INSTRUCTIONS AND PROPHECIES OF THE Blessed MOTHER ALIPIA GOLOSEEVSKY, Kyiv...
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy in the novel "War and Peace" denies the theory of the cult of a great personality in history. Tolstoy assigns negligibly little space to the role of the individual in history, equating it with the purpose of a "label", that is, to give a name to events, facts and phenomena. Napoleon during his lifetime receives the title of an invincible and brilliant commander.
Tolstoy debunks Napoleon in moral terms, accusing him of a lack of humanism in relation to ordinary soldiers and people. Napoleon - invader, enslaver of the peoples of Europe and Russia. As a commander, he is an indirect killer of many thousands of people, only this gave him the right to greatness and glory. State activity Napoleon in this light is simply immoral. Europe could not oppose anyone to Napoleon, "no reasonable ideal", and only the Russian people bury his extravagant plans to seize world domination.
Tolstoy writes: "Instead of genius, stupidity and meanness appear, having no example." The whole appearance of Napoleon is unnatural and false. He could not meet high moral standards, so there is no true greatness in him. There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.
The embodiment of all this is Kutuzov. Tolstoy notes in him not only a "wise observer of events", but also the talent of a commander who led the most important thing - the morale of the troops. Tolstoy writes: "With many years of military experience, he knew that it was impossible for one person to lead hundreds of thousands of people, that the fate of the battle is decided not by the orders of the commander in chief, not by the place where the troops are stationed, not by the number of guns and killed people, but by that elusive force called the spirit of the army" .
The war acquired a nationwide, national character, therefore, the post of commander-in-chief should have been not a foreigner (Barclay), but a Russian commander - Kutuzov. With the arrival of him to this post, the Russians perked up. They even made up a proverb: "Kutuzov came to beat the French." The superiority of the Russian army militarily and the military genius of Kutuzov showed in 1812 that the Russian people were invincible.
Tolstoy argued that the course of world events is predetermined from above, and the influence of the individual on the course of these events is only external, fictitious. Everything is done not by the will of people, but by the will of providence. This means that Tolstoy is trying to poeticize the elemental laws of life. He argued that everything is decided by feelings, not by reason, which is fate, fate. Theory of predestination, fatalism, inevitability historical events also affected the interpretation of the images of Kutuzov and Napoleon.
The contradictions in Tolstoy's views on his depiction of Kutuzov are manifested in the fact that, on the one hand, Kutuzov is a wise, passive observer of the course of military events, the leader of the spirit of the army, and, on the other hand, he is a commander who actively intervenes in the course of military events. Kutuzov offered Napoleon a general battle and, with Napoleon's numerical superiority, won a military and moral victory. Kutuzov the next day gives the order for a counteroffensive in order to raise the morale of the troops, but then cancels the order in order to preserve the army and forces. And there are many such examples.
After the expulsion of Napoleon from Russia, Kutuzov resigns, considering his mission accomplished.
So Tolstoy's realism got the better of the fetters of his fatalistic philosophy and artistically presented the true face of the great commander, his seething energy, active participation in the course of military events.
The indomitable spirit of Suvorov's "science to win" lived in the Russian army, and the national traditions of Suvorov's military school were alive. Soldiers remember him both during the battle and at the fire.
As for the assessment of the actions of individuals, and for the assessment of historical events, Tolstoy approaches with the criteria of good and evil. He considers the unleashing of war the greatest manifestation of evil. "The thought of the people" permeates the philosophical conclusions of Tolstoy, and the depiction of specific historical events, historical figures, and the depiction of ordinary people, an assessment of their moral character.
The most important conclusion that follows from the artistic pictures and the theoretical reasoning of the writer is the conclusion about the decisive role of the masses in history. Depicting the war of 1805-1807, Tolstoy explains the reason for the defeat of the Russians precisely by the fact that the meaning of this war was not clear to the mass of soldiers, its goals were alien.
The mood of the army in the war of 1812 is depicted quite differently. This war was of a national character because the Russian people defended their home and their land. Genuine heroism, imperceptible and natural, like life itself, - this quality is manifested both in battles, and in soldier's everyday life, and in the relations of Russian soldiers to each other and to the enemy.
The people appear before us as the bearer of the highest moral values. Common goals and a common misfortune unite people, regardless of what class circle they belong to, therefore the best national traits of a Russian person are revealed during a nationwide disaster.
In "War and Peace" the true nationality is embodied - the greatest conquest of the Russian classical literature. The writer judges about people, about life, about historical events from the point of view of the interests of the whole people, which is essentially the main character of his work.
An important place in the plot is occupied by his original historical views and ideas. “War and Peace” is not just a historical novel, it is a novel about History. She - acts, and her actions have a direct impact on the fate of all heroes without exception. She is not a background or an attribute of the plot. History is the main thing that determines the smoothness or swiftness of its movement.
Let us recall the final phrase of the novel: "... in the present case... it is necessary to renounce non-existent freedom and recognize the dependence that we do not feel."
Any historical event is the result of the unconscious, “swarm” action of natural historical forces. Man is denied the role of subject social movement. “The subject of history is the life of peoples and mankind,” writes Tolstoy, assigning to her, history, the place of the acting subject and character. Its laws are objective and independent of the will and actions of people. Tolstoy believes: "If there is one free act of a person, then there is not a single historical law and no idea about historical events."
A person can do little. The wisdom of Kutuzov, like the wisdom of Platon Karataev, consists in unconscious obedience to the elements of life. History, according to the writer, acts in the world as a natural force. Its laws, like physical or chemical laws, exist independently of the desire, will and consciousness of thousands and millions of people. That is why, according to Tolstoy, it is impossible to explain anything in history based on these desires and wills. Every social cataclysm, every historical event is the result of the action of an impersonal non-spiritual character, somewhat reminiscent of Shchedrin's “It” from “The History of a City”.
Here is how Tolstoy assesses the role of the individual in history: "The historical personality is the essence of the label that history hangs on this or that event." And the logic of these arguments is such that, in the final analysis, not only the concept of free will disappears from history, but also God as its moral principle. On the pages of the novel, she appears as an absolute, impersonal, indifferent force, grinding human lives to powder. Any personal activity is ineffective and dramatic. As if in an ancient proverb about fate, which attracts the obedient, and drags the recalcitrant, it disposes of the human world. Here is what happens to a person, according to the writer: "A person consciously lives for himself, but serves as an unconscious tool for achieving historical universal goals." Therefore, fatalism is inevitable in history when explaining “illogical”, “unreasonable” phenomena. The more we, according to Tolstoy, try to rationally explain these phenomena in history, the more incomprehensible they become for us.
“What is the force that moves the nations?
Private biographical historians and historians of individual peoples understand this power as the power inherent in heroes and rulers. According to their descriptions, events are produced exclusively by the will of Napoleons, Alexanders, or in general those persons who are described by a private historian. The answers given by this kind of historians to the question of the force that drives events are satisfactory, but only as long as there is one historian for each event. Conclusion: the people "create" history.
The life of mankind does not depend on the will and intentions of individuals, therefore a historical event is the result of a coincidence of many causes.
Tolstoy writes “War and Peace” in the 60s of the last century, and creates the final edition in the 70s, when there were active disputes in Russian society about the further ways of Russia's development. Representatives of different directions saw in different ways the solution to the problems that the country faced in the process of preparing and implementing the great reforms of the 60s. Tolstoy's epic novel could not but reflect the writer's views on the fundamental features of contemporary Russian life, on the course further development Russia. In the then boiling disputes Special attention was given to the question of the people, developed an understanding of this category, as well as an understanding of the nature and characteristics of the Russian people.
There were also disputes about whose ideas and views could have the greatest impact on the people. It was the same time when the poor student Raskolnikov in his closet came up with the "Napoleonic" theory of two categories of people. Thoughts about the uplifting influence of a strong personality on the people were then in the air. Leo Tolstoy also expressed his understanding of this problem in the epic War and Peace.
The Napoleonic beginning is embodied in the novel not only in the image of its main bearer, Napoleon Bonaparte, but also in the images of a number of characters, both central and secondary. Tolstoy draws images of the emperors Napoleon and Alexander, the Moscow governor Count Rostopchin. Between these very different images there is one essential similarity for Tolstoy: in their attitude towards the people, these people strive to rise above it, to become higher than the people, they strive to control the elements of the people. The extent of this delusion is shown by Tolstoy in his novel. Napoleon, who believes that he controls huge masses, directs the actions of people, is seen by the writer as a little boy, pulling the ribbons tied inside the carriage, and imagining that he is driving the carriage. Tolstoy refuses to recognize the will, the desires of the so-called "great people" as the causes of events of a huge historical scale. All of them, according to Tolstoy, are nothing more than labels that give only names to events. Their attitude towards the people stems from the fact that, in their view, it is just a crowd, a large congestion of people who unquestioningly obey the ruler, acting in one way or another only out of a desire to be noticed by their idol, to earn his approval and praise. But it is precisely the crowd that behaves like the Polish uhlans depicted by Tolstoy in the scene of crossing the Neman - the uhlans die senselessly under the gaze of the “great man”, while he does not even pay attention to them. This episode is directly correlated with the scene of the arrival of Emperor Alexander in Moscow, which is not connected with it in terms of plot, but echoes in semantic terms. The appearance of the tsar brings the crowd gathered in the Kremlin into extreme excitement; Petya Rostov rushes after a piece of biscuit, which the tsar throws into the crowd from the balcony. It is very important that the central actor in this scene it is precisely one of the Rostovs who is distinguished by the author's natural behavior, disgust for falsehood and exalted manifestations of feelings. Petya, on the other hand, rushes after this piece of biscuit, brutally rolling his eyes and not realizing why he is doing this. At this moment, he completely merges with the crowd, becomes part of it, and the crowd, brought into a state of excitement, is capable of any atrocity, it can be set on an innocent victim, as Rostopchin does, ruining Vereshchagin. This is how the image of the crowd, opposed to the concept of “people”, appears in the novel.
The people for Tolstoy are too complex a phenomenon to
it was possible to control him in this way. Tolstoy did not consider the common people to be an easily controlled homogeneous mass. Tolstoy's understanding of the people is much deeper. In the work, where the “people’s thought” is in the foreground, a variety of manifestations of the national character are depicted, embodied in such characters as Tikhon Shcherbaty, who is certainly useful in a partisan war, cruel and ruthless in relation to enemies, the character is natural, but Tolstoy has little sympathy; and Plata Karataev, who treated like a human being to everyone around him: to the gentleman Pierre Bezukhov, to the French soldier, to the little dog who stuck to the party of prisoners. Karataev personifies for Bez-ukhov peace, tranquility, comfort. The characters of Tikhon and Karataev are contrastingly opposite, but, according to Tolstoy, both of them are a reflection different parties complex and contradictory folk character. The people for Tolstoy are the sea, in the depths of which unknown and not always understandable forces lurk. And Tolstoy was by no means inclined to idealize this sea. In this regard, the history of the revolt of the Bogucharovo peasants is very characteristic. Let us recall that the peasants rebelled precisely at the moment when they had just buried the old prince, and Andrei was not on the estate, and Princess Marya turned out to be helpless and defenseless before the rebels. Tolstoy speaks of underwater jets in this sea, which at some moments come to the surface. With the help of this scene, the author makes it clear the complexity and inconsistency of folk life.
So what is the people, according to Tolstoy? What forces control it? The answers to these questions are given by the main event of the novel - the war of 1812. It was she who was chosen by Tolstoy to show the power of the people's movement. War forces everyone to act and act in a way that is impossible not to act, introduces the Kantian “categorical imperative” into life. People act not on orders, but in obedience to an inner feeling, a sense of the significance of the moment. Tolstoy writes that they united in their aspirations and actions when they felt the danger hanging over the entire community, called the people, over the “swarm”.
The novel shows the grandeur and simplicity of “swarm” life, when everyone does his part of a common great cause, sometimes not realizing his participation in it, and a person is driven not by instinct, but by the laws of social life, as Tolstoy understood them. And such a “swarm”, or world, does not consist of an impersonal mass, but of separate individuals who do not lose their individuality in merging with the “swarm”. This is the merchant Ferapontov, who burns his house so that the enemy does not get it, and Moscow residents who leave the capital simply for the reason that it is impossible to live in it under Bonaparte, even if no danger directly threatens you. The peasants Karp and Vlas, who do not give hay to the French, and that Moscow lady who left Moscow with her black-tailed dogs and pugs back in June because of the consideration that “she is not Bonaparte’s servant” become participants in the “swarm” life. All of them are active participants in the folk, “swarm” life. In contrast to the faceless crowd, the participants in the “swarm” life are spiritual people, each of whom feels that the outcome of events depends on him and that the cause of these events is all of them, and not at all Napoleon or Alexander. Natasha felt this unity very strongly during the prayer service on the occasion of the war, when the deacon proclaimed the words of the great litany, "Let us pray to the Lord in peace." And Natasha understands this “world” precisely as “all together, without distinction of estates”.
Tolstoy's favorite heroes are able to live a common “swarm” life, all together, in peace. The world is the highest community of people. To portray the life of the world is the task of Tolstoy, who creates the "epopee of people's life." And in the image of Kutuzov, Tolstoy embodies his ideas about what a person should be like, put by Providence at the head of the masses. Kutuzov does not strive to become above the people, but feels himself a participant in the people's life, he does not lead the movement of the masses, but only strives not to interfere with the commission of a truly historical event, he comprehends folk life in a special way and only for this reason is it able to express it. This, according to Tolstoy, is the true greatness of the individual.
To the question War and Peace asked by the author ask again the best answer is 1. Tolstoy depicts war as a realist writer: in hard work, blood, suffering, death. Also, L. N. Tolstoy sought to reveal in his work folk meaning a war that united the whole society, all Russian people in a common impulse, to show that the fate of the campaign was decided not at headquarters and headquarters, but in the hearts of ordinary people: Platon Karataev and Tikhon Shcherbaty, Petya Rostov and Denisov ...
The author draws a large-scale image of the Russian people, who raised the "club" of the liberation war against the invaders.
What is Tolstoy's attitude to the war?
According to Lev Nikolaevich, "war is the fun of idle and frivolous people", and the novel "War and Peace" itself is an anti-war work, which once again emphasizes the senselessness of the cruelty of war, which brings death and human suffering. The writer reveals his point of view in the novel different ways, for example, through the thoughts of your favorite characters. The same Prince Andrei, who, lying under the sky of Austerlitz, is disappointed in his former dreams of glory, power, of "his Toulon" (even Napoleon, his idol, seems to Prince Bolkonsky now small and insignificant). An important role in understanding the author's position regarding the war is played by the comparison of the bright forest nature and the madness of people killing each other. Involuntarily, a panorama of the Borodino field appears before our eyes: "oblique rays of the bright sun ... threw their dark, long shadows piercing with a pink and golden hue on it in the clear morning air. Further on, the forests that complete the panorama, as if carved from some kind of precious yellow-green stone , were visible with their curved line of peaks on the horizon ... Golden fields and copses shone closer. But now this most wonderful picture of nature is replaced by a terrible view of the battle, and all the fields are covered with "dim dampness and smoke," the smell of "strange saltpeter acid and blood." In the episode of the fight between a French and a Russian soldier over a bannik, in the pictures of military hospitals, in drawing up dispositions for battles, we are once again convinced of Leo Tolstoy's negative attitude towards the war.
6. Tolstoy had his own view on the role of the individual in history.
Every person has two lives: personal and spontaneous. Tolstoy said that a person consciously lives for himself, but serves as an unconscious tool for achieving universal goals. The role of the individual in history is negligible. Even the most brilliant person cannot direct the movement of history at will. It is created by the masses, the people, and not by an individual who has risen above the people.
But Lev Nikolayevich does not deny the role of man in history, he recognizes the obligation to act within the limits of the possible for everyone. In his opinion, the name of a genius deserves one of the people who is gifted with the ability to penetrate the course of historical events, to comprehend their meaning. Such units. M.I. Kutuzov belongs to them. He is the spokesman for the patriotic spirit and moral strength of the Russian army. This is a talented commander. Tolstoy emphasizes that Kutuzov is a folk hero. In the novel, he appears as a truly Russian person, alien to pretense, a wise historical figure.
The main thing for Leo Tolstoy in goodies is connection with the people. Napoleon, who is opposed to Kutuzov, is subjected to devastating exposure, because he has chosen for himself the role of the “executioner of peoples”; Kutuzov, on the other hand, is exalted as a commander who knows how to subordinate all his thoughts and actions to the people's feelings. People's Thought opposes Napoleon's aggressive wars and blesses the liberation struggle.
