The main idea of the 19th century was the search and explanation of the people's consciousness. Naturally, Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy could not but become interested in this problem as well. So, "people's thought" in Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace".
There are two forms of consciousness in the novel, these are: intellectual and this very thing, people's consciousness. The representative of the first consciousness was, for example, Andrei Bolkonsky. He was always asking the question "Why?", he was burning with the desire to remake this world in one way or another. The representative of the people's consciousness was Platon Karataev (he even spoke in proverbs), and then Pierre Bezukhov (he did not disdain to eat with soldiers from the same boiler, but Bolkonsky could not swim with everyone, he had a dislike for the people, he was by itself). Plato meets Pierre as a prisoner of the French. Before this meeting, Pierre was in a mental crisis.
What place does Plato occupy in the system of images? He has no distinctive features, as he is a representative of the swarm structure. Karataev is an exceptionally collective image. His description is replete with round features. The circle is a symbol of completeness and perfection, also a circle is a simple figure. This simplicity really lives in Plato. He accepts life as it is, for him all issues are initially resolved. Tolstoy himself believed that swarm consciousness is better than intellectual consciousness. Platon Karataev is not afraid of death, because it is natural for him ... a common natural phenomenon. The dog feels this free love, therefore it is attracted to Plato.
It is interesting to look at the dream of Pierre Bezukhov in captivity. He dreams of a ball consisting of drops, and a drop is visible, which then rises outward, then plunges back into the depths. A person also rises in order to understand something, but a return or separation is inevitable here. In this situation, only family and simplicity return, this is a guarantee of attraction (this attraction is also visible in Pierre Bezukhov, but Andrei Bolkonsky did not have it). If you break away, death.
Let's think about how the intellectual consciousness and the people's consciousness relate to each other. Tolstoy usually doesn't explore characters and issues, he just explains them. But not all questions were answered by Tolstoy. The author still could not finally explain the people's thought. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky took literature to the section of ethnophilosophy, but no one followed them further.
The idea of the people is:
1) national character,
2) the soul of the people.
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy embodies the idea of a nation in the image of Platon Karataev. This idea reveals that the people's consciousness is not an opposition between the idea of war and peace, this idea is simply outside the other. This is not a confrontation. Even when Plato died, no one turned around, because because of the death of one person, nothing will happen (according to the swarm consciousness). There should be no unnecessary suffering and worries. Therefore, it is impossible to simplify the scheme of the novel to a banal triangle (Napoleon-Kutuzov-Platon Karataev).
It is no coincidence that Tolstoy changed the name "All is well that ends well." He realized that nothing ends. These heroes are just a link in history ... they are part of this popular consciousness.
“The subject of history is the life of peoples and mankind,” this is how Leo Tolstoy begins the second part of the epilogue of the epic novel War and Peace. He then asks the question: "What is the power that moves the nations?" Arguing over these “theories”, Tolstoy comes to the conclusion that: “The life of peoples does not fit into the lives of several people, because the connection between these several people and peoples has not been found ...” In other words, Tolstoy says that the role of the people in history is undeniable, and the eternal truth that history is made by the people is proved by him in his novel. "The thought of the people" in Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" is indeed one of the main themes of the epic novel.
Many readers understand the word "people" not quite the way Tolstoy understands it. Lev Nikolaevich means by "people" not only soldiers, peasants, peasants, not only that "huge mass" driven by some force. For Tolstoy, “the people” are officers, generals, and the nobility. This is Kutuzov, and Bolkonsky, and the Rostovs, and Bezukhov - this is all of humanity, embraced by one thought, one deed, one destiny. All the main characters of Tolstoy's novel are directly connected with their people and are inseparable from them.
The fates of the favorite characters of Tolstoy's novel are connected with the life of the people. The "thought of the people" in "War and Peace" runs like a red thread through the life of Pierre Bezukhov. Being in captivity, Pierre learned his truth of life. Platon Karataev, a peasant peasant, opened it to Bezukhov: “In captivity, in a booth, Pierre learned not with his mind, but with his whole being, with his life, that man was created for happiness, that happiness is in himself, in satisfying natural human needs, that all misfortune occurs not from lack, but from excess. The French offered Pierre to transfer from a soldier's booth to an officer's, but he refused, remaining faithful to those with whom he suffered his fate. And after that, for a long time, he recalled with rapture this month of captivity, as "about complete peace of mind, about perfect inner freedom, which he experienced only at that time."
Andrei Bolkonsky in the battle of Austerlitz also felt his people. Grabbing the staff of the banner and rushing forward, he did not think that the soldiers would follow him. And they, seeing Bolkonsky with a banner and hearing: “Guys, go ahead!” rushed to the enemy after their leader. The unity of officers and ordinary soldiers confirms that the people are not divided into ranks and ranks, the people are one, and Andrei Bolkonsky understood this.
Natasha Rostova, leaving Moscow, dumps family property on the ground and gives her carts to the wounded. This decision comes to her immediately, without deliberation, which indicates that the heroine does not separate herself from the people. Another episode that speaks of the true Russian spirit of Rostova, in which L. Tolstoy himself admires his beloved heroine: spirit, where did she get these techniques… But these spirit and techniques were the same, inimitable, unlearned, Russian.”
And Captain Tushin, who sacrificed his own life for the sake of victory, for the sake of Russia. Captain Timokhin, who rushed at the Frenchman with "one skewer." Denisov, Nikolai Rostov, Petya Rostov and many other Russian people who stood with the people and knew true patriotism.
Tolstoy created a collective image of the people - a single, invincible people, when not only soldiers, troops, but also militias are fighting. Civilians help not with weapons, but with their own methods: the peasants burn hay so as not to take it to Moscow, people leave the city only because they do not want to obey Napoleon. This is the “folk idea” and the ways of its disclosure in the novel. Tolstoy makes it clear that in a single thought - not to surrender to the enemy - the Russian people are strong. For all Russian people, a sense of patriotism is important.
The novel also shows the partisan movement. A prominent representative here was Tikhon Shcherbaty, who, with all his disobedience, dexterity, and cunning, is fighting the French. His active work brings success to the Russians. Denisov is proud of his partisan detachment thanks to Tikhon.
Opposite to the image of Tikhon Shcherbaty is the image of Platon Karataev. Kind, wise, with his worldly philosophy, he calms Pierre and helps him survive captivity. Plato's speech is filled with Russian proverbs, which emphasizes his nationality.
The only commander in chief of the army who never separated himself from the people was Kutuzov. “He knew not with his mind or science, but with his whole Russian being he knew and felt what every Russian soldier felt ...” The disunity of the Russian army in an alliance with Austria, the deception of the Austrian army, when the allies abandoned the Russians in battles, for Kutuzov were unbearable pain. Kutuzov replied to Napoleon’s letter about peace: “I would be damned if they looked at me as the first instigator of any deal: such is the will of our people” (italics by L.N. Tolstoy). Kutuzov did not write from himself, he expressed the opinion of the whole people, all Russian people.
The image of Kutuzov is opposed to the image of Napoleon, who was very far from his people. He was only interested in personal interest in the struggle for power. The empire of world subordination to Bonaparte - and the abyss in the interests of the people. As a result, the war of 1812 was lost, the French fled, and Napoleon was the first to leave Moscow. He abandoned his army, abandoned his people.
In his novel War and Peace, Tolstoy shows that the power of the people is invincible. And in every Russian person there is "simplicity, goodness and truth." True patriotism does not measure everyone by rank, does not build a career, does not seek glory. At the beginning of the third volume, Tolstoy writes: “There are two aspects of life in every person: personal life, which is all the more free, the more abstract its interests, and spontaneous, swarming life, where a person inevitably fulfills the laws prescribed for him.” Laws of honor, conscience, common culture, common history.
This essay on the topic “The Thought of the People” in the novel “War and Peace” reveals only a small fraction of what the author wanted to tell us. The people live in the novel in every chapter, in every line.
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In literature, there are many works known only to connoisseurs and gourmets, literary critics and philologists. But there are also a number of texts that every person who considers himself educated should know. Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" also belongs to such works.
Not everyone knows that L. N. Tolstoy initially intended to write a novel where a certain Decembrist would be the central character. The action was supposed to unfold when he returns after the amnesty. On the street - 1856. To create such a work, the writer plunged into the study of archival documents. In the process of this historical research, L. N. Tolstoy realized that he would not be able to fully realize his idea of a Decembrist without referring to the origins of the uprising, and then even further - to 1812 itself and, accordingly, to Napoleon's campaign against Russia.
As can be seen from the very title of the epic, the plot can be divided into two themes: war and peace. If the world is a description of the everyday life of the nobles, often joys far from a real spiritual upsurge, then the war is a demonstration of the heroism of the people in the fight against the invader, it is an image of the spiritual path, as well as victory and how and with what sacrifices this victory is achieved.
This idea is most clearly revealed precisely in the theme of the war, which sticks out not only the problems of society, but also shows that it is the people who are more united and integral that win.
War eliminates the division into aristocrats and commoners, it equalizes people in the struggle for survival, for the safety of the lives of their relatives, for their homes and, in the end, for their country.
At first glance, it may seem to the reader that the people in the novel are peasants, serfs, soldiers, in a word, “ordinary people”. But in reality, it turns out that this is not entirely true. The author considers all those who participate in the life of the country to be the people. Both ordinary soldiers and princes (like, for example, Andrei Bolkonsky) fight Napoleon, that is, the nobles go in battle hand in hand with the sons of the peasants. The people in the view of Leo Tolstoy are integral.
Perhaps all the central characters of the novel, and especially those who can be classified as "heroes on the road", are inseparable from the "folk thought". It is an obligatory part of the deployment of the storyline.
For example, this leitmotif is clearly visible in the life of Pierre Bezukhov. We are interested in the moment when Pierre is captured: it is here that he finally finds the truth of life. But Bezukhov hears this truth not at all from the lips of a learned man, but from the lips of a simple peasant Platon Karataev. Everything turned out to be very simple: all people want happiness. The end of the novel for some readers appeared as a disappointment, but the ending is consistent with these reflections on happiness.
It is curious that the French allowed Pierre to go to captives equal to him in status, but he wished to stay with these simple people, who turned out to be wiser than a hundred scientists.
The same leitmotif haunts the spiritual quest of another hero - Andrei Bolkonsky. First of all, the reader becomes a witness to the surprise of the hero, because he, having rushed forward in the pursuit of glory and deeds, did not at all expect that he would become an inspiring example for the rest of the soldiers. But those, seeing the fearless Andrei, rushed into battle after him.
In fact, the nobles were brought up quite harshly. There are many cases when noble girls survived in the most difficult conditions. This was possible because their upbringing prepared them for various trials.
As for Natasha Rostova, the "people's thought" in her life is clearly seen in her act during her flight from Moscow.
When a girl sees the wounded, she does not spare things and throws them out of her wagon to make room for the wounded.
Thus, Natasha - an aristocrat - finds herself in the same carriage with ordinary wounded soldiers. This once again demonstrates to us that war equalizes everyone. But even more here, the very contradictions of the Russian soul, about which so many books have been written, are suddenly exposed.
This part of the war also failed to hide from the attentive eye of the writer. The partisan movement is revealed in the novel on the example of the image of Tikhon Shcherbaty. He also fights with the invader, but his methods differ from the straightforwardness and openness of Andrei Bolkonsky.
Among the methods of dealing with the enemy of Tikhon are cunning, dexterity, surprise and rebelliousness. Here the image of Shcherbaty is the opposite of the image of Platon Karataev, already familiar to us. The latter demonstrates such traits as kindness and calmness, wisdom and a simple philosophy, which we can call worldly.
Perhaps Kutuzov is the most striking example, and sometimes it seems that he is the only example of a commander in chief who really never exalted himself. He considered himself equal to the people, the soldiers with whom he fought hand in hand.
We bring to the attention of readers a description in the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace".
The greatest pain for him was the lack of unity of the people, the lack of integrity of the army. This, in his opinion, often became the cause of Russian defeats.
The “thought of the people” in the novel is inseparable from the historical concept of L. N. Tolstoy, which he sets out here. Of particular importance in this regard is the second part of the epilogue, where the author reflects that history does not actually consist of a description of events, but rather of stories of individuals who influence the course of these events.
The first thing we think of when we read these words is that the stories of personalities are equal to the stories of famous people. These are, as a rule, great rulers and commanders, emperors and kings... But L. N. Tolstoy was able to show us that history is made by ordinary people with their lives. And it is the lives of these people that are at the heart of that set of "small" stories that make up the "big" story.
Simplicity, truth, kindness are the three pillars that support the invincibility of the national spirit. The author himself writes about this, but the reader can also draw his own conclusions. However, simple joys and conservative values win - these are the family and children, which ensure the reproduction of the people (as the French historian J. Dumezil would say).
So, the writer openly said that a work of literature is successful only when its author lives by the main idea written out in this work. L. N. Tolstoy demonstrates by the example of this epic that a crisis situation awakens the most sincere qualities in people. Everyone gets what they deserve and according to their conscience: we see how Natasha Rostova is changing, when Pierre Bezukhov suddenly finds the truth of life, how an epiphany finally comes to Prince Andrei Bolkonsky about the meaning of his path. But here we see how inexorable the war is to people who believed that they had everything and they could not lose anything: the handsome Anatole Kuragin loses his leg, and his sister Helen is experiencing a moral decline.
- a novel that gradually transformed from a once conceived work about a Decembrist into a brilliant epic about the courageous feat of the nation, about the victory of the Russian spirit in the battle with the Napoleonic army. As a result, a masterpiece was born, where, as he himself wrote, the main idea was the folk thought. Today, in an essay on the topic: “The Thought of the People,” we will try to prove this.
The author believed that the work would be good if the author fell in love with the main idea. Tolstoy was interested in people's thought in the work War and Peace, where he depicted not just the people and their way of life, but showed the fate of the nation. At the same time, the people for Tolstoy are not only a peasant, a soldier and a peasant, they are also nobles, and officers, and generals. In a word, the people are all people taken together, all of humanity, which was driven by a common goal, one thing, one destiny.
In his work, the writer remembers that history is most often written as the history of individual personalities, but few people think about the driving force in history, which is the people, nation, spirit and will of people that come together.
For each hero, the war with the French became a test, where Bolkonsky, and Pierre Bezukhov, and Natasha, and Petya Rostov, and Dolokhov, and Kutuzov, and Tushin, and Timokhin all played their role in the best possible way. And most importantly, ordinary people showed themselves, who organized separate small partisan detachments and smashed the enemy. People who burned everything so that the enemy did not get anything. People who gave their last to Russian soldiers to support them.
The offensive of the Napoleonic army revealed the best qualities in people, where the peasants, forgetting about their grievances, fought side by side with their masters, defending their homeland. It was the thought of the people in the novel War and Peace that became the soul of the work, uniting the peasantry with the best part of the nobility in one thing - the struggle for the freedom of the Motherland.
Patriotically minded people, among whom were poor peasants, and nobles, and merchants - this is the people. Their will clashed with the French will. It collided and showed real strength, because people fought for their land, which could not be given to the enemy. The people and the formed partisan detachments became the club of the people's war, which did not give a single chance of victory to Napoleon and his army. Tolstoy wrote about this in his brilliant novel War and Peace, where the main idea was the folk one.
If suddenly the ants attack together,
They will overpower the lion, no matter how fierce he is.
The epic novel "War and Peace" is the largest work of Leo Tolstoy, covering the life of all sectors of society before and after the war of 1812. It shows the ups and downs of the characters, but the main character is the people. Of the many themes of the novel, the author pays special attention to “folk thought”.
L.N. Tolstoy asked the question: “What drives history: the people or the individual?” And throughout the novel history is created and influenced by the people. It was the unity of the Russian people, based on love and affection for their native land, that helped them defeat the French army. Anger for disturbed peace and peaceful life, killed relatives and the ruin of the country moved them during the battles. People tried in every possible way to help, to prove themselves, forgetting about everything that holds them, and were ready to stand up for the Fatherland to the death. War is made up of small deeds that matter a lot.
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By doing them, they show the most important quality of the people - patriotism, which, according to Leo Tolstoy, can be true and false. The owners of true patriotism are the Rostov family, Tikhon Shcherbaty, Kutuzov, Tushin, Pierre Bezukhov, Marya Bolkonskaya. The author also contrasts them with other heroes of the novel, whose society is filled with hypocrisy and falsehood.
For example, during the move of the Rostov family from besieged Moscow, all things were collected on carts. At this moment, the wounded soldiers ask for help. And Natasha, begging her parents, asked to leave carts for the needy wounded. Of course, they could take the chance and save their property, but a sense of duty, compassion and responsibility took over.
But there are people who are not at all interested in the life of the suffering population. The careerist Berg was only interested in fashion and craved money. Even during a fire in Smolensk, he does not think about what to put out, but is looking for a profit in buying new furniture.
Pierre Bezukhov, who became the heir to the wealthy Count Bezukhov, equips the regiment entirely with inherited money. He could squander them for personal purposes: at festivities and balls, but he acted nobly, helping the people. And the salon of A.P. Sherer, on the other hand, does nothing. As usual, their conversations are full of gossip and empty talk about the war. A fine for using French words in speech could not help the people in any way. Therefore their patriotism is false.
During the rebellion of the Bogucharov peasants, Marya Bolkonskaya did not succumb to the temptation to remain under the wing of the French: she did not want to feel like a traitor. Helen Kuragina performs a completely different act. In a difficult time for the country, she changes her faith and wants to marry Napoleon, an enemy of the people.
Not only the upper strata of society contributed to the victory. For example, the peasant Tikhon Shcherbaty voluntarily joins Denisov's partisan detachment, which speaks of his indifference. Becomes the most active, catching the most "tongues" and doing the hardest work. Boris Drubetskoy, on the other hand, shows cowardice, remaining at the headquarters of Kutuzov's opponent, Benigsen. Despite all the hatred of the enemies, the Russians show humanism towards the captured French. “They are people too,” says Tikhon Shcherbaty.
The state of the troops and the course of the war depend on the supreme commander-in-chief - Kutuzov. Unlike the narcissistic and indifferent Napoleon, Kutuzov is a very simple person and close to the people. He only follows the spirit of the troops, inspires them only with news of victorious battles. He treats the army like his own children and acts as a "father" who takes care. He sincerely feels sorry for the people. It is with a good commander that the army has an interest in winning with all its might.
War, bursting into peaceful life, shows the true face of every person, tears off the masks. Possessing false patriotism and generally insensitivity, someone will run and hide, make a hero out of himself only in words. And someone with a real desire to help is eager to fight, no matter what. Each of them invests something of his own in order to achieve the national goal. The charmers of true patriotism do this not for show, but for the sake of the land that their fathers and grandfathers once defended. And to give it away without a fight is shameful. All these people become a single whole, the people's "club", which only wages a war of liberation. Because a foreign land is useless - you need to defend your Fatherland. And this can only be done by uniting, having real feelings and concern for the future of the people and the country.
