War And Peace

Davout, L., Prince of Eckmühl, Marshal of France

Dokhtúrov, D., a Russian general

Kutúzov, Field-Marshal M., Russian commander-in-chief at Borodino

Milorádovich, M., a Russian general

Murat, Joachim, King of Naples, commander of Napoleon’s cavalry in 1812

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French

Pfuel, Ernst von, Colonel, then General, a Prussian soldier in Russian service

Rostopchín, Count F., governor-general of Moscow

Speránsky, M., the minister who inspired Alexander’s first reforms

Stein, Baron H. K. von, a Prussian statesman noted for his liberal views

Toll, Karl von, Quartermaster-general of the Russian army

Wintzengerode, Count F., General, a Würtemberger in Russian service

Wittgenstein, General Ludwig, a Westphalian in Russian service

Wolzogen, General Ludwig von, a Prussian soldier in Russian service

NOTE

1 Word stress is important in Russian and the correct stresses are marked in the names listed here. Two names that are pronounced differently from what you may expect are Vasily (Vass-ee-ly) and Boris (Ba-rees), both stressed on the second syllable.

1. The 1805 Campaign

2. Austerlitz

3. The 1812 Campaign

4. Borodino

OnWar and Peace

Although War and Peace has been described more than once as the greatest novel ever written, Tolstoy once claimed it wasn’t a novel at all. Henry James, giving the title as Peace and War, called it a fluid pudding and included it in a list of ‘large, loose baggy monsters’.¹ While the novel clearly has some faults, it has also been compared to The Iliad in scope and technique, and Prince Dmitri Mirsky, the distinguished émigré historian of Russian literature, called it ‘the most important work in the whole of Russian realistic fiction’.²

Tolstoy’s protestation that it wasn’t a novel had a particular purpose. He wanted his readers to expect something broader and deeper than the romances they were used to finding in fiction. There would be no single hero and heroine, no straightforward system of exposition, crisis and resolution, no orthodox ending. It was a book in which Tolstoy made up new rules as it expanded: a society novel that turned into a family story, only to grow into a historical chronicle and a mighty epic that was underwritten by a deep interest in individual destinies and intimate human detail. It was a fifteen-year tranche of human experience (1805 – 20), fictional and real, that was located in Russian society in an age of critical importance for Europe as a whole, and Tolstoy made an unprecedented attempt to bring together the widest possible range of interests – personal, social, psychological and historical. But most important is his instinctive skill as a teller of stories and creator of characters. The true lasting quality of War and Peace lies in its compelling narrative and fascinating people, imagined and historical. Perhaps Peace and War might have been a more appropriate title, because not much more than a third of the action takes place on or near the battlefield.

Tolstoy begins his novel by throwing an evening party to welcome his characters and his readers. The year is 1805 and Napoleon’s aggressive actions, especially the recent seizure of Genoa and Luca, seem likely to threaten Russia’s western borders. The huge and bumbling Pierre Bezukhov and the neat, self-assured Prince Andrey Bolkonsky are guests, and their maturation and misadventures will form the main interest of the novel. At first the two young men have everything going for them. Pierre inherits a huge fortune and marries well. The efficient Andrey will find success in all that he does as a landowner and soldier. But both of these gifted and fortunate men will make many mistakes, feel constantly unhappy with the course of their lives, take appallingly bad decisions and have to live with the consequences. The strength of War and Peace is in the weakness of its characters. The novel is a detailed casebook of human inadequacy and imperfection; so many avoidable errors are made that it will be a long time before contentment and equilibrium start to emerge, and for some of the characters new insight comes too late.