Война и мир

Compact, readable new edition. War and Peace is regarded as one of Leo Tolstoy’s finest literary achievements and remains a classic of world literature. The novel chronicles the French invasion of Russia and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society through the stories of five Russian aristocratic families — the Bezukhovs, the Bolkonskys, the Rostovs, the Kuragins, and the Drubetskoys. Tolstoy had spoken with people who lived through the 1812 French invasion of Russia. He read all the standard histories available in Russian and French about the Napoleonic Wars and had read letters, journals, autobiographies and biographies of Napoleon and other key players of that era. There are approximately 160 real persons named or referred to in War and Peace. He said War and Peace is “not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle.” Large sections, especially the later chapters, are philosophical discussion rather than narrative.