The story of the creation of the novel War and Peace. The creative history of the creation of the novel 'War and Peace' Briefly

The novel "War and Peace" L.N. Tolstoy devoted seven years of intense and persistent work. September 5, 1863 A.E. Bers, father of Sofia Andreevna, wife of L.N. Tolstoy, sent from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana a letter with the following remark: “Yesterday we talked a lot about 1812 on the occasion of your intention to write a novel relating to this era.” It is this letter that researchers consider “the first accurate evidence” dating the beginning of L.N.’s work. Tolstoy's "War and Peace". In October of the same year, Tolstoy wrote to his relative: “I have never felt my mental and even all my moral powers so free and so capable of work. And I have this job. This work is a novel from the time of 1810 and 20s, which has been occupying me completely since the fall... I am now a writer with all the strength of my soul, and I write and think about it as I have never written or thought about it before.”

The manuscripts of “War and Peace” testify to how one of the world’s largest works was created: over 5,200 finely written sheets have been preserved in the writer’s archive. From them you can trace the entire history of the creation of the novel.

Initially, Tolstoy conceived a novel about a Decembrist who returned after a 30-year exile in Siberia. The novel began in 1856, shortly before the abolition of serfdom. But then the writer revised his plan and moved on to 1825 - the era of the Decembrist uprising. But soon the writer abandoned this beginning and decided to show the youth of his hero, which coincided with the formidable and glorious times Patriotic War 1812. But Tolstoy did not stop there either, and since the war of 1812 was inextricably linked with 1805, he began his entire work from that time. Having moved the beginning of the action of his novel half a century into the depths of history, Tolstoy decided to take not one, but many heroes through the most important events for Russia.

Tolstoy called his plan to capture the half-century history of the country in artistic form “Three Times.” The first time is the beginning of the century, its first decade and a half, the time of youth of the first Decembrists who went through the Patriotic War of 1812. The second time is the 20s with their main event - the uprising of December 14, 1825. The third time - the 50s, an unfortunate end for the Russian army Crimean War, sudden death Nicholas I, the amnesty of the Decembrists, their return from exile and the time of waiting for changes in the life of Russia.

However, in the process of working on the work, the writer narrowed the scope of his initial plan and focused on the first period, touching only on the beginning of the second period in the epilogue of the novel. But even in this form, the concept of the work remained global in scope and required the writer to exert all his strength. At the beginning of his work, Tolstoy realized that the usual framework of the novel and historical story would not be able to accommodate all the richness of the content he had planned, and began to persistently look for a new one. art form, he wanted to create literary work completely unusual type. And he succeeded. “War and Peace”, according to L.N. Tolstoy is not a novel, not a poem, not a historical chronicle, this is an epic novel, new genre prose, which after Tolstoy became widespread in Russian and world literature.

During the first year of work, Tolstoy worked hard on the beginning of the novel. According to the author himself, many times he started and gave up writing his book, losing and gaining hope of expressing in it everything that he wanted to express. Fifteen versions of the beginning of the novel have been preserved in the writer’s archive. The concept of the work was based on Tolstoy’s deep interest in history, philosophical and socio-political issues. The work was created in an atmosphere of boiling passions around the main issue of that era - about the role of the people in the history of the country, about their destinies. While working on the novel, Tolstoy sought to find the answer to these questions.

In order to truthfully describe the events of the Patriotic War of 1812, the writer studied a huge amount of materials: books, historical documents, memoirs, letters. “When I write history,” Tolstoy pointed out in the article “A few words about the book “War and Peace,” “I like to be faithful to reality down to the smallest detail.” While working on the work, he collected a whole library of books about the events of 1812. In the books of Russian and foreign historians, he found neither a truthful description of events nor a fair assessment of historical figures. Some of them uncontrollably praised Alexander I, considering him the conqueror of Napoleon, others exalted Napoleon, considering him invincible.

Having rejected all the works of historians who depicted the war of 1812 as a war of two emperors, Tolstoy set himself the goal of truthfully covering the events great era and showed the war of liberation waged by the Russian people against foreign invaders. From the books of Russian and foreign historians, Tolstoy borrowed only genuine historical documents: orders, instructions, dispositions, battle plans, letters, etc. He included in the text of the novel letters from Alexander I and Napoleon, which the Russian and French emperors exchanged before the start of the war of 1812; the disposition of the Battle of Austerlitz, developed by General Weyrother, as well as the disposition of the Battle of Borodino, compiled by Napoleon. The chapters of the work also include letters from Kutuzov, which serve as confirmation of the characteristics given to the field marshal by the author.

When creating the novel, Tolstoy used the memoirs of his contemporaries and participants in the Patriotic War of 1812. Thus, from “Notes about 1812 by Sergei Glinka, the first warrior of the Moscow militia,” the writer borrowed materials for scenes depicting Moscow during the war; in “The Works of Denis Vasilievich Davydov” Tolstoy found materials that served as the basis for the partisan scenes of “War and Peace”; in the “Notes of Alexei Petrovich Ermolov” the writer found a lot of important information about the actions of Russian troops during their foreign campaigns of 1805-1806. Tolstoy also discovered a lot of valuable information in the notes of V.A. Perovsky about his time in captivity by the French, and in S. Zhikharev’s diary “Notes of a Contemporary from 1805 to 1819,” on the basis of which the novel describes Moscow life at that time.

While working on the work, Tolstoy also used materials from newspapers and magazines from the era of the Patriotic War of 1812. He spent a lot of time in the manuscript department of the Rumyantsev Museum and in the archives of the palace department, where he carefully studied unpublished documents (orders and instructions, dispatches and reports, Masonic manuscripts and letters from historical figures). Here he became acquainted with the letters of the maid of honor of the imperial palace M.A. Volkova to V.A. Lanskaya, letters from General F.P. Uvarov and other persons. In letters not intended for publication, the writer found precious details depicting the life and characters of his contemporaries in 1812.

Tolstoy stayed in Borodino for two days. Having traveled around the battlefield, he wrote to his wife: “I am very pleased, very pleased with my trip... If only God grants health and peace, and I will write this battle of Borodino, which has never happened before." Between the manuscripts of “War and Peace” there is a piece of paper with notes made by Tolstoy while he was on the Borodino field. “The distance is visible for 25 versts,” he wrote down, sketching the horizon line and noting where the villages of Borodino, Gorki, Psarevo, Semenovskoye, Tatarinovo are located. On this sheet he noted the movement of the sun during the battle. While working on the piece, these short notes Tolstoy developed unique pictures of the Borodino battle, full of movement, colors and sounds.

Throughout the seven years of intense work that writing “War and Peace” required, Tolstoy’s elation and creative fire did not leave him, and that is why the work has not lost its significance to this day. More than a century has passed since the first part of the novel appeared in print, and War and Peace is invariably read by people of all ages - from young men to old people. During the years of work on the epic novel, Tolstoy stated that “the artist’s goal is not to undeniably resolve the issue, but to make one love life in its countless, never-exhaustible manifestations.” Then he admitted: “If they told me that what I write would be read by today’s children in twenty years and would cry and laugh over it and love life, I would devote my whole life and all my strength to it.” Many such works were created by Tolstoy. “War and Peace,” dedicated to one of the bloodiest wars of the 19th century, but affirming the idea of ​​the triumph of life over death, occupies an honorable place among them.

The novel "War and Peace" L.N. Tolstoy devoted seven years of intense and persistent work. September 5, 1863 A.E. Bers, father of Sofia Andreevna, wife of L.N. Tolstoy, sent a letter from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana with the following remark: “Yesterday we talked a lot about 1812 on the occasion of your intention to write a novel relating to this era.” It is this letter that researchers consider “the first accurate evidence” dating the beginning of L.N.’s work. Tolstoy's "War and Peace". In October of the same year, Tolstoy wrote to his relative: “I have never felt my mental and even all my moral powers so free and so capable of work. And I have this job. This work is a novel from the time of 1810 and 20s, which has been occupying me completely since the fall... I am now a writer with all the strength of my soul, and I write and think about it as I have never written or thought about it before.”

The manuscripts of “War and Peace” testify to how one of the world’s largest works was created: over 5,200 finely written sheets have been preserved in the writer’s archive. From them you can trace the entire history of the creation of the novel.

Initially, Tolstoy conceived a novel about a Decembrist who returned after a 30-year exile in Siberia. The novel began in 1856, shortly before the abolition of serfdom. But then the writer revised his plan and moved on to 1825 - the era of the Decembrist uprising. But soon the writer abandoned this beginning and decided to show the youth of his hero, which coincided with the formidable and glorious times of the Patriotic War of 1812. But Tolstoy did not stop there either, and since the war of 1812 was inextricably linked with 1805, he began his entire work from that time. Having moved the beginning of the action of his novel half a century into the depths of history, Tolstoy decided to take not one, but many heroes through the most important events for Russia.

Tolstoy called his plan to capture the half-century history of the country in artistic form “Three Times.” The first time is the beginning of the century, its first decade and a half, the time of youth of the first Decembrists who went through the Patriotic War of 1812. The second time is the 20s with their main event - the uprising of December 14, 1825. The third time is the 50s, the unsuccessful end of the Crimean War for the Russian army, the sudden death of Nicholas I, the amnesty of the Decembrists, their return from exile and the time of waiting for changes in the life of Russia.

However, in the process of working on the work, the writer narrowed the scope of his initial plan and focused on the first period, touching only on the beginning of the second period in the epilogue of the novel. But even in this form, the concept of the work remained global in scope and required the writer to exert all his strength. At the beginning of his work, Tolstoy realized that the usual framework of the novel and historical story would not be able to accommodate all the richness of the content he had planned, and began to persistently search for a new artistic form; he wanted to create a literary work of a completely unusual type. And he succeeded. “War and Peace”, according to L.N. Tolstoy is not a novel, not a poem, not a historical chronicle, it is an epic novel, a new genre of prose, which after Tolstoy became widespread in Russian and world literature.

During the first year of work, Tolstoy worked hard on the beginning of the novel. According to the author himself, many times he started and gave up writing his book, losing and gaining hope of expressing in it everything that he wanted to express. Fifteen versions of the beginning of the novel have been preserved in the writer’s archive. The concept of the work was based on Tolstoy’s deep interest in history, philosophical and socio-political issues. The work was created in an atmosphere of boiling passions around the main issue of that era - about the role of the people in the history of the country, about their destinies. While working on the novel, Tolstoy sought to find the answer to these questions.

In order to truthfully describe the events of the Patriotic War of 1812, the writer studied a huge amount of materials: books, historical documents, memoirs, letters. “When I write history,” Tolstoy pointed out in the article “A few words about the book “War and Peace,” “I like to be faithful to reality down to the smallest detail.” While working on the work, he collected a whole library of books about the events of 1812. In the books of Russian and foreign historians, he found neither a truthful description of events nor a fair assessment of historical figures. Some of them uncontrollably praised Alexander I, considering him the conqueror of Napoleon, others exalted Napoleon, considering him invincible.

Having rejected all the works of historians who portrayed the war of 1812 as a war of two emperors, Tolstoy set himself the goal of truthfully covering the events of the great era and showed the war of liberation waged by the Russian people against foreign invaders. From the books of Russian and foreign historians, Tolstoy borrowed only genuine historical documents: orders, instructions, dispositions, battle plans, letters, etc. He included in the text of the novel letters from Alexander I and Napoleon, which the Russian and French emperors exchanged before the start of the war of 1812; the disposition of the Battle of Austerlitz, developed by General Weyrother, as well as the disposition of the Battle of Borodino, compiled by Napoleon. The chapters of the work also include letters from Kutuzov, which serve as confirmation of the characteristics given to the field marshal by the author.

When creating the novel, Tolstoy used the memoirs of his contemporaries and participants in the Patriotic War of 1812. Thus, from “Notes about 1812 by Sergei Glinka, the first warrior of the Moscow militia,” the writer borrowed materials for scenes depicting Moscow during the war; in “The Works of Denis Vasilievich Davydov” Tolstoy found materials that served as the basis for the partisan scenes of “War and Peace”; in the “Notes of Alexei Petrovich Ermolov” the writer found a lot of important information about the actions of Russian troops during their foreign campaigns of 1805-1806. Tolstoy also discovered a lot of valuable information in the notes of V.A. Perovsky about his time in captivity by the French, and in S. Zhikharev’s diary “Notes of a Contemporary from 1805 to 1819,” on the basis of which the novel describes Moscow life at that time.

While working on the work, Tolstoy also used materials from newspapers and magazines from the era of the Patriotic War of 1812. He spent a lot of time in the manuscript department of the Rumyantsev Museum and in the archives of the palace department, where he carefully studied unpublished documents (orders and instructions, dispatches and reports, Masonic manuscripts and letters from historical figures). Here he became acquainted with the letters of the maid of honor of the imperial palace M.A. Volkova to V.A. Lanskaya, letters from General F.P. Uvarov and other persons. In letters not intended for publication, the writer found precious details depicting the life and characters of his contemporaries in 1812.

Tolstoy stayed in Borodino for two days. Having traveled around the battlefield, he wrote to his wife: “I am very pleased, very pleased with my trip... If only God grants health and peace, and I will write a Battle of Borodino that has never happened before.” Between the manuscripts of “War and Peace” there is a piece of paper with notes made by Tolstoy while he was on the Borodino field. “The distance is visible for 25 versts,” he wrote down, sketching the horizon line and noting where the villages of Borodino, Gorki, Psarevo, Semenovskoye, Tatarinovo are located. On this sheet he noted the movement of the sun during the battle. While working on the work, Tolstoy developed these brief notes into unique pictures of the Borodino battle, full of movement, colors and sounds.

Throughout the seven years of intense work that writing “War and Peace” required, Tolstoy’s elation and creative fire did not leave him, and that is why the work has not lost its significance to this day. More than a century has passed since the first part of the novel appeared in print, and War and Peace is invariably read by people of all ages - from young men to old people. During the years of work on the epic novel, Tolstoy stated that “the artist’s goal is not to undeniably resolve the issue, but to make one love life in its countless, never-exhaustible manifestations.” Then he admitted: “If they told me that what I write would be read by today’s children in twenty years and would cry and laugh over it and love life, I would devote my whole life and all my strength to it.” Many such works were created by Tolstoy. “War and Peace,” dedicated to one of the bloodiest wars of the 19th century, but affirming the idea of ​​the triumph of life over death, occupies an honorable place among them.

One of the most fundamental and highly artistic prose works in history Russian literature is the epic novel War and Peace. The high ideological and compositional perfection of the work is the fruit of many years of work. The history of the creation of Tolstoy's War and Peace reflects the hard work on the novel from 1863 to 1870.

Interest in the theme of the Decembrists

The work is based on the Patriotic War of 1812, its reflection on the destinies of people, the awakening of moral and patriotic feelings, and the spiritual unity of the Russian people. However, before starting to create a story about the Patriotic War, the author changed his plans many times. For many years he was concerned about the topic of the Decembrists, their role in the development of the state and the outcome of the uprising.

Tolstoy decided to write a work reflecting the story of the Decembrist, who returned in 1856 after a 30-year exile. According to Tolstoy, the beginning of the story should have begun in 1856. Later, the author decides to begin his story in 1825 in order to show what reasons led the hero to exile. But having plunged into the abyss of historical events, the author felt the need to depict not only the fate of one hero, but the Decembrist uprising itself, its origins.

Original concept

The work was conceived as a story, and later as a novel “The Decembrists,” on which he worked in 1860–1861. Over time, the author is not satisfied with only the events of 1825 and comes to the understanding that it is necessary to reveal in the work earlier historical events that formed the wave patriotic movement and the awakening of civic consciousness in Russia. But the author did not stop there either, understanding the inextricable connection between the events of 1812 and their origins, which date back to 1805. Thus, the idea of ​​creative recreation of artistic and historical reality is planned by the author into a half-century large-scale picture reflecting events from 1805 to the 1850s.

“Three Times” in the history of Russia

The author called this idea of ​​​​recreating historical reality “Three Times”. The first of them was supposed to reflect the historical realities of the 19th century, personifying the conditions for the formation of the young Decembrists. The next time is the 1820s - the moment of formation of civic activity and the moral position of the Decembrists. The culmination of this historical period, according to Tolstoy, was a direct description of the Decembrist uprising, its defeat and consequences. The third period was conceived by the author as a recreation of the reality of the 50s, marked by the return of the Decembrists from exile under an amnesty due to the death of Nicholas I. The third part was supposed to personify the time of the onset of long-awaited changes in the political atmosphere of Russia.

Such a global plan of the author, which consists in depicting a very wide time period, filled with numerous and significant historical events, required enormous effort and artistic strength from the writer. The work, in the finale of which the return of Pierre Bezukhov and Natasha Rostova from exile was planned, did not fit into the framework of not only a traditional historical story, but even a novel. Understanding this and realizing the importance of a detailed recreation of the pictures of the War of 1812 and its starting points, Lev Nikolaevich decides to narrow the historical scope of the planned work.

The final version of the artistic concept

In the author’s final plan, the extreme time point is the 20s years XIX centuries, which the reader learns about only in the prologue, but the main events of the work coincide with historical reality from 1805 to 1812. Despite the fact that the author decided to convey the essence historical era more succinctly, the book never quite fits into any of the traditional historical genres. The work, combining detailed descriptions of all aspects of war and peacetime, resulted in a four-volume epic novel,

Working on a novel

Despite the fact that the author has established himself with the final version artistic design, working on the work was not easy. Over the seven-year period of its creation, the author repeatedly abandoned work on the novel and returned to it again. The peculiarities of the work are evidenced by numerous manuscripts of the work, preserved in the writer’s archive, numbering more than five thousand pages. It is through them that the history of the creation of the novel “War and Peace” can be traced.

The archive contained 15 draft versions of the novel, which indicates the author’s utmost responsibility for working on the work, high degree introspection and criticism. Realizing the importance of the topic, Tolstoy wanted to be as close to the truth as possible. historical facts, philosophical and moral views of society, civic sentiments of the first quarter of the XIX century. To write the novel “War and Peace,” the writer had to study many memoirs of eyewitnesses of the war, historical documents and scientific works, personal letters. “When I write history, I like to be faithful to reality down to the smallest detail,” Tolstoy asserted. As a result, it turned out that the writer unwittingly collected a whole collection of books, dedicated to events 1812.

In addition to working on historical sources, for a reliable depiction of the events of the war, the author visited the sites of military battles. It was these trips that formed the basis of the unique landscape sketches, turning the novel from a historical chronicle into a highly artistic work of literature.

The title of the work chosen by the author represents main idea. Peace, which consists of spiritual harmony and the absence of military action in native land, can make a person truly happy. L.N. Tolstoy, who at the time of creating the work wrote: “The artist’s goal is not to undeniably resolve the issue, but to make one love life in its countless, never-exhaustible manifestations,” undoubtedly succeeded in realizing his ideological plan.

Work test

Novel "War and Peace" - highest achievement artistic genius Tolstoy. The book required enormous efforts from the author, commensurate with its merits.

Typically, the boundaries of Tolstoy’s work on a novel are defined as seven years: 1863–1869. This version has become so established that it has already migrated to the pages of school textbooks. However, it is unfair, confuses the essence of the matter, and gives rise to many misconceptions. Tolstoy himself, in the article “A few words about the book “War and Peace”,” wrote about the five years of creation of the novel. This was in 1868, and he did not imagine then that completing the text would require another two years of the same “incessant and exceptional labor under best conditions life."

The fact is that in 1862, an 18-year-old girl, Sonechka Bers, the daughter of a doctor in the court department, became Countess Tolstoy. Her husband was 34 years old at the time; he finally entered the quiet family backwater. Work became more fun. However, firstly, it began much earlier, and secondly, an important circumstance was forgotten: Tolstoy never continued it continuously, without frequent stops, especially in its early stages. This was the case with Anna Karenina, Resurrection, and other plans. The writer had to interrupt his work to think about the future development of the plot and, as he said, to prevent the “scaffolding” of the building of the work under construction from collapsing. In addition, Tolstoy himself claimed, while working on the supposed preface to the novel, that back in 1856 he began writing a story about a Decembrist returning with his family from exile to Russia. This is a very important recognition in many ways. Peculiarity creative process Tolstoy was that, despite the exceptional power of imagination, he always proceeded from fact. This, figuratively speaking, was the “stove” from which the dance of his imagination began, and then in the process of work he went far away from this fact, creating a fictitious plot and fictitious persons. The story of the Decembrist, which Tolstoy remembered, was the plan for the future novel “The Decembrists” (its manuscripts were preserved and were published later). 1856 was the year of the Decembrist amnesty, when the few surviving participants in the movement who had not taken firm roots in Siberia flocked to their homeland. Tolstoy met some of them, and his Pierre Labazov, the hero of the original story, then the novel, had real prototypes.

It was necessary to find out the history of these people, and Tolstoy moved on to 1825, to the “era of delusions and misfortunes” of his hero; then it turned out to be necessary to turn to the hero’s youth, and it coincided with the “glorious era of 1812 for Russia.” But for the third time, Tolstoy abandoned what he had started, because he believed that the character of the people and the Russian army “should have been expressed even more clearly in the era of failures and defeats.” The action of the novel "War and Peace" begins in 1805, when in skirmishes with Napoleon, Russian troops suffered severe losses until 1807 with the fatal Battle of Austerlitz.

Thus, the start of work on “War and Peace” was not 1863, but 1856. We can talk about the existence of a coherent plan: a story about the Decembrist, which turned into the novels “The Decembrists” and “War and Peace.” There is also evidence that Tolstoy worked on this gradually changing plan in 1860, 1861 and even in 1862-1863. In addition, the famous name itself - "War and Peace" - arose very late. It only appeared in a typesetting manuscript in 1856! Until that time, there were several titles of the novel: “Three Times”, “All’s Well That Ends Well”, “From 1805 to 1814”, “One Thousand Eight Hundred and Five” (this was not the title of the entire novel, but only its beginning, which appeared in the magazine version in "Russian Bulletin" 1865–1866). The title of the novel written by Tolstoy was originally as follows: “War and Mip.” Meaning of the word "mgr" completely different from the “world” that now structures the whole artistic system based on the principle of contrast with the concept of "war". "Mip" is a community, a people, a community, the working life of a mass of people. In one of the drafts of the novel, the author used the proverb: “The world reaps, but the army feeds,” i.e. the contrast was intended in a different way than it is now in the final, canonical text.

So, Tolstoy went into the past from modernity in order to return to it again, but at the end of a new novel, the contours of which became increasingly clearer for him. The writer was going to end with where he once began his work. “My task,” he notes in one of the rough drafts of the unpublished preface, “is to describe the lives and conflicts of certain individuals during the period from 1805 to 1856.”

“War and Peace,” thus, with all its majestic scope, which even now amazes the imagination, is only part of a grandiose and not fully realized plan. In the cursory epilogue of the novel, omitting events after 1812, Tolstoy sketched scenes from the early 1820s, i.e. close eve of the Decembrist uprising. However, even in this form, this block of novel, not fully processed, with many events and persons, serves as a grandiose example of great creative will and great work. It didn’t take the author seven years, but twice as long – 14 years! In this case, everything falls into place: never will a writer have to experience such a powerful creative impulse into the unattainable, into the unattainable. Although now the author of this brilliant novel almost like God, because he made a titanic effort: he led his heroes from 1805 through several eras of Russian life, sketched the approach to the December catastrophe of 1825 and recreated the events of 1856 in advance (in the romance "Decembrists", written long before how work on "War and Peace" was completed). To fully implement the plan, a series of novels would be required, like Balzac's "Human Comedy".

The ridiculous version of working for seven years appeared because textual critics who studied the manuscripts of the novel were let down by... textual criticism. They decided that since there were no surviving manuscripts reflecting the work of 1856 and subsequent years, then there was no work! The well-known idea of ​​Tolstoy’s famous letter to Fet turned out to be forgotten, where the paradoxical nature of his work was especially clearly expressed: “I don’t write anything, but I work painfully... It’s terribly difficult to think over millions of possible combinations in order to choose from 1/1000000.”

However, the surviving drafts in many ways exceed the volume of War and Peace. At the same time, the manuscripts, this true chronicle of Tolstoy’s hard work, destroy some of the legends associated with his work on the famous novel, for example, the also firmly rooted version that Tolstoy seven times rewrote War and Peace. It is clear that even if the author seven spans in the forehead, he would not be able to do this. But our admiration for Tolstoy is endless, and since they say this about him, it means it is so, because he can do anything. Famous in the past Soviet writer and the functionary, now completely forgotten, lecturing his readers, says: “Just think, Tolstoy rewrote War and Peace seven times,” and after thinking a little, adds, “by hand!” He apparently understands that this is hardly possible, because every time in such cases there is a need for many inevitable amendments, revisions of the text at every step and in almost every phrase, a chain reaction of more and more changes that have no end. In a word, it is difficult for a writer not to write, but rather to rewrite what has been written. If this had happened to Tolstoy, he would have spent his entire life writing one novel without ever finishing it.

That is why it is appropriate to say here that the appearance of “War and Peace” is a consequence not only of the exceptional intensity of Tolstoy’s artistic genius, but also of the fact that he was truly brilliant in organizing his work. The writer left for himself only creative element at work. He never rewrote, but wrote from a whitewashed text, i.e. from a copy taken from an autograph or from a manuscript that had already been copied more than once before, and then the copy was again at his fingertips, and an energetic creative search began again. Tolstoy firmly adhered to the rule he learned while working on Childhood: “We must forever discard the idea of ​​writing without corrections.”

It is known how much stress it cost Tolstoy preliminary work, as he said, “deep plowing of the field” for a new work. A lot of concise characteristics of the characters were sketched out, the plot and its individual episodes were carefully thought out.

Even a solid system of rubrics was determined by which the idea of ​​a particular character in War and Peace was formed: “property” (status), “social”, “love”, “poetic”, “mental”, “family”.

But now the plans seem to have been finally thought out, the heroes begin to show themselves directly in action, in clashes with each other, detailed descriptions of scenes, episodes, chapters appear - and everything to which so much effort was devoted collapses before the eyes of the author, and he is already pays little attention to pre-drawn notes and plans, following the logic of the characters emerging in his mind. That is why Tolstoy often noted with surprise that his heroes act as they tend to act, and not as he wants, and that, in fact, it is best when plans are developed by them, and not by the author.

How complex the process of creating an image was for Tolstoy is evidenced by the story of the appearance of one of the central figures in the novel - Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, told by Tolstoy himself. “In the Battle of Austerlitz,” the writer recalled, “I needed a brilliant young man to be killed; in the further course of my novel, I only needed the old man Bolkonsky and his daughter; but since it is awkward to describe a person who has nothing to do with the novel, I decided to make brilliant young man son of old Bolkonsky. Then he interested me, a role in the further course of the novel presented itself for him, and I pardoned him, only by severely wounding him instead of death.”

This story, however, does not exhaust the entire history of the creation of the image, which for Tolstoy himself, even in May 1865, when the letter was written, was still largely unclear. In one of the notes, Prince Andrei turned into a “rubbish russian”; in other drafts, the theme of a quarrel between father and son over Prince Andrei’s marriage to the “insignificant daughter of a landowner” was elaborated; a fragment of the manuscript was preserved, where he challenged Ippolit Kuragin, who persistently pursued him, to a duel wife, "little princess". The main difficulty was that the character of the hero was devoid of development, the play of light and shadows, the idea of ​​an invariably cold, prim, arrogant aristocratic dandy was created, whose habits were ridiculed by those around him. Even after publishing “The Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Five” in the magazine “Russian Messenger,” Tolstoy wrote to Fet in November 1866 that Prince Andrei was “monotonous, boring and only un homme com me il faut,” and that the character of the hero “is worth and doesn't move." Only in the autumn of 1866, when work on the novel was finishing, the image of Prince Andrei was finally determined, and the previous interpretation of the hero was discarded. Returning to the magazine text “One Thousand Eight Hundred and Five” in 1867, when preparing the first edition of “War and Peace,” Tolstoy gradually erased the features of contemptuous negligence, coldness, swagger and laziness that had previously distinguished Prince Andrei. The author already sees his hero differently. But what a long way to go! And this is only one character, and there are more than 500 of them in the novel.

It often happened that in the process of work, some of the heroes turned out to be rethought, as was the case, for example, with Ippolit Kuragin (in the early drafts of Ivan Kuragin), in whom, according to the original plan, there was not even a shadow of those features of physical and mental degeneration that would later turn out to be This character is endowed with a representative, in the words of Prince Andrei, of “court lackeys and idiots.”

The image of Pierre Bezukhov is far from the final version, the same should be said about Anna Pavlovna Scherer, Princess Drubetskaya, who aroused the obvious sympathy of the author at the beginning of work on the novel. Even Natasha Rostova in the first drafts sometimes bears little resemblance to the “sorceress” who will eventually appear on the pages of the book. In numerous sketches with endless authorial amendments, the work looms before us greatest artist world literature.

The idea to create epic work arose long before Leo Tolstoy wrote its first lines. Having started work on the next story in 1956, the author began to form the image of the main character. The courageous gray-haired man returns to Russia; he once had to flee abroad as a member of the Decembrist uprising of 1825. What was this old man like in his youth, what did he have to endure? - the writer asked himself a question. I had to involuntarily plunge into the events of 1812, the history of the creation of the novel “War and Peace” began to develop.

Why did the writer shorten the work?

Tolstoy called the epic “Three Times,” dividing it initially into three parts. It was decided to squeeze in the events of the Patriotic War of 1812 into the first part. The second part, according to the primary plan, was main theme novel. Here the heroes of the Decembrists were displayed, their selfless idea to overthrow was revealed serfdom And difficult fate exiled to hard labor.

The author tentatively called the last part “The Third Time.” The content includes the events of the Crimean War at the final stage, the accession to the throne of Alexander II and the return from exile of the surviving Decembrists. In the third part, the writer was going to focus on the experiences and aspirations of the advanced strata of society. Good changes were expected from the new emperor.

As soon as Tolstoy began working on the beginning of the story, he realized that he had stumbled upon a deep philosophical layer of questions related to national essence and her heroic manifestations at critical fateful moments. Lev Nikolaevich wanted to reveal in detail the nature of the unity and patriotism of the ordinary masses of people.

The author told his friends in letters that he was experiencing the strain of all his creative powers. The work he did did not fit into the usual format of books published by his contemporaries. The storytelling style was different from works of art that time.

How the work progressed

The writer studied biographical data to the smallest detail historical figures Kutuzov, Alexander I and Napoleon. He himself wrote in the article that he likes to recreate the smallest details of actual situations depicted in the documents found. Over the years of work on the novel, the Tolstoy family formed a full-fledged library of books dedicated to the period of the Patriotic War of 1812.

The idea of ​​the novel was liberation movement Russian people. Therefore, the author did not use orders, letters, documents and books telling about the war as a battle between two emperors. The author used memoirs with an objective assessment of the events of those times. These were recordings by Zhikharev, Petrovsky, Ermolov. Tolstoy worked with newspapers and magazines published in 1812.

Description of the Battle of Borodino

Among the writer's manuscripts, bibliographers found technical notes that he scribbled while on the Borodino field. Tolstoy pointed out that the horizon can be seen 25 miles away. At the bottom of the note is a drawing of the horizon. On the same sheet, dots are drawn indicating the located villages that the author mentioned in the plot of the novel.

All day long Tolstoy watched exactly how the sun moved around the plain. What time Sun rays playing on the hills as the shadow falls. How the morning dawn rises, from where the evening glow appears.

6 for long years Leo Tolstoy worked on the creation of his brainchild until 1869. The plot was redrawn and changed many times. The author rewrote the entire novel 8 times, working with pen and ink. The writer reworked some episodes more than 20 times.