60 Fun Facts About War and Peace

Hoping to wed one of her two lovers, what does Pierre's wife do to try to escape her marriage?

Converts to Catholicism, hoping her new Church can annul her marriage to Pierre.

Why do Pierre's schemes to free and help his serfs mostly come to nothing?

His stewards quietly thwart them, staging grateful welcomes on his tour so Pierre believes his reforms are working while the peasants' burdens stay the same.

When Tsar Alexander addresses Moscow's nobles in 1812, what do they pledge to the war effort?

Recruits for the militia, and Pierre, ashamed of his outspoken speech, makes amends by pledging a thousand men and their upkeep.

At old Count Bezukhov's deathbed, what do Princess Drubetskaya and the count's eldest niece struggle over?

His will, which leaves everything to Pierre, so when the old count dies, Pierre inherits the whole fortune.

In occupied Moscow, whose life does Pierre save before the man befriends him?

A French officer's life, Captain Ramballe's, and the grateful captain befriends Pierre while Pierre is secretly plotting to kill Napoleon.

Where does War and Peace open, in July 1805?

A soirée in Saint Petersburg, where young Boris Drubetskoy's impoverished mother talks Prince Vasily into getting her son a post in the Guards.

Which real Russian commander does Prince Andrei join as aide-de-camp, to escape a life he cannot stand?

Kutuzov, whom Andrei serves in 1805, later decides to abandon Moscow in 1812 to save his army.

At which battle is Prince Andrei badly wounded while trying to rescue a Russian standard?

At Austerlitz, lying wounded under the lofty sky, Andrei sees his hero Napoleon ride up and finds him small and insignificant.

When Tsar Alexander visits Moscow in 1812, what does the youngest Rostov son nearly get crushed catching?

A biscuit tossed from the balcony, and his patriotic frenzy makes him threaten to run away until his father signs him up.

Which orphaned cousin, raised by the Rostovs, is in love with Nikolai Rostov?

Sonya later writes Nikolai a letter releasing him from his promise to marry her.

What is the name of the Bolkonsky family's country estate?

Bald Hills is where old Prince Bolkonsky has lived ever since Emperor Paul exiled him from Moscow.

Why does Captain Denisov face a court-martial during the 1807 campaign in Poland?

He seizes another regiment's food convoy because his hussars are starving, then is wounded before the trial and ends up in hospital.

Whom does Pierre marry after inheriting his fortune, despite knowing it is wrong?

Hélène Kuragina later dies, officially of angina, though society whispers that she took an overdose after Pierre failed to answer her letter.

Whom does Pierre wound in a duel over rumours about his wife?

Dolokhov, a seasoned duellist, falls to Pierre, who has never held a pistol before and has to ask how the trigger works.

Which secret society does Pierre join during his spiritual crisis?

The Freemasons draw Pierre in through the old mason Osip Bazdeyev, and their creed of forgiveness later persuades him to take his wife back.

How does Prince Andrei's wife Lise die?

In childbirth, on the very night that Andrei, long believed dead, suddenly comes home; their baby son survives.

Where does Prince Andrei fall in love with Natasha and resolve to marry her?

At her first grand ball Andrei dances with Natasha, but his father makes the couple wait a year to marry, and the engagement collapses.

Which handsome, secretly married rake tries to elope with Natasha, wrecking her engagement?

Anatole Kuragin is later paid by Pierre to leave Moscow, while Natasha, learning he is married, swallows poison.

What celestial event streaks across the sky as Pierre realises he loves Natasha?

The Great Comet of 1811-12 was said to portend woes and the end of the world, yet to Pierre it seems to match his soul blossoming into new life.

Through numerology, Pierre convinces himself that Napoleon is which end-times figure?

The Antichrist, Pierre decides, and by adding up letters as numbers he concludes that he himself is fated to play a part in stopping him.

Which great 1812 battle does Pierre watch as a civilian from beside a Russian artillery crew?

At Borodino Pierre ends up carrying ammunition, and Tolstoy calls it a moral victory for Russia even though its army withdrew next day.

Fleeing Moscow, what does Natasha have her family load onto their carts instead of possessions?

Wounded soldiers fill the Rostovs' carts, and unknown to Natasha, the badly wounded Prince Andrei is among them.

What is Pierre doing when the French arrest him in burning Moscow?

Defending an Armenian family from looters, Pierre knocks down a soldier tearing a necklace off a young woman, just after saving a girl from a burning house.

Which saintly peasant does Pierre befriend as a prisoner of the French?

Platon Karataev, weakened by fever, cannot keep up on the retreat, and the French shoot him by the roadside.

Which character is killed in the partisan skirmish that frees Pierre from the French?

Petya, the youngest Rostov, had joined the army in 1812 over his parents' objections.

As the French close in on his estates in 1812, how does old Prince Bolkonsky die?

Of a stroke, and on his deathbed the tyrannical old prince thanks his long-suffering daughter and begs her forgiveness.

Whom does Nikolai Rostov marry in the epilogue, after once rescuing her from rebellious peasants?

Princess Maria Bolkonskaya marries Nikolai, and they raise Prince Andrei's orphaned son alongside their own children.

When Count Rostov dies soon after Natasha's wedding, what does his son Nikolai inherit?

A mountain of debts, twice the estate's worth, yet Nikolai refuses to disown them and takes a civil-service post to support his mother.

Which later uprising is hinted at in the closing chapters as the future of Pierre and young Nikolenka?

The Decembrist revolt was Tolstoy's starting point: he began a story about a Decembrist returning from exile, and tracing the man's youth led him back to 1812.

Which modest artillery captain keeps firing on a village after orders to retreat, then is scolded for losing two guns?

Captain Tushin's forgotten battery helps save the army, yet only Prince Andrei speaks up for him when he is rebuked.

Which subject does the stern old Prince Bolkonsky teach his daughter himself?

Geometry, because he holds activity and intelligence to be the only virtues, though his frightened daughter can rarely follow the lessons.

What are the Rostovs celebrating at the lively Moscow party where the family is first introduced?

St. Natalia's name day, when young Natasha kisses Boris among the flower tubs and they agree to wait four years to marry.

Which German philosopher did Tolstoy acknowledge as a main inspiration while writing the second half?

Schopenhauer so absorbed Tolstoy in 1869 that he wrote to the poet Fet of unbroken ecstasy over him, calling him the greatest genius.

Tolstoy may have borrowed the title War and Peace from an 1861 work by which French thinker?

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, whose La Guerre et la Paix came out in 1861, met Tolstoy in Brussels that same year.

Which novel did Tolstoy publish next, after insisting War and Peace was not a novel at all?

Anna Karenina ran in The Russian Messenger until its editor refused to print the last part over its critical views, so Tolstoy issued that part separately.

Which war had Tolstoy served in, giving him first-hand knowledge of the Russian army for the novel?

In the Crimean War Tolstoy served through the siege of Sevastopol, and he turned it into his Sevastopol Sketches.

In his philosophical chapters, which view of history does Tolstoy champion?

Countless small acts make history, Tolstoy argues, so even Napoleon was carried along by events rather than directing them.

What do Nikolai and Natasha Rostov hunt down on the day they end up at 'Uncle's' lodge?

A wolf, and that evening at Uncle's lodge Natasha amazes everyone by dancing a Russian folk dance.

Which fellow Russian novelist, once challenged to a duel by Tolstoy, made peace with him by letter in 1878?

Ivan Turgenev later worked to win War and Peace readers across Europe, handing copies of the novel to influential critics.

Which French novelist wrote in 1880 that he had cried out in admiration while reading War and Peace?

Gustave Flaubert urged a friend to read it, calling it a first-rate novel even though its last volume, he felt, was a failure.

Which German novelist, in his essay Goethe and Tolstoy, likened Tolstoy's art to nature itself?

Thomas Mann saw Tolstoy as almost a pagan god, because gods, he wrote, are of the same essence as nature.

The first English version of War and Peace was made not from the Russian but from what?

A French translation was what Clara Bell worked from, and Huntington Smith later issued Tolstoy's war essays on their own as The Physiology of War.

Which husband-and-wife team published an English translation of the novel in 2007?

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky split the work: she drafts a close version from the Russian, and he shapes it into English.

Who directed the four-part Soviet film of 1965-67 and also played Pierre?

Sergei Bondarchuk got the job after rival director Pyryev dropped out of a contest in which each was to film a trial scene.

In War and Peace, how does Tolstoy say Moscow came to burn in 1812?

It burned by accident, Tolstoy argues, as any abandoned wooden city full of careless troops would, whatever each side claimed.

Which pop singer made his Broadway debut as Pierre in Dave Malloy's War and Peace musical in 2016?

Josh Groban, like most of the cast, played instruments onstage, joining the band on piano and accordion.

Who played Natasha in King Vidor's 1956 film of War and Peace?

Audrey Hepburn played Natasha, and when the film played in Soviet cinemas in 1959, letters urged the USSR to film the novel itself.

Which actor played Pierre in King Vidor's 1956 film of War and Peace?

Henry Fonda played Pierre, and for the film's battle scenes the producers used thousands of Italian troops as extras.

Who played Pierre in the BBC's 2016 six-part adaptation written by Andrew Davies?

Paul Dano played Pierre, and in the US the series was simulcast on three A+E Networks channels at once.

Which composer's opera of War and Peace was first staged in Leningrad in 1946?

Sergei Prokofiev had long planned the opera, but Hitler's 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union spurred him into feverish composition.

Dave Malloy's 2012 musical adapted from part of War and Peace is described as what kind of show?

An electropop opera, it closed on Broadway in 2017 after an uproar when producers tried to replace its Pierre with Mandy Patinkin.

What was the name of the estate where Tolstoy was born and later wrote War and Peace?

Yasnaya Polyana is also where, in 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for the children of his peasants.

Tolstoy began War and Peace in 1863, the year after he did what?

Married and settled on his estate, Tolstoy had a devoted helper in his wife Sophia, who copied out his drafts by hand.

Which killing does Tolstoy's Pierre call 'a political necessity'?

The execution of the Duke of Enghien: Napoleon had the Bourbon prince seized, tried by a military court and shot in the moat at Vincennes within a week.

Which famous 1812 battle does Tolstoy dismiss as 'only one intermediate stage' in the French army's destruction?

Berezina: Tolstoy insists the crossing cost the French fewer guns and men than Krasnoi, and mattered only as proof that plans to cut off Napoleon's retreat were futile.

Early in War and Peace, Pierre and his rowdy friends tie a policeman to which animal?

A bear: they dumped the pair into the Moyka, the policeman riding on its back, and the scandal got Pierre banished to Moscow.

In War and Peace, at which battle does new hussar Nikolai Rostov fall when his horse is killed under him?

Schöngrabern: rather than fire his pistol, Rostov flings it at an oncoming Frenchman and runs for the bushes like 'a hare fleeing from the hounds'.

Which 1975 Woody Allen comedy spoofs Russian novels like War and Peace, with Allen as a reluctant soldier facing Napoleon?

Love and Death: Allen's Boris is branded a coward and forced into the Russian army, then becomes a war hero entirely by accident.

In War and Peace, what strikes Prince Andrei down in 1812 as he stands, ashamed to throw himself flat?

A shell: it spun at his feet while he wondered 'Can this be death?' and told his adjutant that lying down was shameful, then burst and tore his abdomen.

In War and Peace, which tree, bare and grim in spring, later stands in full leaf as Prince Andrei's hope revives?

An oak: seeing the old tree transformed on his way home, Andrei suddenly decides that life is not over at thirty-one.