Tolstoy: The Genius of War and Peace and the Moralist "Mess" Post- Anna Karenina ___________________________________ Leo Tolstoy is a writer whose greatness needs no introduction. The human condition is painted with extraordinary depth and power in War and Peace (1867). Contrary to what our contemporary image of Tolstoy might suggest, War and Peace is not a pacifist manifesto at all. The idle Russian bourgeoisie, immersed in balls, philosophical discussions, and socialites, is incapable of perceiving the gravity of the Napoleonic invasion; only the defeat and the horror of Austerlitz awaken the protagonists' humanity, allowing them to understand the meaning of existence (both individual and collective) in a Russia threatened by destruction. It is in this confrontation with necessity that Tolstoy is a genius: Napoleon is not an imaginary tyrant, but a man of flesh and blood; Russia is not a mere stage, it is life, it is the motherland. War is not a game, it i...
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