War and Peace Trivia
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60 free War and Peace trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This War and Peace trivia quiz follows Tolstoy's novel from Anna Pavlovna's soirée in 1805 to the visit to Bald Hills in 1820. Story questions cover Pierre's inheritance and his disastrous marriage, the duel with Dolokhov, Andrei under the sky at Austerlitz, Natasha's first ball, the elopement that never happens, the comet, Borodino, the burning of Moscow, the prisoner Platon Karataev and the marriages of the epilogue. Then it turns to the making of the book: the draft serialised as 1805, the seven manuscripts Sophia Tolstaya copied, the Schopenhauer influence, the French that Tolstoy cut and put back, the 361 chapters, the 'little man' theory of history and what Flaubert, Thomas Mann and Goncharov said about it. The last stretch covers the screen: Audrey Hepburn and a 50-year-old Henry Fonda, Sergei Bondarchuk's Oscar-winning Soviet epic, the BBC's Paul Dano, Prokofiev's opera and the electropop Great Comet. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the novel, its author, its characters and its adaptations, and each explanation adds one detail worth keeping. It suits book clubs, Russian literature students and anyone who has finished all four volumes and wants credit for it.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Hoping to wed one of her two lovers, what does Pierre's wife do to try to escape her marriage?
Converts to Catholicism
Converts to Catholicism, hoping her new Church can annul her marriage to Pierre.
Q 02Why do Pierre's schemes to free and help his serfs mostly come to nothing?
His stewards quietly thwart them
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.
Q 03When Tsar Alexander addresses Moscow's nobles in 1812, what do they pledge to the war effort?
Recruits for the militia
Recruits for the militia, and Pierre, ashamed of his outspoken speech, makes amends by pledging a thousand men and their upkeep.
Q 04At old Count Bezukhov's deathbed, what do Princess Drubetskaya and the count's eldest niece struggle over?
His will
His will, which leaves everything to Pierre, so when the old count dies, Pierre inherits the whole fortune.
Q 05In occupied Moscow, whose life does Pierre save before the man befriends him?
A French officer's
A French officer's life, Captain Ramballe's, and the grateful captain befriends Pierre while Pierre is secretly plotting to kill Napoleon.
Q 06Where does War and Peace open, in July 1805?
A soirée in Saint Petersburg
A soirée in Saint Petersburg, where young Boris Drubetskoy's impoverished mother talks Prince Vasily into getting her son a post in the Guards.
Q 07Which real Russian commander does Prince Andrei join as aide-de-camp, to escape a life he cannot stand?
Kutuzov
Kutuzov, whom Andrei serves in 1805, later decides to abandon Moscow in 1812 to save his army.
Q 08At which battle is Prince Andrei badly wounded while trying to rescue a Russian standard?
Austerlitz
At Austerlitz, lying wounded under the lofty sky, Andrei sees his hero Napoleon ride up and finds him small and insignificant.
Q 09When Tsar Alexander visits Moscow in 1812, what does the youngest Rostov son nearly get crushed catching?
A biscuit
A biscuit tossed from the balcony, and his patriotic frenzy makes him threaten to run away until his father signs him up.
Q 10Which orphaned cousin, raised by the Rostovs, is in love with Nikolai Rostov?
Sonya
Sonya later writes Nikolai a letter releasing him from his promise to marry her.
Q 11What is the name of the Bolkonsky family's country estate?
Bald Hills
Bald Hills is where old Prince Bolkonsky has lived ever since Emperor Paul exiled him from Moscow.
Q 12Why does Captain Denisov face a court-martial during the 1807 campaign in Poland?
He seizes another regiment's food convoy
He seizes another regiment's food convoy because his hussars are starving, then is wounded before the trial and ends up in hospital.
Q 13Whom does Pierre marry after inheriting his fortune, despite knowing it is wrong?
Hélène Kuragina
Hélène Kuragina later dies, officially of angina, though society whispers that she took an overdose after Pierre failed to answer her letter.
Q 21Which great 1812 battle does Pierre watch as a civilian from beside a Russian artillery crew?
Borodino
At Borodino Pierre ends up carrying ammunition, and Tolstoy calls it a moral victory for Russia even though its army withdrew next day.
Q 22Fleeing Moscow, what does Natasha have her family load onto their carts instead of possessions?
Wounded soldiers
Wounded soldiers fill the Rostovs' carts, and unknown to Natasha, the badly wounded Prince Andrei is among them.
Q 23What is Pierre doing when the French arrest him in burning Moscow?
Defending an Armenian family from looters
Q 14Whom does Pierre wound in a duel over rumours about his wife?
Dolokhov
Dolokhov, a seasoned duellist, falls to Pierre, who has never held a pistol before and has to ask how the trigger works.
Q 15Which secret society does Pierre join during his spiritual crisis?
The Freemasons
The Freemasons draw Pierre in through the old mason Osip Bazdeyev, and their creed of forgiveness later persuades him to take his wife back.
Q 16How does Prince Andrei's wife Lise die?
In childbirth
In childbirth, on the very night that Andrei, long believed dead, suddenly comes home; their baby son survives.
Q 17Where does Prince Andrei fall in love with Natasha and resolve to marry her?
At her first grand ball
At her first grand ball Andrei dances with Natasha, but his father makes the couple wait a year to marry, and the engagement collapses.
Q 18Which handsome, secretly married rake tries to elope with Natasha, wrecking her engagement?
Anatole Kuragin
Anatole Kuragin is later paid by Pierre to leave Moscow, while Natasha, learning he is married, swallows poison.
Q 19What celestial event streaks across the sky as Pierre realises he loves Natasha?
The Great Comet of 1811-12
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.
Q 20Through numerology, Pierre convinces himself that Napoleon is which end-times figure?
The Antichrist
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.
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.
Q 24Which saintly peasant does Pierre befriend as a prisoner of the French?
Platon Karataev
Platon Karataev, weakened by fever, cannot keep up on the retreat, and the French shoot him by the roadside.
Q 25Which character is killed in the partisan skirmish that frees Pierre from the French?
Petya
Petya, the youngest Rostov, had joined the army in 1812 over his parents' objections.
Q 26As the French close in on his estates in 1812, how does old Prince Bolkonsky die?
Of a stroke
Of a stroke, and on his deathbed the tyrannical old prince thanks his long-suffering daughter and begs her forgiveness.
Q 27Whom does Nikolai Rostov marry in the epilogue, after once rescuing her from rebellious peasants?
Princess Maria Bolkonskaya
Princess Maria Bolkonskaya marries Nikolai, and they raise Prince Andrei's orphaned son alongside their own children.
Q 28When Count Rostov dies soon after Natasha's wedding, what does his son Nikolai inherit?
A mountain of debts
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.
Q 29Which later uprising is hinted at in the closing chapters as the future of Pierre and young Nikolenka?
The Decembrist revolt
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.
Q 30Which modest artillery captain keeps firing on a village after orders to retreat, then is scolded for losing two guns?
Captain Tushin
Captain Tushin's forgotten battery helps save the army, yet only Prince Andrei speaks up for him when he is rebuked.