The book begins in July 1805, at a dinner party at the house of the lady of the court Anna Pavlovna Sherer. French speeches, conversations about Bonaparte.
But in one of the early versions, everything was arranged differently. The reader is offered to recall Prince Peter Kirillovich B., whom in the 1850s was already known as an old man who had returned from Siberia, and imagine him as a young man.
Researchers associate this old man with Pierre Bezukhov.
That is, the novel’s plot began with a man returning from exile, not with the evening at Anna Pavlovna’s house. And this is not an alternative ending to War and Peace. It is the plot of another book that Tolstoy was planning to write earlier.
The old man who returned in 1856
In 1860, Tolstoy begins the novel «The Decembrists.».
Here’s the plan: The old Decembrist returns from the Siberian exile to Moscow in 1856, looks at the changed country and reassesses himself and his comrades in the uprising. By 1861, three chapters have been written. Tolstoy reads the beginning to Herzen, and in March reports to Herzen that he is working on it.
And then Tolstoy stops and starts backing away.
To explain the old man, it took the year 1825. To explain the year 1825, it took the youth of these people. From there the author was swept away to 1812. And since the war of 1812 was connected with the previous campaign, it was necessary to go even further, to 1805. According to his own explanation, it was a matter of conscience for him to write about one Russian triumph over Napoleon without showing previous defeats.
Thus, out of the three articles about the old man, the one that was published in the Russian Bulletin in 1865 and 1866 was titled «1805 Year.» The early publication even had subheadings like «In St. Petersburg,» «In Moscow,» and «In the Village,» which were later discarded.
What remains of the original plan
The traces didn't go anywhere.
In the Decembrists themselves, Pyotr Ivanovich Labazov returns with his wife Natalia Nikolayevna. Pyotr Kirillovich B. appears already in one of the early versions of the future «War and Peace». These are different stages of the work, not the biography of a single character who simply changed his surname.
In that early version, the future Pierre is presented as a man who is about to return from Siberia. In the final text, this direct reference to his future is gone.
The rest, however, have appeared. Andrey Bolkonsky, Natasha, and Kuragin are already coming together as the story progresses; at that point Tolstoy stops writing a biography about one person and takes on, in his words, young and old people, men and women of that time.
The structure of the novel in its volumes
| Tom | Years | What's happening |
|---|---|---|
| In Volume 1 | 1805 year | Salons of St. Petersburg, the death of the old Bezukhov, the Austerlitz battle, the injury of Prince Andrei |
| Volume II | 1806–1811 | The lives of the heroes between the campaigns, the 1807 war, Pierre's Freemasonry, Natasha's first ball and her story with Anatole |
| Volume III | 1812 | Napoleon's invasion, Smolensk, the Borodino battle, and the abandoned Moscow |
| Volume IV | 1812 and beyond | The Siege of Pierre, Guerrilla War, Retreat of the French, Death of Prince Andrew |
| Epilogue | 1813–1820 | Two families, Pierre's conversation about a secret society in St. Petersburg, and the dream of Nikolai Bolkonsky |
The main characters
| Hero | Who is this? |
|---|---|
| Pierre Bezukhov | The illegitimate son of a wealthy noble who acquired title and wealth. A hero whom researchers associate with the early draft of the novel about the Decembrist |
| Andrey Bolkonsky | The prince, an officer, disappointed by the light. Passing Austerlitz and Borodino, he dies from his wound |
| Natasha Rostova | The younger daughter of a Moscow family; from the girl at the first ball to the mother of the family in the epilogue |
| Nikolay Rostov | Her brother, a Cossack, an honest servant. In the epilogue, he argues with Pierre about the discontent in St. Petersburg |
| Maria Bolkonskaya | Prince Andrei's sister, religious and introverted, marries Nikolai Rostov |
| Kutuzov | Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army. Tolstoy opposes the idea of a commander-in-chief who alone controls the course of history. |
| Napoleon | The Emperor of the French, shown without the halo, as a man confident in his own greatness |
Fifteen times rewritten beginning
While the plot was unfolding, the author couldn’t figure out how to start.
Researcher Evelina Zaidenschnur counted fifteen possible beginnings for the novel in Tolstoy’s papers. Somewhere the book opened with the story of a family, somewhere with the author’s reflections, and somewhere with that same view from the 1850s of the old man returning home. Anna Pavlovna’s salon, to which we are accustomed, did not win over us immediately.
It wasn’t just the first page that was affected. Tolstoy repeatedly revised individual chapters and episodes. Sofya Andreevna rewrote a significant portion of the manuscripts herself.
Trip to the field
In the autumn of 1867, when the book was already being written, Tolstoy went to see Borodino Field.
He took his wife Stepan Berse's twelve-year-old brother with him; they spent two days there, walking around the area with a notebook. Among the manuscripts, a sheet remained with notes made directly on the field: where Borodino, where Gorky, where Semenovsky; a drawn line of the horizon and a short note that the distance is visible for twenty-five miles.
Upon returning to Moscow, he wrote to his wife that he was very pleased with the trip and hoped to write a Borodino battle like no other had ever been.
This is, by the way, an answer to the frequent question of why the battle chapters are read so thoroughly. The author walked around this field himself and looked at where he could see something.
A book that has no final text
There is another oddity about War and Peace that is rarely mentioned.
For the third edition of 1873, Tolstoy significantly revised the novel. He eliminated some of the historical and philosophical arguments, moved some of them into an appendix, and replaced almost the entire French text with a Russian translation. Destroying the French text, he admitted, was sometimes regrettable.
Then, in subsequent editions, he reversed some of the changes and added new ones.
There is simply no single undisputed text for this book; Boris Eichenbaum has already written about this. The current editions most often repeat the second of these, and the usual division into four volumes came from the third.
Why the epilogue isn't really an epilogue
Usually the first part of the epilogue is read as an optional appendix. Weddings, children, diapers, Natasha and her household. And the second part, with the reasoning about history, is completely skipped over.
But look at the date. The action takes place in 1820.
Pierre arrives from St. Petersburg and tells that people in the capital are dissatisfied with where everything is going and that he is participating in this. Nikolai Rostov, upon hearing this, replies that if ordered, he will go and cut down his own trees. In the office, a teenager named Nikolenka Bolkonsky, the son of Prince Andrei, who died after being wounded at Borodino, sits unnoticed by his uncle and listens to the adults.
At night he dreams of fame, an army, his father, and how he will accomplish something that his father would be pleased with.
There are five years left until the uprising on Senate Square.
Tolstoy did not write what happened to Pierre next, and there is no trace of this future within War and Peace. But the early version of the beginning preserved the trace of another future of Pierre, the return from Siberia of an old man.
Therefore, the epilogue is not the tail of the novel; it is its open door.
«This is not a romance»
When the book came out, the author had to explain what he had actually written.
He responded in writing. In 1868, his «A Few Words on the Book „War and Peace“» was published, and it states explicitly that it is not a novel, much less a poem, much less a historical chronicle. This, writes Tolstoy, is what he wanted to express and was able to express in the form in which it was expressed.
At the same time, he explains why there is so much French on his pages. Tolstoy links French speech to the characteristics of the society depicted and admits that he got carried away by it at times to an extent that was unnecessary.
There is a beautiful legend about the name itself. It seems that in the old orthography it stood for «miyr» meaning «society.» The published editions do not confirm this; the title pages simply say "miyr".
The book never had a genre title, so in English-language catalogs and collections it is usually listed by the author, war and peace tolstoy. There is a separate article about Tolstoy himself and his other books.
Tolstoy tried it again
Next was «Anna Karenina».
And then, in 1878, Tolstoy returned to his old plan. He got serious about it. He met with the living Decembrists, Sviestunov, Belyayev, and Muratiev-Apstol, spoke with their relatives, and collected materials. In the autumn, he set to work on the novel. In 1879, he continued and tried to access the original Decembrist case files in the Third Department archive.
And he stopped again. Why, it is not exactly known. He never got access to the original documents, and around the same time, religious and public issues began to take a greater and greater hold on him, from which all of his later journalism grew.
As it turned out, the book about the old man who returned from Siberia exists in three chapters, and its backstory took up four volumes.
Why is it necessary to know this before reading?
The advice here is simple: Don't throw books at weddings.
If you read the epilogue as a report on who married whom, it really does drag on. If you remember that somewhere behind these pages there is an old man returning from exile, Pierre’s conversation with Nikolai Rostov takes on a completely different tone, and Nikolay’s dream ceases to be a sweet childhood scene.
Tolstoy brought the heroes into a time when the future Decembrist story is already discernible. But he did not tell the story itself in War and Peace.
Frequently Asked Questions about «War and Peace»
What is «War and Peace» about in short?
About several noble families and Russia in the era of the wars with Napoleon. The action takes place from 1805 to 1820; it features the salons of St. Petersburg, Austerlitz, Borodino, the abandoned Moscow, and the heroes' return to ordinary life. The volume of the novel intimidates many readers, so the English-speaking reader often starts with the query war and peace summary.
How many volumes are in the novel and what are the contents of each one?
Four volumes and an epilogue. The first covers the year 1805 and the campaign against Napoleon, the second the lives of the heroes between the campaigns, the war of 1807, Pierre's Freemasonry, Natasha's first ball and her story with Anatole, the third 1812 and Borodino, the fourth the left of Moscow, Pierre's captivity and the retreat of the French. The epilogue is extended to 1820.
Who are the main characters?
Pierre Bezukhov, Andrei Bolkonsky, Natasha Rostova, Nikolai Rostov, and Maria Bolkonskaya. Next to them are historical figures: Kutuzov, Napoleon, Alexander I. In creating some of the characters, Tolstoy used family legends and traits of people he knew well.
Why doesn’t the novel have a single text?
Tolstoy edited the novel from edition to edition. In the third edition of 1873, he removed some of the historical and philosophical arguments and translated the French dialogues, then reversed some of the corrections. In the current editions that are widely available, the basis is the text of the second edition, and the division into four volumes dates back to the third edition.
Is it mandatory to read the French pieces?
In most modern Russian editions, French quotes are accompanied by translations, so there is no need to miss anything. In the third edition of 1873, Tolstoy himself replaced almost the entire French text with a Russian translation, and in subsequent editions he eliminated some of these corrections.
What are the known screen adaptations?
Among the well-known screen adaptations are Sergei Bondarchuk’s Soviet film from 1965–1967, King Vidor’s American-Italian film from 1956 with Audrey Hepburn, and the BBC series from 2016. Bondarchuk’s film won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, awarded in 1969.
Where to start if the novel seems too big?
Start with Pierre, Andrei, and Natasha’s main line, and don’t miss the epilogue. It’s there that the novel comes closest to the story from which its concept grew up in the first place.
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