Russia

A Vast, Contradictory Empire

In 1805, Russia was the largest country on earth. It stretched from the Baltic to the Pacific, from the Arctic to the Caspian. It had perhaps 40 million subjects — more than any European state. It was governed by an autocratic tsar, administered by a corrupt bureaucracy, defended by a massive but primitive army, and powered by the labor of millions of serfs. It was, by any measure, a great power. It was also, by many measures, a medieval society pretending to be modern.

This is the Russia of War and Peace: a country where princes dance at balls in St. Petersburg while peasants starve in the fields; where a brilliant young aristocrat can discuss Rousseau in French and own human beings in Russian; where the army is commanded by men who speak German to each other; where the tsar is worshipped as a god and despised as a fool, sometimes by the same person on the same day.

Serfdom

The foundation of Russian society was serfdom — a system of bondage that bound peasants to the land and to their lords. Serfs were not quite slaves (they could not be sold separately from the land, in theory), but in practice, they were treated as property. A wealthy aristocrat like Count Bezukhov could own 30,000 serfs — entire villages of human beings who worked his fields, paid him rent, and could be conscripted into the army at his whim.

Serfdom was not abolished in Russia until 1861 — four years before Tolstoy began writing War and Peace. The novel is set in a world that had only recently disappeared. Tolstoy, who had been a serf owner himself, felt the moral weight of the institution acutely. Pierre Bezukhov's attempts to improve his estates and free his serfs reflect Tolstoy's own experiments (often unsuccessful) at Yasnaya Polyana.

The irony is that the Russia of 1812 — the Russia that defeated Napoleon — was a Russia built on the backs of millions of unfree people. The soldiers who fought at Borodino were mostly conscripted serfs, taken from their villages for 25-year enlistments. The heroes of the novel are their masters.

The Aristocracy

The Russian aristocracy of the early nineteenth century was a strange hybrid: culturally French, politically Russian, and religiously Orthodox. They spoke French at home (Russian was for servants and peasants), read Voltaire and Rousseau, wore Paris fashions, and considered themselves citizens of European civilization. Tolstoy captures this brilliantly: in War and Peace, the aristocrats speak French in the drawing room and Russian on the battlefield. When Napoleon invades, the French language itself becomes a source of shame and confusion.

The aristocracy was obsessed with rank, favor, and court appointment. The opening scene of the novel — a soirée at Anna Pavlovna Scherer's salon in St. Petersburg — is a masterpiece of social observation: everyone is positioning, everyone is scheming, everyone is watching everyone else for signs of favor or disgrace. This is the world Pierre inherits, Andrei despises, and Natasha illuminates with her unselfconscious vitality.

Two Capitals

Tsar Alexander I

Alexander I (reigned 1801–1825) was one of the most enigmatic figures of his age. He came to power by a coup that resulted in the murder of his father, Tsar Paul — a fact that haunted him for the rest of his life. He was handsome, charming, idealistic, and deeply religious. He talked constantly about reform, liberty, and enlightenment. He did very little about any of them.

In 1812, Alexander became a symbol of Russian defiance — he refused to negotiate with Napoleon, even after Moscow was lost. But after the war, he drifted into mysticism and reaction. The reformer who had once talked of a constitution became the man who suppressed the Decembrist movement (though he died before it erupted in 1825). He is the kind of ruler Tolstoy describes with exquisite courtesy and devastating precision: a man who believes he is in charge, and isn't.