In his immortal work"War and Peace" Tolstoy promoted the idea associated with the meaninglessness of the victims received during the conduct of the war, and with the inhuman essence of military actions.

From " Sevastopol stories Tolstoy's reader will learn that the classic considers war to be madness. Although it was the novel "War and Peace" that became the condemnation of war. This was confirmed by the disclosure of diverse compositional techniques, as well as the author's reflections on the problems of life and death. “War and Peace” acts as an anti-war work, which emphasizes the senselessness of the cruelty of wars, which bring only death and suffering to people.

War has the ability not only to destroy people in physical plane but also to the mutilation of their souls. Tolstoy does not hide his disgust

To war, which he considers a crime. He does not tend to divide the fighting military into those who attack and those who defend themselves.

In his lines, he expresses the idea that millions of people committed countless unforgivable things against each other.

atrocities, and even if the chronicle begins to collect them, it will not be able to collect them for centuries. At that time, the people who committed them did not look at these atrocities as crimes. But Tolstoy concluded that the people need to kill the enemy and wage war, no matter how disgusting it may be with its bloody battles, deaths of people, dirt and lies. It is clear that by killing, he does not receive pleasure and does not consider it as something worthy of enthusiastic glorification.

monumental work Soviet era was the novel by Vasily Grossman, called "Life and Fate". The work is presented in the form of a re-read history of the country, when the Great Patriotic War. The author tries to comprehend the topic concerning turning point battle or Battle of Stalingrad. Just like Tolstoy, Grossman subjects all the characters of the novel to the test of war, like a moral X-ray, in order to find out the true essence of people in extreme conditions.

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I

From the end of 1811, reinforced armament and concentration of forces began. Western Europe, and in 1812 these forces - millions of people (including those who transported and fed the army) moved from the West to the East, to the borders of Russia, to which, in the same way, since 1811, the forces of Russia have been concentrating. On June 12, the forces of Western Europe crossed the borders of Russia, and the war began, that is, the opposite of human reason and the whole human nature event. Millions of people have committed against each other such an uncountable number of atrocities, deceptions, treason, theft, forgery and issuance of false banknotes, robberies, arson and murders of which for centuries the chronicle of all the courts of the world will not collect and on which, during this period of time, people who committed they were not looked upon as crimes. What produced this extraordinary event? What were the reasons for it? Historians say with naive certainty that the causes of this event were the insult inflicted on the Duke of Oldenburg, non-observance of the continental system, Napoleon's lust for power, Alexander's firmness, diplomats' mistakes, etc. Consequently, it was only worth Metternich, Rumyantsev or Talleyrand, between the exit and the reception, to try hard and write a more ingenious piece of paper or Napoleon to write to Alexander: Monsieur, mon frère, je consens à rendre le duché au duc d "Oldenbourg, - and there would be no war . It is clear that such was the case for contemporaries. It is clear that it seemed to Napoleon that the intrigues of England were the cause of the war (as he said this on the island of St. Helena); it is understandable that it seemed to the members of the English Chamber that Napoleon's lust for power was the cause of the war; that it seemed to the Prince of Oldenburg that the cause of the war was the violence committed against him; that it seemed to the merchants that the cause of the war was the continental system, which was ruining Europe, that it seemed to the old soldiers and generals that the main reason was the need to put them to work; to the legitimists of that time that it was necessary to restore les bons principes, and to the diplomats of that time that everything happened because the alliance of Russia with Austria in 1809 was not cleverly hidden from Napoleon and that memorandum No. 178 was awkwardly written. that these and an innumerable, infinite number of causes, the number of which depends on the innumerable difference of points of view, seemed to contemporaries; but for us descendants, who contemplate in all its scope the enormity of the event that has taken place and delve into its simple and terrible meaning, these reasons seem insufficient. It is incomprehensible to us that millions of Christians killed and tortured each other, because Napoleon was power-hungry, Alexander was firm, the policy of England was cunning and the Duke of Oldenburg was offended. It is impossible to understand what connection these circumstances have with the very fact of murder and violence; why, due to the fact that the duke was offended, thousands of people from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow provinces and were killed by them. For us, descendants, we are not historians, not carried away by the process of research and therefore with unobscured common sense contemplating the event, its causes appear in innumerable numbers. The more we delve into the search for Causes, the more they are revealed to us, and any single cause or Whole line causes seem to us equally just in themselves, and equally false in their insignificance in comparison with the enormity of the event, and equally false in their invalidity (without the participation of all other coincident causes) to produce an accomplished event. The same reason as Napoleon's refusal to withdraw his troops beyond the Vistula and give back the Duchy of Oldenburg seems to us the desire or unwillingness of the first French corporal to enter the secondary service: for if he did not want to go to the service and did not want another, third, and a thousandth corporal and soldier, so much less people would be in Napoleon's army, and there could be no war. If Napoleon had not been offended by the demand to retreat beyond the Vistula and had not ordered the troops to advance, there would have been no war; but if all the sergeants did not wish to enter the secondary service, there could also be no war. There could also be no war if there were no intrigues of England and there would be no Prince of Oldenburg and a feeling of insult in Alexander, and there would be no autocratic power in Russia, and there would be no French revolution and the subsequent dictatorship and empire, and all that produced French Revolution, etc. Without one of these reasons, nothing could have happened. Therefore, all these causes - billions of reasons - coincided in order to produce what was. And therefore, nothing was the exclusive cause of the event, and the event had to happen only because it had to happen. There must have been millions of people, renouncing their human feelings and your mind, go to the East from the West and kill your own kind, just like several centuries ago, crowds of people went from East to West, killing their own kind. The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose word it seemed that the event took place or not took place, were as little arbitrary as the action of every soldier who went on a campaign by lot or by recruitment. It could not be otherwise, because in order for the will of Napoleon and Alexander (those people on whom the event seemed to depend) to be fulfilled, the coincidence of innumerable circumstances was necessary, without one of which the event could not have taken place. It was necessary that millions of people, in whose hands there was real power, soldiers who fired, carried provisions and guns, it was necessary that they agreed to fulfill this will of individual and weak people and have been brought to this by innumerable complex, varied causes. Fatalism in history is inevitable for explaining unreasonable phenomena (that is, those whose rationality we do not understand). The more we try to rationally explain these phenomena in history, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible they become for us. Each person lives for himself, enjoys freedom to achieve his personal goals and feels with his whole being that he can now do or not do such and such an action; but as soon as he does it, so this action, committed at a certain moment in time, becomes irrevocable and becomes the property of history, in which it has not a free, but a predetermined significance. There are two aspects of life in every person: personal life, which is all the more free, the more abstract its interests, and spontaneous, swarm life, where a person inevitably fulfills the laws prescribed to him. A person consciously lives for himself, but serves as an unconscious tool for achieving historical, universal goals. A perfect deed is irrevocable, and its action, coinciding in time with millions of actions of other people, receives historical meaning. The higher a person stands public staircase the more people he is connected with, the more power he has on other people, the more obvious is the predestination and inevitability of his every act. "The heart of the king is in the hand of God." The king is the slave of history. History, that is, the unconscious, general, swarming life of mankind, uses every minute of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes. Napoleon, despite the fact that more than ever, now, in 1812, it seemed to him that verser or not verser le sang de ses peuples depended on him (as in last letter Alexander wrote to him), never more than now was subject to those inevitable laws that forced him (acting in relation to himself, as it seemed to him, according to his arbitrariness) to do for the common cause, for the sake of history, what had to be done. The people of the West moved to the East in order to kill each other. And according to the law of the coincidence of causes, thousands of petty reasons for this movement and for the war coincided with this event: reproaches for non-observance of the continental system, and the Duke of Oldenburg, and the movement of troops to Prussia, undertaken (as it seemed to Napoleon) only to reach an armed peace, and love and habit french emperor to the war, which coincided with the disposition of his people, the fascination with the grandeur of preparations, and the costs of preparation, and the need to acquire such benefits that would pay for these costs, and intoxicated honors in Dresden, and diplomatic negotiations, which, in the opinion of contemporaries, were conducted with sincere the desire to achieve peace and which only hurt the vanity of one side and the other, and millions and millions of other reasons that faked an event that was about to happen, coincided with it. When an apple is ripe and falls, why does it fall? Is it because it gravitates towards the earth, because the rod dries up, because it dries up in the sun, because it becomes heavier, because the wind shakes it, because the boy standing below wants to eat it? Nothing is the reason. All this is only a coincidence of the conditions under which every vital, organic, spontaneous event takes place. And that botanist who finds that the apple falls down because the fiber is decomposing and the like will be just as right and just as wrong as that child standing below who will say that the apple fell down because he wanted to eat it. and that he prayed for it. Just as right and wrong will be the one who says that Napoleon went to Moscow because he wanted it, and because he died because Alexander wanted him to die: how right and wrong will he who says that he collapsed into a million pounds dug mountain fell because the last worker hit under it last time pickaxe. AT historical events the so-called great men are the labels that give the name to the event, which, like the labels, have the least connection with the event itself. Every action of them, which seems to them arbitrary for themselves, in historical sense involuntarily, but is in connection with the whole course of history and is determined eternally.

It is better to know a little of the really good and necessary than a lot of mediocre and unnecessary.

"Reading Circle"

Knowledge is knowledge only when it is acquired by the efforts of one's thought, and not by memory.

"Reading Circle"

A thought moves life only when it has been obtained by its own mind, or even when it answers a question that has already arisen in the soul. An alien thought, perceived by the mind and memory, does not affect life and gets along with actions that are contrary to it.

"Reading Circle"

A scientist is one who knows a lot from books; educated - one who has mastered all the most common knowledge and techniques of his time; enlightened - one who understands the meaning his life.

"Reading Circle"

About faith

True religion is man-made attitude towards his environment endless life, which connects his life with this infinity and guides his actions.

"Reading Circle"

The essence of any religion consists only in the answer to the question, why do I live and what is my attitude towards the infinite world surrounding me. There is not a single religion, from the most exalted to the most brutal, which would not have as its basis this establishment of the relation of man to the world around him.

"Reading Circle"

Faith is the understanding of the meaning of life and the recognition of the obligations arising from this understanding.

"Reading Circle"

People are alive with love; love for oneself is the beginning of death, love for God and people is the beginning of life.

"Reading Circle"

About the purpose of life

I would be the unhappiest of people if I did not find a goal for my life - a common and useful goal ...

In order to live honestly, one must be torn, confused, fought, abandoned, and forever struggled and deprived. And peace is spiritual meanness.

Letter to A.A. Tolstoy. October 1857

I was lonely and unhappy living in the Caucasus. I began to think in a way that only once in a lifetime do people have the power to think ... It was both painful and good time. Never, neither before nor after have I reached such a height of thought... And everything I found then will forever remain my conviction... I found a simple, old thing, I found that there is immortality, that there is love, and that one must live for another, in order to be happy forever ...

Letter to A.A. Tolstoy. April-May 1859

A revolution has happened to me, which has long been preparing in me and the makings of which have always been in me. It happened to me that the life of our circle - the rich, the scientists - not only disgusted me, but lost all meaning. I have renounced the life of our circle.

"Confession". 1879

Each person is a diamond that can purify and not purify himself, to the extent that he is purified, eternal light shines through him, therefore, the business of a person is not to try to shine, but to try to purify himself.

If there is no strength to burn and pour light, then at least do not block it.

"Reading Circle"

Imagine that the purpose of life is your happiness - and life is cruel nonsense. Recognize what human wisdom tells you, and your mind, and your heart: that life is a service to the one who sent you into the world, and life becomes a constant joy.

"Reading Circle"

The only happy periods of my life were those when I devoted my whole life to serving people. These were: schools, mediation, starvation and religious assistance.

... moral activity ... constitutes the highest vocation of man ...

"On what is called art." 1896

About the word

One person will shout in the building filled with people: "We are burning!" - and the crowd rushes, and dozens, hundreds of people are killed.

Such is the clear harm done by the word. But this harm is no less great even when we do not see people who have suffered from our word.

"Reading Circle"

About upbringing and education

The basis of education is the establishment of an attitude to the beginning of everything and the guidance of behavior resulting from this attitude.

"Reading Circle"

In order to educate a person fit for the future, it is necessary to educate him, keeping in mind completely perfect human- only then the pupil will be a worthy member of the generation in which he will have to live.

"Reading Circle"

I want education for the people only in order to save those Pushkins, Ostrogradskys, Filarets, Lomonosovs drowning there. And they teem in every school.

Both upbringing and education are inseparable. It is impossible to educate without passing on knowledge; all knowledge acts educationally.

"About education"

The first and most important knowledge, which is primarily taught to children and adult learners, is the answer to the eternal and inevitable questions that arise in the soul of every person who comes to consciousness. First: what am I and what is my attitude towards the infinite world? And the second, following from the first: how should I live, what should I consider always, under all possible conditions, good, and what should always, under all possible conditions, be bad?

"About education"

If a teacher has only love for work, he will good teacher. If the teacher has only love for the student, like a father, a mother, he will better than that a teacher who has read all the books, but has no love for the work or for the students.

If a teacher combines love for work and for students, he is a perfect teacher.

"ABC. General remarks for the teacher"

… parenting seems complex and hard work only as long as we want to, without educating ourselves, educate our children or anyone else. If we understand that we can educate others only through ourselves, by educating ourselves, then the question of education is abolished and one question of life remains: how should one live oneself? I don't know of a single act of parenting that doesn't include self-education.

About a human

People are like rivers: the water is the same in all and the same everywhere, but each river is sometimes narrow, sometimes fast, sometimes wide, sometimes quiet. So are people. Each person bears in himself the germs of all human qualities and sometimes manifests one, sometimes another, and is often completely different from himself, remaining one and himself.

"Sunday"

My whole idea is that if vicious people are interconnected and constitute a force, then honest people need only do the same.

"War and Peace". Epilogue. 1863–1868

About war

“Is it really crowded for people to live in this beautiful world, under this immeasurable starry sky? Can a feeling of malice, vengeance, or the passion for the extermination of one's own kind be retained in the human soul in the midst of this charming nature?

"Raid", 1853

"... war ... an event contrary to human reason and all human nature."

"War and Peace", 1863-1868

“It is quite obvious that if we continue to live as we do now, guided as in privacy as well as in life individual states only desire for the good of ourselves and our state, and we will, as now, ensure this good by violence, then, inevitably increasing the means of violence against each other and state against state, we, firstly, will be more and more ruined, enduring b about most of its productivity is put into service; secondly, killing in wars against each other physically the best people let us degenerate more and more and morally fall and become corrupted.”

"Rethink!" 1904.

“I want the love of peace to cease to be a timid aspiration of peoples who are horrified at the sight of the disasters of war, but that it become an unshakable demand of an honest conscience.”

Interview with a French journalist

J. A. Bourdon (newspaper "Figaro").

We are here to fight against the war...we hope to win this great power all governments that have billions of money and millions of troops at their disposal ... in our hands there is only one, but the most powerful tool in the world - truth

Report prepared for the Peace Congress in Stockholm

For me, the madness, the criminality of war, especially in recent times when I wrote and therefore thought a lot about the war, are so clear that apart from this madness and criminality I can see nothing in it.

War is such an unjust and bad thing that those who fight try to drown out the voice of conscience in themselves.

About civilization

What is called civilization is the growth of mankind. Growth is necessary, you can't talk about it, whether it's good or bad. It is, it is life. Like the growth of a tree. But the bough, or the forces of life, growing into the bough, are wrong, harmful, if they absorb all the force of growth. This is with our pseudo-civilization.

About art and creativity

Poetry is a fire that kindles in the human soul. This fire burns, warms and illuminates. A real poet himself involuntarily and with suffering burns and burns others. And that's the whole point.

Art is one of the means of distinguishing good from evil, one of the means of recognizing the good.

For a work to be good, one must love the main, basic idea in it. So, in "Anna Karenina" I loved the family thought ...

The main goal of art... is to reveal, to express the truth about the human soul... Art is a microscope that directs the artist to the secrets of his soul and shows these secrets common to all people.

Yasnaya Polyana, Moscow

Without my Yasnaya Polyana I can hardly imagine Russia and my attitude towards it. Without Yasnaya Polyana, maybe I can see more clearly general laws necessary for my fatherland, but I will not love it to the point of partiality.

"Summer in the Village". 1858

... the main secret of how to make sure that all people do not know any misfortunes, never quarrel and do not get angry, but would be constantly happy, this secret was, as he told us, written by him on a green stick, and this stick is buried at road, on the edge of the ravine of the old Order, in the place where I ... asked in memory of Nikolenka to bury me ... And how I then believed that there was that green stick on which was written something that should destroy all evil in people and give them great blessing, so I believe even now that this truth exists and that it will be revealed to people and give them what it promises.

"Memories". 1906

I remember that I got to enter Moscow in a wheelchair with my father. It was a good day, and I remember my admiration at the sight of Moscow churches and houses, admiration caused by the tone of pride with which my father showed me Moscow.

"Memories". 1906

What a great spectacle the Kremlin presents! Ivan the Great stands like a giant in the midst of other cathedrals and churches... The white stone walls saw the shame and defeat of the invincible Napoleonic regiments; at these walls the dawn of the liberation of Russia from the Napoleonic yoke rose, and within a few centuries, within these same walls, the beginning of the liberation of Russia from the power of the Poles in the time of the Pretender was laid; and what a wonderful impression this quiet river Moscow makes! She saw how, being still a village, not occupied by anyone, then she exalted herself. Having become a city, I saw her all the misfortunes and glory, and finally, she waited until her greatness. Now this former village ... has become the greatest and most populous city in Europe.

Student essay. 1837

About nature

As he approached Ovsyannikov, he looked at the lovely sunset. There is a gap in the heaped clouds, and there, like a red irregular corner, the sun. All this is above the forest, rye. Joyfully. And I thought: No, this world is not a joke, not just a vale of testing and transition to a better, eternal world, but this is one of eternal worlds which is beautiful, joyful, and which we not only can, but must make more beautiful and joyful for those who live with us and for those who will live in it after us.

The purest joy, the joy of nature.

... a friend is good; but he will die, he will leave somehow, you will not keep up with him somehow; and nature, to whom he married by means of a merchant's fortress, or from which he was born by inheritance, is even better. Your own nature. And she is cold, and taciturn, and important, and demanding, but on the other hand, this is such a friend that you will not lose to death, and even die, you will go into her.

Now it's summer, and a lovely summer, and, as usual, I go crazy with the joy of carnal life and forget my work. current year long I struggled, but the beauty of the world conquered me. And I enjoy life and do almost nothing else.

Nature enters into man both with breath and food, so that man cannot but feel himself a part of her and her part of himself.

The business of life, the purpose of its joy. Rejoice in heaven, in the sun. On stars, on grass, on trees, on animals, on people. This joy is being destroyed. You made a mistake somewhere - look for this mistake and correct it. This joy is most often violated by self-interest, ambition... Be like children - always rejoice.

In the morning, again, the play of light and shadow from large, densely dressed birch trees on the tall, dark green grass, and forget-me-nots, and deaf nettles, and that's all - the main thing, the waving of the birch trees is the same as it was when I 60 years ago in the first time I noticed and fell in love with this beauty.

... people live as nature lives: they die, are born, copulate, be born again, fight, drink, eat, rejoice and die again, and no conditions, except for those unchanging ones that nature laid down for the sun, grass, beast, tree. They don't have any other laws.

"Cossacks". 1863

Happiness is being with nature, seeing it, talking to it.

"Cossacks". 1863

About love, marriage, family

To love is to live the life of the one you love.

"Reading Circle"

Love destroys death and turns it into an empty ghost; it also turns life from nonsense into something meaningful and makes happiness out of misfortune.

"Reading Circle"

If how many heads, so many minds, then how many hearts, so many kinds of love.

"Anna Karenina"

A true and lasting connection between a man and a woman is only in spiritual fellowship. Sexual intercourse without spirituality is a source of suffering for both spouses.

"Reading Circle"

Apart from death, there is no such significant, abrupt, all-changing and irrevocable act as marriage.

We must always marry in the same way as we die, that is, only when it is impossible otherwise.

About writers

I learn a lot from Pushkin, he is my father, and I have to learn from him.

S. A. Tolstaya. Diaries. 1873

I also read Herzen's "From the Other Shore" and also admired it. It should be written about him so that people of our time understand him. Our intelligentsia has sunk so low that it is no longer able to understand him. It already expects its readers ahead. And far above the heads of the present crowd conveys his thoughts to those who will be able to understand them.

Chekhov was with us, and I liked him. He is very gifted, and his heart must be kind, but he still does not have his own definite point of view.

I am very grateful to you for such a curious and wonderful study about Sylvester. Judging by it, I guess what treasures - the likes of which no other people has - lurk in our ancient literature. And how true is the intuition of the people, pulling them towards the Old Russian and repelling them from the new.

About silence, verbosity and slander

People learn how to speak main science How and when to be silent.

"Way of Life"

Speak only about what is clear to you, otherwise be silent.

"On every day"

If once you regret that you did not say, then you will regret a hundred times that you did not keep silent.

"Reading Circle"

It is true that where there is gold, there is also much sand; but this can by no means be a reason to say a lot of nonsense in order to say something smart.

"What is art?"

The one who has nothing to say speaks the most.

"Reading Circle"

Silence is often the best answer.

"Way of Life"

People like slander so much that it is very difficult to resist doing something pleasant for your interlocutors: not condemning a person.

"Reading Circle"

Reflections on the causes of the war (based on the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace")

War is "an event contrary to human reason and to all human nature."

The war of 1812 is at the center of L.N. Tolstoy in his brilliant epic novel "War and Peace" (1863-1869).

Man has an indisputable right to live on earth. Death in war is terrible and immoral: it takes away this right. The death of a hero who defended the fatherland can glorify his name, but this does not make its tragic meaning different: there is no person.

While the war is going on, “such an uncountable number of atrocities, deceptions, treason, theft, forgery and the issuance of counterfeit banknotes, arson and murders are being committed, which in whole centuries will not collect the annals of all the courts of the world.”

But, from the point of view of the morality of war, these actions are not immoral: they are committed against a hated enemy, and also in the name of the honor and glory of "our" side.

L.N. Tolstoy writes that from the end of 1811 "armament and concentration of forces" began in Western Europe, so that by the summer of 1812 formidable hordes of Russia's enemies appeared at its borders. According to sources, 450 thousand people were in Napoleon's army, and the French - 190 thousand, the rest were a contingent of allies.

Speaking about the causes of the war, Tolstoy names the main one. In the human environment, be it states, estates, social movements, there are moments when certain forces unite in order to create the preconditions for the emergence of some very important event. This event, due to its significance in people's lives, can change the world.

So, Napoleon's wars with tripartite alliance in 1805-1807 and the Treaty of Tilsit concluded in 1807 redrawn the map of Europe. Napoleon was the initiator economic blockade England. Russia did not agree with the conditions of isolation of England, receiving military and financial assistance. With the knowledge of Napoleon, Russia established its influence in Finland against the interests of Sweden. Napoleon promised the independence of Poland, which went against the interests of Russia, but encouraged the Poles.

Conflicts due to clash of interests do not only arise between states. Heads of nations and armies, members of royal families, diplomats - these are high-ranking people on whom it depends whether there is a war or not. But, as Tolstoy writes, their authority and decisive the last word in the events that have arisen could only be an appearance.

It only seemed that the firmness of the Russian Emperor Alexander and the lust for power of Napoleon could move the situation towards a war between Western Europe and Russia. According to the writer, "billions of reasons coincided in order to produce what was." The horror of war is that its formidable and terrible mechanism, having gained momentum, mercilessly kills people.

“Millions of people, having renounced their feelings and their minds, had to go east from the West and kill their own kind…”.

As a rule, it is the "great people", the aggressors and invaders, who are to blame for the personal tragedies of those they attacked.

Tolstoy writes: "It is impossible to understand ... why, because the duke was offended, thousands of people from another region killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow provinces and were killed by them."

Tolstoy is a great humanist. He argues that the personal life of a person and, most importantly, the value of this life is above all. But if people are involved in historical process, common to all, then their environment becomes "spontaneous, swarm life."

In this case, as they say, the masses make history. The inhabitants of France willingly supported Napoleon in his claims to foreign territories, to material wealth other countries. And everyone believed that the costs of these wars would be repaid by the benefits received after the victory.

The soldiers of Napoleon's army expressed their love for their idol joyful exclamations when, when leaving the forest to the Neman, they saw his figure.

But Emperor Alexander and the subjects of his state had completely different motives that drew them into bloody events war. main reason entry into the war on the part of the Russian world was one - this is the desire of the whole nation to defend independence native land at any price.

"People's Thought" was embodied in the specific deeds of the defenders of the Fatherland.