He was distinguished for outstanding bravery during his military service – but his experiences taught him not only the exhilaration of battle but also its terrors and moral minefields. The young Tolstoy chose a post as artillery officer and served at the siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War.

His wife’s vivacious little sister Tatiana provided a perfect model for the heroine Natasha. When creating the character of Pierre Bezukhov, Tolstoy drew on his own experience as an earnest but socially clumsy young man, easily tempted into excesses of alcohol, womanising and gambling. Some of the fictional characters have sources in real life. Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy in 1848 aged 20. In order to generate a familiar and authentic atmosphere for his readers, Tolstoy used names of existing aristocratic families, but changed letters here and there, for example “Bolkonsky” comes from his mother’s family name “Volkonsky”. His background was one of comfort and privilege and he understood well the conventions and practices of gentry society. He was born an aristocrat – Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy – inheriting a number of country estates and the peasant serfs who lived on them.

In his first major novel, Tolstoy chose familiar territory. To drive home his point, Tolstoy also inserts explanatory essays at various stages in the text. War and Peace reflects this view through the characters and their interactions. Tolstoy felt that human history was an infinite chain of small, insignificant moments in which all individuals, mighty or humble, were involved. It’s a reflection of Leo Tolstoy’s strongly held beliefs – a philosophical tract, not just about politics, war, love, marriage and property, but about history itself and the way the affairs of society are reported.Ĭentral to the book is his antipathy towards the way in which historians of his time presented events as entirely influenced by powerful people: monarchs, politicians and generals.

Tolstoy war and peace