Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace - Original Version

XXXII

The sovereign was in residence at Bartenstein. The army was…

XXXIII

Boris had found himself a position with the Emperor’s staff…

XXXXIV

After the Friedland disaster, Nikolai Rostov had been left as…

Part IV

I

No one mentioned “Buonaparte”, the Corsican upstart and Antichrist, any…

II

With the exception of a short visit to St. Petersburg,…

III

On arriving in St. Petersburg in 1809, Prince Andrei ordered…

IV

Prince Andrei was a novelty in St. Petersburg. His claim…

V

In the evening, after leaving the countess’s drawing room, Pierre…

VI

The Rostovs’ financial affairs had not been restored during the…

VII

Natasha, having lived in solitude in the country for the…

VIII

Prince Andrei arrived in St. Peterburg in August 1809. At…

IX

The day after his visit to Count Arakcheev, Prince Andrei…

X

There were many reasons that had led Pierre to this…

XI

On the 31st of December, the eve of the New…

XII

The following day Prince Andrei woke up and smiled, without…

XIII

For four days Prince Andrei did not go to the…

XIV

The morning after her bed-time discussion with her mother, when…

XV

Prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky and his daughter spent that winter…

Part V

I

The Biblical tradition has it that the absence of labour…

II

It was the 12th of September. There were already early…

III

About five male house serfs, both big and little, came…

IV

In the late autumn another letter was received from Prince…

V

The Yuletide season arrived. Besides the festive liturgy, at which…

VI

Natasha was the first to set the tone of Yuletide…

VII

The love between Prince Andrei and Natasha and their happiness…

VIII

At the beginning of winter, Prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky and…

IX

In 1811 a French doctor acquired rapid fashionability in Moscow.

X

Pierre’s suppositions concerning Boris were correct. Boris could not make…

XI

The Rostovs arrived in early February. Natasha had never been…

XII

That evening the Rostovs went to the theatre. Natasha had…

XIII

In the year of 1811, life in Moscow was very…

XIV

The brightly lit drawing room at the Bezukhovs’ house was…

XV

After his first meeting with Natasha in Moscow, Pierre had…

Part VI

I

In the spring of 1812, Prince Andrei was in Turkey,…

II

The count was in despair. He wrote to send for…

III

“My brother sovereign!” Napoleon wrote in the spring of 1812…

IV

On the 11th of June at eleven o’clock in the…

V

The Russian Emperor and his court had already been living…

VI

As he despatched Balashov, the sovereign repeated yet again his…

VII

The gloomy soldier Davout was the complete opposite of Murat.

VIII

After Balashov had spent four days in solitude, boredom and…

IX

After his meeting with Pierre in Moscow, Prince Andrei went…

X

Prince Andrei reached army Central Headquarters on the 13th of…

XI

While Prince Andrei was living on the Drissa with nothing…

XII

Before the start of the campaign, when the regiment was…

XIII

More than a year had passed since Natasha had rejected…

XIV

As promised, Pierre came to dinner straight from Count Rostopchin’s…

XV

On the twelfth the sovereign arrived in Moscow and from…

Part VII

I

What had to happen was bound to happen. Just as…

II

After Prince Andrei’s departure, the old Prince Bolkonsky’s daughter observed…

III

Among the countless categories of all the phenomena of life,…

IV

While this was taking place in St. Petersburg, the French…

V

“The bird returned to its native fields” galloped to the…

VI

Between four and five in the evening that day, long…

VII

On taking command of the armies, Kutuzov remembered Prince Andrei…

VIII

On the 24th of August the French Emperor’s chamberlain, de…

IX

The Shevardino redoubt was attacked on the evening of the…

X

After the sovereign left Moscow, when that first moment of…

XI

On that clear evening of the 25th of August, Prince…

XII

At six o’clock it was light. It was a grey…

XIII

Prince Andrei was in the reserves, who had been firing…

XIV

After the Battle of Borodino, immediately after the battle, the…

XV

The following day Napoleon stood on Poklonnaya Hill and looked…

XVI

The two princesses (the third had married long ago) had…

XVII

In St. Petersburg, after the sovereign’s arrival from Moscow, many…

XVIII

On the 1st of October, on the feast of the…

XIX

In the middle of September the Rostovs and their transport…

XX

After the enemy’s entry into Moscow and the reports denouncing…

XXI

During this period, when all the French wanted was to…

XXII

Pierre was with this depot among the prisoners. On the…

XXIII

One of the first people Andrei met in the army…

About the Author and Translator

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LEO TOLSTOY Photograph, Moscow, 1868

Ben Jonson is said to have criticized Shakespeare when told that ‘hee never blotted out line’, and Sir Walter Scott was similarly an author who wrote with extraordinary rapidity and accuracy. Leo Tolstoy, in contrast, regularly rewrote and restructured much of his work, on occasion spending years immersed in elaborate correction. It is not surprising, therefore, that War and Peace, the longest major Russian novel ever written, occupied the greater part of the decade 1863 to 1873. He had been mulling over the potential of an historical novel some years before that, but his earliest drafts for the book dating from 1863 show that it was then that he decided to write a work whose setting would be the dramatic events associated with Russia’s wars against Napoleon. Two years later he published the first section in the literary journal Russkii Vestnik under the title 1805, and the second entitled War appeared a year later in 1866.

Although Tolstoy’s prime concern lay with exploration of human character, he was fascinated by the grand drama of historical events. He had experienced war in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Crimea, and from a cheerfully unreflecting Russian patriot he became increasingly concerned to discover the underlying rationale of a phenomenon which perversely legitimated lying, spying, murder, cruelty, and rapine on a grand scale – vices which civil society is at pains to suppress. Conventional historians of the day recounted events in terms of grand strategy carried out by commanders executing complex manoeuvres, which proved successful or unsuccessful according to their talents and those of their adversaries. Tolstoy – who had known at first hand the smoke, din, fire, terror, and heady intoxication of battle – saw in contrast only the interplay of confusion, chance, and a multitude of disparate factors far beyond the capacity of individuals to control or even understand.