War and Peace (229 page)

The other sciences, too, have followed the same course, though under another form. When Newton formulated the law of gravity, he did not say that the sun or the earth has the property of attraction. He said that all bodies—from the greatest to the smallest—have the property of attracting one another; that is, leaving on one side the question of the cause of the movements of bodies, he expressed the property common to all bodies, from the infinitely great to the infinitely small. The natural sciences do the same thing; leaving on one side the question of cause, they seek for laws. History, too, is entered on the same course. And if the subject of history is to be the study of the movements of peoples and of humanity, and not episodes from the lives of individual men, it too is bound to lay aside the idea of cause, and to seek the laws common to all the equal and inseparably interconnected, infinitesimal elements of free will.

Ever since the law of Copernicus was discovered and proved, the mere recognition that not the sun, but the earth moves, has destroyed the
whole cosmography of the ancients. By disproving the law, it might have been possible to retain the old conception of the movements of the heavenly bodies; but without disproving it, it would seem to be impossible to continue studying the Ptolemaic worlds. But as a fact even after the discovery of the law of Copernicus, the Ptolemaic worlds long continued to be a subject of study.

Ever since the first person said and proved that the number of births or crimes is subject to mathematical laws, that certain geographical and politico-economical laws determine this or that form of government, that certain relations of the population to the soil lead to migrations of peoples—from that moment the foundations on which history was built were destroyed in their essence.

By disproving those new laws, the old view of history might have been retained. But without disproving them, it would seem impossible to continue studying historical events, merely as the arbitrary product of the free will of individual men. For if a certain type of government is established, or a certain movement of peoples takes place in consequence of certain geographical, ethnographical, or economic conditions, the free will of those persons who are described to us as setting up that type of government or leading that movement cannot be regarded as the cause.

And yet history goes on being studied as of old, side by side with laws of statistics, of geography, of political economy, of comparative philology and geology, that flatly contradict its assumptions.

The struggle between the new views and the old was long and stubborn in physical philosophy. Theology stood on guard over the old view, and accused the new view of violating revelation. But when truth gained the day, theology established itself as firmly as ever on a new basis.

As long and as obstinate is the conflict to-day between the old and the new view of history; and in the same way theology stands on guard over the old view, and accuses the new of attacking revelation.

In both cases on both sides, the struggle rouses evil passions and stifles truth. On one side there is dread and regret at demolishing the edifice that has been raised by the ages; on the other, the passion for destruction.

To the men who fought against the new truths of physical philosophy, it seemed that if they were to admit that truth, it would shatter faith in God, in the creation of the firmament, in the miracle of Joshua, the son of Nun. To the champions of the laws of Copernicus and Newton,
to Voltaire, for instance, it seemed that the laws of astronomy were destructive of religion, and the latter made use of the law of gravity as a weapon against religion.

So now it seems that we have but to admit the law of necessity to shatter the conception of the soul, of good, of evil, and of the political and ecclesiastical edifices reared on the basis of those conceptions.

So too, like Voltaire in his day, the champions of the law of necessity use the law as a weapon against religion, though, like the law of Copernicus in astronomy, the law of necessity in history, far from destroying even strengthens the foundation on which political and ecclesiastical edifices are reared.

Just as then in the question of astronomy, now in the question of history, the whole difference of view rested on the recognition or non-recognition of an absolute unit as a measure of visible phenomena. For astronomy, this was the immobility of the earth; in history, the independence of personality—free will.

Just as in astronomy the difficulty of admitting the motion of the earth lay in the immediate sensation of the earth’s stationariness and of the planets’ motion, so in history the difficulty of recognising the subjection of the personality to the laws of space and time and causation lies in the difficulty of surmounting the direct sensation of the independence of one’s personality. But just as in astronomy, the new view said, “It is true, we do not feel the movement of the earth, but, if we admit its immobility, we are reduced to absurdity, while admitting its movement, we are led to laws”; so in history, the new view says, “It is true, we do not feel our dependence, but admitting our free will, we are led to absurdity; admitting our dependence on the external world, time, and cause, we are led to laws.”

In the first case, we had to surmount the sensation of an unreal immobility in space, and to admit a motion we could not perceive of by sense. In the present case, it is as essential to surmount a consciousness of an unreal freedom and to recognise a dependence not perceived by our senses.

1. In an article, “Some Words About War and Peace,” Tolstoy writes: “What is
   War and Peace
   ? It is not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less an historical chronicle.
   War and Peace
   is what the author wished and was able to express in the form in which it is expressed.” He goes on to discuss how many precedents for this “disregard of conventional form” there are in the history of Russian literature. How do you respond to this characterization of the novel? Does it help you understand its scope, structure, or style?
   
2. Relatedly, while some novelists have bemoaned what they considered to be the formless nature of
   War and Peace
   , Henry James called it “a wonderful mass of life.” How did the novel’s length affect your reading experience? Does its scale mirror its comprehensive outlook? Does Tolstoy’s ambitious vision succeed, in your opinion?
   
3. Tolstoy also writes, with regard to the “character of the period” he was trying to depict, that it “had its own characteristics … which resulted from the pre-dominant alienation of the upper class from other classes, from the religious philosophy of the time, from peculiarities of education … and so forth.” What do you make of Tolstoy’s treatment of the themes of aristocracy and class, religion, and education in this work?
   
4. Discuss the eventual marriage of Natasha Rostova and Pierre Bezukhov. How does their alliance speak to larger principles, if at all? How does the concept of family relate to the theme of war? Are Natasha and Pierre representative of Russian social life at the time? Why or why not?
   
5. Regarding “the divergence between my description of historical events and that given by the historians,” Tolstoy draws interesting distinctions between the artist and the historian: “As an historian would be wrong if he tried to present an historical person in his entirety … so the artist would fail to perform his task were he to represent the person always in his historic significance.… For an historian considering the achievement of a certain aim, there are heroes; for the artist treating of man’s relation to all sides of life, there cannot and should not be heroes, but there should be men.… The historian has to deal with the results of an event, the artist with the fact of the event.” Discuss Tolstoy’s concern with history, and the place he accords to the individual in the historical process.
   
6. What is Tolstoy’s verdict on Napoleon? How does this novel treat the idea of the historical “great man”?
   
7. Tolstoy’s focus on five upper-class families contrasted sharply with the struggles of the nation during the Napoleonic war. And yet, many see the novel as a celebration of the Russian spirit. How do you perceive Tolstoy’s emphasis on the aristocratic? How does the Revolution affect Russian class structure, if at all?
   
8. A contemporary critic, N. N. Strakhov, said, “What is the meaning of
   War and Peace
   ? The meaning is expressed in these words of the author more clearly than anywhere else: ‘There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness, and truth.’ ” Is this statement as simple as it sounds? Discuss.
   

Maya Angelou
•
Daniel J. Boorstin
•
A. S. Byatt
•
Caleb Carr
•
Christopher Cerf
•
Ron Chernow
•
Shelby Foote
•
Stephen Jay Gould
•
Vartan Gregorian
•
Richard Howard
•
Charles Johnson
•
Jon Krakauer
•
Edmund Morris
•
Joyce Carol Oates
•
Elaine Pagels
•
John Richardson
•
Salman Rushdie
•
Oliver Sacks
•
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
•
Carolyn See
•
William Styron
•
Gore Vidal

Count Lev (Leo) Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828, at Yasnaya Polyana (Bright Glade), his family’s estate located 130 miles southwest of Moscow. He was the fourth of five children born to Count Nikolay Ilyich Tolstoy and Marya Nikolayevna Tolstoya (née Princess Volkonskaya, who died when Tolstoy was barely two). He enjoyed a privileged childhood typical of his elevated social class (his patrician family was older and prouder than the tsar’s). Early on, the boy showed a gift for languages as well as a fondness for literature—including fairy tales, the poems of Pushkin, and the Bible, especially the Old Testament story of Joseph. Orphaned at the age of nine by the death of his father, Tolstoy and his brothers and sister were first cared for by a devoutly religious aunt. When she died in 1841 the family went to live with their father’s only surviving sister in the provincial city of Kazan. Tolstoy was educated by French and German tutors until he enrolled at Kazan University in 1844. There he studied law and Oriental languages and developed a keen interest in moral philosophy and the writings of Rousseau. A notably unsuccessful student who led a dissolute life, Tolstoy abandoned his studies in 1847 without earning a degree and returned to Yasnaya Polyana to claim the property (along with 350 serfs and their families) that was his birthright.

After several aimless years of debauchery and gambling in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Tolstoy journeyed to the Caucasus in 1851 to join his older brother Nikolay, an army lieutenant participating in the Caucasian campaign. The following year Tolstoy officially enlisted in the military, and in 1854 he became a commissioned officer in the artillery, serving first on the Danube and later in the Crimean War. Although his sexual escapades and profligate gambling during this period shocked even his fellow soldiers, it was while in the army that Tolstoy began his literary apprenticeship. Greatly influenced by the works of Charles Dickens, Tolstoy wrote
Childhood
, his first novel. Published pseudonymously in September 1852 in the
Contemporary
, a St. Petersburg journal, the book received highly favorable reviews—earning the praise of Turgenev—and overnight established Tolstoy as a major writer. Over the next years he contributed several novels and short stories (about military life) to the
Contemporary
—including
Boyhood
(1854), three
Sevastopol
stories (1855–1856),
Two Hussars
(1856), and
Youth
(1857).

In 1856 Tolstoy left the army and went to live in St. Petersburg, where he was much in demand in fashionable salons. He quickly discovered, however, that he disliked the life of a literary celebrity (he often quarreled with fellow writers, especially Turgenev) and soon departed on his first trip to western Europe. Upon returning to Russia, he produced the story “Three Deaths” and a short novel,
Family Happiness
, both published in 1859. Afterward, Tolstoy decided to abandon literature in favor of more “useful” pursuits. He retired to Yasnaya Polyana to manage his estate and established a school there for the education of children of his serfs. In 1860 he again traveled abroad in order to observe European (especially German) educational systems; he later published
Yasnaya Polyana
, a journal expounding his theories on pedagogy. The following year he was appointed an arbiter of the peace to settle disputes between newly emancipated serfs and their former masters. But in July 1862 the police raided the school at Yasnaya Polyana for evidence of subversive activity. The search elicited an indignant protest from Tolstoy directly to Alexander II, who officially exonerated him.

That same summer, at the age of thirty-four, Tolstoy fell in love with eighteen-year-old Sofya Andreyevna Bers, who was living with her parents on a nearby estate. (As a girl she had reverently memorized whole passages of
Childhood
.) The two were married on September 23, 1862, in a church inside the Kremlin walls. The early years of the marriage were largely joyful (thirteen children were born of the union) and coincided with the period of Tolstoy’s great novels. In 1863 he not only published
The Cossacks
, but began work on
War and Peace
, his great epic novel that came out in 1869.

Then, on March 18, 1873, inspired by the opening of a fragmentary tale by Pushkin, Tolstoy started writing
Anna Karenina
. Originally titled
Two Marriages
, the book underwent multiple revisions and was serialized to great popular and critical acclaim between 1875 and 1877.

It was during the torment of writing
Anna Karenina
that Tolstoy experienced the spiritual crisis that recast the rest of his life. Haunted by the inevitability of death, he underwent a “conversion” to the ideals of human life and conduct that he found in the teachings of Christ.
A Confession
(1882), which was banned in Russia, marked this change in his life and works. Afterward, he became an extreme rationalist and moralist, and in a series of pamphlets published during his remaining years Tolstoy rejected both church and state, denounced private ownership of property, and advocated celibacy, even in marriage. In 1897 he even went so far as to renounce his own novels, as well as many other classics, including Shakespeare’s
Hamlet
and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, for being morally irresponsible, elitist, and corrupting. His teachings earned him numerous followers in Russia (“We have two tsars, Nicholas II and Leo Tolstoy,” a journalist wrote) and abroad (most notably, Mahatma Gandhi) but also many opponents, and in 1902 he was excommunicated by the Russian holy synod. Prompted by Turgenev’s deathbed entreaty (“My friend, return to literature!”), Tolstoy did produce several more short stories and novels—including the ongoing series
Stories for the People
, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (1886),
The Kreutzer Sonata
(1889), “Master and Man” (1895),
Resurrection
(1899), and
Hadji Murat
(published posthumously)—as well as a play,
The Power of Darkness
(1886).