The book was in large part based on Count Tolstoy's real life experience, and Pierre and Natasha were supposedly based partially off of his grand-parents and parents. Also his experience in the Crimean War.
Russia was, until the 1860s, the last European country that was part of the Ancien Regime. It did not even have a constitution until like 1905 or so. This put it DECADES behind any other European state, and Tolstoy himself was quite critical of the system.
It was great to be wealthy, but the rich-poor divide in Russia was sooooooooooo much greater by far than in any other part of Europe that anyone with any sense of guilt would have hated being SOOOOOO rich while the peasants were SOOOOO poor. It was not until the end of the 19th century that you got any decent sized middle class.
I might have liked being a Russian noble Prince but probably would have been executed by the Czar's secret police for pushing for a constitutional monarchy and a parliament - something that really did happen to MANY Russian nobles over the years. Unfortunately they waited too long, and the whole upper class suffered a far worse fate than that of the French upper class during the French Revolution. At least THEY were restored after the Congress of Vienna, and merged with the new Napoleonic nobles. To this day you still have wealthy French barons through Dukes. The Russians who did not flee Russia..well, we know what happened to most of them.
Defender of the weak, and enemy of the weak minded.
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Sook-Yongsheng
7 years ago
The book was in large part based on Count Tolstoy's real life experience, and Pierre and Natasha were supposedly based partially off of his grand-parents and parents.
I don't know about Pierre and Natasha, but I learned that Nikolai Rostov was based on Tolstoy's father, and Princess Marya on his mother.
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