Leo Tolstoy And His Great Epic War And Peace
Dr. Ruwan M Jayatunge M.D.
At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other even more reasonable says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man’s power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second. – Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)
Only known color photograph of the writer, taken at his Yasnaya Polyana estate in 1908 by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky
According to E.M Forster, Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” (Voyna I Mir) is the greatest novel ever written. The French novelist Romain Rolland called it the most fascinating novel of all time. William James stated “War and Peace is a perfection in the representation of human life” In 1910 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin wrote: ‘succeeded in raising so many great problems and succeeded in rising to such heights of artistic power that his works rank among the greatest in world literature. For over a century, Leo Tolstoy has been one of the most famous and most widely read authors in the whole world (Yegorov, 1994). As indicated by Harding (2010) Leo Tolstoy is widely considered in the West to be the greatest writer of all time (Harding, 2010).
War and Peace is a philosophical, historical and an epic novel that runs through time and space. In this novel Tolstoy narrates his social, political, philosophical, historical, aesthetic, ethical, religious and moral views. He analyzed the complex processes of historical reality, social dynamics and human behaviour. The ideals and meaning of human existence had been his central theme. Over four hundred fictional and historical characters are illustrated in this unique novel and art of storytelling and meticulous realism are impressive in this masterpiece Read More
