What prompted Tolstoy to write war and peace. The history of the creation of the novel War and Peace Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy is one of the world's greatest novelists, thinker and philosopher. His main works are known to everyone and everyone. "Anna Karenina" and "War and Peace" are the pearls of Russian literature. Today we will discuss the three-volume work "War and Peace". How was the novel created, what interesting facts about it are known to history?

When was the novel "War and Peace" written? Between 1863 and 1869 Long years the writer worked on the novel, giving him all his creative powers. Tolstoy himself later admitted: if he knew that many generations would admire his work, he would have given it not only seven years, but his whole life to its creation. The official date of creation of "War and Peace" is 1863-1869.

The main idea of ​​the novel

When the novel "War and Peace" was written, Lev Nikolaevich became the founder of a new genre, which after him gained wide popularity in Russian literature. This is an epic novel that combined several stylistic genres and told the world half a century of history Russia. Here intertwined problems of a political, spiritual and moral nature.

As the writer himself wrote, he wanted to show the Russian people with their courage, selflessness, desire for peace even during the war. Tolstoy elevates the Russian people, who draw the will to win in kindness, love and faith. The French were defeated because they did not believe in the rightness of their cause.

The main idea of ​​the novel is philosophical and religious. Above the whole kaleidoscope of events that Lev Nikolaevich describes, an invisible force, Providence, is felt. And everything happens exactly as it should happen. And understanding and acceptance of this is the highest good for humanity.

This thought is reflected in Pierre's reflections:

“Before, the terrible question that destroyed all his mental structures was: why? no longer existed for him. Now to this question - why? a simple answer was always ready in his soul: then, that there is a God, that God, without whose will a hair will not fall from a person’s head.

Beginning of work

The idea to write a book about the Decembrists came to Tolstoy after a meeting with the Decembrist, who returned to Moscow after thirty years of exile. On September 5, 1863, Tolstoy's father-in-law, A.E. Bers, sent from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana letter. It read:

"Yesterday we talked a lot about 1812 on the occasion of your intention to write a novel relating to this era."

It is this letter that is considered the first evidence dating the beginning of the writer's work on the novel. In October of the same year, Tolstoy wrote to his relative that he had never felt his mental and moral powers so free and ready for work. He wrote with incredible creativity. And that's what made it a worldwide bestseller. Never before, Lev Nikolaevich himself confessed in the same letter, had he felt like "a writer with all the strength of his soul." The date of writing the novel "War and Peace" became a landmark in the writer's career.

Time of the novel

Initially, the novel was supposed to tell about one hero living in 1856, shortly before the abolition of serfdom. However, later the writer revised his plan, as he could not understand his hero. He decided to change the time of the story to 1825 - the period of the Decembrist uprising. But he could not fully understand his hero, so he moved on to his young years, the period of the formation of his personality, - 1812. This time coincided with the war between Russia and France. And it was inextricably linked with 1805, a period of pain and hardship. The writer decided to show the tragic pages of Russian history. He explained this by saying that he was ashamed to write about the triumph of the Russians, without telling about their failures. Therefore, the time of writing the novel "War and Peace" stretched out for years.

Heroes of the book "War and Peace"

Tolstoy originally intended to write about one main character, Pierre Bezukhov, a Decembrist who returned to Moscow after thirty years of exile in Siberia. However, later his novel expanded so much that it contained hundreds of characters. Tolstoy, as a true perfectionist, sought to show the story of not one, but many heroes who live in a troubled time for Russia. In addition to the well-known main actors, in the plot there are many secondary characters which give the story a special charm.

When the novel "War and Peace" was written, the researchers of the writer's work counted the number of heroes of the work. It has 599 characters, 200 of which are historical figures. Many of the rest have real prototypes. For example, Vasily Denisov, a friend of Nikolai Rostov, was partly copied from the famous partisan Denis Davydov. Researchers of Tolstoy's work consider the writer's mother, Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya, to be the prototype of Princess Maria Bolkonskaya. Lev Nikolaevich did not remember her, since she died when he was not even two years old. However, all his life he bowed before her image.

Surnames of heroes

It took a lot of work for the writer to give each character a last name. Lev Nikolaevich acted in several ways - he used or modified real surnames or invent new ones.

Most of the main characters have modified, but quite recognizable surnames. The writer did this so that the reader would not associate them with real people, from whom he borrowed only some of the traits of character and appearance.

"Peace and War"

The novel "War and Peace" is based on opposition, which can be seen already in the title. All characters are divided into two categories - The first key personality of the "war" is Napoleon, who is ready to do anything to achieve his own goal.

He is opposed by Kutuzov, striving for peace. The rest of the smaller characters also fall into one of two categories. This may not be noticeable to the casual reader. But internally they are oriented towards the behavior model of either Kutuzov or Napoleon. There are also undecided characters who, in the process of self-development, choose one of two camps. These, in particular, include Andrei and Pierre, who as a result choose "peace".

... "get confused, make mistakes, start and quit again ..."

This is an excerpt from one of the famous quotes of the novel, which perfectly characterizes the writer's creative search. The period of writing "War and Peace" was long and exhausting. In the writer's archive you can find more than 5,000 written small print double-sided pages. It was truly a colossal job. Tolstoy rewrote the novel by hand 8 times. He improved some chapters up to 26 times. The beginning of the novel was especially hard for the writer, which he rewrote 15 times.

When was the original version of War and Peace written? In 1866. In the archive of Lev Nikolaevich you can find the first, earliest version of the novel. It was her that Tolstoy brought to the publisher Mikhail Katkov in 1866. However, he failed to publish the novel. It was economically advantageous for Katkov to publish the novel in parts in Russkiy Vestnik (prior to this, Tolstoy had already published several parts of the novel under the title Three Pores). Other publishers felt the novel was too long and out of date. Therefore, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana and extended work on the novel for another two years.

Meanwhile, the first version of the novel was preserved in the writer's archive. Many consider it much better than the final result. It contains less philosophical digressions, is shorter and eventful.

Verbose rubbish...

Tolstoy gave his offspring a lot of spiritual and physical strength, the period of writing "War and Peace" was long and exhausting. However, after a while his ardor faded and the opinion about the written novel changed. Being a stern and implacable man, Lev Nikolaevich treated most of his works with a degree of skepticism. He considered his other books to be more significant.

In January 1871, Tolstoy confessed in his letter to Fet:

“How happy I am ... that I will never write verbose rubbish like “War” again.”

A similar attitude to "War and Peace" slipped in his diaries, which he kept from childhood. Tolstoy considered his main works to be trifles, which for some reason seem important to people. However, the years of writing the novel "War and Peace" indicate that the writer himself at first treated his offspring with awe and love.

145 years ago in Russia there was the largest literary event The first edition of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace was published. Separate chapters of the novel were published earlier - Tolstoy began publishing the first two parts in Katkov's Russkiy Vestnik a few years earlier, but the "canonical", complete and revised version of the novel came out only a few years later. Over a century and a half of its existence, this world masterpiece and bestseller has acquired a mass of scientific research, and reader legends. Here are a few interesting facts about the novel that you may not have known.

How did Tolstoy himself evaluate War and Peace?

Leo Tolstoy was very skeptical about his "main works" - the novels "War and Peace" and Anna Karenina. So, in January 1871, he sent Fet a letter in which he wrote: “How happy I am ... that I will never write verbose rubbish like War.” Nearly 40 years later, he has not changed his mind. On December 6, 1908, an entry appeared in the writer's diary: "People love me for those trifles - War and Peace, etc., which seem very important to them." There is even more recent evidence. In the summer of 1909, one of the visitors to Yasnaya Polyana expressed his admiration and gratitude to the by then universally recognized classic for the creation of War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Tolstoy's answer was: "It's like someone came to Edison and said:" I respect you very much because you dance the mazurka well. I attribute meaning to very different books of mine."

Was Tolstoy sincere? Perhaps there was a share of the author's coquetry, although the whole image of Tolstoy the thinker strongly contradicts this conjecture - he was too serious and unfeigned person.

"War and Peace" or "War and Peace"?

The name "War of the World" is so familiar that it has already eaten into the subcortex. If you ask any more or less educated person what is the main work of Russian literature of all time, a good half will say without hesitation: "War and Peace." Meanwhile, the novel had different variants titles: "1805" (even an excerpt from the novel was published under this title), "All's well that ends well" and "Three pores".

Associated with the title of Tolstoy's masterpiece famous legend. Often they try to beat the title of the novel. Claiming that the author himself put some ambiguity into it: either Tolstoy had in mind the opposition of war and peace as an antonym of war, that is, tranquility, or he used the word “peace” in the meaning of community, community, land ...

But the fact is that at the time when the novel saw the light of day, such ambiguity could not exist: two words, although they were pronounced the same, were written differently. Before the spelling reform of 1918, in the first case it was written "mir" (peace), and in the second - "mir" (Universe, society).

There is a legend that Tolstoy allegedly used the word “mir” in the title, but all this is the result of a simple misunderstanding. All lifetime editions of Tolstoy's novel were published under the title "War and Peace", and he himself wrote the title of the novel in French as "La guerre et la paix". How could the word “world” sneak into the name? This is where the story splits. According to one version, this is the name that was written with his own hand on the document submitted by Leo Tolstoy to M.N. Lavrov, an employee of the Katkov printing house at the first full publication novel. It is quite possible that there really was a mistake by the author. And so the legend was born.

According to another version, the legend could have appeared later as a result of a misprint made during the publication of the novel edited by P. I. Biryukov. In the edition published in 1913, the title of the novel is reproduced eight times: on title page and on the first page of every volume. Seven times "peace" is printed and only once - "peace", but on the first page of the first volume.
About the sources of "War and Peace"

When working on the novel, Leo Tolstoy approached his sources very seriously. He read a lot of historical and memoir literature. In Tolstoy's "list of used literature" there were, for example, such academic publications as: the multi-volume "Description Patriotic War in 1812”, the history of M. I. Bogdanovich, “The Life of Count Speransky” by M. Korf, “Biography of Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov” by M. P. Shcherbinin. The writer and materials of the French historians Thiers, A. Dumas Sr., Georges Chambray, Maximilien Foix, Pierre Lanfre used. There are studies on Freemasonry and, of course, the memoirs of the direct participants in the events - Sergei Glinka, Denis Davydov, Alexei Yermolov and many others, there was also a solid list of French memoirists, starting with Napoleon himself.

559 characters

The researchers calculated the exact number of heroes of "War and Peace" - there are exactly 559 of them in the book, and 200 of them are quite historical figures. Many of the rest have real prototypes.

In general, working on surnames fictional characters(To come up with names and surnames for half a thousand people is already a lot of work), Tolstoy used the following three main ways: he used real surnames; modified real surnames; created completely new surnames, but based on real models.

Many episodic heroes of the novel wear quite historical surnames- the book mentions the Razumovskys, Meshcherskys, Gruzinskys, Lopukhins, Arkharovs and others. But the main characters, as a rule, have quite recognizable, but still fake, encrypted surnames. The reason for this is usually cited as the writer's unwillingness to show the connection of the character with any specific prototype, from which Tolstoy took only some features. Such, for example, are Bolkonsky (Volkonsky), Drubetskoy (Trubetskoy), Kuragin (Kurakin), Dolokhov (Dorokhov) and others. But, of course, Tolstoy could not completely abandon fiction - for example, on the pages of the novel there are names that sound quite noble, but still not related to a particular family - Peronskaya, Chatrov, Telyanin, Desal, etc.

Real prototypes of many heroes of the novel are also known. So, Vasily Dmitrievich Denisov is a friend of Nikolai Rostov, the famous hussar and partisan Denis Davydov became his prototype.
An acquaintance of the Rostov family, Maria Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, was written off from the widow of Major General Nastasya Dmitrievna Ofrosimova. By the way, she was so colorful that she appeared in another famous work- Alexander Griboedov portrayed her almost like a portrait in his comedy Woe from Wit.

Her son, breter and reveler Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov, and later one of the leaders partisan movement embodied the features of several prototypes at once - the war heroes of the partisans Alexander Figner and Ivan Dorokhov, as well as the famous duelist Fyodor Tolstoy-American.

The old prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky, an elderly nobleman of Catherine, was inspired by the image of the writer's maternal grandfather, a representative of the Volkonsky family.
But Princess Maria Nikolaevna, the daughter of the old man Bolkonsky and the sister of Prince Andrei, Tolstoy saw in Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya (in the marriage of Tolstoy), his mother.

Screen adaptations

We all know and appreciate the famous Soviet adaptation of "War and Peace" by Sergei Bondarchuk, which was released in 1965. The production of War and Peace by King Vidor in 1956 is also known, the music for which was written by Nino Rota, and the main roles were played by Hollywood stars first magnitude Audrey Hepburn (Natasha Rostova) and Henry Fonda (Pierre Bezukhov).

And the first adaptation of the novel appeared just a few years after the death of Leo Tolstoy. The silent picture of Pyotr Chardynin was published in 1913, one of the main roles (Andrey Bolkonsky) in the film was played by famous actor Ivan Mozzhukhin.

Some numbers

Tolstoy wrote and rewrote the novel for 6 years, from 1863 to 1869. According to the researchers of his work, the author manually rewrote the text of the novel 8 times, and rewrote individual episodes more than 26 times.

The first edition of the novel: twice as short and five times as interesting?

Not everyone knows that in addition to the generally accepted one, there is another version of the novel. This is the very first edition that Leo Tolstoy brought to Moscow in 1866 to the publisher Mikhail Katkov for publication. But this time Tolstoy could not publish the novel.

Katkov was interested in continuing to print it in pieces in his Russian Bulletin. Other publishers did not see any commercial potential in the book at all - the novel seemed too long and "irrelevant" to them, so they offered the author to publish it at his own expense. There were other reasons: Sofya Andreevna demanded that her husband return to Yasnaya Polyana, who could not cope alone with running a large household and looking after children. In addition, in the Chertkovo library that had just opened for public use, Tolstoy found a lot of materials that he certainly wanted to use in his book. And therefore, postponing the publication of the novel, he worked on it for another two years. However, the first version of the book did not disappear - it was preserved in the writer's archive, was reconstructed and published in 1983 in the 94th volume. Literary heritage Publishing house "Science".

Here is what the head of a well-known publishing house, Igor Zakharov, who published it in 2007, wrote about this version of the novel:

"1. Twice as short and five times more interesting.
2. Almost no philosophical digressions.
3. A hundred times easier to read: the entire French text is replaced by Russian in the translation of Tolstoy himself.
4. Much more peace and less war.
5. Happy ending...».

Well, it's our right to choose...

Elena Veshkina

Leo Tolstoy wrote "War and Peace" for six years - from 1863 to 1869. For the first time, the idea of ​​writing a novel came to the writer in 1856, and in early 1961 Tolstoy read the first chapters of The Decembrists to his friend Ivan Turgenev. Starting to describe the life of the Decembrist, who returned with his family to Russia after 30 years of exile in Siberia, Leo Tolstoy decided to tell in his novel about the youth of the protagonist, but later changed his mind and left what he started for an indefinite period.

In the writer's handwritten archives, more than 5,200 finely written sheets of paper have been preserved, through which it was possible to trace all the stages of the creation of War and Peace.

The novel was supposed to take place in 1856 before the abolition of serfdom, but Tolstoy reconsidered this idea and decided to return to the Decembrist uprising that began in 1825. Some time later, the writer abandoned this idea, starting "War and Peace" with the Patriotic War of 1812, which was closely connected with 1805. Tolstoy gave the name Three Pores to his novel, in which half a century of Russia was captured.

The events of the first period described the beginning of the century and its first 15 years, during which the youth of the first Decembrists fell. The second period described December uprising 1825. The third time included the end of the Crimean War, the 50s, the death of Nicholas I, the amnesty of the Decembrists and their return from Siberian exile.

Work processes

On different stages writing his novel, Leo Tolstoy imagined it as a wide epic canvas, on which he "painted" the history of the Russian people and tried to comprehend its character artistic way. The writer hoped to finish his masterpiece quite quickly, but the first chapters went to print only in 1867, and Tolstoy continued to work on the rest for several more years, constantly subjecting them to severe editing.

Rejecting the name "Three Pores", the writer planned to name the novel "One thousand eight hundred and five years", and then "All's well that ends well", but none of these titles suited him.

The final name in the form of "War and Peace" appeared at the end of 1867 - in the handwritten version, the word "peace" Leo Tolstoy wrote with the letter "i". According to explanatory dictionary of the Great Russian language by Vladimir Dahl, “mir” means the universe, all people, the whole world and the human race, which is what Tolstoy had in mind when describing the impact of war on humanity in his

1. History of the creation of the novel:

Created by the author for seven years (1863-1869);
the idea of ​​the novel changed several times, as evidenced by the names of early editions: "Three Pores", "Everything is good, it ends well", "1805";
Initially, the plot was to be based on the life story of the protagonist (Decembrist), who in 1856, together with his family, returns from exile;
to explain the reason for the hero's stay in Siberia, the author is forced to turn to the history of 1825;
the youth of the hero falls on 1812, from where Tolstoy intends to start the novel in a new way;
in order to tell about the victories of the Russian army in the war of 1812, Tolstoy considers it necessary to tell about the tragic pages of history that date back to 1805. “I was ashamed to write about our triumph without describing our failures and our shame.”

Thus, the idea of ​​the novel was changed by Tolstoy several times and acquired final version: "So, having returned from 1856 to 1805, from now on I intend to lead not one, but many heroines and heroes through the historical events of 1805, 1807, 1812, 1825, 1856." L. N. Tolstoy

Turning to the events of the Patriotic War between Russia and Napoleon in 1812, the writer, contrary to official data, showed the true hero and defender of the Motherland not the tsar and his predecessors, but the Russian people. "I tried to write the history of the people», - noted the author. It is no coincidence that Tolstoy considered Lermontov's poem Borodino, which glorifies the heroism of Russian soldiers, to be the "grain" of his novel.

On its theme "War and Peace" - historical novel . It conveys the most "smell and sound" of a distant era. Without violating the historical truth, the author connects the past with the exciting issues of the present.
Four volumes cover the events of 1805-1814. The epilogue takes the reader to the 1920s, when secret societies future Decembrists.

In the novel more 500 actors. Many of them have been traced over the course of a decade, appearing in a military setting and a peaceful home circle.

First two volumes tell about the wars with Napoleon, which were fought outside of Russia on the Austrian lands. The central episodes here are the Shengraben and Battle of Austerlitz. (1805 - 1807)

In the third and fourth volumes talks about Napoleon's invasion of Moscow and the expulsion of the French from Russia. Of particular importance here is the famous Battle of Borodino (1812) - the “knot”, the culmination of the entire novel, according to Tolstoy, “The Russians fought for their land, this multiplied their strength and determined our moral victory.”

Demonstrating the decisive role of the people in historical events of national importance, Tolstoy created special genre novel, a grandiose epic in terms of the scope of life and the scale of the narrative.

2. Features of the genre.

"This is not a novel, even less a historical chronicle" War and Peace "is what the author wanted and could express in the form in which it was expressed."
L.N. Tolstoy.

In our time, historians and literary critics have called "War and Peace" as an epic novel.

Epic novel - large, monumental form epic literature, reflecting the process in its universality, "panoramic" image of events and human destinies.

Character traits:
a work of great volume;
multi-heroism;
an abundance of storylines.

3. The meaning of the title of the novel.

History of the creation of the novel.ppt

History of the creation of the novel.ppt

Man, according to Tolstoy, is the world itself. L.N. Tolstov in the novel is more interested in the inner world of the characters close to him. Describing them inner life, the author uses his favorite technique "Dialectics of the Soul". Image inner world of a person is combined with the image of another world, of which his heroes are a part. In the novel, we see a whole palette of worlds. This understanding of the world is associated with the image of the ball. The world - the ball appears as a closed sphere. It has its own laws, optional in other worlds. One world is often hostile to another.

The idea of ​​the world is one of the main ones in the novel. From the world of an individual to universal unity with people, to unity with nature, with the Universe. And only such a person is truly happy

A work has been completed on which, according to Tolstoy, he "worked for seven years" with "painful and joyful perseverance and excitement" and in which he "tried to write the history of the people." Critical reviews, which began to appear immediately after the publication of the novel began in the Russky Vestnik magazine, increased with the release of each volume of a separate edition of War and Peace. Tolstoy was not indifferent to them. By his own admission, while publishing War and Peace, he knew "that it was full of flaws, but knew that it would have the same success that it had." However, this confidence of the author did not last long. On September 13, 1871, he confessed that praise had a harmful effect on him, that he was "too inclined to believe their justice" and that he "with great difficulty only recently managed to eradicate in himself that nonsense" that the success of the book had produced in him. And a year and a half later, in response to the reviews of relatives about War and Peace, Tolstoy wrote: “... don’t think that I’m speaking insincerely – War and Peace are now disgusting to me all! The other day I had to look into it to decide whether to correct it for the new edition, and I cannot express to you the feeling of repentance, shame that I experienced when looking over many places! A feeling like that which a person experiences when he sees the traces of an orgy in which he participated. “One thing consoles me that I was fond of this orgy with all my heart, and thought that there was nothing else besides this.”

At the beginning of 1873, the third edition of the "Works of L. N. Tolstoy" in eight volumes was being prepared for publication, in which the last four volumes were devoted to the novel "War and Peace". Resumed for new edition creative work Tolstoy. In this regard, it is interesting to recall how, in his old age, Tolstoy said that he does not reread his published works, and if any page accidentally comes across, it always seems to him: "it all needs to be redone." This is what happened with War and Peace.

Getting busy preparing the novel for a new edition. Tolstoy decided to re-read it critically "and black out the superfluous - what needs to be completely blacked out, what needs to be taken out by printing separately." Then he wrote to H. N. Strakhov: “Give me advice if you have time to look through the last three volumes. Yes, if you remember that it’s not good, remind me. I'm afraid to touch it because there's so much bad stuff in front of my eyes that it's as if I want to write again on this underpainting. If, remembering what needs to be changed, and after looking at the last three volumes of the reasoning, you would write to me: this and that must be changed and the reasoning should be thrown out from page such and such to page such and such, you would very, very oblige me.

The letter to N. N. Strakhov was not sent, and in March 1873 Tolstoy himself began work, leading it simultaneously with the creation of the novel Anna Karenina. In mid-May, Tolstoy sent Strakhov a new letter asking for help. He wrote to him about his work: “I exclude all reasoning and French and would terribly wish for your advice. Can I send it to you for viewing when I'm done?" H. N. Strakhov gladly accepted Tolstoy's proposal, but until the end of June Tolstoy himself continued to work, only notifying H. H. Strakhov of the nature of the corrections. “I began to look through,” he wrote on May 31, “and did the main thing, that is, I threw out some arguments completely, and some, such as, for example, about the Battle of Borodino, about the fire of Moscow, the reasoning of the epilogue, etc., I made separately and I want to print as separate articles. Another thing I did was to translate All French in Russian; but I haven’t finished volumes 4, 5 and 6 yet and in some places threw out bad things.

On June 22, he sent from there to H. H. Strakhov the revised six volumes of the first edition for review. “I am sending you...,” Tolstoy wrote, “I don’t know if it’s a corrected, but probably soiled and tattered copy of War and Peace, and I beg you... to review my corrections and tell me your opinion—whether it’s good or bad (if you find what is bad, I give you the right to destroy the amendment and correct what you know and notice as bad). I sometimes felt sorry for the destruction of French, but in general, it seems to me, it is better without French. The arguments of the military, historical and philosophical, it seems to me, taken out of the novel, facilitated it and are not without interest separately. However, if you find any of them superfluous, throw them out.

In addition to text corrections, Tolstoy changed the distribution of volumes. Instead of six volumes of the first and second editions of 1868-1869, War and Peace was divided into four volumes for the new edition. On this occasion, Tolstoy wrote to Strakhov that he was "indecisive" about the fact that he "connected 6 parts into 4", and asked Strakhov "to decide how best: with the old division or in a new way." It is not known what Strakhov advised, but the novel was published in a new edition in four volumes. “I’m afraid that the calligraphic side is bad and impossible for a printing house — I couldn’t do better with the Samara flies and the heat,” Tolstoy wrote in the same letter and asked, if necessary, to give in correspondence or transfer the corrections to a blank copy. He reported that the original was not needed in the printing house. later than the end July, and expressed the hope that Strakhov would review and send it. “I feel all the shamelessness of my request to you,” Tolstoy wrote in conclusion, “but I also hope for your affection for me and passion for War and Peace, which I very rarely liked when I re-read it, and for the most part aroused annoyance and shame".

Back in the spring, having accepted Tolstoy’s proposal, H. N. Strakhov wrote to him about the upcoming work: “Besides, I don’t trust you in the highest degree; You will certainly make oversights; I'm much more careful than you." Of course, we are talking about minor typos and omissions. Having received the book at the end of June, H. N. Strakhov worked on the novel for about two months, and, as Tolstoy found out in Moscow, returning from Samara, everything except the fourth volume was handed over to the printer by August 22. H.N. Strakhov informed Tolstoy about the nature of his work at the end of August that, no matter how much he “thought and re-read”, he did not “decide to cross out almost nothing”, and, having “made many minor corrections”, especially in the last, fourth , volume, he "crossed out in just two places two, three lines each - where the need was completely obvious."

N. N. Strakhov also suggested deleting in the second part of the epilogue, which in the 1873 edition is entitled “Questions of History”, “the last paragraph, XII, where there is a comparison of the revolution in history with the revolution in astronomy produced by the Copernican system”, and also pointed out to the fact that at the beginning of the same part "the discussion about power is extremely extended and not entirely accurate."

Although Tolstoy said more than once at that time that he now did not like War and Peace much, and gave Strakhov the right to do what he found necessary "in the sense of destroying everything," which seemed to him "superfluous, contradictory, obscure", however, learning about the cuts, regretted that they were made. “It seems to me (I'm probably mistaken) that there is nothing superfluous,” Tolstoy answered H. N. Strakhov. “It cost me a lot of work, so I regret it.” With the corrections proposed by H. N. Strakhov in the second part of the epilogue (“Questions of History”), Tolstoy agreed and expressed regret that he did not throw out and shorten what H. N. Strakhov “quite rightly” found “stretched and inaccurate - about power. I remember that this passage was long and clumsy,” Tolstoy wrote. He also agreed to "throw out" "Paragraph XII". However, these changes were not made.

At the end of August, everything was handed over to the printing house, and between November 11 and 17, 1873, the third edition of Leo Tolstoy's Works was published. In the new edition, "War and Peace" is divided into four volumes, and within each volume a continuous division into chapters is given, without the division into parts that was in the first and second editions. As an epilogue, only Ch. V-XVI of the first part of the epilogue, now numbered I-XII.

Many historical and philosophical discussions, which were a kind of prelude to individual parts of the novel, are excluded. Military-historical and historical-philosophical reasoning, starting with vol. IV of the first edition (from vol. III present, ed.), as well as the first four chapters of the first part of the epilogue and the entire second part of the epilogue, are included in the appendix, where they are combined under the general title “ Articles on the Campaign of 1812", and each chapter or group of chapters received its own title and independent numbering of chapters.

In addition to changes in the composition of the novel, Tolstoy made stylistic and semantic corrections in the new edition and, most importantly, throughout the novel, the French text was replaced by Russian. Perhaps Tolstoy made these changes, taking into account critics' comments about too many French texts and about overloading the work with philosophical reasoning. A copy of the edition of 1868-1869, personally corrected by Tolstoy for the edition of 1873, did not reach us, only two recent volumes, fifth and sixth.

Whether Tolstoy took any part in the publications of War and Peace after 1873 is not known.

In the fourth edition of the "Works of L. N. Tolstoy", published in 1880, "War and Peace" was printed according to the edition of 1873. In 1886, two editions of the "Works of L. N. Tolstoy" were published, the fifth and sixth.