The greatest work of JI.H. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" amazes with the scale of the image, subtle penetration into the inner world of various people, amazing life-affirming pathos, deep philosophical reflections on the history and destinies of peoples. An important place in the philosophical views of Tolstoy is occupied by the question of the role of the individual in the history of the people. The writer claims that the only driving force in history is the people, consisting of countless personalities connected by complex life interweaving. This force is spontaneous, it can neither be organized nor directed. Such a view is connected with the very nature of Russian life in the 60s of the XIX century, because at that time the bulk of the people were the peasantry, which was a spontaneous mass, since it combined hatred of oppression and political passivity.
Success or defeat depends on the will of the people, its spirit. No dispositions, no precisely worked out battle plans are able to help in the war if the people do not know what they are fighting for. Thus, in the battles of Shengraben and Austerlitz, the Russian army is defeated because it does not understand whose interests it is protecting. And vice versa, in the Battle of Borodino, near Tarutino and Krasny, the people win brilliant victories, because they defend their homeland. The people are Tushin, and Timokhin, and Tikhon Shcherbaty, and Platon Karataev, and all those Karps and Vlass who did not bring food and fodder to the French in Moscow for a high reward, and the merchant Ferapontov, who burns down the shop so that the enemy does not get anything , and the headman Vasilisa, who killed the French who came to her land, and all those "countless units" who contributed to the cause of victory. Tolstoy wrote that in the novel "War and Peace" he loved folk thought. “Countless units” are different people with different characters, with different life ideals, but when a common misfortune comes, they are one. Everything personal, petty recedes into the background. Even the struggle for freedom, the well-known disagreement between peasants and landlords, is retreating in the face of the enemy. Hence such a contradictory image of the Bogucharov rebellion, which Tolstoy explains by the fact that the peasants drank too much.
While glorifying the people, Tolstoy at the same time completely denies the role of the individual in history. In his opinion, a personality is great only when it is connected with the people. Proceeding from this, Tolstoy inconsistently draws the image of one of the main characters of the novel - Kutuzov. On the one hand, Kutuzov is great and talented, on the other hand, he cannot influence the course of events. Kutuzov in the image of Tolstoy is a simple man who perfectly understands the needs of the people. So, in the war of 1805-1807, Kutuzov is shown as a man who sets the goal of his life to preserve the living power of the Russian army. For him, the war is not a parade on the Tsaritsyno field, but a dirty and cruel thing. In order to save the soldiers from a senseless death, he is ready to go into conflict with the tsar and at the cost of little blood to save the Russian army from complete defeat. In the war of 1812, Kutuzov appears before us as a people's commander. Under pressure from below, from the people, the tsar was forced to appoint him commander-in-chief. The situation in the army changed with the appointment of Kutuzov. And although we still had to retreat, the mood in the army was fighting. And in this war, as in the previous war, Kutuzov aims to preserve the living power of the Russian army, arguing that victory is possible only with a significant number of soldiers. On the eve of the battle of Borodino, a military council is held, at which strategy and tactics are developed, as well as a plan of action for the Russian army. But, despite this, the battle does not develop at all as planned. Kutuzov, with pain in his heart, perceives the news of losses on the left and right flank. And yet, he is confident that the battle will be won because the people want it, because Kutuzov thinks and feels the same way as any soldier in the Russian army. In the Battle of Borodino, the Russian army won a moral victory. The losses on both sides were great. That is why Kutuzov, despite the arguments of his military leaders, gives the order to retreat through Moscow. This order was not easy for him, and for long nights, until the French retreat through the capital, he constantly thought about whether he had done the right thing. Kutuzov shouldered the entire burden of responsibility for the fate of the country, which is why he cries tears of joy when he learns of the French retreat. The strength and greatness of Kutuzov is that he is inextricably linked with the people, understands their interests and needs and acts not on his own, but according to the will of the people.
On the other hand, denying the role of the individual in history, including the personality of Kutuzov, Tolstoy shows that Kutuzov is not able to influence the course of events. Hence some of his passivity. So, at the military council before the battle of Austerlitz, he sleeps, believing that the battle will be lost. He is sure that the main thing before the fight is to get enough sleep. He does nothing and cannot change anything. Before the battle of Borodino and the battle of Krasnoye, he carefully develops plans, considers all the pros and cons, but events do not develop at all as he planned. So, near Krasnoe, the battle begins a day later than planned, and everything is full of confusion and confusion: some regiments did not come at all, others did not come where they should have been. And yet, it was under Krasnoe that the most brilliant victory in the war was won.
Thus, Tolstoy does not deny that Kutuzov was talented, but his talent, according to the writer, consisted only in understanding the national spirit. This is how we see him in the Battle of Borodino: “Kutuzov sat with his head bowed ... He did not make any orders, but only agreed and did not agree to what was offered to him ... With many years of military experience, he knew and understood with an senile mind that it is impossible for one person to lead hundreds of thousands of people fighting death, and he knew that the fate of the battle is decided not by the orders of the commander in chief, not by the place on which the troops stand, not by the number of guns and killed people, but by that elusive force called the spirit of the army, and he watched behind this power and led it, as far as it was in his power. The strength of Kutuzov is in his unity with the people. He is highly valued by ordinary people, because he is their flesh and blood.
Denying the role of the individual in history, Tolstoy writes that Kutuzov fulfilled his main task - the expulsion of the French from Russian land. And now he had no choice but to die. And he died.
In contrast to Kutuzov, Napoleon is shown. Tolstoy believed that there is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth. It is these qualities that Napoleon lacks. Every gesture, every movement of his is calculated on the posture.
At the beginning of the novel, the name of Napoleon, who conquered his Toulon, is on everyone's lips. He is an idol, a genius. Many worshiped him as a deity. And Napoleon believed in his unusualness, in his talent as a commander. But gradually we see how Tolstoy debunks his hero. On the field of Austerlitz, the wounded Andrei Bolkonsky, who worshiped Napoleon, saw him in front of him, was surprised at how small and insignificant he was. During the crossing of the French troops across the Neman, during the conversation between Napoleon and the Russian ambassador Balashov, we are again convinced of this. He is not interested in people, and even their life itself does not matter to him. He admires himself and even his anger and the trembling of the calf of his left leg does not hide from people, considering this his dignity. In the image of the writer, Napoleon is a soulless person who did not feel any feelings of love or affection for anyone.
The defeat of Napoleon was due to the fact that the interests of the people did not exist for him. If at the beginning of the war of 1812 the soldiers still believe Napoleon and are ready to die under his gaze, then at the end of the novel we see the complete disintegration of the French army, disobedience to Napoleonic orders. Entry into Moscow proved disastrous for the French. Massive robberies captured the army so much that no orders and executions could stop them. The French army retreating from Moscow is burdened with a mass of convoys, carriages with looted goods. Such an army, of course, cannot resist, so Kutuzov had no difficulty in forcing the French to follow the Smolensk road, that is, dooming them to starvation and death. Napoleon has no qualms about the fact that a huge army of 600,000 perished in Russia. After crossing the Berezina, he generally abandons the miserable remnants of his army and flees to Paris.
Using the example of Napoleon, Tolstoy debunks the heroes who are cut off from the people and, in order to achieve personal selfish goals, destroy hundreds of thousands of ordinary people. Napoleon is not a hero or a genius, precisely because his interests did not coincide with the interests of the people - Tolstoy leads us to this conclusion.

In the epic novel "War and Peace" Leo Tolstoy was especially interested in the question of the driving forces of history. The writer believed that even outstanding personalities were not given a decisive influence on the course and outcome of historical events. He argued: "If we assume that human life can be controlled by reason, then the possibility of life will be destroyed." According to Tolstoy, the course of history is controlled by the highest superintelligent foundation - God's providence. At the end of the novel, historical laws are compared with the Copernican system in astronomy: “As for astronomy, the difficulty of recognizing the movement of the earth was to abandon the immediate sense of the immobility of the earth and the same sense of the movement of the planets, so for history, the difficulty of recognizing the subordination of the individual to the laws of space, time and the reason is to give up the immediate sense of the independence of his personality. But as in astronomy the new view said: “True, we do not feel the movement of the earth, but, assuming its immobility, we come to nonsense; allowing a movement that we do not feel, we arrive at laws”, so in history the new view says: “it is true that we do not feel our dependence, but, having allowed our freedom, we arrive at nonsense; admitting our dependence on the external world, time and causes, we arrive at laws.”

In the first case, it was necessary to renounce the consciousness of immobility in space and recognize the movement that we do not feel; in the present case, it is just as necessary to renounce conscious freedom and recognize an imperceptible dependence.

The freedom of man, according to Tolstoy, consists only in realizing such a dependence and trying to guess what is destined in order to follow it to the maximum extent. For the writer, the primacy of feelings over reason, the laws of life over the plans and calculations of individuals, even brilliant ones, the real course of the battle over the previous disposition, the role of the masses over the role of great commanders and rulers was obvious. Tolstoy was convinced that "the course of world events is predetermined from above, depends on the coincidence of all the arbitrariness of the people participating in these events, and that the influence of Napoleons on the course of these events is only external and fictitious", since "great people are labels that give a name to an event, which, like labels, have the least connection with the event itself. And wars do not come from the actions of people, but by the will of providence.

According to Tolstoy, the role of the so-called "great people" is reduced to following the highest command, if they are given to guess it. This is clearly seen in the example of the image of the Russian commander M.I. Kutuzov. The writer is trying to convince us that Mikhail Illarionovich "despised both knowledge and intelligence and knew something else that should have decided the matter." In the novel, Kutuzov is opposed to both Napoleon and the German generals in the Russian service, who are united by the desire to win the battle, only thanks to a detailed plan developed in advance, where they try in vain to take into account all the surprises of living life and the future actual course of the battle. The Russian commander, unlike them, has the ability to “calmly contemplate events” and therefore “does not interfere with anything useful and will not allow anything harmful” thanks to supernatural intuition. Kutuzov only affects the morale of his troops, since “with many years of military experience, he knew and understood with an senile mind that it was impossible for one person to lead hundreds of thousands of people fighting death, and he knew that it was not the orders of the commander-in-chief who decide the fate of the battle, not the place, on which the troops stand, not the number of guns and dead people, but that elusive force called the spirit of the army, and he followed this force and led it, as far as it was in his power. This explains the angry Kutuzov rebuke to General Wolzogen, who, on behalf of another general with a foreign surname, M.B. Barclay de Tolly, reports the retreat of the Russian troops and the capture of all the main positions on the Borodino field by the French. Kutuzov shouts at the general who brought the bad news: “How dare you ... how dare you! .. How dare you, dear sir, say this to me. You don't know anything. Tell General Barclay from me that his information is unfair and that the real course of the battle is known to me, the commander-in-chief, better than to him... intention to attack the enemy ... Repulsed everywhere, for which I thank God and our brave army. The enemy is defeated, and tomorrow we will drive him out of the sacred Russian land. Here

the field marshal is prevaricating, because the true outcome of the battle of Borodino, unfavorable for the Russian army, which resulted in the abandonment of Moscow, is known to him no worse than Voltsogen and Barclay. However, Kutuzov prefers to draw such a picture of the course of the battle that can preserve the morale of the troops subordinate to him, preserve that deep patriotic feeling that “lay in the soul of the commander-in-chief, as well as in the soul of every Russian person.”

Tolstoy sharply criticizes Emperor Napoleon. As a commander who invades the territory of other states with his troops, the writer considers Bonaparte an indirect killer of many people. In this case, Tolstoy even comes into conflict with his fatalistic theory, according to which the outbreak of wars does not depend on human arbitrariness. He believes that Napoleon was finally put to shame on the fields of Russia, and as a result, "instead of genius, there are stupidity and meanness that have no examples." Tolstoy believes that "there is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth." The French emperor after the occupation of Paris by the allied forces “does not make sense anymore; all his actions are obviously pathetic and vile ... ". And even when Napoleon again seizes power during the hundred days, he, according to the author of War and Peace, is only needed by history "to justify the last cumulative action." When this action was completed, it turned out that “the last role has been played. The actor is ordered to undress and wash off the antimony and rouge: he will no longer be needed.

And several years pass in that this man, alone on his island, plays a miserable comedy in front of himself, intrigues and lies, justifying his deeds, when this justification is no longer needed, and shows the whole world what it was that people accepted for strength when an invisible hand led them.

The steward, having finished the drama and undressed the actor, showed him to us.

See what you believed! There he is! Do you see now that it was not he but I who moved you?

But, blinded by the power of the movement, people did not understand this for a long time.

Both Napoleon and other characters of the historical process in Tolstoy are nothing more than actors playing roles in a theatrical production staged by a force unknown to them. This latter, in the face of such insignificant "great people", reveals itself to humanity, always remaining in the shadows.

The writer denied that the course of history could be determined by "countless so-called accidents." He defended the complete predetermination of historical events. But, if in his criticism of Napoleon and other conquering commanders Tolstoy followed Christian teachings, in particular, the commandment “Thou shalt not kill,” then with his fatalism he actually limited the ability of God to endow a person with free will. The author of "War and Peace" left behind people only the function of blindly following what was destined from above. However, the positive significance of Leo Tolstoy's philosophy of history lies in the fact that, unlike the overwhelming majority of contemporary historians, he refused to reduce history to the deeds of heroes, who were called upon to drag along an inert and thoughtless crowd. The writer pointed to the leading role of the masses, the totality of millions and millions of individual wills. As for what exactly determines their resultant, historians and philosophers argue to this day, more than a hundred years after the publication of War and Peace.

Writing "War and Peace", Leo Tolstoy created not just a novel, he created a historical novel. Many pages in it are devoted to Tolstoy's specifically understanding of the historical process, his philosophy of history. In this regard, many real historical characters act in the novel, one way or another influencing the state of European and Russian society at the beginning of the 19th century. These are Emperor Alexander I and Napoleon Bonaparte, General Bagration and General Davout, Arakcheev and Speransky.
And among them is a character-sign that has a very special

Semantic fullness, - Field Marshal Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich, His Serene Highness Prince Smolensky - a brilliant Russian commander, one of the most educated people of his time.
Kutuzov, depicted in the novel, is strikingly different from the real historical person. Kutuzov for Tolstoy is the embodiment of his historical innovations. He is a special figure, a person endowed with the instinct of wisdom. It is like a vector, the direction of which is determined by the sum of thousands and millions of causes and actions performed in historical space.
“History, that is, the unconscious, swarming, common life of mankind, uses every minute of the life of kings for itself, as a tool for its own purposes.”
And another quote: “Every action. in the historical sense, involuntarily, is in connection with the whole course of history and is predetermined from eternity.”
Such an understanding of history makes any historical personality a fatal personality, makes its activity meaningless. For Tolstoy, in the context of history, it acts as a passive pledge of the social process. Only by understanding this, it is possible to explain the actions, or rather, the non-actions of Kutuzov on the pages of the novel.
In Austerlitz, having a superior number of soldiers, an excellent disposition, generals, the same one that he would later lead to the Borodino field, Kutuzov melancholy remarks to Prince Andrei: “I think that the battle will be lost, and I said so to Count Tolstoy and asked me to convey this to the sovereign ".
And at a meeting of the military council before the battle, he simply, in an old man's way, allows himself to fall asleep. He already knows everything. He knows everything in advance. He undoubtedly has that "swarm" understanding of life, which the author writes about.
However, Tolstoy would not have been Tolstoy if he had not shown the field marshal also as a living person, with passions and weaknesses, with the ability for generosity and malice, compassion and cruelty. He is having a hard time with the 1812 campaign. “To what. what have they brought! - Kutuzov suddenly said in an excited voice, clearly imagining the situation in which Russia was. And Prince Andrei sees tears in the eyes of the old man.
“They will eat my horse meat!” he threatens the French. And he carries out his threat. He knew how to keep his word!
In his inaction, collective wisdom is embodied. He does things not at the level of their understanding, but at the level of some kind of innate instinct, just as a peasant knows when to plow and when to sow.
Kutuzov does not give a general battle to the French, not because he does not want it - the sovereign wants it, the whole staff wants it - but because it is contrary to the natural course of things, which he is not able to express in words.
When this battle takes place, the author does not understand why, out of dozens of similar fields, Kutuzov chooses Borodino, no better and no worse than others. Giving and accepting the battle at Borodino, Kutuzov and Napoleon acted involuntarily and senselessly. Kutuzov on the Borodino field does not make any orders, he only agrees or disagrees. He is focused and calm. He alone understands everything and knows that at the end of the battle the beast received a mortal wound. But it takes time for him to die. Kutuzov takes the only textbook historical decision in Fili, one against all. His unconscious folk mind defeats the dry logic of military strategy. Leaving Moscow, he wins the war, subordinating himself, his mind, his will to the elements of the historical movement, he became this element. This is what Leo Tolstoy convinces us of: “Personality is the slave of history.”

1. The future of Russia is the Cossacks: freedom, equality and compulsory military service for everyone. L. Tolstoy While working on The Cossacks, L. N. Tolstoy wrote down his thoughts on the tasks of art in his diary: “The business of art is to find ...
2. How do you imagine Leo Tolstoy? What do you think is the most important in his attitude to himself and to the people around him? Leo Tolstoy lived a long and difficult life, in which there was ...
3. A historical person is the essence of the label that history hangs on a particular event. L. N. Tolstoy “War and Peace” is a historical novel in which the author covers all aspects of public life...
4. How L. N. Tolstoy worked L. N. Tolstoy always nurtured the idea of ​​a work in his head for a long time before starting to write (for example, it was with the novel “War and Peace”, about ...
5. Each of us sooner or later asks himself the question: why do I live? What is my purpose? Sometimes a lifetime is not enough to find the answer. Many great writers have been looking for answers to these...
6. In the novel "War and Peace" L. N. Tolstoy singled out and considered "people's thought" to be the most significant. Most vividly and multifaceted, this theme is reflected in those parts of the works that tell about the war....
7. In the novel by L. N. Tolstov “War and Peace”, Pierre Bezukhov is one of the main and favorite characters of the author. Pierre is a man Seeking, unable to stop, calm down. His soul is open to the whole world, responsive...
8. An excellent source of spiritual improvement is the Russian classics of the second half of the 19th century, which revealed many outstanding geniuses of the pen of that era. Turgenev, Ostrovsky, Nekrasov, Tolstoy - this is only a small part of that outstanding galaxy of Russians ...
9. In Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" the problem of the family is acutely posed. The author depicts several family structures in detail. Comparing various options for family life, the writer shows what a family should be like, what...
10. The historical prototype is Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible, the son of Vasily III, the Grand Duke of Moscow and the first Russian Tsar (since 1547). Tolstoy's hero is a complex, multifaceted figure. Depicting in the face of And ....
11. Suvorov had only three years to live, and in the absence of Napoleon he still managed to take away from France everything that Napoleon had conquered in Italy, but they had already met on the battlefield ...
12. One of the heroes of Leo Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina" Konstantin Levin appeared as a new image in Russian and world literature. This is not an image of a “small”, not an “extra” person. Throughout its warehouse,...
13. What is fair and unfair is not given to people to judge. L. Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is a writer-philosopher, deeply, consistently and in a peculiar way discussing the meaning of life, enduring human values, the role of...
14. The legacy of Leo Tolstoy is a phenomenon that has outgrown the scale of one country, one national culture. The extraordinary complexity and diversity of problems, the description of the “movement of peoples”, the philosophical understanding of the course of human history, an impressive number of actors (like ...
15. She is “a thin, miniature brunette with a soft look tinted with long eyelashes, a thick black plait that wraps around her head twice, and a yellowish tint of skin on her face, and especially on naked, thin, ...
16. According to the definition given in the Dictionary of Literary Terms, an episode is an excerpt, a fragment of a work of art that has a certain independence and completeness. The functioning of this word as a literary term is associated with the ancient Greek drama, ...
HADJI MURAT is the hero of L. N. Tolstoy's story "Hadji Murad" (1896-1904). A real historical person, famous for his courage Naib (authorized) Shamil, in 1834-1836. one of the rulers of the Avar Khanate. In 1851 he went over to the side ...
17. In the final text about this finished type of Rostovs, his former tutor Nikolai Semenovich writes to the Teenager, who appears in the epilogue of the novel in the role of a reasoner, expressing the views of Dostoevsky himself. This "educator" imagines...

How does Tolstoy solve the question of the role of the individual in history? ("War and Peace") and got the best answer

Answer from GALINA[guru]
Tolstoy had his own view on the role of the individual
in history.
Every person has two lives: personal and spontaneous.
Tolstoy said that man consciously lives
for itself, but serves as an unconscious instrument
to achieve common human goals.
The role of the individual in history is negligible.
Even the most brilliant person cannot
desire to direct the movement of history.
It is created by the masses, the people, and not by an individual,
towering over the people.
But Tolstoy believed that he deserved the name of a genius
one of the people who is gifted with the ability to penetrate
in the course of historical events, comprehend their general
meaning.
The writer refers Kutuzov to such people.
He is an exponent of the patriotic spirit
and moral strength of the Russian army.
This is a talented commander.
Tolstoy emphasizes that Kutuzov is a folk hero.
In the novel, he appears as a truly Russian person,
alien to pretense, a wise historical figure.
Napoleon, who is opposed to Kutuzov,
exposed to destruction,
because he chose for himself the role of the “executioner of the nations”;
Kutuzov is exalted as a commander,
able to subordinate all his thoughts and actions
popular feeling.

Answer from 3 answers[guru]

Hey! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: How does Tolstoy solve the question of the role of the individual in history? (" War and Peace ")

1. "War and Peace" is a novel about the greatness of the Russian people.
2. Kutuzov - "representative of the people's war."
3. Kutuzov is a man and Kutuzov is a commander.
4. The role of personality in history according to Tolstoy.
5. Philosophical and historical optimism of Tolstoy.

There is no other work in Russian literature where the power and greatness of the Russian people would be conveyed with such persuasiveness and strength, as in the novel "War and Peace". With the whole content of the novel, Tolstoy showed that it was the people who had risen to fight for independence that expelled the French and ensured victory. Tolstoy said that in every work the artist must love the main idea, and admitted that in "War and Peace" he loved "the thought of the people." This idea illuminates the development of the main events of the novel. "The thought of the people" also lies in the assessment of historical figures and all other heroes of the novel. Tolstoy in the image of Kutuzov combines historical grandeur and folk simplicity. The image of the great national commander Kutuzov occupies a significant place in the novel. Kutuzov's unity with the people is explained by the "people's feeling that he carried in himself in all its purity and strength." Thanks to this spiritual quality, Kutuzov is the "representative of the people's war."

For the first time Tolstoy shows Kutuzov in the military campaign of 1805-1807. at the review in Braunau. The Russian commander did not want to look at the dress uniform of the soldiers, but began to inspect the regiment in the state in which it was, pointing out to the Austrian general the broken soldier's shoes: he did not reproach anyone for this, but he could not help but see how bad it was. Kutuzov's life behavior is, first of all, the behavior of a simple Russian person. He "always seemed to be a simple and ordinary person and spoke the most simple and ordinary speeches." Kutuzov is really very simple with those whom he has reason to consider comrades in the difficult and dangerous business of war, with those who are not busy with court intrigues, who love their homeland. But far from all Kutuzov is so simple. This is not a simpleton, but a skilled diplomat, a wise politician. He hates court intrigues, but he understands their mechanics very well and with his folk cunning often takes precedence over experienced intriguers. At the same time, in a circle of people alien to the people, Kutuzov knows how to speak an exquisite language, so to speak, hitting the enemy with his own weapon.

In the battle of Borodino, the greatness of Kutuzov was manifested, which consisted in the fact that he led the spirit of the army. L. N. Tolstoy shows how much the Russian spirit in this people's war surpasses the cold prudence of foreign military leaders. So Kutuzov sends the Prince of Witembourg "to take command of the first army", but he, before reaching the army, asks for more troops, and immediately the commander recalls him and sends the Russian - Dokhturov, knowing that he will stand for the Motherland to death. The writer shows that the noble Barclay de Tolly, seeing all the circumstances, decided that the battle was lost, while the Russian soldiers fought to the death and held back the onslaught of the French. Barclay de Tolly is a good commander, but there is no Russian spirit in him. But Kutuzov is close to the people, the national spirit, and the commander gives the order to attack, although the army could not attack in this state. This order proceeded "not from cunning considerations, but from a feeling that lay in the soul of every Russian person", and, having heard this order, "the exhausted and wavering people were comforted and encouraged."

Kutuzov the man and Kutuzov the commander in War and Peace are inseparable, and this has a deep meaning. In the human simplicity of Kutuzov, the same nationality is manifested, which played a decisive role in his military leadership. Commander Kutuzov calmly surrenders to the will of events. In essence, he leads the troops little, knowing that "the fate of battles" is decided by "an elusive force called the spirit of the army." Kutuzov, the commander-in-chief, is as unusual as the "people's war" is not like an ordinary war. The meaning of his military strategy is not to "kill and exterminate people", but to "save and spare them." This is his military and human feat.

The image of Kutuzov from beginning to end is built in accordance with Tolstoy's conviction that the war was going on, "never coinciding with what people thought up, but proceeding from the essence of mass relations." Thus Tolstoy denies the role of the individual in history. He is sure that not a single person is able to turn the course of history according to his own will. The human mind cannot play a directing and organizing role in history, and military science, in particular, cannot have practical meaning in the live course of war. For Tolstoy, the greatest force of history is the element of the people, irresistible, indomitable, not amenable to leadership and organization. However, the writer denied only such a person who puts himself above the masses, does not want to reckon with the will of the people. If the actions of a person are historically conditioned, then it plays a certain role in the development of historical events.

Although Kutuzov does not attach decisive importance to his "I", however, Tolstoy is shown not as a passive, but as an active, wise and experienced commander, who, with his orders, helps the growth of popular resistance, strengthens the spirit of the army. Here is how Tolstoy assesses the role of the individual in history: “The historical personality is the essence of the label that history hangs on this or that event. Here is what happens to a person, according to the writer: "A person consciously lives for himself, but serves as an unconscious tool for achieving historical universal goals." Therefore, fatalism is inevitable in history when explaining "illogical", "unreasonable" phenomena. A person must learn the laws of historical development, but due to the weakness of the mind and the wrong, or rather, according to the writer, unscientific approach to history, the awareness of these laws has not yet come, but it must come. This is the peculiar philosophical and historical optimism of the writer.