The life path of Pierre Bezukhov's spiritual quest in the novel "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. The moral quest of Pierre Bezukhov in the novel by L.N.

The novel “War and Peace” was created by Tolstoy in the 1860s, and the final edition appeared in the 1870s, when there were disputes in Russian society about the further ways of development of Russia.
The epic basis of the work is the feeling of life as a whole and being in the full breadth of this concept. According to Tolstoy, life is concrete in its national and socio-historical content, it is presented in the variety of its forms and contradictions.
Questions of life and death, truth and falsehood, joy and suffering, personality and society, freedom and necessity, happiness and unhappiness, war and peace constitute the problematics of the novel. Tolstoy showed the many spheres of life in which a person's life takes place.
The image of Pierre is presented in the work in the process of constant development. Throughout the novel, one can observe the train of thought of this hero, as well as the slightest vibrations of his soul. He is looking for not just a position in life, in particular, convenient for himself, but absolute truth, the meaning of life in general. The search for this truth is the search for the whole destiny.
In the novel, Pierre first appears in the salon of Anna Pavlovna Scherer. “He has not served anywhere yet, he has just arrived from abroad, where he was brought up, and was for the first time in society.” At the beginning of the epic, Pierre is a weak-willed young man who constantly needs someone's guidance and therefore falls under various influences: either Prince Andrei, then the company of Anatole Kuragin, then Prince Vasily. His outlook on life is not yet firmly established. Pierre returned from France, engulfed by the ideas of the French Revolution. Napoleon for him is a hero, the embodiment of the French national spirit. Going to the Assembly of the Nobility, he recalls the communication of the monarch with the people in 1789 and hopes that he will see something similar to what was in France. In the epilogue, Tolstoy makes it clear that Pierre takes an active part in the secret Decembrist societies.
As a personality, Pierre has not yet formed, and therefore the mind in him is combined with “dreamy philosophizing”, and absent-mindedness, weakness of will, lack of initiative, unsuitability for practical activities, with exceptional kindness.
Pierre is just beginning his life and therefore has not yet been spoiled by social conventions and prejudices, by that environment for which only dinners, gossip and, in particular, who the old Count Bezukhov will leave his inheritance are interested in.
Gradually, Pierre begins to understand the laws by which this society lives. Before his eyes, there is a struggle for the mosaic portfolio of Count Bezukhov. The hero also observes a change in attitude towards himself, which occurred after he received the inheritance. And yet, Pierre is not characterized by a sober assessment of what is happening. He is perplexed, sincerely surprised at the changes, and yet he takes it for granted, without trying to find out the reasons for himself.
In the living room of Anna Pavlovna, he meets Helen - a person who is completely opposite to him in spiritual content. Helen Kuragina is an integral part of the world, where the role of the individual is determined by her social position, material well-being, and not the height of moral qualities. Pierre did not have time to get to know this society, where “there is nothing truthful, simple and natural. Everything is saturated through and through with lies, falsehood, heartlessness and hypocrisy.” He did not have time to understand the essence of Helen.
With the marriage to this woman, one of the important milestones in the life of the hero began. “Indulging in debauchery and laziness”, Pierre is increasingly aware that family life does not add up, that his wife is absolutely immoral. He acutely feels his own degradation, dissatisfaction grows in him, but not with others, but with himself. Pierre considers it possible to blame only himself for his disorder.
As a result of an explanation with his wife and great moral stress, a breakdown occurs. At a dinner in honor of Bagration, Pierre challenges Dolokhov, who insulted him, to a duel. Having never held a weapon in his hands, Pierre must take a responsible step. He hurts Dolokhov. Shooting with him, the hero first of all defends his honor, defends his own ideas about the moral duty of a person. Seeing an enemy wounded by him lying on the snow, Pierre says: “Stupid ... stupid! Death... a lie...” He realizes that the path he followed turned out to be wrong.
After everything that happened to him, especially after the duel with Dolokhov, Pierre's whole life seems meaningless. He is plunged into a spiritual crisis, which manifests itself both in the hero's dissatisfaction with himself and in the desire to change his life, to build it on new, good principles.
On the way to St. Petersburg, waiting for horses at the station in Torzhok, he asks himself difficult questions: “What is wrong? What well? What should you love, what should you hate? Why live, and what is it ... ”Here Pierre meets the freemason Eazdeev. The hero gladly accepts his teaching, because, tormented by the consciousness that he is in a spiritual impasse, he tries in vain to resolve the question of what is Good and Evil. In the Freemasons, he sees just those who give him the answer to painful questions and establish firm life principles that must be followed. In moral purification For Pierre lies the truth. This is what a hero needs.
And Pierre is trying to do good, guided by the Christian ideas of Freemasonry. He travels to Kyiv to his southern estates, trying to make the peasants happy, plant culture and education in the villages, although it turns out that there is no benefit from his innovations.
Over time, Pierre becomes disillusioned with Freemasonry, but from the “Masonic” period of his life, he retains many moral concepts associated with the Christian worldview. Again in the life of the hero comes a spiritual crisis. Pierre enters that stage of development when the old worldview is lost, and the new one has not yet taken shape.
The culmination of the novel was the depiction of the Battle of Borodino. And in the life of Bezukhov, it was also a decisive moment. Wanting to share the fate of the people, Russia, the hero, not being a military man, takes part in the battle. Through the eyes of this character, Tolstoy conveys his understanding of the most important event in the people's historical life. It was in the battle that Pierre knew who THEY were. “They, in Pierre’s understanding, were soldiers - those who were on the battery, and those who fed him, and those who prayed to the icon.” The hero is surprised that the soldiers going to certain death are still able to smile, paying attention to his hat. He sees how the soldiers dig trenches with laughter, push each other, making their way to the miraculous icon. Pierre begins to understand that a person cannot own anything while he is afraid of death. The one who is not afraid of her owns everything. The hero realizes that there is nothing terrible in life, and sees that it is these people, ordinary soldiers, who live the true life. And at the same time, he feels that he cannot connect with them, live the way they live.
Later, after the battle, Pierre hears in a dream the voice of his mentor, a Mason, and thanks to his sermon, he learns a new truth: “It is not necessary to connect all this, but it is necessary to conjugate.” In a dream, the benefactor says: “Simplicity is obedience to God, you can’t get away from him, and they are simple. They don't talk, they do." The hero accepts this truth.
Soon Pierre plans to kill Napoleon, being "in a state of irritation, close to insanity." Two equally strong feelings are fighting in him at this moment. “The first was the feeling of the need for sacrifice and suffering in the consciousness of a common misfortune,” while the other was “that indefinite, exclusively Russian feeling of contempt for everything conventional, artificial ... for everything that is considered by most people to be the highest good of the world.”
Disguised as a tradesman, Pierre remains in Moscow. He roams the streets, rescues a girl from a burning house, defends a family that is being attacked by the French, and is arrested.
An important stage in the life of the hero is his meeting with Platon Karataev. This meeting marked the introduction of Pierre to the people, to the people's truth. In captivity, he finds "that calmness and self-satisfaction, for which he vainly sought before." Here he learned “not with his mind, but with his whole being, with his life, that man was created for happiness, that happiness is in himself, in the satisfaction of natural human needs.” Initiation to the people's truth, the people's ability to live helps Pierre's inner liberation. Pierre was always looking for a solution to the question of the meaning of life: “He was looking for this in philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in the distraction of secular life, in wine, in the heroic deed of self-sacrifice, in romantic love for Natasha. He was looking for this by thought, and all these searches and attempts deceived him. And finally, with the help of Platon Karataev, this issue is resolved.
The most essential thing in Karataev's character is loyalty to himself, his only and constant spiritual truth. For a while, this also became an ideal for Pierre, but only for a while. Pierre, by the very essence of his character, was not able to accept life without searching. Having learned the truth of Karataev, Pierre in the epilogue of the novel goes further than this truth - he goes not by Karataev, but by his own way.
Pierre reaches the final spiritual harmony in marriage with Natasha Rostova. After seven years of marriage, he feels like a completely happy person.
By the end of the 1810s, resentment was growing in Pierre, a protest against the social order, which is expressed in the intention to create a legal or secret society. Thus, the moral quest of the hero ends with the fact that he becomes a supporter of the Decembrist movement that is emerging in the country.
Initially, the novel was conceived by Tolstoy as a story about contemporary reality. Realizing that the origins of the contemporary liberation movement lie in Decembrism, the writer changed the previous idea of ​​the work. The writer showed in the novel that the ideas of Decembrism lay in the spiritual upsurge experienced by the Russian people during the war of 1812.
So, Pierre, learning more and more new truths, does not renounce his former convictions, but leaves from each period some life rules that are most suitable for him, and gains life experience. He, in his youth, obsessed with the ideas of the French Revolution, in his maturity became a Decembrist revolutionary, from the Masonic rules of life, he retained faith in God, the Christian laws of life. And, finally, he learns the main truth: the ability to combine the personal with the public, his own convictions with the convictions of other people.

Article to prepare for an essay on the topic: "Spiritual quest of Pierre Bezukhov"

Pierre Bezukhov, like Andrey Bolkonsky, is on the spiritual path of searching for and finding the truth, gradually freeing himself from faith in false ideals and in great people who have become his idols. At the beginning of the novel in the salon of A.P. Scherer, the still young and naive Pierre Bezukhov, wanting to impress the guests present at the evening with the paradoxical nature of his judgments, acts as an ardent defender of Napoleon. His sympathies are on the side of the French emperor, who is “great because he has risen above the revolution, suppressed its abuses, retaining all that is good – both the equality of citizens, and freedom of speech and the press – and only because of this has he acquired power.” Even the execution of the Duke of Enghien without trial, according to Pierre, was a state necessity, and Napoleon, who committed it, demonstrated the greatness of his soul, not being afraid to take responsibility for this act. At that time, Pierre was ready to forgive his idol everything, finding excuses for his crimes, because he did not yet understand the essence of Napoleon. However, life, leading the hero through a new experience, destroys his established ideas. Life's troubles, misfortunes, suffering, through which Pierre Bezukhov goes through, break his former convictions and force him to look for new, more perfect ones that give him harmony, meaning and joy of life. This is the spiritual movement of man, his ability to approach the truth through doubt, disappointment and despair. The duel with Dolokhov, the break with his wife were for Pierre the collapse of his hopes, his happiness. He lost interest in life, and the whole world seemed to him meaningless and ugly. To find happiness means to find harmony and connection with the world again. And Pierre is looking for salvation from grief, pain and suffering. Once at one of the stations on the road from Moscow to St. Petersburg, he intensely reflects on the meaning of life. However, he is no longer carried away by thought as he was at the reception at Anna Pavlovna Scherer, does not want to surprise or amaze anyone with his views, but thinks so persistently and stubbornly, as they fight for life.

At that moment, Pierre needed answers to the simplest and most pressing questions that people have been and will be solving forever. "What's wrong? What well? What should you love, what should you hate? For chegrs to live, and what am I? What is life, what is death? What power governs everything? he asked himself. Until Pierre finds the answer to these questions, it will seem to him that there is nothing to live for. He reaches the last line in his thinking, to the realization that death makes senseless and devalues ​​life.

However, he cannot accept this outcome. In order to live on, he needs to feel his connection with infinity or strive to find it. The purpose of life is the joy that gives a person inner harmony and harmony with the world. In misfortune, a person is always at odds with the world. “Everything in him,” writes Tolstoy about Pierre, “and around him seemed to him confused, meaningless and disgusting.” It can be said that the heroes of "War and Peace" are looking for the truth that will give them the joy of existence, possible only in harmony with the world.

Truth for Pierre is a path leading through a series of crises and rebirths, consisting in a sequence of losses and gains. Pierre arrived at the station unhappy, not seeing the meaning of life, but left it a joyful person who had found the purpose of life. At the station, he meets with the old freemason Bazdeev, who, knowing about his misfortunes, offers his help. However, not believing in God, Pierre doubts that his interlocutor can alleviate his condition.

Convinced of the truth and irrefutability of his atheistic views, Bezukhov is confronted in a conversation with his fellow traveler with an unexpected and strong argument. “You do not know Him, my lord, and that is why you are very unhappy ... If He were not there,” he said quietly, “we would not talk about Him, my lord.” Unexpectedly for himself, Pierre heard an answer that struck with the depth of thought: where and how did the idea of ​​God appear in the mind of man? And Pierre did not find what to object.

The faith taught by Bazdeev did not correspond to Pierre's idea of ​​religion and required constant spiritual work, self-improvement and "internal purification" from a person. It turns out that in order to comprehend spiritual truth, not only intellectual, but also spiritual efforts are necessary, to the extent that a person becomes capable of approaching the truth of God in his understanding. Therefore, Pierre's mentor warns him that God "is not comprehended by the mind, but is comprehended by life." Life constantly brings a person new experience, which allows him to better understand the world and himself.

The first and still easiest test of Pierre's new convictions was his dispute with Prince Andrei, in which he acts as a person who knows the meaning of life, and his friend as one who has lost faith in him. Pierre is trying to convince Prince Andrei that doing good to people "is the only true happiness of life." He talks about the transformations in his villages that made life easier for the peasants. Prince Andrei agrees only that Pierre's cause is good for himself, but not for the peasants. Again it turns out that there is no unequivocal answer to the questions: What is bad? What well? What should you love, what should you hate? Because the heroes of Tolstoy yearn for the truth, which would be reliable and unchanging. There can be only one solution - the existence of God, personifying the highest justice and truth. “If there is a God and there is a future life, then there is truth, there is virtue; and the highest happiness of man is to strive to achieve them. We must live, love, we must believe, - said Pierre, - that we do not live now only on this piece of land, but we have lived and will live forever there, in everything (he pointed to the sky).

And yet this conversation about eternity, about the appointment of man, about God, which Pierre, inspired by his new convictions, started, brought the skeptical Prince Andrei back to life. What Tolstoy's heroes acquire is not at all completely new for them, something they have never heard of before. Pierre and Andrey are looking for what lived deep in their souls, with what they were permeated from the inside. They long for eternity, unchanging truth amidst a changing world. They cannot be satisfied with the temporary: neither life nor truth. If they had renounced eternity and recognized the temporal as true, then they would have betrayed the spirit of Christianity.

And it is not someone else's teaching that convinces them, but life and death itself. A person is not obliged to comprehend this truth to another person and therefore he is independent and free. No one, except God, can prescribe the highest truth to him. Its main conductor is what accompanies every person in the field of life: death, birth, love, nature. The sky of Austerlitz, the stars, the blossoming oak tree, the birth of a child, the threat of death - this is what has the strongest influence on the heroes, changes their lives and reveals something new, undeniable, solid.

According to Tolstoy, a person can always be saved, but he can also lose his faith at any moment. This happens to Pierre twice. For the first time, love, and the second time, death left no stone unturned from his convictions, confirming the truth of the words of Andrei Bolkonsky: "life and death, that's what convinces" ... and dissuades.

Life did not confirm Pierre's belief that doing good to people "is the only true happiness of life." When, after the courtship of Prince Andrei to Natasha, for no obvious reason, he suddenly felt the impossibility of continuing his former life, this meant that Pierre's faith collapsed, revealing its inauthenticity. The happiness of Andrei and Natasha revealed to Pierre the incompleteness of his life, devoid of love and family happiness. And again, with renewed vigor, the evil and meaninglessness of life is revealed to Pierre. But this time he does not find a solution to the problem, nothing saves him: neither religion, nor Freemasonry, nor the idea of ​​self-improvement. And Pierre gives up, stops fighting and resigns himself to his misfortune, taking "the evil and lies of life" for the truth. But a person cannot live with such a view, because life is love. In order to live, Pierre must not see the reality that disgusts him, for which he resorts to oblivion in all forms available to him, from wine to books.

“It was too scary to be under the yoke of these insoluble questions of life, and he gave himself up to his first hobbies just to forget them. He went to all sorts of societies, drank a lot, bought paintings and built, and most importantly read. In Pierre's eyes, any occupation was a means of oblivion, necessary only in order not to see the horror of life. Everyone seemed to him to be people “escaping life: some by ambition, some by paintings, some by writing laws, some by women, some by toys, some by horses, some by politics, some by hunting, some by wine, some by state affairs.”

The state of a person who is confident in the hopeless essence of life. Tolstoy called a disease that is not manifested by “sharp attacks”, “despair, blues”, but is constantly present in life. If before the acute manifestations of the "disease" forced Pierre to desperately seek and eventually find salvation, now the disease "was driven inside." In the future, Pierre is saved not by thoughts, but by love for Natasha, which has transformed him. It was thanks to her that he regained the meaning and joy of existence.

But his ordeal didn't end there. He will once again experience the strongest disappointment in life, already during the war. The spectacle of French soldiers shooting civilian Russians destroyed his faith. The terrible picture of the violent death of innocent people made the world meaningless in the eyes of Pierre. He saw a terrible murder committed by people who did not want to do this. And in his soul, as if suddenly, that spring was pulled out, on which everything was held together and seemed to be alive. And everything fell into a heap of meaningless rubbish. Although "he did not realize himself, faith was destroyed in the improvement of the world, and in the human, and in his soul, and in God." The world always seems meaningless and chaotic to a person in a moment of despair.

However, such an idea is temporary and is overcome by Tolstoy's heroes. The world again finds its harmony, grandeur and beauty for them, despite the human vices that destroy them, injustice, evil, suffering, death. Pierre also overcomes his despair and regains faith in God and the possibility of life. This faith is the same and at the same time different. In terms of content, it has not changed, but it has become deeper and stronger, and the world, in Pierre's view, has become more majestic and beautiful.

This happened due to the fact that Pierre met in the barracks for prisoners with Platon Karataev, who helped him return to faith in life. Plato becomes for Pierre "an incomprehensible, round and eternal personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth." Thanks to communication with a simple Russian soldier, whose speech consisted mainly of sayings and proverbs, Pierre felt that "the previously destroyed world was now moving with new beauty, on some new and unshakable foundations, in his soul."

Simplicity, what surrounds a person constantly, what he is used to and what he does not attach importance to, is the essence of life. Therefore, the simple, which is often neglected by people, is a necessary sign of truth and beauty. However, the realization of this was not the result of all the searches of Pierre. Pierre recognizes that a person's happiness cannot be only in the satisfaction of natural needs, but he also experiences feelings of a completely different order, leading him to the most sublime thoughts. In addition to earthly, everyday worries about food and shelter, a person also turns to the sky, which has always been a symbol of eternity.

In "War and Peace" the sky can be called a full-fledged character of the book. In the life of the best heroes of Tolstoy, it appears at the finest hour of their fate, reminding them of their involvement in a higher, divine principle. So it was with Prince Andrei when he lay wounded on the field of Austerlitz, so it was with Pierre in captivity, when he unexpectedly burst out laughing at the thought that the French were holding his immortal soul captive.

Depicting this sky. Tolstoy conveys not just the idea of ​​the immortality of the soul, but a living, emerging feeling. During a conversation at the crossing, Pierre convinced his friend that "we do not live today only on this piece of land, but we have lived and will live forever ...". And so Pierre not only found out, not only believed, but experienced the feeling of the immortality of his soul. There were words about immortality, but here it is present itself as an undoubted reality.

Pierre is vividly aware, experiencing his involvement in infinity, his feeling transforms the world, and in nature he finds a response and confirmation of his feelings. “High in the bright sky stood a full moon. Forests and fields, previously invisible outside the camp, now opened up in the distance. And even farther than these forests and fields could be seen a bright, oscillating, inviting endless distance. Pierre looked into the sky, into the depths of the departing, playing stars. “And all this is mine, and all this is in me, and all this is me!” thought Pierre. This is the peak that the hero of Tolstoy reached in his life ascent. What he experienced in captivity led him to the pinnacle of immortality. And “later and throughout his life, Pierre thought and spoke with delight about this month of captivity, about those irrevocable, strong and joyful sensations ...” In captivity, he found harmony with himself and with the world, saw the meaning of his life.

In the novel, Pierre first appears in the salon of Anna Pavlovna Scherer. "He has not served anywhere yet, he has just arrived from abroad, where he was brought up, and was for the first time in society."

At the beginning of the epic, Pierre is a weak-willed young man who constantly needs someone's guidance and therefore falls under various influences: either Prince Andrei, then the company of Anatole Kuragin, then Prince Vasily. His outlook on life is not yet firmly established. Pierre returned from France, engulfed by the ideas of the French Revolution. Napoleon for him is a hero, the embodiment of the French national spirit. Going to

An assembly of nobility, he recalls the communication of the monarch with the people in 1789 and hopes that he will see something similar to what was in France. In the epilogue, Tolstoy makes it clear that Pierre takes an active part in the secret Decembrist societies.

As a personality, Pierre has not yet formed, and therefore the mind in him is combined with "dreamy philosophizing", and absent-mindedness, weakness of will, lack of initiative, unsuitability for practical activities - with exceptional kindness.

Pierre is just beginning his life and therefore has not yet been spoiled by social conventions and prejudices, by that environment for which only dinners, gossip and, in particular, who the old Count Bezukhov will leave his inheritance are interested in.

Gradually, Pierre begins to understand the laws by which this society lives. Before his eyes, there is a struggle for the mosaic portfolio of Count Bezukhov. The hero also observes a change in attitude towards himself, which occurred after he received the inheritance. And yet, Pierre is not characterized by a sober assessment of what is happening. He is perplexed, sincerely surprised at the changes, and yet he takes it for granted, without trying to find out the reasons for himself.

In the living room of Anna Pavlovna, he meets Helen - a person who is completely opposite to him in spiritual content. He did not have time to understand the essence of Helen. With the marriage to this woman, one of the important milestones in the life of the hero began. “Indulging in debauchery and laziness,” Pierre is increasingly aware that family life does not add up, that his wife is absolutely immoral. He acutely feels his own degradation, dissatisfaction grows in him, but not with others, but with himself. Pierre considers it possible to blame only himself for his disorder.

As a result of an explanation with his wife and great moral stress, a breakdown occurs. At a dinner in honor of Bagration, Pierre challenges Dolokhov, who insulted him, to a duel. Having never held a weapon in his hands, Pierre must take a responsible step. He hurts Dolokhov. Shooting with him, the hero first of all defends his honor, defends his own ideas about the moral duty of a person. Seeing an enemy wounded by him lying on the snow, Pierre says: “Stupid ... stupid! Death… lies…” He realizes that the path he followed turned out to be wrong.

After everything that happened to him, especially after the duel with Dolokhov, Pierre's whole life seems meaningless. He is plunged into a spiritual crisis, which manifests itself both in the hero's dissatisfaction with himself and in the desire to change his life, to build it on new, good principles.

On the way to St. Petersburg, waiting at the station in Torzhok for horses, he asks himself difficult questions: “What is wrong? What well? What should you love, what should you hate? Why live, and what is it ... ”Here Pierre meets the freemason Yevzdeev. The hero gladly accepts his teaching, because, tormented by the consciousness that he is in a spiritual impasse, he tries in vain to resolve the question of what is Good and Evil.

In the Freemasons, he sees just those who give him the answer to painful questions and establish firm life principles that must be followed. In moral purification for Pierre lies the truth. This is what a hero needs.

And Pierre is trying to do good, guided by the Christian ideas of Freemasonry. He goes to Kyiv to his estates, trying to plant culture and education in the villages, although it turns out that there is no benefit from his innovations. Over time, Pierre becomes disillusioned with Freemasonry, but from the "Masonic" period of his life, he retains many moral concepts related to the Christian worldview. Again in the life of the hero comes a spiritual crisis.

The culmination of the novel was the depiction of the Battle of Borodino. And in the life of Bezukhov, it was also a decisive moment. Wanting to share the fate of the people, Russia, the hero, not being a military man, takes part in the battle. Through the eyes of this character, Tolstoy conveys his understanding of the most important event in the people's historical life. It was in the battle that Pierre knew who they were. “In Pierre’s understanding, they were soldiers - those who were on the battery, and those who fed him, and those who prayed to the icon.” The hero is surprised that the soldiers going to certain death are still able to smile, paying attention to his hat. He sees how the soldiers dig trenches with laughter, push each other, making their way to the miraculous icon. Pierre begins to understand that a person cannot own anything while he is afraid of death. The one who is not afraid of her owns everything. The hero realizes that there is nothing terrible in life, and sees that it is these people, ordinary soldiers, who live the true life. And at the same time, he feels that he cannot connect with them, live the way they live.

Later, after the battle, Pierre hears in a dream the voice of his mentor - a freemason, and thanks to his sermon, he learns a new truth: "It is not necessary to connect all this, but it is necessary to conjugate." In a dream, the benefactor says: “Simplicity is obedience to God, you can’t get away from him, and they are simple. They don't talk, they do." The hero accepts this truth.

Soon Pierre plans to kill Napoleon, being "in a state of irritation, close to insanity." Two equally strong feelings are fighting in him at this moment. “The first was the feeling of the need for sacrifice and suffering in the consciousness of a common misfortune,” while the other was “that indefinite, exclusively Russian feeling of contempt for everything conventional, artificial ... for everything that is considered by most people to be the highest good of the world.”

Disguised as a tradesman, Pierre remains in Moscow. He roams the streets, rescues a girl from a burning house, defends a family that is being attacked by the French, and is arrested.

An important stage in the life of the hero is his meeting with Platon Karataev. This meeting marked the introduction of Pierre to the people, to the people's truth. In captivity, he finds "that calmness and self-satisfaction, for which he vainly sought before." Here he learned "not with his mind, but with his whole being, with his life, that man was created for happiness, that happiness is in himself, in the satisfaction of natural human needs." Initiation to the people's truth, the people's ability to live helps Pierre's inner liberation. Pierre was always looking for a solution to the question of the meaning of life: “He was looking for this in philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in the distraction of secular life, in wine, in the heroic deed of self-sacrifice, in romantic love for Natasha. He was looking for this by thought, and all these searches and attempts deceived him. And finally, with the help of Platon Karataev, this issue is resolved. The most essential thing in Karataev's character is loyalty to himself, his only and constant spiritual truth. For a while, this also became an ideal for Pierre, but only for a while. Pierre, by the very essence of his character, was not able to accept life without searching. Having learned the truth of Karataev, Pierre in the epilogue of the novel goes further than this truth - he goes not by Karataev, but by his own way.

Pierre reaches the final spiritual harmony in marriage with Natasha Rostova. After seven years of marriage, he feels like a completely happy person. By the end of the 1810s, resentment was growing in Pierre, a protest against the social order, which is expressed in the intention to create a legal or secret society. Thus, the moral quest of the hero ends with the fact that he becomes a supporter of the Decembrist movement that is emerging in the country.

Initially, the novel was conceived by Tolstoy as a story about contemporary reality. Realizing that the origins of the contemporary liberation movement lie in Decembrism, the writer changed the previous idea of ​​the work. The writer showed in the novel that the ideas of Decembrism lay in the spiritual upsurge experienced by the Russian people during the war of 1812. So, Pierre, learning more and more new truths, does not renounce his former convictions, but leaves from each period some life rules that are most suitable for him, and gains life experience. He, in his youth obsessed with the ideas of the French Revolution, in his maturity became a Decembrist revolutionary, from the Masonic rules of life he retained faith in God, the Christian laws of life. And, finally, he learns the main truth: the ability to combine the personal with the public, his own convictions with the convictions of other people.

The young hero lived and studied abroad, returning to his homeland by the age of twenty. The boy suffered from the fact that he was an illegitimate child of noble birth.

The life path of Pierre Bezukhov in the novel "War and Peace" is a search for the meaning of human existence, the formation of a consciously mature member of society.

Petersburg Adventures

The first appearance of the young count took place on the soiree of Anna Scherrer, with a description of which the epic work of Leo Tolstoy begins. The angular guy, resembling a bear, was not dexterous in court etiquette, he allowed himself behavior that was somewhat impolite towards the nobles.

After ten years of strict upbringing, deprived of parental love, the guy finds himself in the company of the unlucky Prince Kuragin. A wild life begins without the restrictions of tutors, prejudices and control.

Alcohol flows like water, children of wealthy representatives of the nobility are walking in a noisy company. Rarely there are cases of lack of money, few dare to complain about the hussars.

Pierre is young, the awareness of his own personality has not yet come, there is no craving for any occupation. The revelry eats up time, the days seem eventful and cheerful. But once the company, in a drunken stupor, tied a sentry to the back of a trained bear. The beast was released into the Neva and laughed, looking at the yelling law enforcement officer.

The patience of society came to an end, the instigators of hooliganism were demoted in rank, and the stumbled young man was sent to his father.

Legacy fight

Arriving in Moscow, Pierre learns that Kirill Bezukhov is ill. The old nobleman had many children, all illegitimate and without inheritance. Anticipating a fierce struggle for the wealth left by him after his death, his father asks Emperor Alexander I to recognize Pierre as his legitimate son and heir.

Intrigues related to the redistribution of capital and real estate begin. The influential prince Vasily Kuragin enters the struggle for the Bezukhovs' inheritance, planning to marry the young count to his daughter.

After losing his father, the young man falls into depression. Loneliness makes him withdraw, he is not happy with wealth and the title of count, which fell unexpectedly. Demonstrating concern for the inexperienced heir, Prince Kuragin arranges for him a prestigious place in the diplomatic corps.

Love and marriage

Helen was beautiful, seductive, able to make eyes. The girl knew what men liked and how to attract attention. It was not difficult to catch a sluggish young man in his nets.

Pierre was inspired, the nymph seemed to him so fantastic, inaccessible, secretly desired. He wanted to possess her so much that he had no strength to voice his feelings. Having developed passion and confusion in the soul of the gentleman, Prince Kuragin with an effort organized and announced the engagement of Bezukhov with his daughter.

Their marriage was a disappointment for the man. In vain he looked for signs of female wisdom in his chosen one. They had absolutely nothing to talk about. The wife did not know anything of what the husband was interested in. On the contrary, everything that Helen wanted or dreamed about was petty, not worthy of attention.

Severance of relations and return to St. Petersburg

The connection between Countess Bezukhova and Dolokhov became known to everyone, the lovers did not hide it, they spent a lot of time together. The Count challenges Dolokhov to a duel, offended by the painful situation. Having wounded an opponent, the man remained completely unharmed.

Realizing, finally, that he connected his life not with a chaste modest woman, but with a woman, cynical and depraved, the count goes to the capital. Hatred tormented his heart, desolation filled his soul with pain. The collapse of hopes for a quiet family life plunged Pierre into despondency, existence lost all meaning.

An unsuccessful marriage brought misfortune to the count, he turned away from his religious views, becoming a member of the Masonic society. He really wanted to be needed by someone, to turn his life into a stream of virtuous deeds, to become an impeccable member of society.

Bezukhov begins to improve the life of the peasants, but he does not succeed, it is more difficult to restore the desired order in the estates than he thought. With the estate, the count becomes the head of the St. Petersburg Masonic Society.

Before the war

The reunion with Helen took place in 1809 under pressure from her father-in-law. The wife loved social life, circled the heads of men at balls. Pierre was accustomed to consider her his punishment from the Lord and patiently carried his burden.

A couple of times, through the efforts of his wife's lovers, he was promoted in the public service. This made me feel completely disgusted and embarrassed. The hero suffers, rethinks life and changes internally.

Pierre's only joy was friendship with Natasha Rostova, but after her engagement to Prince Bolkonsky, friendly visits had to be abandoned. Fate made a new zigzag.

Once again disappointed in his human purpose, Bezukhov leads a hectic life. The shocks suffered radically change the appearance of the hero. He returns to Moscow, where he finds noisy companies, champagne and nightly fun to drown out his heartache.

War changes mindset

Bezukhov goes to the front as a volunteer when the French army approaches Moscow. The battle of Borodino became a significant date in the life of Pierre. A sea of ​​blood, a field strewn with the bodies of soldiers, the patriot Bezukhov will never forget.

Four weeks of captivity became a turning point for the hero. Everything that had previously seemed important seemed insignificant in the face of enemy aggression. Now the count knew how to build his life.

Family and Children

After being released from captivity, it became known about the death of Helen. Remaining a widower, Bezukhov renewed his friendship with Natasha, who in grief experienced the death of Andrei Bolkonsky. It was another Pierre, the war cleansed his soul.

In 1813, he married Natasha Rostova in the hope of finding his own happiness. Three daughters and a son made up the meaning of the life of a hero who could not calm down his craving for the common good and virtue.

Leo Tolstoy loves his hero, who in some ways resembles the author. For example, his aversion to war, true humanism and a benevolent attitude towards the whole world.

Literature

Grade 10

Lesson #46

The search and acquisition of Pierre Bezukhov

List of issues covered in the topic:

1. The image of Pierre Bezukhov in the epic novel "War and Peace";
2. The concept of "dialectics of the soul" as the most important means of revealing the image;

Glossary:

Internal monologue- a direct, complete and deep reproduction of the thoughts and partly the experiences of a literary character.

The dialectic of the soul- a detailed reproduction in a work of art of the process of origin and subsequent formation of thoughts, feelings, moods, sensations of a person, their interaction, the development of one from the other, showing the mental process itself, its patterns and forms.

Portrait- describing or creating an impression of the appearance of the character.

Episode- a small and relatively independent part of a literary and artistic work, fixing one complete moment of the action taking place between two or more characters in one place and for a limited time period.

Bibliography:

Main literature on the topic

1. Lebedev Yu. V. Russian language and literature. Literature. Grade 10. Textbook for educational organizations. A basic level of. At 2 h. Part 1. M .: Education, 2016. - 367 p.

Additional literature on the topic

1. Ermilov VV Tolstoy-artist and novel "War and Peace". M.: State. Publishing House of Artists. literature, 1961. - 357 p.
2. Krichevskaya L. I. Plot details. Portrait of a Hero: A Handbook for Language Teachers and Students of the Humanities. M.: Aspect Press, 1994. - 186 p.

Theoretical material for self-study:

Tolstoy's favorite heroes - Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov - go through a difficult path of spiritual quest. As advanced people of their time, they are weary of the empty secular life, they want to be useful in their work.

For the first time on the pages of the novel, Pierre appears as a twenty-year-old young man who has just arrived from abroad. He is awkward and absent-minded, "does not know how to enter the salon" and even less knows how to "get out of it." The hostess of the salon, Anna Pavlovna Sherer, is anxious about the "smart and at the same time timid, observant and natural look that distinguished him from everyone in ... the living room." Pierre says what he thinks, sharply defends his point of view about the genius of Napoleon.

The illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov makes many mistakes in his youth: he leads a reckless life of a secular reveler in the company of Dolokhov and Anatole Kuragin, and later, becoming the heir to a huge fortune, allows Vasily Kuragin to marry himself to Helen.

The betrayal of his wife becomes the reason for the duel between Bezukhov and Dolokhov. The case leaves Pierre, unable to shoot, unharmed, Dolokhov is wounded. Pierre is tormented by the realization that one mistake (marrying without love) entails another. The thought that he almost killed a man plunges Pierre into the deepest crisis.

"What's wrong? What well? What should you love, what should you hate? Why live, and what am I? - Pierre asks himself and cannot find an answer to these questions, “as if in his head that main screw was twisted, on which his whole life rested” (an internal monologue as one of the methods of psychological analysis of the image and a manifestation of Tolstoy’s “dialectics of the soul”). The hero finds salvation for himself in Freemasonry, which he perceived as a doctrine of equality, brotherhood and love. Freemasons preached love for one's neighbor, moral self-improvement and through it - the correction of the entire human society. It was this moral side that Pierre took in Freemasonry. This gave him the illusion of a way out of the impasse, opened the way for the activity for which he yearned.

Pierre decided to set free his peasants, and until then alleviate their situation and educate them. But the manager managed to deceive the naive Pierre, convincing him that all these plans had already been implemented, and the peasants were already happy, without being freed from serfdom. Inspired by Masonic ideas, Pierre, visiting his friend Bolkonsky, states: “And most importantly, this is what I know, and I know for sure, that the pleasure of doing good is the only true happiness in life.”

Soon the hero becomes disillusioned with the "brotherhood of freemasons". With the death of his spiritual mentor Bazdeev, Pierre plunges into a new crisis: he loses faith in the very possibility of socially useful activity and turns into "a retired good-natured chamberlain living his life in Moscow, of which there were hundreds."

This is facilitated by the engagement of Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova. Not realizing himself, Pierre was drawn to her, loving her spontaneity, sincerity, inner beauty.

After the gap between Rostova and Bolkonsky, Pierre, consoling Natasha, unexpectedly pronounces the words: “If I were not me, but the most beautiful, smartest and best person in
world and would be free, I would this minute on my knees ask for your hand and your love. The comet of 1812, which Pierre sees with his eyes wet with tears, “was fully consistent with what was in his blossomed to a new life, softened and encouraged soul.”

The war of 1812 aroused patriotic feelings in Pierre: he equipped a thousand militia with his own money, and he himself decided to stay in Moscow in order to kill Napoleon and "stop the misfortunes of all Europe."

Before the battle of Borodino and during it, Pierre, along with his people. At the Rayevsky battery, he understood "that hidden warmth of patriotism" that united all Russian people. He admires the courage of the soldiers, ashamed of his awkwardness, his fear. Dressed "not in a military way", in a green tailcoat and a white hat, he evokes the smiles of the soldiers, who "now mentally accepted Pierre into their family" and gave the nickname "our master."

“Oh, how terrible is fear, and how shamefully I gave myself up to it!” - Pierre thinks, recalling the terrible impressions "in which he lived that day." He wants to be like those fearless soldiers, “to enter this common life with his whole being, to feel what makes them so.”

Returning to Moscow, he does not kill Napoleon, as he planned, but saves a child from a fire, protects a woman from French marauders. He performs a feat without even realizing it, and then is captured, feeling like "an insignificant chip that fell into the wheels of an unknown car."

In captivity, Pierre experienced another shock - the execution of innocent people by the French. “From the moment Pierre saw this murder committed by people who did not want to do this, it was as if the spring in his soul broke suddenly, on which everything was held and seemed to be alive, and everything fell into a heap of senseless rubbish.”

A simple Russian soldier, Platon Karataev, had a healing effect on Pierre's wounded soul. In communion with him, Pierre "finds peace and contentment with himself, to which he vainly sought before." Karataev’s loving attitude towards the world, complete merging with life, feeling “like a particle of the whole” helps Pierre come to a deeper understanding of the meaning of life: “In captivity ... Pierre learned not with his mind, but with his whole being, with his life, that a person was created for happiness, that happiness is in himself.

The need for thought, analysis returned to Pierre again. He is busy with political struggle, criticizes the government and is obsessed with the idea of ​​organizing a secret society. At the end of the novel, the hero comes to a simple and profound thought: "If vicious people are interconnected and constitute a force, then honest people need only do the same."

Summary:

Pierre Bezukhov is one of the main characters in War and Peace. With his dissatisfaction with the surrounding reality, the search for the meaning of life, he resembles the “extra person” traditional for Russian literature. But Tolstoy goes beyond tradition: his heroes live in a great era, which "transforms disappointed heroes" (Yermilov V.V.). Just like Bolkonsky, Pierre goes a long way, doubting and making mistakes. Among his delusions are the deification of Napoleon, Freemasonry, an unhappy marriage without love. But, unlike Bolkonsky, the author leads this hero to unity with the people, awareness of himself as part of the world. The happiness that Tolstoy "rewards" his beloved hero in the epilogue did not calm the spirit of quest in him.

Examples and analysis of the solution of tasks of the training module:

1. Single / multiple choice.

What battle did Pierre personally visit and even volunteered to bring shells to the artillerymen.

• Austerlitz
• Borodino
• Shengrabenskoe

Correct answer:

1. Restoring the sequence of elements.

Arrange the numbers in the order corresponding to the sequence of stages in the life of Pierre Bezukhov:

1. Marriage to Helen and duel with Dolokhov.
2. Father's death.
3. Acquaintance with Platon Karataev.
4. Participation in the activities of secret societies of the Decembrists.
5. Battle of Borodino, Raevsky's battery.
6. Fascination with Freemasonry.
7. Argument with Andrei on the ferry to Bogucharovo.
8. Stay in Moscow captured by the French, captivity.
9. Meeting with Andrei on the night before the Battle of Borodino.
10. Marriage to Natasha.

Correct option:

2, 1, 6, 7, 9, 5, 8, 3, 10, 4.

“Before, he seemed, although a kind person, but unhappy; and therefore involuntarily people moved away from him. Now a smile of the joy of life constantly played around his mouth, and in his eyes shone participation in people ... And people were pleased in his presence. This is how Pierre changes after captivity. And the writer gives his hero the highest award - mutual love and family. In the epilogue, Pierre and Natasha have four children, love and mutual understanding reign in the family.