In 1805, relations between France and Russia deteriorated and war was imminent. However, in the Russian upper class, people's lives were still quiet and leisurely, and social dances were held as usual.
The young Duke Andrei Borkowski, determined to do something, made him an aide-de-camp to General Kutuzov and set out for the front, hoping that the war would bring glory and glory to himself. At Austerlitz, he fought in the Allied battles with the French and was wounded. The house of count Stoff, he fell in love with natasha, full of youthful vitality. Love cheered him up and threw himself back into life and career. When the Russo-French War broke out, Andrei rushed to the battlefield and was seriously wounded in the Battle of Poloquinta. He suddenly realized that death is the sober process of life. From that moment on his life slowly receded and came to an end calmly.
Pierre, another protagonist who develops parallel to André's story, is an impulsive, kind and sincere young man who has become a high-class figure by inheriting a considerable legacy. The snobbish Duke of Kuragin married his debauched and depraved daughter Ellen to him. Pierre, who was weak-willed but yearning for an ideal moral life, was repeatedly frustrated among the absurd aristocratic community. During the War of Defense, Pierre organized vigilante groups and endured the test of war. He was later arrested by the French. In the prisoner-of-war camp, he was deeply moved by the fatalism and non-resistance among the soldiers. Under the blows of the Russian people, the French army collapsed. Pierre was rescued by the guerrillas and returned to a happy life. After marriage, he joined the secret organization of the Decembrists, while Natha became a good wife and mother.
"War and Peace" is full of faith and understanding of reality, showing a positive, optimistic, enterprising spirit of loving life and nature. Its content is huge in scale, there are many characters, wonderful pictures are one after another, moving scenes emerge in an endless stream, and a variety of events are intertwined. The whole epic work, although complex in content and voluminous in volume, has clear clues and complete structure. The author arranges the major historical events and people's social life at that time with "war" and "peace" as the center. Important historical figures appear only at important moments in their historical activities, while the history of several aristocratic families is the basic content of the novel. With deep affection, beautiful and profound brushstrokes, Tolstoy created a magnificent and exquisite literary masterpiece. The depictions of the landscape in the work are closely related to the inner world of the characters, such as the sky of Austerlitz and the birch forest in spring, which are inseparable from Andre's psychological changes. The language of the whole work is like flowing clouds and flowing freely, and it inserts a large paragraph of eloquent discussion into the beautiful prose to directly express the author's historical and philosophical views, which is another artistic feature of this huge work.
In portraying the characters, Tolstoy shows that life is stronger than one person, how fate treats each of us is fundamentally insignificant, and the most important thing is positive feelings. In the war section full of tragic and painful scenes, he focuses on people with instinctive wisdom—Kutuzov, whose motto is "patience"; the peasants who go to war happily, wear clean shirts and die, and only want to defect to the Creator; and the French captives who smile at their visions in the midst of filth and hunger. And and andré, who is intelligent, strong in character and rich in heart, Pierre, who is emotionally impulsive, kind and sincere, and Natasha, who is beautiful and moving, pure and natural, are also baptized in war and peace in front of the reader's eyes.
The novel's most prominent artistic mastery is the majestic, grand and complex structure and strict and orderly layout. Tolstoy's one-day genius, between war and peace, psychology and society, history and philosophy, marriage and religion, is clearly distinguished and ingenious. He wrote a picture of history that was moving forward in an orderly manner with waves and layers. There are tensions and changes, which constitute a complete pattern. At the same time, the author also created hundreds of characters with different personalities and flesh and blood in the book. He touches on all levels of life, with a wide range of personalities and a distinctLy Russian flair, which makes people read vividly and intimately, and can't bear to release the volume