ON THE GENESIS OF ONE EPISODE IN WAR AND PEACE AND ABOUT THE POETICS OF L.N. TOLSTOY’S BOOK

Abstract

The article discusses the probable genesis of the episode with the amputation of Anatol Kuragin’s leg in War and Peace by L.N. Tolstoy. It is indicated that this episode may be connected with the writings of brothers S.N. and F.N. Glinka about the war of 1812 and the Battle of Borodino. The comparison of the brothers’ works to the book of L.N. Tolstoy shows that the author of War and Peace denies to esthetize and glorify war by showing pain and sufferings. Unlike the authors who adhere to traditional battle poetics in their texts about the war of 1812, Tolstoy proceeds from the idea of a person’s natural behavior and gives the episode a psychological dimension describing what’s going on from the point of view of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. The plot poetics of War and Peace is connected with the settings of the so-called realistic novel and differs significantly from the plot construction which is typical for the West European and Russian historical novel.