family are love, mutual understanding, sensual support, harmony of human relationships. Count and Countess Rostov, sons Nikolai and Peter, daughters Natalya, Vera and niece Sonya. All members of this family form a certain circle of living participation in each other’s destinies. The elder sister Vera can be considered a certain exception; she behaved somewhat colder. “...beautiful Vera smiled contemptuously...” Tolstoy describes her manner of behaving in society; she herself said that she was raised differently and was proud that she had nothing to do with “all sorts of tenderness.”
Natasha has been an eccentric girl since childhood. Childhood love for Boris Drubetsky, adoration for Pierre Bezukhov, passion for Anatoly Kuragin, love for Andrei Bolkonsky - truly sincere feelings, absolutely devoid of self-interest.
The manifestation of true patriotism of the Rostov family confirms and reveals the importance of “family thought” in “War and Peace.” Nikolai Rostov saw himself only as a military man and enlisted in the hussars to go defend the Russian army. Natasha gave up carts for the wounded, leaving behind all her acquired property. The Countess and Count provided their home to shelter the wounded from the French. Petya Rostov goes to war as a boy and dies for his homeland.
Bolkonsky family
In the Bolkonsky family, everything is somewhat different than in the Rostovs. Tolstoy does not say that there was no love here. She was there, but her manifestation did not carry such a tender feeling. The old prince Nikolai Bolkonsky believed: “There are only two sources of human vices: idleness and superstition, and that there are only two virtues: activity and intelligence.”
Everything in their family was subject to strict order - “the order in his way of life was brought to the utmost degree of precision.” He himself taught his daughter, studied mathematics and other sciences with her.
Young Bolkonsky loved his father and respected his opinion, he treated him worthy of a princely son. When leaving for war, he asked his father to leave his future son to be raised, since he knew that his father would do everything with honor and justice.
Princess Marya, Andrei Bolkonsky's sister, obeyed the old prince in everything. She lovingly accepted all her father's strictures and cared for him with zeal. To Andrey’s question: “Is it difficult for you with him?” Marya answered: “Is it possible to judge my father?.. I am so pleased and happy with him!”
All relations in the Bolkonsky family were smooth and calm, everyone minded their own business and knew their place. True patriotism Prince Andrei showed this by giving his own life for the victory of the Russian army. Old Prince before last day he kept notes for the sovereign, followed the progress of the war and believed in the strength of Russia. Princess Marya did not renounce her faith, prayed for her brother and helped people with her entire existence.
Kuragin family
This family is presented by Tolstoy in contrast to the previous two. Prince Vasily Kuragin lived only for profit. He knew who to be friends with, who to invite to visit, who to marry children to in order to get a profitable life. In response to Anna Pavlovna’s remark about his family, Sherer says: “What to do! Lavater would say that I don’t have the lump of parental love.”
The secular beauty Helen is bad at heart, the “prodigal son” Anatole leads an idle life, in revelries and amusements, the eldest, Hippolytus, is called a “fool” by his father. This family is incapable of loving, empathizing, or even caring for each other. Prince Vasily admits: “My children are a burden to my existence.” The ideal of their life is vulgarity, debauchery, opportunism, deception of people who love them. Helene destroys the lives of Pierre Bezukhov, Anatole interferes in the relationship between Natasha and Andrei.
We are not even talking about patriotism here. Prince Vasily himself constantly gossips in the world about Kutuzov, now about Bagration, now about Emperor Alexander, now about Napoleon, without having a constant opinion and adapting to circumstances.
New families in the novel
At the end of the novel “War and Peace,” L.N. Tolstoy creates a situation of mixing of the Bolkonsky, Rostov and Bezukhov families. New strong, loving families connect Natasha Rostova and Pierre, Nikolai Rostov and Marya Bolkonskaya. “Like in every real family, in the Lysogorsk house several completely different worlds lived together, which, each maintaining its own peculiarity and making concessions to one another, merged into one harmonious whole,” says the author. The wedding of Natasha and Pierre took place in the year of the death of Count Rostov - the old family collapsed, a new one was formed. And for Nikolai, marrying Marya was salvation for both the entire Rostov family and himself. Marya, with all her faith and love, preserved family peace of mind and ensured harmony.
Conclusion
After writing an essay on the topic “Family Thought in the Novel “War and Peace”,” I became convinced that family means peace, love, and understanding. And harmony in family relationships can only come from respect for each other.
Work test
The main thought in L.N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace,” along with the people’s thought, is “family thought.” The writer believed that the family is the basis of the entire society, and it reflects the processes that occur in society.
The novel shows heroes who go through a certain path of ideological and spiritual development; through trial and error, they try to find their place in life and realize their purpose. These characters are shown against the backdrop of family relationships. So, the Rostov and Bolkonsky families appear before us. Tolstoy depicted the entire Russian nation from top to bottom in his novel, thereby showing that the top of the nation had become spiritually dead, having lost contact with the people. He shows this process using the example of the family of Prince Vasily Kuragin and his children, who are characterized by the expression of all the negative qualities inherent in people of high society - extreme selfishness, baseness of interests, lack of sincere feelings.
All the heroes of the novel are bright individuals, but the members of the same family have a certain common feature that unites them all.
Thus, the main feature of the Bolkonsky family can be called the desire to follow the laws of reason. None of them, except, perhaps, Princess Marya, is characterized by an open manifestation of their feelings. The image of the head of the family, the old prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky, embodies the best features of the ancient Russian nobility. He is a representative of an ancient aristocratic family, his character bizarrely combines the morals of an imperious nobleman, before whom all the household are in awe, from the servants to his own daughter, an aristocrat proud of his long pedigree, the traits of a man of great intelligence and simple habits. At a time when no one required women to display any special knowledge, he teaches his daughter geometry and algebra, motivating it like this: “And I don’t want you to be like our stupid ladies.” He educated his daughter in order to develop in her the main virtues, which, in his opinion, were “activity and intelligence.”
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His son, Prince Andrei, also embodied the best features of the nobility, the progressive noble youth. Prince Andrei has his own path to understanding real life. And he will go through errors, but his unerring moral sense will help him get rid of false ideals. So, . Napoleon and Speransky turn out to be debunked in his mind, and love for Natasha will enter his life, so unlike all the other ladies of high society, the main features of which, in his opinion and the opinion of his father, are “selfishness, vanity, insignificance in everything” . Natasha will become for him the personification of real life, opposing the falsehood of the world. Her betrayal of him is tantamount to the collapse of an ideal. Just like his father, Prince Andrei is intolerant of simple human weaknesses that his wife, a very ordinary woman, has, a sister who is looking for some special truth from “God’s people,” and many other people whom he encounters in life.
A peculiar exception in the Bolkonsky family is Princess Marya. She lives only for the sake of self-sacrifice, which is elevated to a moral principle that determines her entire life. She is ready to give all of herself to others, suppressing personal desires. Submission to her fate, to all the whims of her domineering father, who loves her in his own way, religiosity is combined in her with a thirst for simple, human happiness. Her humility is the result of a peculiarly understood sense of duty as a daughter who does not have the moral right to judge her father, as she says to Mademoiselle Burien: “I will not allow myself to judge him and would not want others to do this.” But nevertheless, when self-esteem demands, she can show the necessary firmness. This is revealed with particular force when her sense of patriotism, which distinguishes all Bolkonskys, is insulted. However, she can sacrifice her pride if it is necessary to save another person. So, she asks for forgiveness, although she is not guilty of anything, from her companion for herself and the serf servant, on whom her father’s wrath fell.
Another family depicted in the novel is in some way opposed to the Bolkonsky family. This is the Rostov family. If the Bolkonskys strive to follow the arguments of reason, then the Rostovs obey the voice of feelings. Natasha is little guided by the requirements of decency, she is spontaneous, she has many child traits, which is highly valued by the author. He emphasizes many times that Natasha is ugly, unlike Helen Kuragina. For him, it is not the external beauty of a person that is important, but his internal qualities.
The behavior of all members of this family shows high nobility of feelings, kindness, rare generosity, naturalness, closeness to the people, moral purity and integrity. Local nobility, unlike the highest St. Petersburg nobility, that’s right national traditions. It was not for nothing that Natasha, dancing with her uncle after the hunt, “knew how to understand everything that was in Anisya, and in Anisya’s father, and in her aunt, and in her mother, and in every Russian person.”
Tolstoy attaches great importance to family ties and the unity of the whole family. Although the Bolkonsikh clan should unite with the Rostov clan through the marriage of Prince Andrei and Natasha, her mother cannot come to terms with this, cannot accept Andrei into the family, “she wanted to love him like a son, but she felt that he was a stranger and terrible to her Human". Families cannot unite through Natasha and Andrei, but are united through the marriage of Princess Marya to Nikolai Rostov. This marriage is successful, it saves the Rostovs from ruin.
The novel also shows the Kuragin family: Prince Vasily and his three children: the soulless doll Helen, the “dead fool” Ippolit and the “restless fool” Anatole. Prince Vasily is a calculating and cold intriguer and ambitious man who claims the inheritance of Kirila Bezukhov, without having a direct right to do so. He is connected with his children only by blood ties and common interests: they care only about their well-being and position in society.
The daughter of Prince Vasily, Helen, is a typical social beauty with impeccable manners and reputation. She amazes everyone with her beauty, which is described several times as “marble,” that is, cold beauty, devoid of feeling and soul, the beauty of a statue. The only thing that occupies Helen is her salon and social receptions.
The sons of Prince Vasily, in his opinion, are both “fools.” His father managed to place Hippolytus in the diplomatic service, and his fate is considered settled. The brawler and rake Anatole causes a lot of trouble for everyone around him, and, in order to calm him down, Prince Vasily wants to marry him to the rich heiress Princess Marya. This marriage cannot take place due to the fact that Princess Marya does not want to part with her father, and Anatole indulges in his former amusements with renewed vigor.
Thus, people who are not only related by blood, but also spiritually, unite into families. The ancient Bolkonsky family is not interrupted by the death of Prince Andrei; Nikolenka Bolkonsky remains, who will probably continue the tradition moral quest his father and grandfather. Marya Bolkonskaya brings high spirituality to the Rostov family. So, “family thought,” along with “folk thought,” is the main one in L. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace.” Tolstoy's family is studied at turning points in history. Having shown three families most fully in the novel, the writer makes it clear to the reader that the future belongs to such families as the Rostov and Bolkonsky families, who embody sincerity of feelings and high spirituality, the most prominent representatives of which each go through their own path of rapprochement with the people.
“War and Peace” is one of the best works of Russian and world literature. In it, the author historically correctly recreated the life of Russian people in early XIX century. The writer describes in detail the events of 1805-1807 and 1812. Despite the fact that the “family thought” is the main one in the novel “Anna Karenina”, in the epic novel “War and Peace” it also occupies a very important place. Tolstoy saw the beginning of all beginnings in the family. As you know, a person is not born good or bad, but his family and the atmosphere that prevails within it make him so. The author brilliantly outlined many of the characters in the novel, showed their formation and development, which is called the “dialectics of the soul.” Tolstoy, paying great attention to the origins of the formation of a person’s personality, has similarities with Goncharov. The hero of the novel “Oblomov” was not born apathetic and lazy, but life in his Oblomovka, where 300 Zakharovs were ready to fulfill his every desire, made him so.
Following the traditions of realism, the author wanted to show and also compare various families that are typical of their era. In this comparison, the author often uses the technique of antithesis: some families are shown in development, while others are frozen. The latter include the Kuragin family. Tolstoy, showing all its members, be it Helen or Prince Vasily, pays great attention to the portrait, appearance. This is no coincidence: the external beauty of the Kuragins replaces the spiritual. There are many human vices in this family. Thus, the meanness and hypocrisy of Prince Vasily are revealed in his attitude towards the inexperienced Pierre, whom he despises as an illegitimate. As soon as Pierre receives an inheritance from the deceased Count Bezukhov, his opinion about him completely changes, and Prince Vasily begins to see in Pierre an excellent match for his daughter Helen. This turn of events is explained by the low and selfish interests of Prince Vasily and his daughter. Helen, having agreed to a marriage of convenience, reveals her moral baseness. Her relationship with Pierre can hardly be called a family one; the spouses are constantly separated. In addition, Helen ridicules Pierre's desire to have children: she does not want to burden herself with unnecessary worries. Children, in her understanding, are a burden that interferes with life. Tolstoy considered such a low moral decline to be the most terrible thing for a woman. He wrote that the main purpose of a woman is to become a good mother and raise worthy children. The author shows all the uselessness and emptiness of Helen's life. Having failed to fulfill her destiny in this world, she dies. None of the Kuragin family leaves behind heirs.
The complete opposite of the Kuragins is the Bolkonsky family. Here you can feel the author’s desire to show people of honor and duty, highly moral and complex characters.
The father of the family is Prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky, a man of Catherine’s temperament, who places honor and duty above other human values. This is most clearly manifested in the scene of farewell to his son, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who is leaving for the war. The son does not let his father down, does not lose honor. Unlike many adjutants, he does not sit at headquarters, but is on the front line, in the very center of military operations. The author emphasizes his intelligence and nobility. After the death of his wife, Prince Andrey was left with Nikolenka. We can have no doubt that he will become a worthy person and, like his father and grandfather, will not tarnish the honor of the old Bolkonsky family.
The daughter of the old Prince Bolkonsky is Marya, a person of pure soul, pious, patient, kind. The father did not show his feelings for her, since it was not in his rules. Marya understands all the prince’s whims and treats them resignedly, because she knows that her father’s love for her is hidden in the depths of his soul. The author emphasizes in the character of Princess Marya self-sacrifice for the sake of another, a deep understanding of daughterly duty. The old prince, unable to pour out his love, withdraws into himself, sometimes acting cruelly. Princess Marya will not contradict him: the ability to understand another person, to enter into his position - this is one of the main traits of her character. This trait often helps save a family and prevents it from falling apart.
Another antithesis to the Kuragin clan is the Rostov family, showing whom Tolstoy emphasizes such qualities of people as kindness, spiritual openness within the family, hospitality, moral purity, innocence, closeness to people's life. Many people are drawn to the Rostovs, many sympathize with them. Unlike the Bolkonskys, an atmosphere of trust and mutual understanding often reigns within the Rostov family. This may not always be the case in reality, but Tolstoy wanted to idealize openness and show its necessity between all family members. Each member of the Rostov family is an individual.
Nikolai, the eldest son of the Rostovs, is a brave, selfless man, he passionately loves his parents and sisters. Tolstoy notes that Nikolai does not hide from his family his feelings and desires that overwhelm him. Vera, the Rostovs' eldest daughter, is noticeably different from other family members. She grew up an outsider in her family, withdrawn and angry. The old count says that the countess “did something tricky with her.” Showing the Countess, Tolstoy focuses on her trait of selfishness. The Countess thinks exclusively about her family and wants to see her children happy at all costs, even if their happiness is built on the misfortune of other people. Tolstoy showed in her the ideal of a female mother who worries only about her cubs. This is most clearly demonstrated in the scene of the family's departure from Moscow during the fire. Natasha having kind soul and heart, helps the wounded leave Moscow, giving them carts, and leaves all the accumulated wealth and belongings in the city, since this is a gainful business. She does not hesitate to make a choice between her well-being and the lives of other people. The Countess, not without hesitation, agrees to such a sacrifice. Blind maternal instinct shines through here.
At the end of the novel, the author shows us the formation of two families: Nikolai Rostov and Princess Marya Bolkonskaya, Pierre Bezukhov and Natasha Rostova. Both the princess and Natasha, each in their own way, are morally high and noble. They both suffered a lot and finally found their happiness in family life and became the guardians of the family hearth. As Dostoevsky wrote: “Man is not born for happiness and deserves it through suffering.” These two heroines have one thing in common: they will be able to become wonderful mothers, they will be able to raise a worthy generation, which, according to the author, is the main thing in a woman’s life, and Tolstoy, in the name of this, forgives them some of the shortcomings characteristic of ordinary people.
As a result, we see that “family thought” is one of the fundamental ones in the novel. Tolstoy shows not only individuals, but also families, shows the complexity of relationships both within one family and between families.
“War and Peace” is a Russian national epic, which reflected the national character of the Russian people at the moment when their historical fate was being decided. L.N. Tolstoy worked on the novel for almost six years: from 1863 to 1869. From the very beginning of work on the work, the writer’s attention was attracted not only historical events, but also the private, family life of the characters. Tolstoy believed that the family is a unit of the world, in which the spirit of mutual understanding, naturalness and closeness to the people should reign.
The novel “War and Peace” describes the life of several noble families: the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys and the Kuragins.
The Rostov family is an ideal harmonious whole, where the heart prevails over the mind. Love binds all family members. It manifests itself in sensitivity, attention, and closeness. With the Rostovs, everything is sincere, it comes from the heart. Cordiality, hospitality, hospitality reign in this family, and the traditions and customs of Russian life are preserved.
Parents raised their children, giving them all their love. They can understand, forgive and help. For example, when Nikolenka Rostov lost a huge amount of money to Dolokhov, he did not hear a word of reproach from his father and was able to pay off his gambling debt.
The children of this family have absorbed everything best qualities“Rostov breed”. Natasha is the personification of heartfelt sensitivity, poetry, musicality and intuitiveness. She knows how to enjoy life and people like a child.
Life of the heart, honesty, naturalness, moral purity and decency determine their relationships in the family and behavior among people.
Unlike the Rostovs, the Bolkonskys live with their minds, not their hearts. This is an old aristocratic family. In addition to blood ties, the members of this family are also connected by spiritual closeness.
At first glance, the relationships in this family are difficult and devoid of cordiality. However, internally these people are close to each other. They are not inclined to show their feelings.
Old Prince Bolkonsky embodies the best features of a serviceman (nobility, devoted to the one to whom he “sworn allegiance.” The concept of honor and duty of an officer was in the first place for him. He served under Catherine II, participated in Suvorov’s campaigns. He considered intelligence and activity to be the main virtues , and his vices are laziness and idleness. The life of Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky is a continuous activity. He either writes memoirs about past campaigns, or manages the estate. Prince Andrei Bolkonsky greatly respects and honors his father, who was able to instill in him a high concept of honor. road-road honor,” he says to his son. And Prince Andrei fulfills his father’s instructions both during the campaign of 1806, in the Battles of Shengraben and Austerlitz, and during the War of 1812.
Marya Bolkonskaya loves her father and brother very much. She is ready to give all of herself for the sake of her loved ones. Princess Marya completely submits to her father's will. His word is law for her. At first glance, she seems weak and indecisive, but at the right moment she shows strength of will and fortitude.
Both the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys are patriots, their feelings were especially clearly manifested during Patriotic War 1812. They express the people's spirit of war. Prince Nikolai Andreevich dies because his heart could not stand the shame of the retreat of the Russian troops and the surrender of Smolensk. Marya Bolkonskaya rejects the French general's offer of patronage and leaves Bogucharovo. The Rostovs give their carts to the soldiers wounded on the Borodino field and pay the most dearly - with the death of Petya.
Another family is shown in the novel. This is Kuragin. The members of this family appear before us in all their insignificance, vulgarity, callousness, greed, and immorality. They use people to achieve their selfish goals. The family is devoid of spirituality. For Helen and Anatole, the main thing in life is the satisfaction of their base desires. They are completely cut off from people's life, they live in a brilliant but cold world, where all feelings are perverted. During the war, they lead the same salon life, talking about patriotism.
In the epilogue of the novel, two more families are shown. This is the Bezukhov family (Pierre and Natasha), which embodied the author's ideal of a family based on mutual understanding and trust, and the Rostov family - Marya and Nikolai. Marya brought kindness and tenderness, high spirituality to the Rostov family, and Nikolai shows kindness in his relationships with those closest to him.
By showing different families in his novel, Tolstoy wanted to say that the future belongs to families such as the Rostovs, Bezukhovs, and Bolkonskys.