War and Peace. Genre features, history of creation

Any literary work can be attributed to any genre - epic, lyrical, dramatic. “War and Peace” - big and complex work. What genre should it be classified into?

Some see the work primarily as a historical novel, which tells about the invasion of Napoleon's troops in Russia, as well as about the people who lived at that time. But is it? “War and Peace” is not just a story about historical events. This is noticeable even if you look closely at the composition of the novel. Descriptions of the lives of ordinary families, such as the Rostovs, Bolkonskys and others, alternate with descriptions of battles, military operations, and stories about the personalities of Napoleon and Kutuzov. At the same time, we see pictures of a completely different kind. People meet, break up, declare their love, marry for love and for convenience - that is, they live ordinary life. A whole string of meetings takes place before the eyes of readers over the course of many years. But history does not stand still. The emperors resolve issues of war and peace, the War of 1812 begins. The peoples of Europe, forgetting about their home and family, are heading to Russia to conquer it. At the head of these troops is Napoleon. He is confident and thinks highly of himself. And L.N. Tolstoy, as if imperceptibly comparing him with peaceful people, shows that Napoleon is not at all a genius, that he is simply an adventurer, like many others who do not bear a loud title and are not crowned with the crown of an emperor.

One of the features of “War and Peace” is a large number of philosophical digressions. More than once in them the author argues that Napoleon was not the cause of the war. Tolstoy writes: “Just as this or that figure will be drawn in a stencil, not because in which direction and how paint is applied to it, but because the figure cut out in the stencil was smeared with paint in all directions.” One person does not make history. But when peoples gather who, although they have different goals, but act in the same way, then events happen that remain in history. Napoleon did not understand this, considering himself personally the cause of the movement and the clash of peoples.

Count Rostopchin is somewhat similar to Napoleon, confident that he did everything to save Moscow, although, in fact, he did nothing.

There are people in “War and Peace” who are really concerned about the issue of life and death in Russia. One of them is M.I. Kutuzov. He understands the situation and neglects the opinions of others about himself. He perfectly understands both Prince Andrei and the careerist Bennigsen, and, in fact, the whole of Russia. He understands people, their aspirations, desires, and therefore the fatherland. He sees what is good for Russia and for the Russian people.

M.I. Kutuzov understands this, but Napoleon does not. Throughout the novel, the reader sees this difference and sympathizes with Kutuzov.

What does it mean to understand people? Prince Andrei also understands the souls of other people. But he believes that to change the world, everyone must improve themselves first of all. He did not accept war, since war is violence. It is through the image of his beloved hero that Lev Nikolaevich conveys his own thoughts. Prince Andrei is a military man, but does not accept war. Why?

“There are two sides of life in every person: personal life, which is the more free the more abstract its interests are, and spontaneous, swarm life, where a person inevitably fulfills the laws prescribed to him,” writes the author.

But why should a person live a second life, where he is lost as a person and serves as an unconscious instrument of history? Why is all this needed?

And L.N. Tolstoy calls in his novel to end unnecessary, senseless wars and live in peace. “War and Peace” is not just a historical novel, it is a project for building a new spiritual world. As a result of wars, people leave their families and become a faceless mass that is destroyed by exactly the same other mass. L.N. Tolstoy dreamed of ending wars on earth, of people living in harmony, surrendering to their sorrows and joys, meetings and partings, and being free spiritually. To convey his thoughts to readers, Lev Nikolaevich wrote a book where he not only consistently sets out his thoughts and views, but also illustrates them using the example of people’s lives during the period Patriotic War. Those who read this book do not simply perceive other people’s judgments, but experience it together with the characters, are imbued with their feelings and through them communicate with L.N. Tolstoy. “War and Peace” is a kind of holy book, similar to the Bible. Its main idea, as Tolstoy wrote, is “the foundation of a new religion... giving bliss on earth.” But how to create this world full of grace? Prince Andrei, who carried the image of this new world, dies. Pierre decided to join secret society, which, again, will try to change people’s lives through violent measures. This won't happen anymore ideal world. So is it even possible?

Apparently, L.N. Tolstoy leaves this question for readers to think about. After all, to change the world you need to change your own soul. How Prince Andrei tried to do it. And each of us has the power to change ourselves.

24. Epic novel as a genre. L.N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” as a historical, heroic-patriotic, philosophical, psychological work, its multi-problem nature.

Literary genre epic novel- this is one of the literary genres, a work of monumental form on national issues. What distinguishes an epic novel from an epic poem, novella, story is the large volume of the work (for example, “ Quiet Don" Sholokhov - an epic novel of a thousand pages), as well as the scale of the events and philosophical generalizations displayed.

There are two examples of epic novels in Russian literature, one of which has already been named, and the second is the well-known work of Leo Tolstoy “War and Peace.” It describes: 1) the war against Napoleon of 1805 and 1812; 2) the life of members of the Bolkonsky, Bezukhov, Kuragin and others families (genre - novel). Tolstoy himself did not give a specific definition of the genre of the work. And he was completely right about this, because the traditional genres that existed before the writing of War and Peace could not fully reflect artistic structure works. It combines elements of family life, socio-psychological, philosophical, historical, battle novels, as well as documentary chronicles, memoirs, etc. This allows us to characterize it as an epic novel. This genre form It was Tolstoy who discovered it for the first time in Russia.

The novel "War and Peace" is a work that is extremely complex in terms of genre.

On the one hand, the writer talks about historical events of the past (the wars of 1805-1807 and 1812). From this point of view, War and Peace could be called historical novel. Specific historical figures act in it (Alexander 1, Napoleon, Kutuzov, Speransky), but history for Tolstoy is not an end in itself. When starting to write a novel about the Decembrists, Tolstoy, as he himself said, could not help but turn to the Patriotic War of 1812, and then to the war of 1805-1807 (“the era of our shame”). History in the novel is the basis that allows us to reveal the characters of people in an era of great national upheaval, to convey Tolstoy’s own philosophical reflections on global issues of humanity - issues of war and peace, the role of the individual in history, the laws of the historical process, etc.

Therefore, War and Peace goes beyond just a historical novel.

On the other hand, “War and Peace” can be classified as a family novel: Tolstoy traces the fates of several generations of noble families (Rostovs, Bolkonskys, Bezukhovs, Kuragins). But the fates of these people are inextricably linked with large-scale historical events in Russia. In addition to these heroes in the novel great amount characters not directly related to the fate of the heroes. The appearance on the pages of the novel of the images of the merchant Ferapontov, the Moscow lady who left Moscow “with a vague consciousness that she is not Bonaparte’s servant,” the militia who put on clean shirts in front of Borodin, the soldiers of the Raevsky battery, the partisans Denisov and many others takes the novel beyond the family.

"War and Peace" can be called a social novel. Tolstoy is concerned with issues related to the structure of society. The writer shows his ambiguous attitude towards the nobility in the description of the St. Petersburg and Moscow nobility, their attitude, for example, to the War of 1812. No less important for Tolstoy are the relations between nobles and serfs. These relationships are ambiguous, and Tolstoy, as a realist, cannot help but talk about this (peasant partisan detachments and the behavior of Bogucharov’s peasants). In this regard, we can say that Tolstoy’s novel does not fit into this genre framework.

Leo Tolstoy is known not only as a writer, but also as a philosopher. Many pages of War and Peace are devoted to universal philosophical problems. Tolstoy consciously introduces his philosophical reflections into the novel; they are important to him in connection with the historical events that he describes. First of all, these are the writer’s arguments about the role of the individual in history and the patterns of historical events. Tolstoy's views can be called fatalistic: he argues that it is not the behavior and will of historical figures that determine the course of historical events. Historical events are made up of the actions and wills of many people. For the writer, Napoleon seems funny, who “is like a child riding in a carriage, pulling the fringe and thinking that he is driving the carriage.” And great is Kutuzov, who understands the spirit of the events taking place and does what needs to be done in a specific situation.

Tolstoy's thoughts on war are noteworthy. As a humanist, Tolstoy rejects war as a way to resolve conflicts, war is disgusting, it is similar to hunting (no wonder Nikolai Rostov, running away from the French, feels like a hare being hunted by hunters), Andrei Bolkonsky speaks to Pierre about the anti-human essence of war before the Battle of Borodino. The writer sees the reasons for the Russian victory over the French in the spirit of patriotism, which gripped the entire nation and helped stop the invasion.

Tolstoy is also a master of psychological prose. In-depth psychologism, mastery of the subtlest movements of the human soul is an undoubted quality of a writer. From this point of view, "War and Peace" can be classified as a genre psychological novel. It is not enough for Tolstoy to show the characters of people in action; he needs to explain the psychology of their behavior, to reveal the internal reasons for their actions. This is the psychologism of Tolstoy's prose.

All these features allow scientists to define the genre of “War and Peace” as an epic novel. The large-scale nature of the events described, the global nature of the problems, the huge number of characters, the social, philosophical, and moral aspects make “War and Peace” a unique work in terms of genre.

“War and Peace” is a grandiose epic canvas, often compared to Homer’s “Iliad,” covering the widest panorama of Russia in the first quarter of the 19th century, but at the same time addressing the problems contemporary writer life of the 1860s and raising the most important moral and philosophical questions. It amazes with its size. It contains more than five hundred heroes, a lot of events, large and small, affecting the destinies of individuals and entire nations. What is usually depicted in works of various genres. Tolstoy managed to merge into one whole.

The traditional novel, with its storyline based on the fate of the hero, could not accommodate the life of the entire country, which Tolstoy strived for. It was necessary to overcome the distinction between private and historical life. Tolstoy shows that people’s lives are united and flow according to general laws in any sphere, be it the family or state sphere, private or historical. All this determined the genre originality of Tolstoy’s work. It contains features of two main epic genres - the epic and the novel.

Epic - the largest narrative genre literature, a monumental form of epic depicting events in which the fate of a nation, people, and country is decided. The epic reflects the life and way of life of all layers of society, their thoughts and aspirations. It covers a large period of historical time. The epic appears in folklore as heroic epic, based on legends and ideas about the life of the nation (“Iliad”, “Odyssey” by Homer, “Kalevala”).

The novel is the most common genre of epic, narrative literature, major work, which reflects the complex life process, usually big circle life phenomena shown in their development. Characteristic properties novel: branched plot, system of equal characters, time duration. There are family, social, psychological, historical, love, adventure and other types of novels. But there is also a special genre variety, very rarely found in literature. She got the name epic novel. This is a special genre epic literature, combining the features of a novel and an epic: depiction of objective historical events (usually of a heroic nature) associated with the fate of an entire people in crucial moment, And Everyday life a private person with a huge breadth of problems, scale, multi-character and branching plot. Exactly to this genre variety can be attributed to the work of Tolstoy.

War and Peace as an epic novel is characterized by the following features of an epic: 1) depiction of an epic event of national historical significance (the War of 1812, ending with the defeat of Napoleon); 2) a sense of epic distance (the historical remoteness of the events of 1805 and 1812); 3) the absence of a single hero (here this is the whole nation) 4) the epic monumentality, static nature of the images of Napoleon and Kutuzov.

In the epic novel “War and Peace” the following features of the novel stand out: 1) depiction of personal fate individual heroes, continuing life's quest in the post-war era; 2) posing problems characteristic of the 60s of the 19th century, when the novel was created (the problem of unifying the nation, the role of the nobility in this, etc.); 3) attention to several central characters(Andrey Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova), whose stories form separate plot lines; 4) variability, “fluidity,” surprise of “heroes of the journey.”

The author himself helps to understand the uniqueness of his artistic concept and construction of the work. "The cement that binds everything piece of art into one whole and therefore produces the illusion of a reflection of life,” writes Tolstoy, “there is not a unity of persons and positions, but the unity of the original moral attitude of the author to the subject.” Tolstoy gave the name to this “original moral attitude” to the subject of “War and Peace” - “folk thought.” These words determine the ideological and compositional center of the work and the criterion for evaluating its main characters. In addition, “people's thought” is a concept that defines the main features of the nation as a single whole, the features of the Russian national character. The presence of such national traits tests the human value of all the characters in the novel. That is why, despite the seeming chaos of the events depicted, the large number of characters representing the most different layers and spheres of life, and the presence of several autonomous storylines, “War and Peace” has an amazing unity. This is how an ideological and semantic center is formed, which cements the grandiose structure of the epic novel.

The chronological sequence of events and the structure of the entire work as a whole is as follows. The first volume covers the events of 1805: first it talks about peaceful life, and then the focus is on pictures of the war with Napoleon in Europe, in which the Russian army is drawn into battles on the side of its allies - Austria and Prussia. The first volume introduces all the main characters who go through the entire action of the novel: Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Ros-tova, Maria Bolkonskaya, Nikolai Rostov, Sonya, Boris Drubetskoy, Helen Kuragina, Dolokhov, Denisov and many other characters. The narrative is built on contrasts and comparisons: here is the passing of Catherine’s century (the dying Prince Bezukhov, Pierre’s father; old prince Nikolai Bolkonsky, father of Prince Andrei), and the younger generation just entering life (youth in the Rostov house, Pierre Bezukhov). We find ourselves in similar situations different groups characters who exhibit their inherent traits (for example, the situation of receiving guests in the Scherer salon, at the Rostovs’ name day, in the Bolkonskys’ house). Such plot-shaped parallels help the author to show all the diversity of Russian life of the pre-war era. Military scenes are also depicted according to the principle of contrast: Kutuzov - Alexander 1 on the Field of Austerlitz; Captain Tushin - staff officers in the Battle of Shengraben; Prince Andrey - Zherkov - Berg. Here begins the contrasting juxtaposition of images that run through the entire action of the epic: Kutuzov - Napoleon. Pictures of peaceful and military life constantly alternate, but the fates of the main novel characters (Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre, Natasha, Princess Marya, Nikolai Rostov) are just beginning to be determined.

The second volume presents the events of 1806-1811, associated mainly with secular and political life Russian society on the eve of the Patriotic War. The premonition of tragic catastrophes is supported by the image of a comet hanging over Moscow. The historical events of this part are connected with the Peace of Tilsit and the preparation of reforms in the Speransky Commission. Events in the lives of the main characters are also more related to peaceful life: Andrei Bolkonsky’s return from captivity, his life on the estate and then in St. Petersburg, disappointment in family life and Pierre's entry into the Masonic lodge, Natasha Rostova's first ball and the history of her relationship with Prince Andrei, hunting and Christmastide in Otradnoye.

The third volume is entirely devoted to the events of 1812, and therefore the author’s focus is on Russian soldiers and militias, pictures of battles, and partisan warfare. battle of Borodino represents the ideological and compositional center of this volume, all the plot threads are tied to it and here the fates of the main characters - Prince Andrei and Pierre - are decided. In this way, the writer really demonstrates how inextricably linked the historical destinies of the entire country and each individual person are.

The fourth volume is related to the events of the end of 1812-1813. It depicts the escape from Moscow and the defeat of Napoleonic troops in Russia, many pages are devoted to guerrilla warfare. But this volume, like the first, opens with episodes of salon life, where the “struggle of parties” takes place, which shows the immutability of the life of the aristocracy and its distance from the interests of the people. The fates of the main characters in this volume are also full of dramatic events: the death of Prince Andrei, the meeting of Nikolai Rostov and Princess Marya, Pierre's acquaintance in captivity with Platon Karataev, the death of Petya Rostov.

The epilogue is dedicated to the post-war events of 1820: it tells about the family life of Natasha and Pierre, Maria Bolkonskaya and Nikolai Rostov, the life line of Andrei Bolkonsky continues in his son Nikolenka. The epilogue, and with it the entire work, is filled with Tolstoy’s historical and philosophical reflections, which define the universal human law of endless relationships and mutual influences, which determines the historical destinies of peoples and individuals. Material from the site

In the artistic fabric of the epic novel, it is projected as a kind of “labyrinth of connections” (the name belongs to L.N. Tolstoy) - the main compositional principle that ensures the unity and integrity of the work. It goes through all its levels: from figurative parallels between individual characters (for example, Pierre Bezukhov - Platon Karataev) to related scenes and episodes. At the same time, the significance of ordinary narrative units changes. So, for example, the role of the episode changes. In a traditional novel, an episode is one of the links in a chain of events, united by cause-and-effect relationships. Being the result of previous events, it simultaneously becomes a prerequisite for subsequent ones. While maintaining this episode role in stand-alone storylines of his novel, Tolstoy endows it with a new property. The episodes in “War and Peace” are held together not only by a plot, cause-and-effect relationship, but also enter into a special connection of “links.” It is from endless connections that the artistic fabric of the epic novel consists. They tie together episodes not only from different parts, but even from different volumes, the episodes in which completely different people take part characters. For example, an episode from the first volume, which tells about the meeting of General Mak at the headquarters of Kutuzov’s army, and an episode from the third volume - about the meeting of the envoy of Alexander 1, General Balashov, with Marshal Murat. And there are a huge number of such episodes, united not by plot, but by another connection, a connection of “links,” in War and Peace. Thanks to them, such different values ​​as the fate of the people, decided in the formidable years of military trials, and the fates of individual heroes, as well as the fate of all humanity, determined by Tolstoy’s special historical and philosophical concept, are combined into a single whole.

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War and Peace. Genre features, History of creation

In 1862, Tolstoy got married and took his wife from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana, where the order of his life was established for decades.

Tolstoy began writing “War and Peace” directly at the end of 1863, having completed work on the story “Cossacks”. In 1869 the novel was written; published in the thick magazine M.N. Katkov "Russian Bulletin". The basis of the novel is historical military events, artistically translated by the writer. Historians argue that the novel War and Peace is not only historically plausible, but also historically valid.

Genre features

“War and Peace” is a unique genre phenomenon (there are more than 600 heroes in the work, of which 200 historical figures, countless everyday scenes, 20 battles)..Tolstoy understood perfectly well that his work did not fit into any of the genre canons. In the article “A few words about the book “War and Peace”” (1868), Tolstoy wrote: “This is not a novel, even less a poem, even less historical chronicle" He immediately added: “Starting from “ Dead souls""Gogol and before" House of the Dead“Dostoevsky, in the new period of Russian literature there is not a single outstanding artistic prose work, which would fit perfectly into the form of a novel, poem or story.” Tolstoy is right in that Russian literature boldly experimented with genre form.

“War and Peace” stuck genre definition novel-epic, which reflects the combination in the work of the characteristics of a novel and an epic. Romannoe the beginning is associated with the depiction of the family life and private destinies of the heroes, their spiritual quest. But, according to Tolstoy, individual self-affirmation is disastrous for him. Only in unity with others, in interaction with “common life,” can one develop and improve. The main features of the epic: a large volume of work that creates a picture of the life of the nation at a historically turning point for it (1812), as well as its comprehensiveness. But if the point ancient epic, Homer’s “Iliad,” for example, is the primacy of the general over the individual, then in Tolstoy’s epic “common life” does not suppress the individual principle, but is in organic interaction with it.

A model analogue of the genre and art world It is no coincidence that the epic novel as a whole is called the water globe, which Pierre Bezukhov sees in a dream. A living globe consisting of individual drops flowing into each other. Pierre Bezukhov is the first Tolstoy hero who embodied in its entirety that idea of ​​​​Man, which was formulated by Tolstoy only in last years life, but which was formed in him, starting from the first literary experiments: “Man is Everything” and “part of Everything.”

The same images are repeated in Petya Rostov’s dream, when he, falling asleep, hears a “harmonious choir of music”: “Each instrument, sometimes similar to a violin, sometimes like trumpets - but better and cleaner than violins and trumpets - each instrument played its own and , not yet finishing the tune, merged with another, which began almost the same way, and with a third, and with a fourth, and they all merged into one and scattered again, and again merged, now into the solemn church, now into the brightly brilliant and victorious.

Unlike the ancient epic, Tolstoy's epic novel depicts not only spiritual movement heroes, but also their involvement in the continuous and endless flow of life. In "War and Peace" there are no beginnings or endings to the action. in the usual sense. The scene that opens the novel in Anna Scherer’s salon, strictly speaking, does not “ties up” anything in the action, but immediately introduces the heroes and readers into the movement of history - from the Great French Revolution to the moment. The entire aesthetics of the book is subject to one law: “True life is always only in the present.”

In the second part of the epilogue, Tolstoy sets out his concept of the philosophy of history:

1. history is made by the masses themselves;

2. people make history individually, not together;

3. people make history unconsciously.

In the novel there is an antithesis between Napoleon and Kutuzov. Tolstoy draws a portrait of Napoleon somewhat reduced. Napoleon plays in everything; he is an actor.

Kutuzov does not consider himself the demiurge of history. It's simple everywhere. Tolstoy reduces his external greatness, but emphasizes his internal activity. Kutuzov is the external embodiment of popular thought.

Genre of the novel "War and Peace"

Tolstoy himself did not give a specific definition of the genre of the work. And he was completely right in this, because the traditional genres that existed before the writing of War and Peace could not fully reflect the artistic structure of the novel. The work combines elements of family life, socio-psychological, philosophical, historical, battle novels, as well as documentary chronicles, memoirs, etc. This allows us to characterize it as an epic novel. It was Tolstoy who first discovered this genre form in Russia.
"War and Peace" as an epic novel has the following characteristics:

Combining a story about national events with a story about the destinies of individual people.

Description of the life of Russian and European society of the nineteenth century.

There are images various types characters of all social strata of society in all manifestations.

The novel is based on grandiose events, thanks to which the author depicted the main trends of the historical process of that time.

A combination of realistic pictures of life in the 19th century, with the author’s philosophical reasoning about freedom and necessity, the role of the individual in history, chance and regularity, etc.

Tolstoy clearly depicted the features of folk psychology in the novel, which he combined with the depiction of the personal characteristics of individual characters; this gave a special polyphony to the work, which is a reflection of a complex and contradictory era.

In addition to the analysis of the War and Peace genre, the following is also available:

• The image of Marya Bolkonskaya in the novel “War and Peace”, essay
• The image of Napoleon in the novel "War and Peace"
• The image of Kutuzov in the novel “War and Peace”
• Comparative characteristics of the Rostovs and Bolkonskys - essay
• Life quests of Natasha Rostova - essay
• Life quests of Pierre Bezukhov - essay
• The life quest of Andrei Bolkonsky - essay