#leotolstoy — Public Fediverse posts

On Tolstoy’s War and Peace: I Came for Napoleon, I Stay for Life

“There’s a war now against Napoleon. If it were a war for freedom, I could understand it and should be the first to enter the army; but to help England and Austria against the greatest men in the world is not right.” (p. 25)

For so many years, one man from Corsica led thousands of people to think and act as he did. He was there in every man’s deepest thoughts. He was there, either loved by his followers or hated by his opponents. In the 1800s, Europe was fueled by the Great Men Theory, the idea that one man could lead a war and rule from nothing.

How one single man can change the fate of thousands of people.

Napoleon fit this theory. After all, it was only because of him that those Prussian beasts got tamed. It was because of him that the whole of Europe faced war, which eventually led to revolution. Because of him, some paradigms changed.

Until he met Russia.

In Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Napoleon’s collective defeats against Russia were a short explanation, but the dismantling of his greatness and Tolstoy’s attempts to make him an ordinary man required Tolstoy’s great effort, which led us through thousands of pages of an extraordinary story. It captures Russia’s struggles to shape itself in the vast, changing Europe. As I try to write my review here, I used Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s translation, which kept the most dialogues and speeches of Russian elites in French.

“It’s impossible not to admit,” Prince Andrei went on, “that Napoleon was a great man on the bridge of Arcole, and in the Jaffa hospital, when he shook hands with the plague victims, but… there are other acts which are hard to justify.” (p. 21)

In War and Peace, people of Russia were divided between supporting Russia and the Tsar, or secretly considering that Napoleon was that good. The great men theory’s fever was also seizing some significant part of Russia, in St. Petersburg, to be exact. The faithful supporters of Russia lived in Moscow, or the old Russia. Between those two distinctives society, there was Pierre Bezukhov, whose journey feels like the journey of Russia itself: finding its space in the vast, changing Europe and the world.

The Dismantling of Glorious and Honorable Life

Alongside Pierre, the altered Russia and Europe were also being shown through other characters’ POV: Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, Natasha Rostova, and Nikolai Rostov. Pierre and Andrei, just like the youth in Russia back then, idolized Napoleon. Tolstoy made them excited to embrace the changing of the world and to leave the old way of Russia. On the contrary, Nikolai Rostov loved his Tsar, Alexander I. Prince Andrei and Nikolai joined the Russian army and entered the Battle of Austerlitz with their original idealization towards those leaders, only to be disappointed and heartbroken.

Prince Andrei joined Russia’s campaign against France with one noble thought: that it would be chivalrous, that it would define the life of Russia’s elite society as their noble tasks required them to, and to let the mundane, artificial life of rich society slide. To have bravery, dignity, and meaning in life. Meanwhile, Nikolai joined the army for the noble faithfulness towards the Tsar, and to prove himself as the future Count Rostov. To bring the old value of Russia, and to finally see the world beyond his idyllic family.

But war is not the place to see the world. Oh what a naïve thinking they had.

Soon they both realized the cost of war, and the true face of their idols. Prince Andrei did actually meet Napoleon during his most vulnerable moment. Lying on the ground, only with the wide sky above him, realizing that he was only one of the chess pieces in the great flow of life and history, realizing that there is indeed a bigger power that works above him, there he met Napoleon, who disturbed him from the realization. During that time, Prince Andrei was able to compare Napoleon with God, and he realized that Napoleon was a mere human just like him. All the great fantasy of war, of the generals, of him, were torn apart. War is not the place to see the world or to chase happiness.

“He had a burning in his head; he felt that he was losing blood, and he saw above him that distant, lofty, and eternal sky. He knew that it was Napoleon — his hero — but at that moment, Napoleon seemed to him such a small, insignificant man compared with what was now happening between his soul and this lofty, infinite sky with clouds racing across it. To him it was all completely the same at that moment who was standing over him or what he said about him; he was only glad that people had stopped over him and only wished that those people would help him and bring him back to life, which seemed so beautiful to him, because he now understood it so differently.” (p. 291)

Nikolai disappoinment’s came longer than Andrei’s. It was until Tilsit Treaty which made him felt betrayed by Tsar. All this time, he thought Tsar would always against Napoleon, and the former alliance which Russia shared was meant something. But then in one morning on July 7 1807, he saw Tsar Alexander I shared a table with Napoleon and agreed to divide European spheres of influence. They soon combined forces to against England.

“Now he remembered Denisov with his changed expression, his submission, and the whole hospital with those torn-off arms and legs, that filth and disease. He imagined so vividly now that hospital stench of dead flesh that he looked around to see where the stench could be coming from. Then he remembered that self-satisfied Bonaparte with his white little hand, who was now emperor, whom the emperor Alexander liked and respected. Why, then, those torn-off arms and legs, those dead people? Then he remembered the rewarded Lazarev and Denisov punished and unforgiven. He caught himself in such strange thoughts that it made him frightened.” (p. 416)

Contrary to Prince Andrei, Nikolai accepted his fate as one of the troops owned by Russia. He was still faithful to Tsar Alexander I.

“We’re not diplomatic officials, we’re soldiers and nothing more,” he went on. “We’re told to die — and we die. If we’re punished, it means we’re guilty; it’s not for us to judge. If it pleases the sovereign emperor to recognize Bonaparte as emperor and conclude an alliance with him — it means it has to be so. And if we start judging and reasoning about everything, then there’ll be nothing sacred left. Next we’ll be saying there’s no God, no anything.” (p. 416)

The severe and painful realization that their illusions fell apart feels devastating, and it changes something inside of their core belief. But it brought the different results to both of them. Prince Andrei was looking for eternal glory, and Tolstoy brutally crushed his romanticization about the glory itself through Battle of Austerlitz. He realized that he was lost, and he had to find the way to live his life after the philosophical transformations. Prince Andrei begun to be skeptical about the great narration of life and humanity’s fate. Learning that the glory was insignificant, Prince Andrei suddenly losing all his faith at once.

Nikolai, however, was once a romantic young man with an optimistic views about Russia. He loved Tsar, Russia, his own regiment, and the pride as an officer. War gave him an identity, and Battle of Austerlitz did destroy his idealization of war, yet it did not destroy his faith. In one of the most dangerous time of his life, he held his idealism so strong, because it was the core of his identity. His test was Treaty of Tilsit, which gave him some moral crisis. Yet he chose to ignore politics and stay faithful to Tsar Alexander I. He chose faithfulness over interpretation.

False Interpretation of Love

As their life unfolded, love entered three men’s hearts. Prince Andrei, once was a married man before the war, lost his wife during stillbirth. In his early post-Austerlitz life, he was a somber, bitter man, disappointed with how shallow glorious life he chase, and felt guilty for his wife’s fate. Then life gave him another chance to fall in love when Natasha Rostova enter his life.

“She doesn’t care at all about my existence!” Prince Andrei thought all the while he was listening to her talk, for some reason expecting and fearing that she would say something about him. “And she again! As if on purpose!” he thought. In his soul there suddenly arose such an unexpected tangle of youthful thoughts and hopes, contradictory to his whole life, that, feeling himself unable to comprehend his own fate, he fell asleep at once. (p. 422)

Natasha gave him hopes, spirits, and she captivated his soul to finally realize that his life is not over yet.

“Life isn’t over at the age of thirty-one.” (p. 423)
(this line is personally my favorite because I read this novel when I was 31 and it feels like telling myself that my life isn’t over at the age of 31. Thank you again, Tolstoy)

This event was canonical in the book. Natasha has grown so beautiful and at her prime age, and she was falling in love with Prince Andrei the way he loved her back. Yet it was not the ending Tolstoy set to them. The reason for that was way harsher. During that time, Russia was also in the fragile mutual alliance with French, formed previously by Treaty of Tilsit. Then the life of Russian elites and old aristocrats begun to altered. Tsar Alexander I rushed the country to choose liberal-proletarian approach.

“This was the time of the preparation not only of the two famous decrees which so alarmed society, on the abolition of court ranks and on examinations for the ranks of collegiate assessor and state councillor, but also of an entire state constitution, which was supposed to change the existing judicial, administrative, and financial order of management in Russia, from the council of state to the local board.” (p. 424)

During this time, Alexander I and Napoleon shared some new vibrant ideas about those vague liberal dreams, oddly placed in the old aristocratic life of Russia. The country faced an identity crisis they never knew, while the young leader still hadn’t figured out that the mutual was artificial. Yet, this identity crisis was also haunting Prince Andrei. At first, I thought these two issues weren’t relate. I thought Tolstoy was telling me about individuals. Then he kept interrupting their stories with history. Eventually, I began to wonder whether this interruption was the point.

Prince Andrei during that time was a fan and a skeptical one for Mikhail Speransky.

“In general, the main feature that struck Prince Andrei in Speransky’s mind was his unquestionable, unshakable faith in the power and legitimacy of reason. It was clear that the notion, so usual for Prince Andrei, that it was after all impossible to express everything one thinks, would never have entered Speransky’s head, and it never occurred to him to wonder, isn’t everything I think and believe sheer nonsense? And that special cast of Speransky’s mind attracted Prince Andrei most of all.” (p. 432)

Andrei himself was an admirer of Montesquieu (The Spirit of Law). His thesis was basically that nobility is the check and balance systems for monarchy, thus weakening them would make monarch change into despotism. Andrei said to Speransky that if Tsar ignored noble’s thought, Russia would change to despotism. He wished to disagree Speransky and all his liberal ideas, but Speransky’s feature struck him. I think Prince Andrei was once again be fooled with the idea of smart men. He was admiring Speransky, which was like his admiration to Napoleon. He felt honored when a civil like Speransky gave him a title or a job. I think deep down he felt ashamed with the old Russia, with his own father. His father traumatized him, and this was when Natasha entered his mind as his hope for the new Russia. Natasha felt like a last hope he had for the new world.

Sadly, in his love to Natasha, Andrei failed to see it as it should have been: domestic, idyllic life, with mundane activities, and beliefs that the soul of Russia is in their house. But what can be said about Prince Andrei? He got so many privileges: good education, good network, and just like his sister Princess Marie thought, it was not his nature to stop at mundane life.

During this time, love was something stable all the protagonists looked for because all the identity crisis they were facing. Pierre Bezukhov, once an outsider both in Moscow and St. Petersburg, suddenly being in the center of attention briefly after marrying Helene Kuragin. Sadly the relationship was too crowded and Helene was only looking for some money Pierre had after being the Count Bezukhov. After that Pierre was really lost and he felt it, so he joined the Masonry to look for any happiness. But it wasn’t the most ideal solution.

“Are we to favour revolutions, overthrow everything, drive out force by force? No… we are very far from that. Every violent reform is blameworthy, because it will not set evil to rights in the least, as long as people remain as they are, and because wisdom has no need of violence.” (p. 435)

He was being a pacifist in the Masonry and it did not end well. More important, Pierre searched for a meaning during the instability of Russia. At least he knew what was missing from his life — which happened by a bad marriage and disastrous money management — and he tried to fix it. In his diary, he was screaming for help.

For Nikolai Rostov, love was a bit different. All his childhood, he spent his times to love Sonya, and saved a thought for himself that Sonya was enough. It changed drastically after Austerlitz, as he went home, still finding Sonya so beautiful, yet not ready for marrying her. The simplicity of his house, of Natasha, was the one keeping him alive until all that time. He aimed for the idleness without he even realized it but Sonya was not in his mind to have it. Or maybe, it was being shaped in his mind and he realized it after the war, but the idleness with Sonya didn’t amuse him. There was still a whole world to be explored, a whole adultness for him to be experienced in order being the future Count Rostov.

“The love of idleness remained the same in fallen men, but the curse still weighs on man, and not only because we must win our bread in the sweat of our face, but because our moral qualities are such that we are unable to be idle and at peace. A secret voice tells us that we should feel guilty for being idle. If man could find a condition in which, while idle, he felt that he was being useful and was fulfilling his duty, he would have found one side of primordial bleedness.” (p. 488)

I think Nikolai also realized that the way his father let idleness live and ruled out the money issue being taken care by some other people had costed them too much. The irony was they were smart and educated, rich, yet they were unable to deal with their financial lives and were in hands of whoever was doing their accounting. Rostovs was offered a safety net with Prince Andrei and Natasha’s engagement. But soon it fell off. Andrei and Natasha’s relationship was fragile from the beginning. There was a gap between them, a gap between knowing and understanding. Natasha wasn’t only his love interest, but also a representation of the life he failed to respect after all this time. He loved the life represented by Natasha, yet he still tried to understand it, miserably, within the grasp of a person who look for a meaning through grand ideas. He would never reach that simplicity.

Tolstoy seemed to spend thousands of pages showing his men trying to escape idleness, only to reveal that what they eventually seek may be another form of it. Natasha’s domestic and seemingly simple life can look idle from the perspective of men who have spent their lives searching for glory, reform, purpose, or historical significance. Yet perhaps Tolstoy’s point is exactly that this kind of idleness is closer to life than the frantic activity of men trying to make themselves significant.

Borodino

As you began to love some of the main characters as they felt more like your friends and family, yet you already knew the fate that awaited them in 1812. The Battle of Borodino hold significant part of the book as entering the third volume and the first thing Tolstoy’s discussed was how Napoleon betrayed Tsar Alexander I. The arcs for all the characters were getting more complicated, as well as the relationship between Russia and the world. As Napoleon tried to enter the country, some found him fascinating, some found him as a threat. The distinctive views both St. Petersburg and Moscow’s elites society held to the war and to the great men were actually more accurate for today’s society. Yet between that great war and between the clash of some greatest generals, human failed to see that they don’t really control history. As the kings are the slaves of history, and so are we. No one is really in control, as history moves through forces far greater than any individual can comprehend.

Pierre, still struggling to find meaning, tried his best to help Natasha and Prince Andrei recovering from the failed engagement. Still a naïve at heart, after funding the regiment, he had a personal responsibility to support the Russian army, while searching for the deeper meaning of life. Pierre was also driven by a naïve and bewildered fascination with the heroism of the common soldiers. After the war, he decided to stay in Moscow after its evacuation, convinced that it’s his job to assassinate Napoleon. After joining the Masonry, Pierre worked himself into a romanticized and messianic state of mind. He believed that assassinating Napoleon will either end his own wandering existence or stop the misery of the entire continent.

During Moscow burning, Pierre was parting ways with the Rostovs, including with Natasha as they fled the city. His adventure in Moscow was one of the most harrowing thing ever written in literature. Pierre wanders a city engulfed in flames and when he tried to save the Muscovites, he was captured by the French troops. In his captivity, Pierre befriended a man who still saw beauty in life even when he was injured. This changed his spiritual journey all at once.

When the Rostovs fled from Moscow, all the carriages for their fortunes were ended up being used for the injured soldiers. Eventually, they realized that one of the injured soldiers was Prince Andrei himself, who was dying after Battle of Borodino. A tearful apology from Natasha came, followed by nursing and caring from Natasha to Andrei during his final days. His sister, Princess Marie, came with his young son. During this time, the relationship between Andrei and Natasha, and Nikolai with Princess Marie, were being tested. Previously, Princess Maria was stuck in one of the Bolkonsky’s estate with her ill father. Her father died quickly and the French troops was getting closer to her. All her muzhiks refused to let her go, until Nikolai came with his army and saved her. From there, their relationship begun to grow slowly and it seemed to grow to the right direction. Then after Nikolai was ready to propose her, the news about Prince Andrei came.

But Prince Andrei, came to Borodino with a different perspective before Austerlitz, finally realized that all he seeks before was the lofty simplicity of life, because life itself was already grand without the grand ideas. Finally he was able to forgive people that wronged him, and he realized that his love to Natasha was bigger than ever before, but his final days was getting shorter, as he no longer have the spirit to live in the new world. When he finally being so closed to the lofty fate he could choose, he was unable to have it.

The Rostovs lost Petya soon after Prince Andrei’s death. Count Rostov was dying shortly after, and finally, Nikolai became the new Count Rostov, with a huge debt, an ill mother who longed for her death son and their past glorious days, and a silent love he wished to forget. Even after the war, their fate was not in the best of days. Princess Marie begun to have a friendship with Natasha and during Natasha’s hardest days after Andrei’s death. Peace was formed when Natasha was reunited with Pierre and they both comforted each other after all they had lost. Princess Marie, once devastated after losing her father and her brother, finally had the courage to fall in love with Nikolai Rostov. Her simple, humble and devotion towards religion were the reasons Nikolai loved her and dared enough to eventually married her even though he was impoverished. Soon after both two families were finally in peace and happiness. But even when the war was long behind them, Andrei’s old memories was still intact in both of the families, as Nikolai considered it as the old Russian’s shadow lingering the new world.

I started this book wondering how one man could change the fate of thousands. I finished it wondering why I had ever thought that changing history was the measure of a meaningful life. As I finished this book this year, I realized that life itself is a meaning, life is as lofty as the ideas of life, and even an act as simple as surviving is already meaningful as a human being.

On Tolstoy’s War and Peace: I Came for Napoleon, I Stay for Life

“There’s a war now against Napoleon. If it were a war for freedom, I could understand it and should be the first to enter the army; but to help England and Austria against the greatest men in the world is not right.” (p. 25)

For so many years, one man from Corsica led thousands of people to think and act as he did. He was there in every man’s deepest thoughts. He was there, either loved by his followers or hated by his opponents. In the 1800s, Europe was fueled by the Great Men Theory, the idea that one man could lead a war and rule from nothing.

How one single man can change the fate of thousands of people.

Napoleon fit this theory. After all, it was only because of him that those Prussian beasts got tamed. It was because of him that the whole of Europe faced war, which eventually led to revolution. Because of him, some paradigms changed.

Until he met Russia.

In Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Napoleon’s collective defeats against Russia were a short explanation, but the dismantling of his greatness and Tolstoy’s attempts to make him an ordinary man required Tolstoy’s great effort, which led us through thousands of pages of an extraordinary story. It captures Russia’s struggles to shape itself in the vast, changing Europe. As I try to write my review here, I used Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s translation, which kept the most dialogues and speeches of Russian elites in French.

“It’s impossible not to admit,” Prince Andrei went on, “that Napoleon was a great man on the bridge of Arcole, and in the Jaffa hospital, when he shook hands with the plague victims, but… there are other acts which are hard to justify.” (p. 21)

In War and Peace, people of Russia were divided between supporting Russia and the Tsar, or secretly considering that Napoleon was that good. The great men theory’s fever was also seizing some significant part of Russia, in St. Petersburg, to be exact. The faithful supporters of Russia lived in Moscow, or the old Russia. Between those two distinctives society, there was Pierre Bezukhov, whose journey feels like the journey of Russia itself: finding its space in the vast, changing Europe and the world.

The Dismantling of Glorious and Honorable Life

Alongside Pierre, the altered Russia and Europe were also being shown through other characters’ POV: Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, Natasha Rostova, and Nikolai Rostov. Pierre and Andrei, just like the youth in Russia back then, idolized Napoleon. Tolstoy made them excited to embrace the changing of the world and to leave the old way of Russia. On the contrary, Nikolai Rostov loved his Tsar, Alexander I. Prince Andrei and Nikolai joined the Russian army and entered the Battle of Austerlitz with their original idealization towards those leaders, only to be disappointed and heartbroken.

Prince Andrei joined Russia’s campaign against France with one noble thought: that it would be chivalrous, that it would define the life of Russia’s elite society as their noble tasks required them to, and to let the mundane, artificial life of rich society slide. To have bravery, dignity, and meaning in life. Meanwhile, Nikolai joined the army for the noble faithfulness towards the Tsar, and to prove himself as the future Count Rostov. To bring the old value of Russia, and to finally see the world beyond his idyllic family.

But war is not the place to see the world. Oh what a naïve thinking they had.

Soon they both realized the cost of war, and the true face of their idols. Prince Andrei did actually meet Napoleon during his most vulnerable moment. Lying on the ground, only with the wide sky above him, realizing that he was only one of the chess pieces in the great flow of life and history, realizing that there is indeed a bigger power that works above him, there he met Napoleon, who disturbed him from the realization. During that time, Prince Andrei was able to compare Napoleon with God, and he realized that Napoleon was a mere human just like him. All the great fantasy of war, of the generals, of him, were torn apart. War is not the place to see the world or to chase happiness.

“He had a burning in his head; he felt that he was losing blood, and he saw above him that distant, lofty, and eternal sky. He knew that it was Napoleon — his hero — but at that moment, Napoleon seemed to him such a small, insignificant man compared with what was now happening between his soul and this lofty, infinite sky with clouds racing across it. To him it was all completely the same at that moment who was standing over him or what he said about him; he was only glad that people had stopped over him and only wished that those people would help him and bring him back to life, which seemed so beautiful to him, because he now understood it so differently.” (p. 291)

Nikolai disappoinment’s came longer than Andrei’s. It was until Tilsit Treaty which made him felt betrayed by Tsar. All this time, he thought Tsar would always against Napoleon, and the former alliance which Russia shared was meant something. But then in one morning on July 7 1807, he saw Tsar Alexander I shared a table with Napoleon and agreed to divide European spheres of influence. They soon combined forces to against England.

“Now he remembered Denisov with his changed expression, his submission, and the whole hospital with those torn-off arms and legs, that filth and disease. He imagined so vividly now that hospital stench of dead flesh that he looked around to see where the stench could be coming from. Then he remembered that self-satisfied Bonaparte with his white little hand, who was now emperor, whom the emperor Alexander liked and respected. Why, then, those torn-off arms and legs, those dead people? Then he remembered the rewarded Lazarev and Denisov punished and unforgiven. He caught himself in such strange thoughts that it made him frightened.” (p. 416)

Contrary to Prince Andrei, Nikolai accepted his fate as one of the troops owned by Russia. He was still faithful to Tsar Alexander I.

“We’re not diplomatic officials, we’re soldiers and nothing more,” he went on. “We’re told to die — and we die. If we’re punished, it means we’re guilty; it’s not for us to judge. If it pleases the sovereign emperor to recognize Bonaparte as emperor and conclude an alliance with him — it means it has to be so. And if we start judging and reasoning about everything, then there’ll be nothing sacred left. Next we’ll be saying there’s no God, no anything.” (p. 416)

The severe and painful realization that their illusions fell apart feels devastating, and it changes something inside of their core belief. But it brought the different results to both of them. Prince Andrei was looking for eternal glory, and Tolstoy brutally crushed his romanticization about the glory itself through Battle of Austerlitz. He realized that he was lost, and he had to find the way to live his life after the philosophical transformations. Prince Andrei begun to be skeptical about the great narration of life and humanity’s fate. Learning that the glory was insignificant, Prince Andrei suddenly losing all his faith at once.

Nikolai, however, was once a romantic young man with an optimistic views about Russia. He loved Tsar, Russia, his own regiment, and the pride as an officer. War gave him an identity, and Battle of Austerlitz did destroy his idealization of war, yet it did not destroy his faith. In one of the most dangerous time of his life, he held his idealism so strong, because it was the core of his identity. His test was Treaty of Tilsit, which gave him some moral crisis. Yet he chose to ignore politics and stay faithful to Tsar Alexander I. He chose faithfulness over interpretation.

False Interpretation of Love

As their life unfolded, love entered three men’s hearts. Prince Andrei, once was a married man before the war, lost his wife during stillbirth. In his early post-Austerlitz life, he was a somber, bitter man, disappointed with how shallow glorious life he chase, and felt guilty for his wife’s fate. Then life gave him another chance to fall in love when Natasha Rostova enter his life.

“She doesn’t care at all about my existence!” Prince Andrei thought all the while he was listening to her talk, for some reason expecting and fearing that she would say something about him. “And she again! As if on purpose!” he thought. In his soul there suddenly arose such an unexpected tangle of youthful thoughts and hopes, contradictory to his whole life, that, feeling himself unable to comprehend his own fate, he fell asleep at once. (p. 422)

Natasha gave him hopes, spirits, and she captivated his soul to finally realize that his life is not over yet.

“Life isn’t over at the age of thirty-one.” (p. 423)
(this line is personally my favorite because I read this novel when I was 31 and it feels like telling myself that my life isn’t over at the age of 31. Thank you again, Tolstoy)

This event was canonical in the book. Natasha has grown so beautiful and at her prime age, and she was falling in love with Prince Andrei the way he loved her back. Yet it was not the ending Tolstoy set to them. The reason for that was way harsher. During that time, Russia was also in the fragile mutual alliance with French, formed previously by Treaty of Tilsit. Then the life of Russian elites and old aristocrats begun to altered. Tsar Alexander I rushed the country to choose liberal-proletarian approach.

“This was the time of the preparation not only of the two famous decrees which so alarmed society, on the abolition of court ranks and on examinations for the ranks of collegiate assessor and state councillor, but also of an entire state constitution, which was supposed to change the existing judicial, administrative, and financial order of management in Russia, from the council of state to the local board.” (p. 424)

During this time, Alexander I and Napoleon shared some new vibrant ideas about those vague liberal dreams, oddly placed in the old aristocratic life of Russia. The country faced an identity crisis they never knew, while the young leader still hadn’t figured out that the mutual was artificial. Yet, this identity crisis was also haunting Prince Andrei. At first, I thought these two issues weren’t relate. I thought Tolstoy was telling me about individuals. Then he kept interrupting their stories with history. Eventually, I began to wonder whether this interruption was the point.

Prince Andrei during that time was a fan and a skeptical one for Mikhail Speransky.

“In general, the main feature that struck Prince Andrei in Speransky’s mind was his unquestionable, unshakable faith in the power and legitimacy of reason. It was clear that the notion, so usual for Prince Andrei, that it was after all impossible to express everything one thinks, would never have entered Speransky’s head, and it never occurred to him to wonder, isn’t everything I think and believe sheer nonsense? And that special cast of Speransky’s mind attracted Prince Andrei most of all.” (p. 432)

Andrei himself was an admirer of Montesquieu (The Spirit of Law). His thesis was basically that nobility is the check and balance systems for monarchy, thus weakening them would make monarch change into despotism. Andrei said to Speransky that if Tsar ignored noble’s thought, Russia would change to despotism. He wished to disagree Speransky and all his liberal ideas, but Speransky’s feature struck him. I think Prince Andrei was once again be fooled with the idea of smart men. He was admiring Speransky, which was like his admiration to Napoleon. He felt honored when a civil like Speransky gave him a title or a job. I think deep down he felt ashamed with the old Russia, with his own father. His father traumatized him, and this was when Natasha entered his mind as his hope for the new Russia. Natasha felt like a last hope he had for the new world.

Sadly, in his love to Natasha, Andrei failed to see it as it should have been: domestic, idyllic life, with mundane activities, and beliefs that the soul of Russia is in their house. But what can be said about Prince Andrei? He got so many privileges: good education, good network, and just like his sister Princess Marie thought, it was not his nature to stop at mundane life.

During this time, love was something stable all the protagonists looked for because all the identity crisis they were facing. Pierre Bezukhov, once an outsider both in Moscow and St. Petersburg, suddenly being in the center of attention briefly after marrying Helene Kuragin. Sadly the relationship was too crowded and Helene was only looking for some money Pierre had after being the Count Bezukhov. After that Pierre was really lost and he felt it, so he joined the Masonry to look for any happiness. But it wasn’t the most ideal solution.

“Are we to favour revolutions, overthrow everything, drive out force by force? No… we are very far from that. Every violent reform is blameworthy, because it will not set evil to rights in the least, as long as people remain as they are, and because wisdom has no need of violence.” (p. 435)

He was being a pacifist in the Masonry and it did not end well. More important, Pierre searched for a meaning during the instability of Russia. At least he knew what was missing from his life — which happened by a bad marriage and disastrous money management — and he tried to fix it. In his diary, he was screaming for help.

For Nikolai Rostov, love was a bit different. All his childhood, he spent his times to love Sonya, and saved a thought for himself that Sonya was enough. It changed drastically after Austerlitz, as he went home, still finding Sonya so beautiful, yet not ready for marrying her. The simplicity of his house, of Natasha, was the one keeping him alive until all that time. He aimed for the idleness without he even realized it but Sonya was not in his mind to have it. Or maybe, it was being shaped in his mind and he realized it after the war, but the idleness with Sonya didn’t amuse him. There was still a whole world to be explored, a whole adultness for him to be experienced in order being the future Count Rostov.

“The love of idleness remained the same in fallen men, but the curse still weighs on man, and not only because we must win our bread in the sweat of our face, but because our moral qualities are such that we are unable to be idle and at peace. A secret voice tells us that we should feel guilty for being idle. If man could find a condition in which, while idle, he felt that he was being useful and was fulfilling his duty, he would have found one side of primordial bleedness.” (p. 488)

I think Nikolai also realized that the way his father let idleness live and ruled out the money issue being taken care by some other people had costed them too much. The irony was they were smart and educated, rich, yet they were unable to deal with their financial lives and were in hands of whoever was doing their accounting. Rostovs was offered a safety net with Prince Andrei and Natasha’s engagement. But soon it fell off. Andrei and Natasha’s relationship was fragile from the beginning. There was a gap between them, a gap between knowing and understanding. Natasha wasn’t only his love interest, but also a representation of the life he failed to respect after all this time. He loved the life represented by Natasha, yet he still tried to understand it, miserably, within the grasp of a person who look for a meaning through grand ideas. He would never reach that simplicity.

Tolstoy seemed to spend thousands of pages showing his men trying to escape idleness, only to reveal that what they eventually seek may be another form of it. Natasha’s domestic and seemingly simple life can look idle from the perspective of men who have spent their lives searching for glory, reform, purpose, or historical significance. Yet perhaps Tolstoy’s point is exactly that this kind of idleness is closer to life than the frantic activity of men trying to make themselves significant.

Borodino

As you began to love some of the main characters as they felt more like your friends and family, yet you already knew the fate that awaited them in 1812. The Battle of Borodino hold significant part of the book as entering the third volume and the first thing Tolstoy’s discussed was how Napoleon betrayed Tsar Alexander I. The arcs for all the characters were getting more complicated, as well as the relationship between Russia and the world. As Napoleon tried to enter the country, some found him fascinating, some found him as a threat. The distinctive views both St. Petersburg and Moscow’s elites society held to the war and to the great men were actually more accurate for today’s society. Yet between that great war and between the clash of some greatest generals, human failed to see that they don’t really control history. As the kings are the slaves of history, and so are we. No one is really in control, as history moves through forces far greater than any individual can comprehend.

Pierre, still struggling to find meaning, tried his best to help Natasha and Prince Andrei recovering from the failed engagement. Still a naïve at heart, after funding the regiment, he had a personal responsibility to support the Russian army, while searching for the deeper meaning of life. Pierre was also driven by a naïve and bewildered fascination with the heroism of the common soldiers. After the war, he decided to stay in Moscow after its evacuation, convinced that it’s his job to assassinate Napoleon. After joining the Masonry, Pierre worked himself into a romanticized and messianic state of mind. He believed that assassinating Napoleon will either end his own wandering existence or stop the misery of the entire continent.

During Moscow burning, Pierre was parting ways with the Rostovs, including with Natasha as they fled the city. His adventure in Moscow was one of the most harrowing thing ever written in literature. Pierre wanders a city engulfed in flames and when he tried to save the Muscovites, he was captured by the French troops. In his captivity, Pierre befriended a man who still saw beauty in life even when he was injured. This changed his spiritual journey all at once.

When the Rostovs fled from Moscow, all the carriages for their fortunes were ended up being used for the injured soldiers. Eventually, they realized that one of the injured soldiers was Prince Andrei himself, who was dying after Battle of Borodino. A tearful apology from Natasha came, followed by nursing and caring from Natasha to Andrei during his final days. His sister, Princess Marie, came with his young son. During this time, the relationship between Andrei and Natasha, and Nikolai with Princess Marie, were being tested. Previously, Princess Maria was stuck in one of the Bolkonsky’s estate with her ill father. Her father died quickly and the French troops was getting closer to her. All her muzhiks refused to let her go, until Nikolai came with his army and saved her. From there, their relationship begun to grow slowly and it seemed to grow to the right direction. Then after Nikolai was ready to propose her, the news about Prince Andrei came.

But Prince Andrei, came to Borodino with a different perspective before Austerlitz, finally realized that all he seeks before was the lofty simplicity of life, because life itself was already grand without the grand ideas. Finally he was able to forgive people that wronged him, and he realized that his love to Natasha was bigger than ever before, but his final days was getting shorter, as he no longer have the spirit to live in the new world. When he finally being so closed to the lofty fate he could choose, he was unable to have it.

The Rostovs lost Petya soon after Prince Andrei’s death. Count Rostov was dying shortly after, and finally, Nikolai became the new Count Rostov, with a huge debt, an ill mother who longed for her death son and their past glorious days, and a silent love he wished to forget. Even after the war, their fate was not in the best of days. Princess Marie begun to have a friendship with Natasha and during Natasha’s hardest days after Andrei’s death. Peace was formed when Natasha was reunited with Pierre and they both comforted each other after all they had lost. Princess Marie, once devastated after losing her father and her brother, finally had the courage to fall in love with Nikolai Rostov. Her simple, humble and devotion towards religion were the reasons Nikolai loved her and dared enough to eventually married her even though he was impoverished. Soon after both two families were finally in peace and happiness. But even when the war was long behind them, Andrei’s old memories was still intact in both of the families, as Nikolai considered it as the old Russian’s shadow lingering the new world.

I started this book wondering how one man could change the fate of thousands. I finished it wondering why I had ever thought that changing history was the measure of a meaningful life. As I finished this book this year, I realized that life itself is a meaning, life is as lofty as the ideas of life, and even an act as simple as surviving is already meaningful as a human being.

“ #Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their #minds without #prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own #customs, #privileges, or #beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right #thinking.” - #LeoTolstoy

Fairy Tales for Peace – ProMosaik Children interviews editor Mariya Traore from Ukraine

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.pressenza.com/2026/06/fairy-tales-for-peace-promosaik-children-interviews-editor-mariya-traore-from-ukraine/

The one sign that someone is highly intelligent, according to literary genius Leo Tolstoy

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/tolstoys-sign-someone-is-highly-intelligent-ex1/

The one sign that someone is highly intelligent, according to literary genius Leo Tolstoy

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/tolstoys-sign-someone-is-highly-intelligent-ex1/

2 “Understand that this work, far from assuring the well-being of #humanity is only a lie, a more or less unconscious hypocrisy, camouflaging the lowest passions we possess.” - #LeoTolstoy

A quotation from Tolstoy

If you are able to see all the consequences of what you are doing, then what you are doing is not very important.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Russian novelist and moral philosopher
Path of Life [Calendar of Wisdom; Круг чтения], ch. 21 “Living in the Present,” sec. 6.2 (1903-1911) [(tr. Cote (2002)]

More about this quote: wist.info/tolstoy-leo/83808/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #tolstoy #leotolstoy #actions #causeandeffect #consequences #effects #foresight #selfawareness #triviality #unimportance

Yann Martel: ‘I hate the rich people of this world – of which I’m one, because of Life of Pi’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/apr/18/yann-martel-life-of-pi-author-interview #YannMartel #Books #SydneyWritersFestival #Fiction #Culture #LifeOfPi #LeoTolstoy

Season 3 Episode 2: Our Literary Unpopular Opinions

Welcome to Fake Book Club Podcast, Season three, episode two! We’re sharing our unpopular literary opinions about books, reading, and romance. Will you agree or disagree? Do we end this episode with our friendship intact? Listen and find out…

Listen Below!

Listen on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0x1PNDmSQZApeI1zOe5oII?si=kT6Rwmp5Q6G8urOV6iAHGg

Listen on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/0U_TdlAMyMQ

Also listen at the following places:

Things Discussed In This Episode

Is It Just Me, or Are the Books Getting Fancier? A Guide to the Special Editions Trend

The Benefits of Graphic Novels: Why They Count as Reading

What’s the perfect length for a book?

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher

Percy Jackson Series by Rick Riordan

Edinburgh Nights series by T. L. Huchu 

The Midnight Taxi by Yosha Gunasekera 

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Soften The Blow by Bread Tarleton

Disclaimer: Links to Bookshop.org are affiliate links and the store will receive a small commission if you purchase through those links.

GlobeNewswire: Tolstoy Heritage Foundation and Yandex Digitize Leo Tolstoy’s Legacy Ahead of 200th Anniversary (PRESS RELEASE). “The International Lev Tolstoy Heritage Foundation and Yandex announced a partnership to preserve and digitize the literary legacy of Lev Tolstoy in preparation for the 200th anniversary of the writer’s birthday in September of 2028. Yandex will serve as the […]

#leotolstoy #vegan #govegan #animalrights

Leo Tolstoy's two-sentence diary entry from 1851 perfectly sums up young, impulsive love

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/leo-tolstoys-two-sentence-diary-entry-from-1851-perfectly-sums-up-young-impulsive-love

In our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing themselves.
-- Leo Tolstoy

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #LeoTolstoy #Change #Society

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Sunset #Kayaks #Everglades #Florida

In our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing themselves.
-- Leo Tolstoy

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #LeoTolstoy #Change #Society

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #ChacoCanyon #Sunset #NewMexico

#Walden by #HenryDavidThoreau

Living deliberately in the woods. Thoreau's classic call for simplicity, self-reliance, and nature. 🌲🛶🧘‍♂️

Read here: https://kensbookinfo.blogspot.com/2019/01/walden-by-henry-david-thoreau.html

#WarAndPeace by #LeoTolstoy

The ultimate epic. A sweeping narrative of history and philosophy during the Napoleonic Wars. 🇷🇺⚔️🏰

Read here: https://kensebooksonline.blogspot.com/2018/10/war-and-peace-by-leo-tolstoy.html

#TheDeathOfIvanIlych by #LeoTolstoy

A short but powerful exploration of mortality. Tolstoy asks: what does it truly mean to live a meaningful life before the light fades? 🕯️⌛️🕊️

Read here: https://kensbookinfo.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-death-of-ivan-ilych-by-leo-tolstoy.html

#TheDivineComedy by #DanteAlighieri

From the terrifying depths of the Inferno to the heights of Paradise. Journey through the afterlife in this unparalleled epic poem. 🏛️🔥🌟

Read here: https://kensbookinfo.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-divine-comedy-by-dante-alighieri.html

#AlicesAdventuresInWonderland by #LewisCarroll

Don’t be late! Fall down the rabbit hole into a world of Cheshire Cats and Mad Hatters. Logic has no power in this wonderland! 🐇☕️🍄

Read here: https://kensbookinfo.blogspot.com/2018/06/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-by.html

#AnnaKarenina by #LeoTolstoy

Step into the high society of Imperial Russia to explore the tragic, sweeping complexities of love, faith, and betrayal. A literary giant. 🚂💔

Read here: https://kensbookinfo.blogspot.com/2018/11/anna-karenina-by-leo-tolstoy.html

Currently reading: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I’ve decided to dedicate 2026 to reading the longer books on my tbr, starting with the behemoth I’ve tried reading several times in the past. #WarandPeace #LeoTolstoy #currentlyreading #books #bookstodon

The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy (EPUB)
Author: Leo Tolstoy
File Type: EPUB
Download at https://sci-books.com/the-death-of-ivan-ilyich-and-other-stories-0307268810/
#Literature, #LeoTolstoy

"Kindness is for your soul as health is for your body: you do not notice it when you have it.
…
Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness."

Leo Tolstoy
(https://search.worldcat.org/title/37254327)

#kindness #love #LeoTolstoy #buddhism #dharma

Confession by Leo Tolstoy (PDF)
Author: Leo Tolstoy
File Type: PDF
Download at https://sci-books.com/confession-0393017567/
#Biographies, #LeoTolstoy

In our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing themselves.
-- Leo Tolstoy

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #LeoTolstoy #Change #Society

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Vegetables #Market

Ишь ты, у Льва Толстого был пудель

#Толстой #ЛевТолстой #LeoTolstoy #Tolstoy #LevTolstoy

You probably know Leo Tolstoy as one of the most admired writers who ever lived, but did you know that he was also a vocal advocate of #animalrights?

He became vegetarian at age 59, and believed that killing and eating animals was inhumane. (During his time, the term “vegan” had not been defined yet. The term “vegetarian” was often used to refer to people who abstained as far as possible from all products of animal exploitation or violence.)

#leotolstoy #carnism #animals #vegan #quote

@SharkAttak A chief failure of the profit motive is that it cares not a whit where profit comes from.

If profit derived only from wealth as defined by Adam Smith ("the produce and labour of the nation"), that would be fine.

But profit is in fact an accounting artefact, not an economic one. That bit of equivocation is at the heart of a great deal of the apparent contradictions and fallacies of mainstream economics.

Profit is based on realised costs and revenues, which means that any trick which can be used to lower or offset / externalise costs, and to inflate or capture revenues, is a net gain to the business.

That's why "free market" entrepreneurs are not in fact in favour of free markets where they can secure higher profits by suppressing free markets. Whether that's through dumping toxic waste (physical or informational), fraud, slavery, labour oppression, tax avoidance, quashing or buying competitors, oppressing suppliers, inserting themselves as middlemen in trade (capturing both supplier and consumer surplus), monopolisation, regulatory capture, lobbying, or any of the other abuses.

Markets can be effective, but generally only where there is a balance of power between capital, labour, government, and common weal generally. If you read Smith closely you'll find that he's a champion of small scale commerce, but casts a jaundiced eye on monopolies (he doesn't use that word, but search for "engross" within Wealth and you'll find some mention), and those who can influence the State to their own interests (wool merchants get a call-out).

As best as I've been able to trace, it, the principles of cost accounting in the US were set out by Alexander Hamilton Church (and yes, related to that A.H.), see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton_Church.

There's a wonderful inquiry into cost accounting by Leo Tolstoy in, I think in What Is To Be Done, (sometimes "What Then Must We Do") a collection of essays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_to_Be_Done%3F_(Tolstoy) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/leo-tolstoy-what-is-to-be-done.

@Gotterdammerung

I'm pretty sure @pluralistic is aware of much of this but AHC may be of interest.

#Economics #EconomicFallacies #equivocation #profit #wealth #ProfitVsWealth #AlexanderHamiltonChurch #accounting #FreeMarkets #LeoTolstoy #WhatIsToBeDone #WhatThenMustWeDo

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

— Leo Tolstoy

#Stoic #Stoicism #LeoTolstoy

If you see that some aspect of your society is bad, and you want to improve it, there is only one way to do so: you have to improve people. And in order to improve people, you begin with only one thing: you can become better yourself.
-- Leo Tolstoy

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #LeoTolstoy #Improvement #Society

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #GoblinValley #Utah

Today is #DorothyDay's birthday. Here's a free article exploring the extent to which she was influenced by #LeoTolstoy: https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/journal_contribution/Leo_Tolstoy_s_impact_on_Dorothy_Day_and_the_Catholic_worker_movement/13667594 #anarchism #pacifism #anticlericalism

Real life

Real life is found only in the present. If people tell you that you should live your life preparing for the future, do not believe them. We live in this life, and we know this life only, and therefore all our efforts should be directed toward the improvement of this life. Not your life in general but every hour of this life should be lived in the best way you know how.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Yourself

If you see that some aspect of your society is bad, and you want to improve it, there is only one way to do so: You have to improve people. And in order to improve people, you begin with only one thing: You can become better yourself.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Try to remember

After a long conversation, stop and try to remember what you have just discussed. Don’t be surprised if many things, sometimes even everything you have discussed, were meaningless, empty, and trivial, and sometimes even bad.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Which are necessary

Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know. Among the most necessary knowledge is the knowledge of how to live well, that is, how to produce the least possible evil and the greatest goodness in one’s life. At present, people study useless sciences, but forget to study this, the most important knowledge.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Clever

If you want to be a clever person, you have to learn how to ask cleverly, how to listen attentively, how to respond quietly, and how to stop talking when there is nothing more to say.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Silence kept

For every time you regret that you did not say something, you will regret a hundred times that you did not keep your silence.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Knowledge

What is important in knowledge is not quantity, but quality. It is important to know what knowledge is significant, what is less so, and what is trivial.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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State violence

State violence cannot be destroyed by decree, only by truth and love. Maybe state violence was necessary for previous generations; Maybe it is even necessary now, but people should conceive of a kind of future government in which violence will not be necessary.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Assertion

Your spirit must constantly assert itself because your body is constantly exerting itself. As soon as you stop working at your spirit, then your body will have complete power over you.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Real goodness

Real goodness is not something that can be acquired in an instant, but only through constant effort, because real goodness lies in constantly striving for perfection.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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It’s not important

It is difficult to imagine what wonderful changes would occur to human lives if people would stop poisoning themselves with brandy, wine, tobacco and drugs. […] Some people say, “It is not important if you drink or smoke.” If it is of no importance, then why not just stop, if you know that you harm yourself and, with your example, others?

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Completely just

You cannot be completely just. One time you do too little, the other time you do too much. There is only one way not to sin against justice; Always to change things, to improve things, to make them better.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Moderation

People can live without need and without jealousy only when they lead a life of moderation.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Harmony and understanding

People are wise beings; they possess the ability to live according to the dictates of their intellect, and sooner or later, they will evolve from a state of violence to a state of complete harmony and understanding. And every act of violence makes this time more distant from today.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Truth

Many statements which are accepted as truth because they have been passed down to us by tradition look like truth only because we have never tested them, never thought about them in a more precise way.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Influence

The opinion of a revered writer or thinker can have a deep influence on society; it can also be a big obstacle to understanding real truth.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Whose thoughts

Some people live and act according to their own thoughts, and some according to the thoughts of others; this is a crucial distinction between people.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Influencing others

The possibility of influencing others causes a person with high morals to be more strict about his words and actions which could influence other people.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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False ideas

False ideas which gain currency can easily be recognized by the loud fanfare with which they are accompanied. Real truth does not need any other embellishments.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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A bad example

Nothing is more harmful than a bad example set by others. They bring into our life notions which never would have occurred to us without an example.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Other people’s thoughts

For the most part, false and harmful opinions are distributed and supported by influence. We are too likely to accept the views and thoughts of other people without trying to investigate them deeper and further ourselves. Unimportant people are those who accept other people’s thoughts without developing them themselves.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Mistakes

Not to accept your mistakes is to increase them.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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The causes of evil

Look for the causes of the evil from which you suffer in yourself. Sometimes this evil is the direct consequence of your activity; Sometimes it happens after a lengthy period of transformation of an evil which you committed long ago. But the source is always in you, and salvation from it lies in changes in your actions, your way of life.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Highest possible goals

In the long run, people achieve only that which they have set as goals for themselves; Therefore, set the highest possible goals for yourself.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Change

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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Already knowing

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.

~ Leo Tolstoy

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