About the author:
Viktor I. Shcherbakov, PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
E-mail:
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4769-6634
Abstract:
“War and Peace” is revealed in the article as a multitasking novel that, in addition to purely artistic, performs historical, publicistic and philosophical tasks. Tolstoy’s attitude to the historiography and factography of Napoleonic Wars is clarified, and his methods of working with sources are analyzed (using as examples the historical works by A. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, M. Bogdanovich, A. Thiers, letters by M. Kutuzov, memoir stories by A. Vaxmut, A. Shcherbinin, A. Bestuzhev- Ryumin, A. Balashov, A. Michaud-de-Boretur). It is proved that Tolstoy handled the facts quite freely and sometimes ignored even major events of military history (for example, the Battle of Maloyaroslavets), but at the same time he wanted to create the illusion of a thorough knowledge of the historical material and complete authenticity of what is depicted in his novel. The most important guiding principle of Tolstoy was the conviction that indisputable, scientifically proven facts of history do not exist and that the very concept of fact is conditional (only “impressions” are reliable), and therefore the creation of an objective historical work is impossible.