Anatol Kuragin
Son of Prince Vasily, brother of Helen and Hippolyte. Prince Vasily himself looks at his son as a “restless fool” who constantly needs to be rescued from various troubles. A. very handsome, dandy, impudent. He is frankly stupid, not resourceful, but popular in society because “he had both the ability of calm and unchangeable confidence, precious for the world.” A. Dolokhov’s friend, constantly participates in his revelries, looks at life as a constant flow of pleasures and pleasures. He doesn't care about other people, he is selfish. A. treats women with contempt, feeling his superiority. He was used to being liked by everyone without experiencing anything serious in return. A. became interested in Natasha Rostova and tried to take her away. After this incident, the hero was forced to flee Moscow and hide from Prince Andrei, who wanted to challenge the seducer of his bride to a duel.Kuragina Elen
Daughter of Prince Vasily, and then wife of Pierre Bezukhov. A brilliant St. Petersburg beauty with an “unchanging smile”, white full shoulders, glossy hair and a beautiful figure. There was no noticeable coquetry in her, as if she was ashamed “of her undoubtedly and too powerfully and victoriously acting beauty.” E. is unperturbed, giving everyone the right to admire herself, which is why she feels, as it were, a gloss from many other people’s glances. She knows how to be silently dignified in the world, giving the impression of a tactful and intelligent woman, which, combined with beauty, ensures her constant success. Having married Pierre Bezukhov, the heroine reveals to her husband not only limited intelligence, coarseness of thought and vulgarity, but also cynical depravity. After breaking up with Pierre and receiving a large part of the fortune from him by proxy, she lives either in St. Petersburg, then abroad, or returns to her husband. Despite the family breakup, the constant change of lovers, including Dolokhov and Drubetskoy, E. continues to remain one of the most famous and favored ladies of St. Petersburg society. She is making very great progress in the world; living alone, she becomes the mistress of a diplomatic and political salon, gaining a reputation as an intelligent womanAnna Pavlovna Sherer
Maid of honor, close to Empress Maria Feodorovna. Sh. is the owner of a fashionable salon in St. Petersburg, the description of the evening in which opens the novel. A.P. 40 years old, she is artificial, like all the high society. Her attitude towards any person or event depends entirely on the latest political, courtly or secular considerations. She is friends with Prince Vasily. Sh. is “full of animation and impulse”, “being an enthusiast has become her social status" In 1812, her salon shows false patriotism, eating cabbage soup and being fined for speaking French.Boris Drubetskoy
Son of Princess Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskaya. From childhood he was brought up and lived for a long time in the house of the Rostovs, to whom he was a relative. B. and Natasha were in love with each other. Outwardly, he is “a tall, blond young man with regular, delicate features of a calm and handsome face.” Since his youth, B. has dreamed of a military career and allows his mother to humiliate herself in front of her superiors if it helps him. So, Prince Vasily finds him a place in the guard. B. is going to make a brilliant career and makes many useful contacts. After a while he becomes Helen's lover. B. manages to be in the right place in right time, and his career and position are especially firmly established. In 1809 he meets Natasha again and becomes interested in her, even thinking about marrying her. But this would hinder his career. Therefore, B. begins to look for a rich bride. He eventually marries Julie Karagina.Count Rostov
Rostov Ilya Andreevi - count, father of Natasha, Nikolai, Vera and Petya. A very good-natured, generous person who loves life and does not really know how to calculate his money. R. is capable of hosting a reception or a ball better than anyone; he is a hospitable host and an exemplary family man. The count is accustomed to living in grand style, and when his means no longer allow this, he gradually ruins his family, from which he suffers greatly. When leaving Moscow, it is R. who begins to give carts for the wounded. So he deals one of the last blows to the family budget. The death of Petya's son finally broke the count; he comes to life only when he prepares a wedding for Natasha and Pierre.Countess of Rostov
The wife of Count Rostov, “a woman with an oriental type of thin face, about forty-five years old, apparently exhausted by children... The slowness of her movements and speech, resulting from weakness of strength, gave her a significant appearance that inspires respect.” R. creates an atmosphere of love and kindness in his family and is very concerned about the fate of his children. The news of the death of her youngest and beloved son Petya almost drives her crazy. She is accustomed to luxury and fulfillment of the slightest whims, and demands this after the death of her husband.
Natasha Rostova
Daughter of Count and Countess Rostov. She is “black-eyed, with a big mouth, ugly, but alive...”. Distinctive features N. - emotionality and sensitivity. She is not very smart, but she has an amazing ability to read people. She is capable of noble deeds and can forget about her own interests for the sake of other people. So, she calls on her family to take out the wounded on carts, leaving their property behind. N. takes care of his mother with all his dedication after Petya’s death. N. has a very beautiful voice, she is very musical. With her singing, she is able to awaken the best in a person. Tolstoy notes N.'s closeness to the common people. This is one of her best qualities. N. lives in an atmosphere of love and happiness. Changes in her life occur after meeting Prince Andrei. N. becomes his bride, but later becomes interested in Anatoly Kuragin. After a while, N. understands the full force of her guilt before the prince; before his death, he forgives her, she remains with him until his death. N. feels true love for Pierre, they understand each other perfectly, they feel very good together. She becomes his wife and completely devotes herself to the role of wife and mother.
Nikolay Rostov
Son of Count Rostov. “A short, curly-haired young man with an open expression on his face.” The hero is distinguished by “impetuousness and enthusiasm”, he is cheerful, open, friendly and emotional. N. participates in military campaigns and the Patriotic War of 1812. In the Battle of Shengraben, N. goes on the attack at first very bravely, but then is wounded in the arm. This wound causes him to panic, he thinks about how he, “whom everyone loves so much,” could die. This event somewhat diminishes the image of the hero. After N. becomes a brave officer, a real hussar, remaining faithful to duty. N. had a long affair with Sonya, and he was going to do a noble deed by marrying a dowry woman against the will of his mother. But he receives a letter from Sonya in which she says that she is letting him go. After the death of his father, N. takes care of the family, resigning. She and Marya Bolkonskaya fall in love and get married.
Petya Rostov
The youngest son of the Rostovs. At the beginning of the novel we see P. as a small boy. He is a typical representative of his family, kind, cheerful, musical. He wants to imitate his older brother and follow the military line in life. In 1812, he was full of patriotic impulses and joined the army. During the war, the young man accidentally ends up with an assignment in Denisov’s detachment, where he remains, wanting to take part in the real deal. He accidentally dies, having shown his best in relation to his comrades the day before. best qualities. His death is the greatest tragedy for his family.
Pierre Bezukhov
The illegitimate son of the wealthy and socially famous Count Bezukhov. He appears almost before his father’s death and becomes the heir to the entire fortune. P. is very different from people belonging to high society, even in appearance. He is a “massive, fat young man with a cropped head and glasses” with an “observant and natural” look. He was brought up abroad and received a good education there. P. is smart, has a tendency to philosophical reasoning, he has a very kind and gentle disposition, he is completely impractical. Andrei Bolkonsky loves him very much, considers him his friend and the only “living person” among all the high society.In pursuit of money, P. is entangled by the Kuragin family and, taking advantage of P.’s naivety, they force him to marry Helen. He is unhappy with her, understands that she is a terrible woman and breaks off relations with her.
At the beginning of the novel we see that P. considers Napoleon his idol. Afterwards he becomes terribly disappointed in him and even wants to kill him. P. is characterized by a search for the meaning of life. This is how he becomes interested in Freemasonry, but when he sees their falsehood, he leaves from there. P. tries to reorganize the lives of his peasants, but he fails due to his gullibility and impracticality. P. participates in the war, not yet fully understanding what it is. Left in burning Moscow to kill Napoleon, P. is captured. He experiences great moral torment during the execution of prisoners. There P. meets with the exponent of “people's thought” Platon Karataev. Thanks to this meeting, P. learned to see “the eternal and infinite in everything.” Pierre loves Natasha Rostova, but she is married to his friend. After the death of Andrei Bolkonsky and the revival of Natasha to life, best heroes Tolstoy is getting married. In the epilogue we see P. a happy husband and father. In a dispute with Nikolai Rostov, P. expresses his beliefs, and we understand that before us is a future Decembrist.
Sonya
She is “a thin, petite brunette with a soft look, shaded by long eyelashes, a thick black braid that wrapped around her head twice, and a yellowish tint to the skin on her face and especially on her bare, thin but graceful arms and neck. With the smoothness of her movements, the softness and flexibility of her small limbs, and her somewhat cunning and restrained manner, she resembles a beautiful, but not yet formed kitten, which will be a lovely cat.”S. is the niece of the old Count Rostov, and is being brought up in this house. Since childhood, the heroine has been in love with Nikolai Rostov, and is very friendly with Natasha. S. is reserved, silent, reasonable, and capable of sacrificing herself. The feeling for Nikolai is so strong that she wants to “love always, and let him be free.” Because of this, she refuses Dolokhov, who wanted to marry her. S. and Nikolai are bound by word, he promised to take her as his wife. But the old Countess of Rostov is against this wedding, he reproaches S... She, not wanting to pay with ingratitude, refuses the marriage, releasing Nikolai from his promise. After the death of the old count, he lives with the countess in the care of Nicholas.
Dolokhov
“Dolokhov was a man of average height, curly hair and with light blue eyes. He was about twenty-five years old. He did not wear a mustache, like all infantry officers, and his mouth, the most striking feature of his face, was completely visible. The lines of this mouth were remarkably finely curved. In the middle, the upper lip energetically dropped onto the strong lower lip like a sharp wedge, and something like two smiles constantly formed in the corners, one on each side; and all together, and especially in combination with a firm, insolent, intelligent look, made an impression such that it was impossible not to notice this face.” This hero is not rich, but he knows how to position himself in such a way that everyone around him respects and fears him. He loves to have fun, and in a rather strange and sometimes cruel way. For one case of bullying a policeman, D. was demoted to soldier. But during the hostilities he regained his rank of officer. He is a smart, brave and cold-blooded person. He is not afraid of death, he is reputed an evil person, hides his tender love for his mother. In fact, D. does not want to know anyone except those he really loves. He divides people into harmful and useful, sees mostly harmful people around him and is ready to get rid of them if they suddenly get in his way. D. was Helen's lover, he provokes Pierre into a duel, dishonestly beats Nikolai Rostov at cards, and helps Anatole arrange an escape with Natasha.Nikolai Bolkonsky
The prince, general-in-chief, was dismissed from service under Paul I and exiled to the village. He is the father of Andrei Bolkonsky and Princess Marya. He is a very pedantic, dry, active person who cannot stand idleness, stupidity, or superstition. In his house, everything is scheduled according to the clock; he has to be on the job all the time. The old prince did not make the slightest changes to the order and schedule.ON THE. short in stature, “in a powdered wig... with small dry hands and gray drooping eyebrows, sometimes, as he frowned, obscuring the brilliance of intelligent and seemingly young sparkling eyes.” The prince is very restrained in expressing his feelings. He constantly torments his daughter with nagging, although in fact he loves her very much. ON THE. a proud, intelligent person, constantly concerned about preserving family honor and dignity. He instilled in his son a sense of pride, honesty, duty, and patriotism. Despite his withdrawal from public life, the prince is constantly interested in political and military events taking place in Russia. Only before his death does he lose sight of the scale of the tragedy that happened to his homeland.
Andrey Bolkonsky
The son of Prince Bolkonsky, the brother of Princess Marya. At the beginning of the novel we see B. as an intelligent, proud, but rather arrogant person. He despises people of high society, is unhappy in his marriage and does not respect his pretty wife. B. is very reserved, well educated, and has a strong will. This hero is experiencing great spiritual changes. First we see that his idol is Napoleon, whom he considers a great man. B. ends up in a war and is sent to the active army. There he fights along with all the soldiers, showing great courage, composure, and prudence. Participates in the Battle of Shengraben. B. was seriously wounded in the Battle of Austerlitz. This moment is extremely important, because it was then that the spiritual rebirth of the hero began. Lying motionless and seeing the calm and eternal sky of Austerlitz above him, B. understands all the pettiness and stupidity of everything that is happening in the war. He realized that in fact there should be completely different values in life than those that he had until now. All exploits and glory do not matter. There is only this vast and eternal sky. In the same episode, B. sees Napoleon and understands the insignificance of this man. B. returns home, where everyone thought he was dead. His wife dies in childbirth, but the child survives. The hero is shocked by the death of his wife and feels guilty towards her. He decides not to serve anymore, settles in Bogucharovo, takes care of the household, raising his son, and reads a lot of books. During a trip to St. Petersburg, B. meets Natasha Rostova for the second time. It awakens in him deep feeling, the heroes decide to get married. B.'s father does not agree with his son's choice, they postpone the wedding for a year, the hero goes abroad. After his bride's betrayal, he returns to the army under the leadership of Kutuzov. During the Battle of Borodino, he was mortally wounded. By chance, he leaves Moscow in the Rostov convoy. Before his death, he forgives Natasha and understands the true meaning of love.
Lisa Bolkonskaya
Prince Andrei's wife. She is the darling of the whole world, an attractive young woman whom everyone calls “the little princess.” “Her pretty upper lip, with a slightly blackened mustache, was short in teeth, but the more sweetly it opened and the more sweetly it sometimes stretched out and fell onto the lower one. As is always the case with quite attractive women, her flaw—short lips and half-open mouth—seemed special to her, her actual beauty. It was fun for everyone to look at this pretty expectant mother, full of health and vivacity, who endured her situation so easily.” L. was everyone’s favorite thanks to her constant liveliness and courtesy of a society woman; she could not imagine her life without high society. But Prince Andrei did not love his wife and felt unhappy in his marriage. L. does not understand her husband, his aspirations and ideals. After Andrei leaves for the war, L. lives in the Bald Mountains with the old Prince Bolkonsky, for whom he feels fear and hostility. L. has a presentiment of his imminent death and actually dies during childbirth.Princess Marya
D the daughter of old Prince Bolkonsky and the sister of Andrei Bolkonsky. M. is ugly, sickly, but her whole face is transformed by beautiful eyes: “... the princess’s eyes, large, deep and radiant (as if rays of warm light sometimes came out of them in sheaves), were so beautiful that very often, despite the ugliness of her whole face , these eyes became more attractive than beauty." Princess M. is distinguished by her great religiosity. She often hosts all kinds of pilgrims and wanderers. She has no close friends, she lives under the yoke of her father, whom she loves but is incredibly afraid of. Old Prince Bolkonsky had a bad character, M. was absolutely overwhelmed by him and did not believe in her personal happiness at all. She gives all her love to her father, brother Andrei and his son, trying to replace little Nikolenka deceased mother. M.'s life changes after meeting Nikolai Rostov. It was he who saw all the wealth and beauty of her soul. They get married, M. becomes a devoted wife, completely sharing all the views of her husband.Kutuzov
A real historical figure, commander-in-chief of the Russian army. For Tolstoy he is ideal historical figure and the ideal of man. “He will listen to everything, remember everything, put everything in its place, will not interfere with anything useful and will not allow anything harmful. He understands that there is something stronger and more significant than his will - this is the inevitable course of events, and he knows how to see them, knows how to understand their meaning and, in view of this meaning, knows how to renounce participation in these events, from his personal will directed to something else." K. knew that “the fate of the battle is decided not by the orders of the commander-in-chief, not by the place where the troops stand, not by the number of guns and killed people, but by that elusive force called the spirit of the army, and he followed this force and led it, as far as it was in his power." K. blends in with the people, he is always modest and simple. His behavior is natural; the author constantly emphasizes his heaviness and senile weakness. K. is the exponent of folk wisdom in the novel. His strength lies in the fact that he understands and knows well what worries the people, and acts in accordance with it. K. dies when he has fulfilled his duty. The enemy has been pushed beyond the borders of Russia, more than that folk hero nothing to do.Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, with his pure Russian pen, gave life to a whole world of characters in the novel “War and Peace.” His fictional characters, who are intertwined into whole noble families or family ties between families, show the modern reader a real reflection of those people who lived in the times described by the author. One of the greatest books of world significance, “War and Peace,” with the confidence of a professional historian, but at the same time, as if in a mirror, presents to the whole world that Russian spirit, those characters of secular society, those historical events, which were invariably present at the end of the 18th century early XIX centuries.
And against the backdrop of these events, it is shown in all its power and diversity.
L.N. Tolstoy and the heroes of the novel “War and Peace” experience the events of the past nineteenth century, but Lev Nikolaevich begins to describe the events of 1805. The coming war with the French, the growing greatness of Napoleon decisively approaching the whole world, turmoil in Moscow social circles and demonstrable calm in St. Petersburg secular society- all this can be called a kind of background against which, like a brilliant artist, the author drew his characters. There are quite a lot of heroes - about 550 or 600. There are main and central figures, and there are others or just mentioned ones. In total, the heroes of War and Peace can be divided into three groups: central, secondary and mentioned characters. Among all of them, there are both fictional characters, prototypes of people who surrounded the writer at that time, and real historical figures. Let's consider the main characters of the novel.
Quotes from the novel “War and Peace”
- ... I often think how unfairly the happiness of life is sometimes distributed.
A person cannot own anything while he is afraid of death. And whoever is not afraid of her, everything belongs to him.
Until now, thank God, I have been a friend of my children and enjoy their complete trust,” said the countess, repeating the misconception of many parents who believe that their children have no secrets from them.
Everything, from napkins to silver, earthenware and crystal, bore that special imprint of novelty that happens in the household of young spouses.
If everyone fought only according to their convictions, there would be no war.
Being an enthusiast became her social position, and sometimes, when she didn’t even want to, she, in order not to deceive the expectations of people who knew her, became an enthusiast.
Everything, to love everyone, to always sacrifice oneself for love, meant not loving anyone, meant not living this earthly life.
Never, never marry, my friend; Here's my advice to you: don't get married until you tell yourself that you did everything you could, and until you stop loving the woman you chose, until you see her clearly; otherwise you will make a cruel and irreparable mistake. Marry an old man who is worthless...
The central figures of the novel "War and Peace"
Rostov - counts and countesses
Rostov Ilya Andreevich
Count, father of four children: Natasha, Vera, Nikolai and Petya. A very kind and generous person who loved life very much. His exorbitant generosity ultimately led him to wastefulness. Loving husband and father. A very good organizer of various balls and receptions. However, his life on a grand scale, and selfless assistance to the wounded during the war with the French and the departure of the Russians from Moscow, dealt fatal blows to his condition. His conscience constantly tormented him because of the impending poverty of his family, but he could not help himself. After the death of his youngest son Petya, the count was broken, but nevertheless revived during the preparations for the wedding of Natasha and Pierre Bezukhov. Literally a few months pass after the Bezukhovs’ wedding when Count Rostov dies.
Rostova Natalya (wife of Ilya Andreevich Rostov)
The wife of Count Rostov and the mother of four children, this woman, aged forty-five, had oriental features. The concentration of slowness and sedateness in her was regarded by those around her as solidity and the high importance of her personality for the family. But the real reason for her mannerisms probably lies in her exhausted and weak physical condition from giving birth and raising four children. She loves her family and children very much, so the news of the death of her youngest son Petya almost drove her crazy. Just like Ilya Andreevich, Countess Rostova was very fond of luxury and the fulfillment of any of her orders.
Leo Tolstoy and the heroes of the novel “War and Peace” in Countess Rostova helped reveal the prototype of the author’s grandmother, Pelageya Nikolaevna Tolstoy.
Rostov Nikolay
Son of Count Rostov Ilya Andreevich. A loving brother and son who honors his family while also loving to serve Russian army, which is very significant and important for his dignity. Even in his fellow soldiers, he often saw his second family. Even though there was for a long time in love with his cousin Sonya, yet at the end of the novel he marries Princess Marya Bolkonskaya. A very energetic young man, with curly hair and an “open expression.” His patriotism and love for the Emperor of Russia never dried up. Having gone through many hardships of war, he becomes a brave and courageous hussar. After the death of Father Ilya Andreevich, Nikolai retires in order to improve the family’s financial affairs, pay off debts and, finally, become good husband for Marya Bolkonskaya.
Introduced to Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich as a prototype of his father.
Rostova Natasha
Daughter of Count and Countess Rostov. A very energetic and emotional girl, considered ugly, but lively and attractive, she is not very smart, but intuitive, because she knew how to perfectly “guess people,” their mood and some character traits. Very impulsive towards nobility and self-sacrifice. She sings and dances very beautifully, which at that time was an important characteristic for a girl from secular society. Natasha’s most important quality, which Leo Tolstoy, like his heroes, repeatedly emphasize in the novel “War and Peace” is her closeness to the ordinary Russian people. And she herself completely absorbed the Russianness of culture and the strength of the spirit of the nation. However, this girl lives in her illusion of goodness, happiness and love, which, after some time, brings Natasha into reality. It is these blows of fate and her heartfelt experiences that make Natasha Rostova an adult and ultimately give her a mature true love to Pierre Bezukhov. The story of the rebirth of her soul deserves special respect, how Natasha began to attend church after succumbing to the temptation of a deceitful seducer. If you are interested in Tolstoy's works, which take a deeper look at the Christian heritage of our people, then you need to read about how he fought temptation.
A collective prototype of the writer’s daughter-in-law Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskaya, as well as her sister, Lev Nikolaevich’s wife, Sofia Andreevna.
Rostova Vera
Daughter of Count and Countess Rostov. She was famous for her strict disposition and inappropriate, albeit fair, remarks in society. It is unknown why, but her mother did not really love her and Vera felt this acutely, apparently, which is why she often went against everyone around her. Later she became the wife of Boris Drubetsky.
She is the prototype of Tolstoy’s sister Sophia, the wife of Lev Nikolaevich, whose name was Elizaveta Bers.
Rostov Peter
Just a boy, the son of Count and Countess Rostov. Growing up, Petya, as a young man, was eager to go to war, and in such a way that his parents could not restrain him at all. Having finally escaped from parental care and joined Denisov’s hussar regiment. Petya dies in the first battle, without having had time to fight. His death greatly affected his family.
Sonya
The miniature, nice girl Sonya was the niece of Count Rostov and lived all her life under his roof. Her long-term love for Nikolai Rostov became fatal for her, because she never managed to unite with him in marriage. In addition, the old count Natalya Rostova was very against their marriage, because they were cousins. Sonya acts nobly, refusing Dolokhov and agreeing to love only Nikolai for the rest of her life, while freeing him from his promise to marry her. She lives the rest of her life under the old countess in the care of Nikolai Rostov.
The prototype of this seemingly insignificant character was Lev Nikolaevich’s second cousin, Tatyana Aleksandrovna Ergolskaya.
Bolkonsky - princes and princesses
Bolkonsky Nikolai Andreevich
The father of the main character, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. In the past, the current general-in-chief, in the present, a prince who earned himself the nickname “Prussian king” in Russian secular society. Socially active, strict like a father, tough, pedantic, but wise master of his estate. Outwardly, he was a thin old man in a powdered white wig, thick eyebrows hanging over penetrating and intelligent eyes. He doesn’t like to show feelings even to his beloved son and daughter. He constantly torments his daughter Marya with nagging and sharp words. Sitting on his estate, Prince Nikolai is constantly on the alert for events taking place in Russia, and only before his death does he lose a full understanding of the scale of the tragedy of the Russian war with Napoleon.
The prototype of Prince Nikolai Andreevich was the writer’s grandfather Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky.
Bolkonsky Andrey
Prince, son of Nikolai Andreevich. He is ambitious, just like his father, restrained in the manifestation of sensual impulses, but loves his father and sister very much. Married to the “little princess” Lisa. Made a good one military career. He philosophizes a lot about life, meaning and the state of his spirit. From which it is clear that he is in some kind of constant search. After the death of his wife, in Natasha Rostova he saw hope for himself, a real girl, and not a fake one as in secular society, and some light of future happiness, so he was in love with her. Having proposed to Natasha, he was forced to go abroad for treatment, which served as a real test for both of their feelings. As a result, their wedding fell through. Prince Andrei went to war with Napoleon and was seriously wounded, after which he did not survive and died from a serious wound. Natasha devotedly looked after him until the end of his death.
Bolkonskaya Marya
Daughter of Prince Nikolai and sister of Andrei Bolkonsky. A very meek girl, not beautiful, but kind-hearted and very rich, like a bride. Her inspiration and devotion to religion serves as an example of good morals and meekness to many. She unforgettably loves her father, who often mocked her with his ridicule, reproaches and injections. And he also loves his brother, Prince Andrei. She did not immediately accept Natasha Rostova as her future daughter-in-law, because she seemed too frivolous for her brother Andrei. After all the hardships she has experienced, she marries Nikolai Rostov.
The prototype of Marya is the mother of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy - Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya.
Bezukhovs - counts and countesses
Bezukhov Pierre (Peter Kirillovich)
One of the main characters who deserves close attention and the most positive assessment. This character has experienced a lot of emotional trauma and pain, possessing a kind and highly noble disposition. Tolstoy and the heroes of the novel “War and Peace” very often express their love and acceptance of Pierre Bezukhov as a man of very high morals, complacent and a man of a philosophical mind. Lev Nikolaevich loves his hero, Pierre, very much. As a friend of Andrei Bolkonsky, the young Count Pierre Bezukhov is very loyal and responsive. Despite the various intrigues weaving under his nose, Pierre did not become embittered and did not lose his good nature towards people. And having married Natalya Rostova, he finally found the grace and happiness that he so lacked in his first wife, Helen. At the end of the novel, his desire to change the political foundations in Russia can be traced, and from afar one can even guess his Decembrist sentiments.
Character prototypes
Most of the heroes of such a complex novel in their structure always reflect some people who one way or another met on the path of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.
The writer successfully created a whole panorama of the epic history of the events of that time and the private lives of secular people. In addition, the author managed to very brightly paint the psychological traits and characters of his characters so that he can learn worldly wisdom and modern man.
M. M. Blinkina
AGE OF CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL "WAR AND PEACE"
(Izvestia AN. Series of literature and language. - T. 57. - No. 1. - M., 1998. - P. 18-27)
1. INTRODUCTION
The main goal of this work is the mathematical modeling of certain aspects of plot development and the establishment of relationships between real and novel time, or more precisely, between the real and novel ages of the characters (and, in this case, the connection will be predictable and linear).
The very concept of “age” certainly has several aspects. Firstly, the age of a literary character is determined by novel time, which often does not coincide with real time. Secondly, numerals in the designation of age, in addition to their main (actually numerical) meaning, often have a number of additional meanings, that is, they carry an independent semantic load. They can, for example, contain a positive or negative assessment of the hero, reflect his individual characteristics, or introduce an ironic shade into the story.
Sections 2-6 describe how Leo Tolstoy changes the age characteristics of the heroes of War and Peace depending on their function in the novel, how young they are, what gender they are, and also on some other factors. individual characteristics.
Section 7 proposes a mathematical model that reflects the features of the “aging” of Tolstoy’s heroes.
2. AGE PARADOXES: TEXT ANALYSIS
Reading Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace", one cannot help but pay attention to some strange inconsistencies in the age characteristics of his characters. Consider, for example, the Rostov family. It's August 1805 - and we meet Natasha for the first time:... ran into the room thirteen year old girl, wrapping something in her muslin skirt...
In the same August 1805, we meet all the other children from this family, in particular, the older sister Vera: The countess's eldest daughter was four years older than my sister and behaved like a big girl.
Thus, in August 1805 Vera seventeen years. Now fast forward to December 1806: There was faith twenty years old beautiful girl... Natasha, half young lady, half girl...
We see that over the past year and four months Vera has managed to grow by three years. She was seventeen, and now she is neither eighteen nor nineteen; she's twenty at once. Natasha’s age in this fragment is given metaphorically, and not by number, which, as it turns out, is also not without reason.
Exactly three more years will pass before we receive the last message about the ages of these two sisters:
Natasha was sixteen years, and it was 1809, the same year that she and Boris counted on her fingers four years ago, after she kissed him.
So, over these four years, Natasha has grown by three, as, indeed, was expected. Instead of seventeen or even eighteen, she is now sixteen. And there won't be any more. This is the last mention of her age. Meanwhile, what happens to her unfortunate older sister?
I had faith twenty four years old, she went everywhere, and, despite the fact that she was undoubtedly good and sensible, until now no one had ever proposed to her.
As we can see, over the past three years, Vera has grown by four. If we count from the very beginning, that is, from August 1805, it turns out that in just over four years Vera grew by seven years. During this time period, the age difference between Natasha and Vera doubled. Vera is now not four, but eight years older than her sister.
This was an example of how the ages of two characters change relative to each other. Now let's look at a hero who at some point in time has different ages for different characters. This hero is Boris Drubetskoy. His age is never stated directly, so we will try to calculate it indirectly. On the one hand, we know that Boris is the same age as Nikolai Rostov: Two young men, a student and an officer, friends since childhood, were one year old ...
Nicholas was nineteen or twenty years old in January 1806:
How strange it was for the countess that her son, who was barely noticeable with his tiny limbs, was moving inside her twenty years ago, now a courageous warrior...
It follows that in August 1805 Boris was nineteen or twenty years old. Now let’s estimate his age from Pierre’s perspective. At the beginning of the novel, Pierre is twenty years old: Pierre from the age of ten was sent abroad with the tutor-abbot, where he stayed up to twenty years of age .
On the other hand, we know that Pierre left Boris fourteen year old boy and definitely didn’t remember him.
Thus, Boris is four years older than Pierre and at the beginning of the novel he is twenty-four years old, that is, he is twenty-four years old for Pierre, while for Nikolai he is still only twenty.
And finally, another, completely funny example: the age of Nikolenka Bolkonsky. In July 1805, his future mother appears before us: ... little princess Volkonskaya, who got married last winter and now did not go out into the big world because of her pregnancy... waddled around the table with small, quick steps....
From universal human considerations, it is clear that Nikolenka should be born in the fall of 1805: but, contrary to everyday logic, this does not happen, he is born March 19, 1806 It is clear that such a character will have problems with age until the end of his novel life. So in 1811 he will be six years old, and in 1820 - fifteen.
How can such discrepancies be explained? Maybe the exact age of his characters is not important for Tolstoy? On the contrary, Tolstoy has a passion for numbers and, with amazing accuracy, sets the ages of even the most insignificant heroes. So Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova exclaims: Fifty eight years old lived in the world...: No, life is not over at thirty-one, - says Prince Andrey.
Tolstoy has numbers everywhere, and exact, fractional numbers. Age in War and Peace is undoubtedly functional. No wonder Dolokhov, beating Nikolai at cards, I decided to continue the game until this entry increased to forty-three thousand. He chose this number because forty-three was the sum of his years added up with Sonya's years .
Thus, all the age discrepancies described above, and there are about thirty of them in the novel, are intentional. What are they due to?
Before starting to answer this question, I note that on average, over the course of the novel’s time, Tolstoy makes each of his characters a year older than they should be (this is shown by calculations that will be discussed later). Usually, the hero of a classic novel will always be twenty-one years old instead of twenty-one years and eleven months, and on average, therefore, such a hero turns out to be six months younger than his years.
However, even from the above examples it is already clear, firstly, that the author “ages” and “youngens” his heroes unequally, and secondly, that this does not happen randomly, but in a systemic, programmed way. How exactly?
From the very beginning, it becomes obvious that positive and negative characters age differently and disproportionately. (“Positive and negative” is, of course, a relative concept, but in Tolstoy, in most cases, the polarity of a character is defined almost unambiguously. The author of “War and Peace” is surprisingly frank in his likes and dislikes). As shown above, Natasha matures more slowly than expected, while Vera, on the contrary, grows up faster. Boris, as Nikolai's friend and friend of the Rostov family, appears to be twenty years old; In the role of Pierre's social acquaintance and Julie Karagina's future husband, he simultaneously turns out to be much older. The ages of the heroes seem to have been given a certain loose order, or rather, an anti-order. There is a feeling that the heroes are being “fined” by increasing their age. Tolstoy seems to punish his heroes with disproportionate aging.
There are, however, characters in the novel who grow older strictly in accordance with the years they have lived. Sonya, for example, being, in fact, neither a positive nor a negative heroine, but completely neutral and colorless, Sonya, who always studied well and remembered everything, grows up exceptionally neatly. The whole confusion of ages that takes place in the Rostov family does not affect her at all. In 1805 she fifteen year old girl , and in 1806 - sixteen year old girl in all the beauty of a newly bloomed flower. It is her age that the calculating Dolokhov wins against Rostov at cards, adding to his own. But Sonya is rather an exception.
In general, characters of “different polarities” grow up in different ways. Moreover, the extremely saturated space of age is divided between positive and negative heroes. Natasha and Sonya are mentioned under the age of sixteen. After the age of sixteen - Vera and Julie Karagina. Pierre, Nikolai and Petya Rostov, Nikolenka Bolkonsky are no more than twenty. Boris, Dolokhov, and the “ambiguous” Prince Andrei are strictly over twenty.
The question is not how old the hero is, the question is what age is recorded in the novel. Natasha is not supposed to be over sixteen; Marya is inadmissible for positive heroine old, so not a word is said about her age; Helen, on the other hand, is defiantly young for a negative heroine, therefore we do not know how old she is.
The novel sets a boundary after which only negative heroes exist; border, crossing which, obviously positive hero simply ceases to exist in the space of age. In a completely symmetrical manner, the negative hero walks through the novel without age until he passes this border. Natasha loses age, reaching sixteen years old. Julie Karagina, on the contrary, is gaining age, being no longer in her first youth:
Julie was twenty seven years old. After the death of her brothers she became very rich. She was now completely ugly; but I thought that she was not only just as good, but even much more attractive now than she was before... A man who ten years ago would have been afraid to go every day to the house where she was seventeen year old lady, so as not to compromise her and not to tie himself down, he now boldly went to her every day and communicated with her not as a young lady-bride, but as an acquaintance who does not have a gender.
The problem, however, is that Julie was never seventeen in this novel. In 1805, when this chubby young lady guest appears in the Rostovs' house, nothing is said about her age, for if Tolstoy had honestly given her seventeen years old, then now, in 1811, she would not have been twenty-seven, but only twenty-three, which is also, of course, is no longer the age for a positive heroine, but still not yet the time for the final transition to asexual beings. In general, negative heroes, as a rule, are not entitled to childhood and adolescence. This leads to funny misunderstandings:
Well, what, Lelya? - Prince Vasily turned to his daughter with that careless tone of habitual tenderness, which is acquired by parents who caress their children from childhood, but which Prince Violence only guessed through imitation of other parents.
Or maybe Prince Vasily is not to blame? Perhaps his purely negative children had no childhood at all. And it’s not for nothing that Pierre, before proposing to Helene, convinces himself that he knew her as a child. Was she even a child?
If we move from the lyrics to numbers, it turns out that in the novel there are positive characters aged 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 15, 16, 20, as well as 40, 45, 50, 58. Negative characters are 17, 20, 24, 25, 27. That is, positive heroes from early youth immediately end up in venerable old age. U negative heroes old age, of course, also happens, but the fraction of age in their old age is less than in positive ones. So, positive Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova says: Fifty eight years old lived in the world... The negative Prince Vasily evaluates himself with less accuracy: To me sixth decade, My friend...
In general, accurate calculations show that the aging coefficient in the “positive-negative” space is equal to -2.247, i.e. all other things being equal, the positive hero will be two years and three months younger than the negative one.
Let's now talk about two heroines who are emphatically ageless. These heroines are Helen and Princess Marya, which in itself is not accidental.
Helen symbolizes eternal beauty and youth in the novel. Her rightness, her strength in this inexhaustible youth. Time seems to have no power over her: Elena Vasilievna, that’s how it is at fifty years old she will be a beauty. Pierre, persuading himself to marry Helen, also cites her age as her main advantage. He remembers knowing her as a child. He says to himself: No, she's beautiful young woman! She's not bad woman!
Helen is the eternal bride. With a living husband, she chooses a new groom with charming spontaneity, one of the applicants being young and the other old. Helen dies mysterious circumstances, preferring an old admirer to a young one, that is: as if she herself chooses old age and death, giving up her privilege of eternal youth, and dissolving into oblivion.
Princess Marya also has no age, and it is not possible to calculate it from the final version of the novel. In fact, in 1811, she old dry princess, envies Natasha's beauty and youth. In the finale, in 1820, Marya is a happy young mother, she is expecting her fourth child, and her life, one might say, is just beginning, although at that moment she is no less than thirty-five years old, an age not very suitable for a lyrical heroine; That’s why she lives without age in this novel, thoroughly saturated with numbers.
It is curious that in the first edition of War and Peace, which differs from the final version in its extreme specificity and “ultimate directness,” the uncertainty in the images of Helen and Marya is partly removed. There in 1805 Marya was twenty years old: the old prince himself was engaged in raising his daughter and, in order to develop both main virtues in her, up to twenty years gave her lessons in algebra and geometry and distributed her whole life in continuous studies.
And Helen, too, dies there, not from excess of youth...
4. FIRST COMPLETED VERSION OF THE NOVEL
The first version of War and Peace helps to solve many of the mysteries posed in the final version of the novel. What is very vaguely read in the final version appears in the early version with a clarity that is amazing for a novel narrative. The space of age here is not yet imbued with the romantic understatement that the modern reader encounters. Deliberate precision borders on banality. It is not surprising that in the final edition of the novel Tolstoy refuses such meticulousness. Mentions of age become one and a half times less. There are a lot of interesting details behind the scenes that would be worth mentioning here.
Princess Marya, as already noted, at the beginning of the novel twenty years. Age Helen is not specified, but it is obviously limited from above by the age of her older brother. Moreover, in 1811 Anatoly was 28 years. He was in full splendor of his strength and beauty.
Thus, at the beginning of the novel, Anatole is twenty-two years old, his friend Dolokhov is twenty-five, and Pierre is twenty. Helen no more than twenty-one. Moreover, she probably no more than nineteen, because according to the unwritten laws of that time, she should not be older than Pierre. (The fact, for example, that Julie is older than Boris is especially emphasized.)
So, the scene in which socialite Helen tries to lead young Natasha Rostova astray looks completely comical, considering that Natasha at this moment is twenty years old, and Helen is twenty-four, that is, they actually belong to the same family. age category.
The early version also clarifies the age Boris: Hélène called him mon hage and treated him like a child... Sometimes in rare moments Pierre thought that this patronizing friendship was for an imaginary child who was 23 years old there was something unnatural.
These considerations relate to the autumn of 1809, that is, at the beginning of the novel Boris is nineteen years old, and his future bride Julie - twenty-one years old, if you count her age back from the moment of their wedding. Initially, Julie, apparently, was assigned the role of a more sympathetic heroine in the novel: A tall, plump, proud-looking lady with pretty daughter, rustling with dresses, entered the living room.
This pretty daughter is Julie Karagina, who was initially thought to be younger and more attractive. However, in 1811, Julie Akhrosimova (that’s her original name) will already be the “asexual” creature that we know her in the final version.
In the first version of the novel, Dolokhov wins from Nikolai not forty-three, but only forty-two thousand.
The ages of Natasha and Sonya are given several times. So, at the beginning of 1806 Natasha says: To me fifteenth year, my grandmother got married in my time.
In the summer of 1807, Natasha's age is mentioned twice: Natasha has passed 15 years and she has become very prettier this summer.
“And you sing,” said Prince Andrei. He said these simple words, looking straight into this beautiful eyes 15 year old girls.
This number of age entries allows us to establish that Natasha was born in the fall of 1791. Thus, at her first ball she shines at eighteen, and not at all at sixteen.
To make Natasha younger, Tolstoy also changes Sonya’s age. So, at the end of 1810 Sonya was already twentieth year. She had already stopped getting prettier, she didn’t promise anything more than what was in her, but that was enough.
In fact, Natasha is twenty years old at this moment, and Sonya is at least a year and a half older.
Unlike many other heroes, Prince Andrei does not have an exact age in the first version of the novel. Instead of the textbook thirty-one years old, he about thirty years old.
Of course, the accuracy and directness of the early version of the novel cannot serve as an “official clue” to age shifts, since we have no right to assume that Natasha and Pierre in the first edition are the same characters as Natasha and Pierre in the final version of the novel. By changing the age characteristics of the hero, the author partly changes the hero himself. However, the early version of the novel allows us to check the accuracy of the calculations made on the final text and ensure that these calculations are correct.
5. AGE AS A FUNCTION OF AGE (AGE STEREOTYPES)
There's only so long left to live -
I'm already sixteen years old!
Yu. Ryashentsev
The tradition of aging older characters compared to younger ones goes back centuries. In this sense, Tolstoy did not invent anything new. Calculations show that the coefficient of “aging with age” in a novel is 0.097, which, translated into human language, means a year of novel aging by ten years lived, that is, a ten-year-old hero may turn out to be eleven years old, a twenty-year-old hero twenty-two, and a fifty-year-old fifty-five. The result is not surprising. It is much more interesting how Tolstoy presents the ages of his heroes, how he evaluates them on the “young - old” scale. Let's start from the very beginning.
5.1. Up to ten years
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy loved children very much.
Sometimes they would bring him a full room. Step by step
There’s nowhere to step, but he keeps shouting: More! More!
D. Kharms
Kharms is certainly right. There are many characters of infancy in the novel. What they have in common, perhaps, is that they do not seem to be independent units, endowed with their own problems and experiences. The age of up to ten years is a signal that the hero will, in fact, be a small mouthpiece for the author. The children in the novel see the world surprisingly subtly and correctly; they engage in systematic “defamiliarization” of their surroundings. They, not spoiled by the burden of civilization, are more successful than adults in solving their moral problems and at the same time seem to be completely devoid of reason. Therefore, such young characters, the number of which will grow to incredible limits by the end, look very artificial:
Five minutes later the little black-eyed three year old Natasha, her father’s favorite, having learned from her brother that daddy was sleeping in the small sofa room, unnoticed by her mother, ran to her father... Nikolai turned around with a tender smile on his face.
- Natasha, Natasha! - the frightened whisper of Countess Marya was heard from the door, - daddy wants to sleep.
“No, mom, he doesn’t want to sleep,” little Natasha answered convincingly, “he’s laughing.”
Such an edifying little character. But the next one is a little older:
Only Andrei’s granddaughter, Malasha, six year old girl, to whom His Serene Highness, having caressed her, gave her a piece of sugar for tea, remained on the stove in the large hut... Malasha... understood the meaning of this advice differently. It seemed to her that it was only a matter of personal struggle between “grandfather” and “long-haired,” as she called Beningsen.
Amazing insight!
The last character in age to show signs of the same “childish-unconscious” behavior as all of Tolstoy’s juvenile characters is the eternally sixteen-year-old Natasha Rostova:
In the middle of the stage sat girls in red bodices and white skirts. They were all singing something. When they finished their song, the girl in white approached the prompter's booth, and a man in tight-fitting silk trousers on thick legs, with a feather and a dagger, approached her and began to sing and spread his arms...
After the village and in the serious mood in which Natasha was, all this was wild and surprising to her.
So, Natasha sees the world in the same childish, unreasonable way. It’s not because of their age that adult children look like young old people. Striving for globality, the author of “War and Peace” loses the little things, the individuality of babies, for example, Lev Nikolaevich’s children do not come individually, but as a set: At the table were her mother, the old woman Belova who lived with her, her wife, three children, governess, tutor, nephew with his tutor, Sonya, Denisov, Natasha, her three children, their governess and the old man Mikhail Ivanovich, the prince’s architect, who lived in Bald Mountains in retirement.
Individuality in this enumeration is due to everyone, even old lady Belova, whom we meet in the first and second last time. Even the tutor, and the governess, and also the tutor do not merge into the general concept of “tutors”. And only children, sexless and faceless, go en masse. Kharms had something to parody.
Leo Tolstoy in his article “a few words about the book “War and Peace”” says that the surnames of the characters in the epic are consonant with the surnames real people because he "felt awkward" using names historical figures next to the fictional ones. Tolstoy writes that he “would be very sorry” if readers thought that he was intentionally describing the characters of real people, because all the characters are fictional.
At the same time, there are two characters in the novel to whom Tolstoy “unwittingly” gave the names of real people - Denisov and M.D. Akhrosimova. He did this because they were "characteristic persons of the time." Nevertheless, in the biographies of other characters in War and Peace, one can notice similarities with the stories of real people who probably influenced Tolstoy when he worked on the images of his heroes.
Prince Andrei Bolkonsky
Nikolay Tuchkov. (wikimedia.org)
The hero's surname is consonant with the surname princely family Volkonskikh, from which the writer’s mother came, but Andrei is one of those characters whose image is more fictional than borrowed from specific people. Like unattainable moral ideal, Prince Andrei, of course, could not have a specific prototype. Nevertheless, in the facts of the character’s biography one can find many similarities, for example, with Nikolai Tuchkov. He was a lieutenant general and, like Prince Andrey, received a mortal wound in the Battle of Borodino, from which he died in Yaroslavl three weeks later.
Nikolai Rostov and Princess Marya are the writer’s parents
The scene of the wounding of Prince Andrei at the Battle of Austerlitz was probably borrowed from the biography of Staff Captain Fyodor (Ferdinand) Tizenhausen, Kutuzov's son-in-law. With a banner in his hands, he led the Little Russian grenadier regiment into a counterattack, was wounded, captured and died three days after the battle. Also, the act of Prince Andrei is similar to the act of Prince Pyotr Volkonsky, who led a brigade of grenadiers forward with the banner of the Phanagorian regiment.
It is possible that Tolstoy gave the image of Prince Andrei the features of his brother Sergei. At least this applies to the story of the failed marriage of Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova. Sergei Tolstoy was engaged to Tatyana Bers, the older sister of Sofia Tolstoy (the writer’s wife). The marriage never took place, because Sergei had already lived for several years with the gypsy Maria Shishkina, whom he eventually married, and Tatyana married lawyer A. Kuzminsky.
Natasha Rostova
Sofya Tolstaya is the writer’s wife. (wikimedia.org)
It can be assumed that Natasha has two prototypes at once - Tatyana and Sophia Bers. In his comments to “War and Peace,” Tolstoy says that Natasha Rostova turned out when he “rewrote Tanya and Sonya.”
Tatyana Bers spent most of her childhood in the writer's family and managed to become friends with the author of War and Peace, despite the fact that she was almost 20 years younger than him. Moreover, under the influence of Tolstoy, Kuzminskaya herself took up literary creativity. In her book “My Life at Home and in Yasnaya Polyana” she wrote: “Natasha - he directly said that it was not for nothing that I was living with him, that he was writing me off.” This can be confirmed in the novel. The episode with Natasha's doll, which she offers to kiss Boris, is indeed copied from a real incident when Tatyana offered her friend to kiss Mimi's doll. She later wrote: “My big Mimi doll ended up in a novel!” Tolstoy also based Natasha’s appearance on Tatiana.
For the image of the adult Rostova - wife and mother - the writer probably turned to Sophia. Tolstoy’s wife was devoted to her husband, gave birth to 13 children, took care of their upbringing, housekeeping, and indeed rewrote “War and Peace” several times.
Rostov
In the drafts of the novel, the family's surname is first the Tolstoys, then the Prostoys, then the Plokhovs. The writer used archival documents to recreate the life of his family and depict it in the life of the Rostov family. There are coincidences in names with Tolstoy's paternal relatives, as in the case of the old Count Rostov. The writer’s grandfather, Ilya Andreevich Tolstoy, is hiding under this name. This man, in fact, led a rather wasteful lifestyle and spent colossal sums on entertainment events. Leo Tolstoy in his memoirs wrote about him as a generous but limited person who constantly organized balls and receptions on the estate.
Even Tolstoy did not hide the fact that Vasily Denisov is Denis Davydov
And yet, this is not the good-natured Ilya Andreevich Rostov from War and Peace. Count Tolstoy was the Kazan governor and a well-known bribe-taker throughout Russia, although the writer recalls that his grandfather did not take bribes, but his grandmother took them in secret from her husband. Ilya Tolstoy was removed from his post after auditors discovered the theft of almost 15 thousand rubles from the provincial treasury. The reason for the shortage was called “lack of knowledge in the position of governor of the province.”
Nikolai Tolstoy. (wikimedia.org)
Nikolai Rostov is the father of the writer Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy. The prototype and the hero of “War and Peace” have more than enough similarities. Nikolai Tolstoy at the age of 17 voluntarily joined the Cossack regiment, served in the hussars and went through all the Napoleonic wars, including the Patriotic War of 1812. It is believed that the descriptions of war scenes with the participation of Nikolai Rostov were taken by the writer from his father’s memoirs. Nikolai inherited huge debts; he had to get a job as a teacher in the Moscow Military Orphan Department. To rectify the situation, he married the ugly and reserved Princess Maria Volkonskaya, who was four years older than him. The marriage was arranged by the relatives of the bride and groom. Judging by the memoirs of contemporaries, the marriage of convenience turned out to be very happy. Maria and Nikolai led a secluded life. Nikolai read a lot and collected a library on the estate, was engaged in farming and hunting. Tatyana Bers wrote to Sophia that Vera Rostova was very similar to Lisa Bers, Sophia’s other sister.
Bers sisters: Sophia, Tatyana and Elizaveta. (tolstoy-manuscript.ru)
Princess Marya
There is a version that the prototype of Princess Marya is Leo Tolstoy’s mother Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya, by the way, also the full namesake of the book heroine. However, the writer's mother died when Tolstoy was less than two years old. No portraits of Volkonskaya survived, and the writer studied her letters and diaries to create her image for himself.
Unlike the heroine, the writer’s mother had no problems with the sciences, in particular with mathematics and geometry. She learned four foreign languages, and, judging by Volkonskaya’s diaries, she and her father had a fairly warm relationship, she was devoted to him. Maria lived for 30 years with her father in Yasnaya Polyana (Bald Mountains from the novel), but never got married, although she was a very enviable bride. She was a private woman and rejected several suitors.
Dolokhov's prototype probably ate its own orangutan
Princess Volkonskaya even had a companion - Miss Hanessen, who was somewhat similar to Mademoiselle Bourrienne from the novel. After the death of her father, the daughter began to literally give away property. She gave part of the inheritance to her companion's sister, who had no dowry. After this, her relatives intervened in the matter and arranged Maria Nikolaevna’s marriage to Nikolai Tolstoy. Maria Volkonskaya died eight years after the wedding, having given birth to four children.
Old Prince Bolkonsky
Nikolai Volkonsky. (wikimedia.org)
Nikolai Sergeevich Volkonsky is an infantry general who distinguished himself in several battles and received the nickname “Prussian King” from his colleagues. His character is very similar to the old prince: proud, self-willed, but not cruel. Left service after the accession of Paul I, retired to Yasnaya Polyana and began raising his daughter. He spent all his days improving his farm and teaching his daughter languages and sciences. An important difference from the character from the book: Prince Nikolai survived the War of 1812 very well, and died nine years later, just shy of seventy. In Moscow he had a house on Vozdvizhenka, 9. Now it has been rebuilt.
The prototype of Ilya Rostov is Tolstoy’s grandfather, who ruined his career
Sonya
The prototype of Sonya can be called Tatyana Ergolskaya, the second cousin of Nikolai Tolstoy (the writer’s father), who was brought up in his father’s house. In their youth they had an affair that never ended in marriage. Not only Nikolai’s parents, but also Ergolskaya herself opposed the wedding. The last time she rejected a marriage proposal from her cousin was in 1836. The widowed Tolstoy asked Ergolskaya for her hand in marriage so that she could become his wife and replace the mother of his five children. Ergolskaya refused, but after the death of Nikolai Tolstoy she really began raising his sons and daughter, devoting the rest of her life to them.
Leo Tolstoy valued his aunt and maintained correspondence with her. She was the first to begin collecting and storing the writer’s papers. In his memoirs, he wrote that everyone loved Tatyana and “her whole life was love,” but she herself always loved one person - Leo Tolstoy’s father.
Dolokhov
Fyodor Tolstoy is an American. (wikimedia.org)
Dolokhov has several prototypes. Among them, for example, is Lieutenant General and partisan Ivan Dorokhov, the hero of several major campaigns, including the War of 1812. However, if we talk about character, Dolokhov has more similarities with the writer’s cousin Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy, nicknamed “The American.” He was a well-known buster, gambler and lover of women in his time. Dolokhov is also compared to officer A. Figner, who commanded a partisan detachment, participated in duels and hated the French.
Tolstoy is not the only writer who placed the American in his work. Fyodor Ivanovich is also considered the prototype of Zaretsky, Lensky’s second from Eugene Onegin. Tolstoy received his nickname after he made a trip to America, during which he was thrown off a ship. There is a version that he then ate his own monkey, although Sergei Tolstoy wrote that this is not true.
Kuragins
In this case, it is difficult to talk about family, because the images of Prince Vasily, Anatole and Helen are borrowed from several people who are not related. Kuragin Sr. is undoubtedly Alexey Borisovich Kurakin, a prominent courtier during the reign of Paul I and Alexander I, who made a brilliant career at court and made a fortune.
Alexey Borisovich Kurakin. (wikimedia.org)
He had three children, exactly like Prince Vasily, of whom his daughter caused him the most trouble. Alexandra Alekseevna really had a scandalous reputation; her divorce from her husband made a lot of noise in the world. Prince Kurakin in one of his letters even called his daughter the main burden of his old age. Looks like a character from War and Peace, doesn't it? Although Vasily Kuragin expressed himself a little differently.
On the right is Alexandra Kurakina. (wikimedia.org)
Prototypes of Helen - Bagration's wife and mistress of Pushkin's classmate
The prototype of Anatoly Kuragin is Anatoly Lvovich Shostak, Tatyana Bers’ second cousin, who looked after her when she came to St. Petersburg. After that, he came to Yasnaya Polyana and annoyed Leo Tolstoy. In the draft notes of War and Peace, Anatole’s last name is Shimko.
As for Helen, her image was taken from several women at once. In addition to some similarities with Alexandra Kurakina, she has much in common with Ekaterina Skvaronskaya (Bagration’s wife), who was known for her careless behavior not only in Russia, but also in Europe, where she left five years after the wedding. In her homeland she was called the “Wandering Princess,” and in Austria she was known as the mistress of Clemens Metternich, the empire’s foreign minister. From him, Ekaterina Skavronskaya gave birth - of course, out of wedlock - a daughter, Clementina. Perhaps it was “The Wandering Princess” that contributed to Austria’s entry into the anti-Napoleonic coalition.
Another woman from whom Tolstoy could have borrowed Helen’s features is Nadezhda Akinfova. She was born in 1840 and was very famous in St. Petersburg and Moscow as a woman of scandalous reputation and wild disposition. She gained wide popularity thanks to her affair with Chancellor Alexander Gorchakov, a classmate of Pushkin. He, by the way, was 40 years older than Akinfova, whose husband was the chancellor’s great-nephew. Akinfova also divorced her first husband, but already married the Duke of Leuchtenberg in Europe, where they moved together. Let us remember that in the novel itself, Helen never divorced Pierre.
Ekaterina Skavronskaya-Bagration. (wikimedia.org)
Vasily Denisov
Denis Davydov. (wikimedia.org)
Every schoolchild knows that the prototype of Vasily Denisov was Denis Davydov - poet and writer, lieutenant general, partisan. Tolstoy used Davydov's works when studying the Napoleonic wars.
Julie Karagina
There is an opinion that Julie Karagina is Varvara Aleksandrovna Lanskaya, the wife of the Minister of Internal Affairs. She is known exclusively for the fact that she conducted a long correspondence with her friend Maria Volkova. Using these letters, Tolstoy studied the history of the War of 1812. Moreover, they were almost completely included in War and Peace under the guise of correspondence between Princess Marya and Julie Karagina.
Pierre Bezukhov
Peter Vyazemsky. (wikimedia.org)
Pierre has no obvious prototype, since this character has similarities both with Tolstoy himself and with many historical figures who lived during the time of the writer and in the years Patriotic War.
However, some similarities can be seen with Peter Vyazemsky. He also wore glasses, received a huge inheritance, and took part in the Battle of Borodino. In addition, he wrote poetry and was published. Tolstoy used his notes when working on his novel.
Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova
In the novel, Akhrosimova is the guest that the Rostovs are expecting for Natasha’s name day. Tolstoy writes that Marya Dmitrievna is known throughout St. Petersburg and all of Moscow, and for her directness and rudeness they call her “le terrible dragon.”
The similarity of the character can be seen with Nastasya Dmitrievna Ofrosimova. This is a lady from Moscow, the niece of Prince Volkonsky. Prince Vyazemsky wrote in his memoirs that she was a strong, powerful woman who was very respected in society. The Ofrosimov estate was located in Chisty Lane (Khamovniki district) in Moscow. There is an opinion that Ofrosimova was also the prototype of Khlestova in “Woe from Wit” by Griboyedov.
The alleged portrait of N. D. Ofrosimova by F. S. Rokotov. (wikimedia.org)
Lisa Bolkonskaya
Tolstoy based the appearance of Liza Bolkonskaya on Louise Ivanovna Truson, the wife of his second cousin. This is evidenced by Sophia's signature on back side her portrait in Yasnaya Polyana.
All characters can be divided into the following groups:
- Bolkonsky family;
- Rostov family;
- Bezukhov family;
- Drubetsky family;
- Kuragin family;
- Historical figures;
- Heroes 2 plans;
- Other heroes.
Characteristics of the Bolkonskys
The Bolkonsky family originates from princes who were related to Rurik. They are rich and wealthy. The authoritarian rule of the father reigns in the family, and because of this there is a tense atmosphere at home. The Bolkonskys strictly follow family traditions and orders. Relations within the family are strained, and the house was divided into two “camps”:- The first “camp” was headed by Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky. His opinion was shared by Mademoiselle Bourien and Mikhail Ivanovich, the prince's architect.
- The second group included: the prince’s daughter Marya, Andrei Bolkonsky’s son Nikolai and all the nannies and maids.
Characteristics of Andrei Bolkonsky
Andrei Bolkonsky is a wealthy heir and son of Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky. His mother is no longer alive; his other relatives include his sister Marya, whom he loves very much. Andrey is the best friend of another main character in the novel. Andrey is a short, handsome guy. He is described as having a constantly bored look and walking slowly and deliberately, in contrast to his wife Lisa, who had a cheerful and easy-going character. Bolkonsky looked more like a teenager than a man - the author often mentions that Andrei has small hands and a child’s neck. The hero was distinguished by an inquisitive mind, he was well-read and educated, and adopted some of the traits of his father - rudeness and severity towards loved ones. Andrei Bolkonsky is a liberal landowner, loves his peasants and makes their lives easier. At the time of writing the novel, Andrei Bolkonsky was 27 years old.
Characteristics of Marya Bolkonskaya
Sister of the main character Andrei Bolkonsky. She is a young and, according to many heroes, an ugly girl, but with sad and impressive eyes. Marya was rather clumsy and had a heavy gait. Her father taught her. Thanks to home schooling, she learned order and discipline. She knows how to play the clavichord and loves life in the village, unlike her brother. Princess Marya Bolkonskaya had a kind and calm character and believed in God. When communicating with people, she assessed them for their spiritual qualities, and not for their status and position. Nikolai Bolkonsky - prince, head of the family. He was distinguished by a bad character and cruel actions towards his household. Prince Nikolai was an old man, with a thin face and body. Bolkonsky always dressed according to his status - he was a retired general-in-chief. The prince was more feared than respected. He was distinguished by his willfulness and rather domineering position. But at the same time, Nikolai Bolkonsky is distinguished by his hard work - he is always busy with something: either writing memoirs, or teaching mathematics to the younger generation, or his favorite hobby - making snuff boxes.
Characteristics of Lisa Bolkonskaya
Andrei Bolkonsky's wife is a cheerful and cheerful girl. She wasn't very smart, but she made up for it with kindness and a good attitude. She was a short girl, had a mustache on her lips, and always wore her hair up. Elizaveta Karlovna comes from the German Meinen family. She received education and social manners in the family. Princess Bolkonskaya loved to gossip and chat, but at the same time she was observant. She loved her husband very much, but was unhappy with him. She died after the birth of her son Nikolai.Characteristics of Nikolai Bolkonsky
Born in 1806. After the death of his mother, Liza Bolkonskaya, he was raised by his aunt Marya. Marya Bolkonskaya gives him Russian and music lessons. At the age of 7, he sees the death of his father Andrei after being wounded. In the epilogue of the novel, Nikolai is a 15-year-old handsome young man, with curly hair, very similar to his father.
Characteristics of the Rostov family
Noble noble family. The author describes the Rostov family as an ideal family - good-natured, with good relationships between relatives.Characteristics of Count Ilya Rostov
Ilya Andreevich Rostov is the head of the family, a cheerful and good-natured count. He is rich and has several villages under his control. Full build, gray head with receding hairline, always clean-shaven face and Blue eyes- appearance of Ilya Andreevich. Those around him consider him stupid and funny, but the count was loved for his generosity and kindness. Sometimes this generosity turned into squandering. He loves his wife and children, spoils them and allows everything. Ilya Andreevich does not like to get into arguments; he is better off eating and having fun. Because of this fun, he loses all his money and ruins his family. After a series of misfortunes in the Rostov family, he falls ill and dies.
Characteristics of Countess Natalia Rostova
Wife of Ilya Andreevich, 45 years old. Mother of 12 children, however, the story is told only about four. Natalya Rostova had a beautiful oriental appearance, she was often tired, but at the same time she commanded respect from her relatives. She married the Count when she was 16 years old. Like her husband, she is not thrifty and loves to spend money. She tries to be strict with children, but because of her kindness she fails. Countess Natalya helps others (for example, her friend Drubetskaya). By the end of the work, after the deaths she has experienced, she becomes like a ghost.Characteristics of Natasha Rostova
Daughter of Count Nikolai Rostov and Natalia Rostova. She was brought up with affection and love, she was a little spoiled, but at the same time she remained a kind and sincere girl. L. Tolstoy describes little Natasha this way: “with black eyes, a big mouth, a rather ugly, but charming and cheerful girl, with curly hair, thin legs and arms.” By the age of 16, Natasha had changed, began to wear long dresses and dance at balls. She became even more beautiful at the age of 20. She wore beautiful lace dresses, braided her hair, with an intelligent look and a sensitive attitude towards others.Important! Natasha has a good understanding of people, but when it comes to... love relationship, she gets lost (like falling in love with Kuragin).After Bolkonsky's death, she marries Pierre Bezukhov, becomes sloppy and no longer takes care of herself, gives birth to 3 children and lives only for them.
Characteristics of Sonya Rostova
Second cousin of Natasha and Nikolai Rostov. Raised in the Rostov family from birth. A beautiful and sweet girl, smart and educated. He helps his friend Natasha in every possible way. Loves to recite poetry in front of an audience. She is secretly in love with Nikolai Rostov, but Natalya Rostova does not accept this love. As a result, Sonya remains unmarried.
Characteristics of Pierre Bezukhov
Another main character novel. A large young man, wears glasses, is strong, but clumsy. The author often compares Pierre to a bear. He is the illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov, but is his favorite. Pierre lived and studied in Europe for more than 10 years. At the age of 20 he came back to Russia. Bezukhov has a beautiful childish smile, sees only good qualities in people, because of this he was often deceived. His wife Helen Kuragina did just that to him, deceived him and forcibly married him. He cannot find a job he likes, is not really interested in anything, and is often idle. When Pierre becomes the heir to the Bezukhovs' fortune, he begins to farm, but even there he often fails. Only after being captured by the French does he begin to behave differently, becoming more restrained and calculating. At the end of the novel, he marries Natasha Rostova, after which he is perceived not as a clumsy talker, but as a competent and respected person.Characteristics of the Kuragin family
Another secular family in the novel. Unlike the Bolkonskys and Rostovs, they are not distinguished by their nobility and kindness towards people. Prince Vasily wants to give away all his children profitably, and does not skimp on deception. There is complete harmony in the family between parents and children, both parties want to benefit.
Characteristics of Vasily Kuragin
Vasily Sergeevich Kuragin - prince 50 years old. Married to an ugly and fat lady. Almost bald, likes to dress immaculately, courteous. He had a beautiful low voice and always spoke slowly. Self-confident, indifferent, loves to laugh at other people.Communicates only for his own benefit.Characteristics of Anatoly Kuragin
The youngest son of Prince Vasily. Handsome, stately with big eyes and beautiful hands. He was always well and neatly dressed. He was educated in Europe and upon arrival became an officer. He has a cheerful character, loves to drink and gather company. Due to carousing and drinking, he is constantly in debt. For the sake of money, he was ready to marry Princess Marya. Anatole is a vile person; he deceives Natasha Rostova, promising to marry her. Kuragin thinks only of himself. After the Battle of Borodino he is wounded, and he changes.