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War and Peace
Coradella Collegiate Bookshelf Editions.
War and Peace.
Leo Tolstoy.
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L eo Tolstoy. War and Peace.
About the author
reform their lives.
Pierre Bezukhov in War and Peace is another character whose life
reflects that of the author. War and Peace is famous for the breadth of
its canvas. Its title topics are only the beginning of its ambitious inclu-
siveness, but most of his works had strong stories, broad social descrip-
tion, and philosophical overtones. In The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1884),
Tolstoy faces his own fear of death.
Tolstoy had a profound influence on the development of anarchist
thought. Prince Peter Kropotkin wrote of him in the article on Anar-
chism in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica:
Without naming himself an anarchist, Leo Tolstoy, like his prede-
cessors in the popular religious movements of the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries, Chojecki, Denk and many others, took the anarchist
position as regards the state and property rights, deducing his conclu-
sions from the general spirit of the teachings of Jesus Christ and from
the necessary dictates of reason. With all the might of his talent he
made (especially in The Kingdom of God is Within You) a powerful
criticism of the church, the state and law altogether, and especially of
the present property laws. He describes the state as the domination of
the wicked ones, supported by brutal force. Robbers, he says, are far
less dangerous than a well-organized government. He makes a search-
ing criticism of the prejudices which are current now concerning the
benefits conferred upon men by the church, the state and the existing
distribution of property, and from the teachings of the Christ he de-
duces the rule of non-resistance and the absolute condemnation of all
wars. His religious arguments are, however, so well combined with
arguments borrowed from a dispassionate observation of the present
evils, that the anarchist portions of his works appeal to the religious
and the non-religious reader alike.
A letter Tolstoy wrote to an Indian newspaper entitled "A Letter
to a Hindu (http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_to_a_Hindu_-
_Leo_Tolstoy)" resulted in a long-running correspondence with
Mohandas Gandhi, who was in South Africa at the time and was
beginning to become an activist. The correspondence with Tolstoy
Leo Nikolayevitch Tolstoy
(September 9, 1828 – Novem-
ber 20, 1910) was a Russian
novelist, reformer, and moral
thinker, notable for his influence
on Russian literature and poli-
tics. As a count, Tolstoy was a
member of the Russian nobility.
Tolstoy was one of the giants of 19th century Russian literature.
His most famous works include the novels War and Peace and Anna
Karenina, and many shorter works, including the novella The Death of
Ivan Ilyich and "Ivan the Fool".
His autobiographical novels, Childhood , Boyhood , and Youth , his first
publications (1852–1856), tell of a rich landowner's son and his slow
realization of the differences between him and his peasant playmates.
Although in later life Tolstoy rejected these books as sentimental, a
great deal of his own life is revealed, and the books still have relevance
for their telling of the universal story of growing up.
Tolstoy served as a second lieutenant in the Russian Army during
the Crimean War. His experiences in battle help develop his pacifism,
and gave him material for realistic depiction of the horrors of war in his
later work.
His fiction consistently attempts to convey realistically the Russian
society in which he lived. Cossacks (1863) describes the Cossack life
and people through a story of a Russian aristocrat in love with a Cos-
sack girl. Anna Karenina (1867) tells parallel stories of a woman trapped
by the conventions of society and of a philosophical landowner (much
like Tolstoy), who works alongside his serfs in the fields and seeks to
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L eo Tolstoy. War and Peace.
strongly influenced Gandhi towards the concept of nonviolent resis-
tance, a central part of Tolstoy's view of Christianity. Along with his
growing idealism, he also became a major supporter of the Esperanto
movement.
Tolstoy was an extremely wealthy member of the Russian nobility.
He came to believe that he was undeserving of his inherited wealth,
and was renowned among the peasantry for his generosity. He would
frequently return to his country estate with vagrants whom he felt
needed a helping hand, and would often dispense large sums of money
to street beggars while on trips to the city, much to his wife's chagrin.
When he died in 1910, thousands of peasants turned out to line the
streets at his funeral.
Click on a num-
ber in the chapter list
to go to the first page
of that chapter.
Contents are con-
tinued on the nex
page.
Contents
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L eo Tolstoy. War and Peace.
L eo Tolstoy. War and Peace.
1
Book 1: 1805
War and Peace.
Chapter 1.
“Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of
the Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don’t tell me that this means
war, if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by
that Antichrist- I really believe he is Antichrist- I will have nothing
more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my
‘faithful slave,’ as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I have
frightened you- sit down and tell me all the news.”
It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna
Pavlovna Scherer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya
Fedorovna. With these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man
of high rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her recep-
tion. Anna Pavlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as she
said, suffering from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St.
Petersburg, used only by the elite.
All her invitations without exception, written in French, and deliv-
ered by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:
“If you have nothing better to do, Count [or Prince], and if the
prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible,
I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10- Annette
Scherer.”

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