War and Peace (Upper and Lower)

Author: Cai Lei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-06-01
Features: Tolstoy's extensive and voluminous long novels. The scenes are vast, and the characters are numerous, known as "the greatest novel in the world," achieving extraordinary success. Since the publication of War and Peace, it has been called "the greatest novel in the world." This massive work, with an epic grandeur, vividly depicts the major historical events and various aspects of life in Russian society from 1805 to 1820: "nearly a thousand characters, countless scenes, all possible fields of national and private life, history, war, all the tragedies of humanity, various desires, all stages of life, from the cry of a newborn baby to the last burst of emotion in the dying old man, all the joys and sorrows one can experience, all possible inner thoughts, from the feeling of a thief stealing his companion's money to the noble impulse of heroism and the profound meditation—everything is included in this picture." (Strakhov's words) The author's broad coverage and holistic grasp of life, along with the full revelation of the intrinsic connections between individual phenomena and the whole, personal fate and the surrounding world, give this novel immense ideological and artistic depth. This is Tolstoy's voluminous long novel. The author connects war and peace, the front and the rear, the domestic and the foreign, the army and society, the upper and the lower, reflecting the spirit of the times comprehensively while creating vast typical environments for all kinds of typical characters. The author's portrayal of characters is both complex and rich, often using the artistic method of contrast. The genre is an innovation in Russian literary history and goes beyond the traditional norms of European long novels.
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), one of the greatest writers of the 19th century Russia, was born into an aristocratic family but did not spend his life in comfort like most aristocratic children. Instead, he devoted his entire life to exploring the meaning of life and seeking a solution to transform society. Therefore, he was not only a great literary figure but also a great thinker.
In 1840, after entering Kazan University, Tolstoy was influenced by Enlightenment thinkers such as Rousseau and Montesquieu. In 1847, he dropped out of school and returned to his hometown to attempt reforms in serfdom on his own estate. From 1851 to 1854, he served in the Caucasus army and began writing. From 1854 to 1855, he participated in the Crimean War. His years of military service deeply touched his soul and enriched his experiences, not only showing him the corruption of the upper class but also laying the foundation for his realistic depiction of war scenes in his masterpiece War and Peace. In November 1855, he entered the literary world in St. Petersburg and achieved immediate fame with his autobiographical novels Childhood (1855) and Youth (1857). These works reveal his critical stance toward aristocratic life, his advocacy of "moral self-cultivation," and his skill in psychological analysis. From the novella The Morning of a Landowner (1856), we can see his liberal aristocratic stance advocating reforms from above, which he attempted to implement on his estate but ultimately failed. In 1857, Tolstoy traveled abroad and witnessed the contradictions of capitalist society but found no way to eliminate social evils, instead calling for people to live according to "eternal religious truths." These views are reflected in his short story Lucerne (1857), and later he wrote works exploring themes such as life and death, suffering and happiness, such as Three Deaths and The Happy Family.
From 1860 to 1861, Tolstoy traveled abroad to study European education. During this trip, he not only broadened his horizons but also met many renowned figures: he befriended Herzen, listened to lectures by Dickens, and met Proudhon. These encounters further influenced Tolstoy's thoughts, and during this period, he believed that Russia should establish its ideal society based on small-scale farming. He considered farmers to be the embodiment of the highest moral ideals and advocated for the aristocracy to "become commoners." These ideas are vividly reflected in his novella The Cossacks (1852–1862). From 1863 to 1869, Tolstoy wrote his long historical novel War and Peace, which marked a milestone in his creative journey. The novel follows the interrelationships of four families and portrays the vast social life of Russia at the time, powerfully reflecting a series of major historical events from 1805 to 1820, especially the patriotic and heroic struggle of the Russian people against Napoleon's invasion in 1812. It celebrates the Russian people's love for their country and their heroic spirit, primarily exploring Russia's future and destiny, particularly the status and of the aristocracy. The novel's structure is grand, with numerous characters and vivid, richly developed typical images, making it a monumental work with epic and chronicle-like characteristics. His second milestone masterpiece, Anna Karenina, took four years to complete and underwent 12 revisions, reaching artistic perfection.
In the late 1870s to the 1880s, Tolstoy's worldview underwent fundamental changes, shifting from the of the aristocratic landlord to the standpoint of the patriarchal peasant, becoming the voice of the peasants and their emotions. During this period, he wrote Confessions (1879–1882). In the 1880s, he successively created the plays The Power of Darkness (1886) and The Fruits of Education (1891), as well as the novellas The Devil (1911), The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), The Kreutzer Sonata (1891), and Hadji Murad (1886–1904); the short story After the Ball (1903), and especially the long novel Resurrection (1889–1899), which summarized his long-term intellectual and artistic exploration and became one of the most comprehensive and profound critiques of Russian society, one of the immortal masterpieces of world literature.