One of the main characters of the epic “Warrior and Peace” is Pierre Bezukhov. The characteristics of the character in the work are revealed through his actions. And also through the thoughts and spiritual quests of the main characters. The image of Pierre Bezukhov allowed Tolstoy to convey to the reader an understanding of the meaning of the era of that time, of a person’s entire life.

Introducing the reader to Pierre

The image of Pierre Bezukhov is very difficult to briefly describe and understand. The reader needs to go through his entire journey with the hero.

Acquaintance with Pierre is dated in the novel to 1805. He appears at a social reception hosted by Anna Pavlovna Scherer, a high-ranking Moscow lady. By that time, the young man did not represent anything interesting to the secular public. He was the illegitimate son of one of the Moscow nobles. He received a good education abroad, but upon returning to Russia, he did not find any use for himself. An idle lifestyle, carousing, idleness, dubious companies led to the fact that Pierre was expelled from the capital. With this life baggage he appears in Moscow. In turn, high society not attractive either young man. He does not share the pettiness of interests, selfishness, and hypocrisy of its representatives. “Life is something deeper, more significant, but unknown to him,” reflects Pierre Bezukhov. “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy helps the reader understand this.

Moscow life

The change of residence did not affect the image of Pierre Bezukhov. By nature he is a very gentle person, easily falls under the influence of others, doubts about the correctness of his actions constantly haunt him. Unbeknownst to himself, he finds himself in captivity of the idle with her temptations, feasts and revelry.

After the death of Count Bezukhov, Pierre becomes the heir to the title and his father's entire fortune. Society's attitude towards young people is changing dramatically. A famous Moscow nobleman, in pursuit of the young count's fortune, marries his beautiful daughter Helen to him. This marriage did not foretell a happy family life. Very soon Pierre understands his wife’s deceit and deceit; her debauchery becomes obvious to him. Thoughts about his violated honor haunt him. In a state of rage, he commits an act that could prove fatal. Fortunately, the duel with Dolokhov ended with the offender wounded, and Pierre’s life was out of danger.

The path of quest of Pierre Bezukhov

After the tragic events, the young count thinks more and more about how he spends the days of his life. Everything around is confusing, disgusting and meaningless. He understands that all secular rules and norms of behavior are insignificant compared to something great, mysterious, unknown to him. But Pierre does not have sufficient fortitude and knowledge to discover this great thing, to find his true purpose. human life. The thoughts did not leave the young man, making his life unbearable. Brief description Pierre Bezukhov gives the right to say that he was a deep, thinking person.

Passion for Freemasonry

Having parted with Helen and given her a large share of his fortune, Pierre decides to return to the capital. On the way from Moscow to St. Petersburg, during a short stop, he meets a man who talks about the existence of the Masonic brotherhood. Only they know the true path, they are subject to the laws of existence. For Pierre's tormented soul and consciousness, this meeting, as he believed, was salvation.

Arriving in the capital, he, without hesitation, accepts the ritual and becomes a member of the Masonic lodge. The rules of another world, its symbolism, and views on life captivate Pierre. He unconditionally believes everything he hears at meetings, although much of his new life seems gloomy and incomprehensible to him. The journey of Pierre Bezukhov's quest continues. The soul still rushes about and finds no peace.

How to make life easier for people

New experiences and searches for the meaning of life lead Pierre Bezukhov to the understanding that the life of an individual cannot be happy when there are many disadvantaged people around, deprived of any rights.

He decides to take action aimed at improving the lives of the peasants on his estates. Many people don't understand Pierre. Even among the peasants, for whose sake all this was started, there is misunderstanding and rejection of the new way of life. This discourages Bezukhov, he is depressed and disappointed.

The disappointment was final when Pierre Bezukhov (whose description describes him as a soft, trusting person) realized that he had been cruelly deceived by the manager, his funds and efforts had been wasted.

Napoleon

The alarming events taking place in France at that time occupied the minds of the entire high society. excited the consciousness of young and old. For many young people, the image of the great emperor became an ideal. Pierre Bezukhov admired his successes and victories, he idolized the personality of Napoleon. I didn’t understand the people who decided to resist the talented commander and the great revolution. There was a moment in Pierre's life when he was ready to swear allegiance to Napoleon and defend the gains of the revolution. But this was not destined to happen. Feats and achievements for the glory of the French Revolution remained only dreams.

And the events of 1812 will destroy all ideals. The adoration of Napoleon's personality will be replaced in Pierre's soul by contempt and hatred. An irresistible desire will appear to kill the tyrant, taking revenge for all the troubles that he brought to the world. native land. Pierre was simply obsessed with the idea of ​​reprisal against Napoleon; he believed that this was destiny, the mission of his life.

Battle of Borodino

The Patriotic War of 1812 broke the established foundation, becoming a real test for the country and its citizens. This tragic event directly affected Pierre. The aimless life of wealth and comfort was abandoned by the count without hesitation for the sake of serving the fatherland.

It was during the war that Pierre Bezukhov, whose characterization had not yet been flattering, began to look at life differently, to understand what was unknown. Getting closer to soldiers, representatives of the common people, helps to re-evaluate life.

The great Battle of Borodino played a special role in this. Pierre Bezukhov, being in the same ranks with the soldiers, saw their true patriotism without falsehood and pretense, their readiness to give their lives for the sake of their homeland without hesitation.

Destruction, blood, and related experiences give rise to the spiritual rebirth of the hero. Suddenly, unexpectedly for himself, Pierre begins to find answers to the questions that have tormented him for so many years. Everything becomes extremely clear and simple. He begins to live not formally, but with all his heart, experiencing a feeling unfamiliar to him, an explanation for which at this moment he cannot yet give.

Captivity

Further events unfold in such a way that the trials that befell Pierre should harden and finally shape his views.

Finding himself in captivity, he undergoes an interrogation procedure, after which he remains alive, but before his eyes, several Russian soldiers, who were captured by the French with him, are executed. The spectacle of the execution does not leave Pierre's imagination, bringing him to the brink of madness.

And only a meeting and conversations with Platon Karataev again awaken a harmonious beginning in his soul. Being in a cramped barracks, experiencing physical pain and suffering, the hero begins to feel truly Life path Pierre Bezukhov helps you understand that being on earth is a great happiness.

However, the hero will have to reconsider his own life more than once and look for his place in it.

Fate decrees that Platon Karataev, who gave Pierre an understanding of life, was killed by the French because he fell ill and could not move. Karataev's death brings new suffering to the hero. Pierre himself was released from captivity by the partisans.

Relatives

Freed from captivity, Pierre receives news one after another from his relatives, about whom for a long time he didn't know anything. He becomes aware of the death of his wife Helen. Best friend, Andrei Bolkonsky, is seriously wounded.

The death of Karataev and disturbing news from relatives again excite the hero’s soul. He begins to think that all the misfortunes that happened were his fault. He is the cause of the death of people close to him.

And suddenly Pierre catches himself thinking that in difficult moments emotional experiences, the image of Natasha Rostova suddenly appears. She instills calm in him, gives him strength and confidence.

Natasha Rostova

During subsequent meetings with her, he realizes that he has developed a feeling for this sincere, intelligent, spiritually rich woman. Natasha has a reciprocal feeling for Pierre. In 1813 they got married.

Rostova is capable of sincere love, she is ready to live in the interests of her husband, to understand, to feel him - this is the main dignity of a woman. Tolstoy showed the family as a way to preserve a person. The family is a small model of the world. The health of this cell determines the state of the entire society.

Life goes on

The hero gained an understanding of life, happiness, and harmony within himself. But the path to this was very difficult. The work of internal development of the soul accompanied the hero all his life, and it gave its results.

But life does not stop, and Pierre Bezukhov, whose characterization as a seeker is given here, is again ready to move forward. In 1820, he informed his wife that he intended to become a member of a secret society.

Essays on literature: Search for the meaning of life by Pierre Bezukhov

Creating the image of Pierre Bezukhov, L.N. Tolstoy started from specific life observations. People like Pierre were often encountered in Russian life at that time. These are Alexander Muravyov and Wilhelm Kuchelbecker, to whom Pierre is close in his eccentricity and absent-mindedness and directness. Contemporaries believed that Tolstoy endowed Pierre with traits of his own personality.

One of the features of the portrayal of Pierre in the novel is the contrast between him and the surrounding noble environment. It is no coincidence that he is the illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov; It is no coincidence that his bulky, clumsy figure stands out sharply against the general background. When Pierre finds himself in Anna Pavlovna Scherer's salon, he worries her because his manners do not correspond to the etiquette of the living room. He is significantly different from all visitors to the salon with his smart, natural look. The author contrasts Pierre's judgments with Hippolyte's vulgar chatter. By contrasting his hero with his environment, Tolstoy reveals his high spiritual qualities: sincerity, spontaneity, high conviction and noticeable gentleness. Anna Pavlovna ends with Pierre, to the displeasure of those gathered, defending ideas french revolution, admires Napoleon as the head of revolutionary France, defends the ideas of the republic and freedom, showing the independence of his views.

Leo Tolstoy draws the appearance of his hero: he is “a massive, fat young man, with a cropped head, glasses, light trousers, a high frill and a brown tailcoat.” The writer pays special attention to Pierre's smile, which makes his face childish, kind, stupid and as if asking for forgiveness. She seems to say: “Opinions are opinions, but you see what a kind and nice fellow I am.”

Pierre is sharply contrasted with those around him in the episode of the death of old man Bezukhov. Here he is very different from the careerist Boris Drubetsky, who, at his mother’s instigation, is playing a game, trying to get his share of the inheritance. Pierre feels awkward and ashamed for Boris.

And now he is the heir to his immensely rich father. Having received the title of count, Pierre immediately finds himself in the spotlight secular society, where he was pleased, caressed and, as it seemed to him, loved. And he plunges into the flow of new life, submitting to the atmosphere of great light. So he finds himself in the company of the “golden youth” - Anatoly Kuragin and Dolokhov. Under the influence of Anatole, he spends his days in revelry, unable to escape from this cycle. Pierre is wasting his vitality, showing his characteristic lack of will. Prince Andrei tries to convince him that this dissolute life really does not suit him. But it’s not so easy to pull him out of this “pool.” However, I note that Pierre is immersed in it more with his body than his soul.

Pierre's marriage to Helen Kuragina dates back to this time. He perfectly understands her insignificance and outright stupidity. “There is something disgusting in that feeling,” he thought, “that she aroused in me, something forbidden.” However, Pierre's feelings are influenced by her beauty and unconditional feminine charm, although real, deep love Tolstoy's hero does not experience. Time will pass, and the “enchanted” Pierre will hate Helene and feel her depravity with all his soul.

In this regard, an important moment was the duel with Dolokhov, which took place after Pierre received an anonymous letter at a dinner in honor of Bagration that his wife was cheating on him with his former friend. Pierre does not want to believe this due to the purity and nobility of his nature, but at the same time he believes the letter, because he knows Helen and her lover well. Dolokhov's brazen behavior at the table throws Pierre off balance and leads to a fight. It is quite obvious to him that now he hates Helen and is ready to break with her forever, and at the same time break with the world in which she lived.

The attitude of Dolokhov and Pierre to the duel is different. The first goes into a fight with the firm intention of killing, and the second suffers from having to shoot a person. In addition, Pierre has never held a pistol in his hands and, in order to quickly end this vile business, he somehow pulls the trigger, and when he wounds his enemy, barely holding back his sobs, he rushes to him. “Stupid!.. Death... Lies...” he repeated, walking through the snow into the forest. So a separate episode, a quarrel with Dolokhov, becomes a milestone for Pierre, opening up to him a world of lies in which he was destined to find himself for some time.

Begins new stage Pierre's spiritual quest when, in a state of deep moral crisis, he meets the freemason Bazdeev on his way from Moscow. Striving for a high meaning in life, believing in the possibility of achieving brotherly love, Pierre enters the religious and philosophical society of Freemasons. He is looking here for spiritual and moral renewal, hopes for rebirth to a new life, and longs for personal improvement. He also wants to correct the imperfections of life, and this task does not seem difficult to him at all. “How easy, how little effort is needed to do so much good,” thought Pierre, “and how little we care about it!”

And so, under the influence of Masonic ideas, Pierre decides to free the peasants who belong to him from serfdom. He follows the same path that Onegin walked, although he also takes new steps in this direction. But unlike Pushkin's hero he has huge estates in the Kyiv province, which is why he has to act through the chief manager.

Possessing childlike purity and gullibility, Pierre does not expect that he will have to face the meanness, deceit and devilish resourcefulness of businessmen. He accepts the construction of schools, hospitals, orphanages as a radical improvement in the lives of peasants, while all this was ostentatious and burdensome for them. Pierre's undertakings not only did not alleviate the plight of the peasants, but also worsened their situation, because this involved the predation of the rich from the trading village and the robbery of the peasants, hidden from Pierre.

Neither the transformations in the village nor Freemasonry lived up to the hopes that Pierre had placed on them. He is disappointed in the goals of the Masonic organization, which now seems to him deceitful, vicious and hypocritical, where everyone is concerned primarily with their career. In addition, the ritual procedures characteristic of Freemasons now seem to him an absurd and funny performance. “Where am I?” he thinks, “what am I doing? Are they laughing at me? Will I be ashamed to remember this?” Feeling the futility of Masonic ideas, which did not change him at all own life, Pierre “suddenly felt the impossibility of continuing his old life.”

Tolstoy's hero goes through a new moral test. It became a real, great love for Natasha Rostova. At first Pierre did not think about his new feeling, but it grew and became more and more powerful; A special sensitivity arose, intense attention to everything that concerned Natasha. And he leaves for a while from public interests into the world of personal, intimate experiences that Natasha opened for him.

Pierre becomes convinced that Natasha loves Andrei Bolkonsky. She perks up only because Prince Andrei enters and hears his voice. “Something very important is happening between them,” Pierre thinks. The difficult feeling does not leave him. He carefully and tenderly loves Natasha, but at the same time he is faithful and devotedly friends with Andrei. Pierre sincerely wishes them happiness, and at the same time, their love becomes a great grief for him.

The exacerbation of mental loneliness chains Pierre to the most important issues of our time. He sees before him a “tangled, terrible knot of life.” On the one hand, he reflects, people erected forty forty churches in Moscow, professing the Christian law of love and forgiveness, and on the other hand, yesterday they whipped a soldier and the priest allowed him to kiss the cross before execution. This is how the crisis in Pierre’s soul grows.

Natasha, having refused Prince Andrei, showed friendly, spiritual sympathy for Pierre. And enormous, selfless happiness overwhelmed him. Natasha, overwhelmed with grief and repentance, evokes such a flash of ardent love in Pierre’s soul that he, unexpectedly for himself, makes a peculiar confession to her: “If only I were not me, but the most beautiful, smartest and best man in the world... I would this minute on my knees ask for your hand and love." In this new enthusiastic state, Pierre forgets about social and other issues that worried him so much. Personal happiness and boundless feeling overwhelms him, gradually allowing him to feel some the incompleteness of life, deeply and widely understood by him.

The events of the War of 1812 produce a sharp change in Pierre's worldview. They gave him the opportunity to get out of a state of selfish isolation. He begins to be overcome by an anxiety that is incomprehensible to him, and, although he does not know how to understand the events taking place, he inevitably joins the flow of reality and thinks about his participation in the destinies of the Fatherland. And these are not just thoughts. He prepares a militia, and then goes to Mozhaisk, to the field of the Borodino battle, where a new world of ordinary people, unfamiliar to him, opens up before him.

At the beginning of the novel, the reader sees Pierre Bezukhov as a slightly absent-minded, but curious and thirsty young man. He eagerly absorbs conversations about Napoleon and strives to express his point of view. Twenty-year-old Pierre is full of life, he is interested in everything, so the owner of the salon, Anna Pavlovna Scherer, is afraid of him, and her fear refers to “the intelligent and at the same time timid, observant and natural look that distinguished him from everyone in this living room.” First time in high society, Pierre is looking for interesting conversations, without thinking about the fact that naturalness and own opinion“It’s not customary” to show among these people.

Pierre's spontaneity, honesty and kindness endear him from the very first pages of the novel. In fact, the search for the meaning of life by Pierre Bezukhov in Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” is an illustration of the transformations taking place at that time in the minds of the progressive people of Russia, which resulted in the December events of 1825.

Search for the meaning of life by Pierre Bezukhov

Moral quest for a spiritual person is a search for guidelines for understanding how to live according to his own principles. A person’s awareness of what is true and what is not varies depending on many factors: age, environment, life circumstances. What seems to be the only correct thing in certain situations turns out to be completely unacceptable in others.

So, young Pierre, being next to Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, admits that carousing and hussarism are really not what Pierre needs. But, as soon as he leaves the prince, the charm of the night and the enthusiastic mood take their toll over the admonitions of his senior comrade. Tolstoy very accurately and vividly conveyed those internal conversations that occur with young people when they follow the principle: “When you can’t, but really want to, then you can.”

“It would be nice to go to Kuragin,” he thought. But he immediately remembered his word of honor given to Prince Andrei not to visit Kuragin.

But immediately, as happens with people called spineless, he so passionately wanted to once again experience this dissolute life so familiar to him that he decided to go. And immediately the thought occurred to him that given word does not mean anything, because even before Prince Andrey, he also gave Prince Anatoly his word to be with him; finally, he thought that all these honest words were such conditional things that had no certain meaning, especially if you realize that maybe tomorrow he will either die, or something so extraordinary will happen to him that there will no longer be anything honest or dishonest. This kind of reasoning, destroying all his decisions and assumptions, often came to Pierre. He went to Kuragin.”

The older Pierre gets, the more clearly his true attitude towards life and people appears.

He doesn’t even think about what’s happening in his environment; it doesn’t even occur to him to take part in heated “battles” for inheritance. Pierre Bezukhov is busy with the main question for himself: “How to live?”

Having received an inheritance and a title, he becomes an eligible bachelor. But, as Princess Marya presciently wrote about Pierre in a letter to her friend Julie: “I cannot share your opinion about Pierre, whom I knew as a child. It seemed to me that he always had a wonderful heart, and this is the quality that I value most in people. As for his inheritance and the role that Prince Vasily played in this, this is very sad for both. Ah, dear friend, the words of our divine savior that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God - these words are terribly true! I feel sorry for Prince Vasily and even more for Pierre. So young to be burdened with such a huge fortune - how many temptations will he have to go through!

Pierre, now Count Bezukhov, really could not resist the temptation and chose as his wife, although beautiful, the stupid and vile Helen Kuragina, who cheated on him with Dolokhov. Becoming rich and marrying the most beautiful woman, Pierre does not become happier at all than he was before.

Having challenged Dolokhov to a duel and wounded him, Pierre does not feel triumph over the winner, he is ashamed of what happened, he is looking for his own guilt in all his troubles and mistakes. “But what am I to blame for? - he asked. “The fact is that you married without loving her, that you deceived both yourself and her.”

A thinking person, making mistakes and realizing his mistakes, educates himself. This is how Pierre is - he constantly asks himself questions, creating and shaping his worldview. In search of answers to his main questions, he goes to St. Petersburg.

“What’s wrong? What's good? What should you love, what should you hate? Why live, and what am I? What is life, what is death? What force controls everything? - he asked himself. And there was no answer to any of these questions, except one, not a logical answer, not to these questions at all. This answer was: “If you die, everything will end. You’ll die and you’ll find out everything, or you’ll stop asking.” But it was also scary to die.”

The meeting with the freemason Bazdeev was another and very important stage in Pierre’s life. He absorbs ideas of internal purification, calls for spiritual work on himself, and, as if born again, finds for himself a new meaning of life, a new truth.

“Not a trace of the former doubts remained in his soul. He firmly believed in the possibility of a brotherhood of men united for the purpose of supporting each other in the path of virtue, and this was how Freemasonry seemed to him.”

Inspired, Pierre wants to set his peasants free and tries to introduce reforms on his estates: to make the work of women and children easier, to eliminate corporal punishment, to establish hospitals and schools. And it seems to him that he has succeeded in all this. After all, women and children thank him, whom he freed from hard work, and well-dressed peasants come to him with a deputation of thanks.

Just after this trip, happy that he is doing good to people, Pierre comes to Prince Bolkonsky.

Pierre Bezukhov and Andrei Bolkonsky

The meeting with the “frowning and aged” Prince Andrei, although it surprised Pierre, did not cool his ardor. “He was ashamed to express all his new, Masonic thoughts, especially those renewed and excited in him by his last journey. He restrained himself, was afraid to be naive; at the same time, he irresistibly wanted to quickly show his friend that he was now a completely different, better Pierre than the one who was in St. Petersburg.”

Tolstoy's novel begins with the search for the meaning of life by Pierre Bezukhov and Andrei Bolkonsky, and this search occurs throughout the entire narrative. These two people seem to complement each other - the enthusiastic and enthusiastic Pierre and the serious and practical Prince Andrei. Each of them goes their own way, full of ups and downs, joys and disappointments, but they are united by the fact that they both want to benefit people, strive to find truth and justice in life.

Andrei Bolkonsky, despite the fact that he was outwardly very distrustful of Pierre’s entry into the Freemasons, will eventually become a member of the Masonic lodge himself. And those changes in the situation of the peasants that Pierre failed to make, Prince Andrei will quite successfully introduce in his farm.

Pierre, after a conversation with Bolkonsky, will begin to doubt and gradually move away from Freemasonry. Over time, he will again experience desperate melancholy, and again he will be tormented by the question: “How to live?”

But in his impracticality and eternal search for the meaning of life, Pierre turns out to be kinder and wiser than Prince Andrei.

Seeing how Natasha suffers and suffers, having made a terrible mistake by contacting Anatoly Kuragin, Pierre tries to convey to Bolkonsky her love, her repentance. But Prince Andrei is adamant: “I said that a fallen woman must be forgiven, but I did not say that I can forgive. I can’t... If you want to be my friend, don’t ever talk to me about this... about all this.” He doesn’t want to understand an important truth: if you love, you can’t think only about yourself. Love sometimes manifests itself in the need to understand and forgive a loved one.

Having met Platon Karataev in captivity, Pierre learns from him naturalness, truthfulness, and the ability to easily relate to life’s troubles. And this is another stage in spiritual development Pierre Bezukhov. Thanks to the simple truths that Karataev talked about, Pierre realized that it is important to value the life of every person and respect him inner world just like yours.

Conclusion

The novel “War and Peace” is a description of almost a decade in the lives of many people. During this time it happened huge amount various events both in the history of Russia and in the destinies of the characters in the novel. But, despite this, the main truths that are spoken about in the work remained with the main characters of the novel: love, honor, dignity, friendship.

I want to end my essay on the topic “Pierre Bezukhov’s search for the meaning of life” with the words he said to Natasha: “They say: misfortune, suffering... Yes, if now, this very minute they told me: do you want to remain what you were before captivity, or first go through everything This? For God's sake, once again captivity and horse meat. We think how we will be thrown out of our usual path, that everything is lost; and here something new and good is just beginning. As long as there is life, there is happiness."

Work test

Search for the meaning of life by Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov

Life is boring without a moral purpose...

F. Dostoevsky

Tolstoy was deeply convinced that a person is capable of changing throughout his life. The last thing the writer wanted was to protect his heroes from difficulties and delusions. Using the example of Andrei Bolonsky and Pierre Bezukhov, the author shows the evolution spiritual world human, search for new, truly human relations. Tolstoy does not depict all the stages of development of these heroes. We get to know them when they are already, to a certain extent, established individuals who feel an internal discord with their social environment. The emerging dissatisfaction with oneself and the surrounding reality is the starting point of the complex social and philosophical quests of the heroes.

The real essence of the quest of Bolkonsky and Bezukhov is to test the values ​​of the people of their century and of humanity as a whole. Tolstoy leads his heroes through a series of passions for what seems to them the most interesting and significant in the life of society. These hobbies often bring bitter disappointments, and what is significant turns out to be insignificant. Only as a result of collisions with the world, as a result of liberation from illusions, do Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov gradually discover in life what, from their point of view, is undoubted and genuine.

A man of great intellectual demands and a subtle analytical mind, Andrei Bolkonsky feels the vulgarity and illusory nature of the lives of the people in his circle. Rejection of the petty existence of light gives rise to a thirst for real activity in Bolkonsky. He believes that participating in military campaigns will help him. Andrey dreams of personal feat, which would glorify him. He is attracted by that striking example of the extraordinary rise from complete obscurity to widespread fame, with which Napoleon's brilliant career began. Bolkonsky dreams of his “Toulon”, which is why he goes to the war of 1805–1807.

During the Battle of Shengraben, Prince Andrei not only observes the course of events, he actively participates in them, showing remarkable courage. But everything that he had to do during this time was not, in his opinion, “Toulon”. And this thought relentlessly haunts Bolkonsky. The attitude of senior commanders towards Tushin’s feat also causes him a feeling of bitterness and doubt. The heroic actions of Tushin's battery, which had a great influence on the entire course of the battle, were simply not noticed, and he himself was subjected to unfair attacks. Prince Andrey is sad and hard about this. Everything was so strange, so unlike what he had hoped for.

The day before Battle of Austerlitz Bolkonsky again dreams of fame: “What should I do if I love nothing but glory, human love.” Glory and triumph over people are inseparable for Bolkonsky at this moment. The features of Napoleonic individualism clearly appear in the aspirations of Prince Andrey. But, having accomplished the feat, he experiences the tragedy of Austerlitz. He becomes convinced of the pettiness of his ambitious goals. The entire course of the battle destroyed Bolkonsky’s previous ideas about heroes and exploits. Seriously wounded, remaining on the battlefield, he experiences a mental crisis. “How come I haven’t seen this high sky before? - he thinks. - And how happy I am that I finally recognized him. Yes! everything is empty, everything is deception, except this endless sky.” Andrei’s faith in the power and greatness of his idol dissipated: “... his hero himself seemed so petty to him, with this petty vanity and joy of victory...” Refusal of ambitious aspirations, of the desire to put oneself above people is an important stage in spiritual evolution Prince Andrey.

Under the influence of everything he experienced in the war, Prince Andrei falls into a gloomy, depressed state and experiences a severe mental crisis. In a conversation with Pierre in Bogucharovo, he develops to his friend a theory of life that is completely unusual for him. “Living for yourself... - that’s all my wisdom now,” he says to Pierre. Friends argue about good and evil, about the meaning of life. Pierre doesn't believe Andrey. He is sure that his friend has a different purpose, that he can be useful to people.

A significant moment in the awakening of Prince Andrey was his trip to Otradnoye and his first meeting with Natasha Rostova. “No, life is not over at 31,” Prince Andrei decides. The reason for this renewed interest in the world around us is the awareness of the inextricable connection between a separate person and all other people, Bolkonsky’s desire for his life to be reflected in the lives of other people was necessary for everyone. It was then that his thirst for active activity arises, which he now understands differently than at the time of dreams of his “Toulon”. Now Bolkonsky feels the need for a business that can be useful. Therefore, he is attracted to the sphere of state interests. Prince Andrei goes to St. Petersburg and joins the Speransky commission. This prominent statesman initially makes a great impression on him, but then the prince sensed the falseness in him. And Bolkonsky’s illusion about the possibility of his fruitful activity among bureaucrats dissipated. He experiences disappointment again.

The danger looming over the country transformed Prince Andrei and filled his life with new meaning. The further path of this main character is the path of his gradual rapprochement with the people. During the Patriotic War, Prince Andrei takes command of a regiment. “In the regiment they called him our prince, they were proud of him and loved him.” Thus, in Bolkonsky’s spiritual renewal main role played by ordinary Russian soldiers.

A serious injury received on the Borodino field interrupts the activities of Prince Andrei. He sums up his life's journey. He passionately wants to live. Andrei Bolkonsky comes to the idea of ​​a huge, forgiving love towards people, which he would have experienced if he had remained alive. Before his death, he forgives Natasha and says that he loves her.

The spiritual appearance of Prince Andrei and all his activities give the right to assume that if he had remained alive, his quest would have led him to the camp of the Decembrists.

Great human aspirations and the search for moral ideals are deeply revealed in life story Pierre Bezukhov. He differs from people of the aristocratic circle in the independence of his views. After a meeting with Anna Pavlovna Scherer, Pierre asks Andrei Bolkonsky for advice on how to live and what to do, and he replies: “Choose whatever you want. You will be good everywhere, but one thing: stop going to these Kuragins and leading this life.” But it is with the Kuragins that circumstances connect Pierre; he falls under their influence for a long time. And if Andrei Bolkonsky’s delusions were associated with a thirst for fame and power over people, then the source of Pierre’s internal torment is his passion for pleasure, the power of sensual impulses over him.

The search for the high purpose of man, the meaning of life, with which Pierre is constantly busy, despite his secular “concerns,” brings him closer to the Freemasons, in whom he saw the owners of true wisdom. By joining the Masonic lodge, Pierre is looking for spiritual and moral renewal, hoping that it is here that he will “find rebirth to a new life.” Bezukhov does not separate the desire for personal improvement from the correction of the human race. So, for example, under the influence of Masonic ideas, Pierre decides to free the peasants who belong to him from serfdom. Distinguished by gullibility, Pierre does not see all the complexity of life's relationships. Intending to do a good deed, he easily allows himself to be deceived. Pierre perceives fictitious reports from estate managers about the prosperity of villages as evidence of a radical improvement in the lives of peasants.

However, behind the solemn statements about the equality and brotherhood of people, Pierre discerned the rather prosaic aspirations of prominent representatives of the Masonic lodge for enrichment. He sensed the impossibility of the Freemasons to have a significant impact on society. Pierre's disappointment in Freemasonry, in mystical philosophy and philanthropic activities prompts him to understand that he is in a vicious circle of life connections and social relations that cause his internal resistance.

If before Bezukhov felt the flaws of the world around him, then after his disappointment in Freemasonry he clearly sees how great the power of evil, so widespread in life, is. This makes him, like Bolkonsky, want to move away from public problems into the area of ​​personal interests, those feelings that Natasha Rostova awakened in him.

A sharp change in Pierre's views, like many other characters in the novel, occurs during Patriotic War 1812, the events of which allow Bezukhov to emerge from his spiritual crisis. The further path of Pierre, like Andrei, is the path of rapprochement with the people. Patriotic feelings lead him to the Borodino field, where the soldiers call him “our master.” The real rapprochement with the common people begins in captivity, when he meets Platon Karataev. Previously, Pierre, deep in his inner world, had little interest in the reality around him. Now he takes a closer look at people and begins to critically analyze the life around him.

In the epilogue, Tolstoy shows Pierre as one of the secret figures political society, Pierre sharply criticizes the authorities: “Theft is in the courts, the army has fallen; shagistika, settlements torment the people; they are ruining enlightenment.” The purpose of life for Pierre is now clear: to fight against social evil.

The main thing that unites Tolstoy's favorite heroes is their unwillingness to put up with the injustices of life. They are thinking and searching people. Both of them were mistaken more than once and experienced many disappointments in life, but these heroes are interesting for the author and for readers because they strive to search for true life values.

The grandiose epic novel by Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy “War and Peace” contains an incredible variety of characters, storylines, life's vicissitudes, which are connected by one thread, initiated by one similar impulse - the search for the meaning of life. And one of the highways of the novel is the path of the main character, Pierre Bezukhov, to finding and comprehending the essence of his earthly existence.

Pyotr Kirillovich is thrown into the thick of events and thoughts at the moment of his arrival in St. Petersburg, when he meets the high society and learns about the huge inheritance transferred to him. The reader sees him as a young man of not brilliant appearance, but possessing amazing simplicity of character, straightforwardness, intelligence and naturalness in behavior. However, he is also very timid and absent-minded, which is emphasized by his childishly naive and sometimes even slightly stupid, “apologetic” smile. Pierre is here for us - a man who has not yet been tested by fate, he stands on this gloomy threshold of life's obstacles.

The collapse of the hero’s life ideas occurs under the most unpleasant circumstances: high society and anonymous “well-wishers” hint to him about the connection between his wife Helen Kuragina and Fyodor Dolokhov, Pierre’s carousing friend. The hero begins to feel his wife’s dislike in his gut, the possibility of her vile betrayal and betrayal, but, like a pure person, he tries to drive this feeling out of himself. However, doubts take over, and after a duel with Dolokhov, Pyotr Kirillovich ruins his relationship with his wife.

In search of new principles of life that could return the hero’s picture of the world to a stable and harmonious position, Pierre joins secret society Masons. Their teaching becomes for some period of time the answer to questions that interest him, and he even becomes the head of the Freemasons in St. Petersburg. But satisfaction with the values ​​of Freemasonry was short-lived - Pierre Bezukhov became disillusioned with them and set off further along the river of life in search of its (life’s) meaning.

A sharp turn on the stormy river of quest is the presence of Pierre on the field of the Battle of Borodino. He, one might say, descends into heaven to earth, and not just descends, but plunges into this earthen dust and dirt, mixed with the blood of war. Seeing all this horror, Peter decides to set as his highest goal, the meaning of life, a completely noble intention - to wipe off the face of the earth the murderer Napoleon, whom he himself once considered “ greatest man in the world."

However, this plan failed. After the occupation of Moscow, Pierre Bezukhov is captured, where he meets Platon Karataev. A simple soldier, a popular voice, was able to plant in Pierre’s soul those shoots from which a true understanding of the meaning of life emerged. Chasing for many years to achieve some more or less individualistic goals, Pierre forgot about the powerful power of the community, the people, the great Russian people, who seemed to know from birth the true meaning of human existence. The people's worldview, supported by patient, useful work and care for one's neighbor, the primacy of family as the highest value - this is the meaning of life, which Pierre Bezukhov was able to understand through all the obstacles.

The novel “War and Peace,” being a reflection and description of the author’s spiritual quest, each of its lines and images represents different life paths. But they all lead to a certain understanding of life, true or not. And Pierre Bezukhov for the reader is an excellent example of how, without giving up, it is fashionable to turn into in the right direction and make your path correct and happy.