Leo Tolstoy has established his name as the foremost Russian writer of the nineteenth.
His writings are found to be very interesting and believable. War and Peace, is.
considered his masterpiece; it is large in size and explicit in information. If half of his.
descriptions and background were taken out, this could be a two-hundred page book, rather than.
a fourteen-hundred page. Tolstoy achieved this feat through the realistic portrayal of events and.
people. Many of the situations in the novel are true to life because they are based on certain true.
life experiences of Tolstoy. .
Tolstoy joined the army in 1851 and later participated in the Crimean War. As a result of.
this he had the first hand experience of a soldier fighting on the battlefield. However, since he did.
know much about the early 19th century, he referred to a book called Reminiscences of an.
Eyewitness of the French Occupation of Moscow in 1812, with a View of the Fire of Moscow.
(How is that for a title?) Here he took a number of details from this work.
In recreating the scenes of war and the invasion of Moscow, Tolstoy has combined life.
experiences, factual details through books, psychological insight, and creativity, so that the.
battlefield comes "alive". Here the narrator presents the scene of confusion after the battle of.
Austerlitz : .
"One of the guns in the rear that had just moved on to the dam.
turned into the ice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began to run.
onto the frozen millpond. The ice cracked under one of the.
foremost soldiers, and his leg slipped the water; he tried to right.
himself and fell in up to the waist. The nearest soldiers hesitated;.
the driver of the canon stopped his horse, but the shouting from.
behind continued: "Onto the ice! Why are you stopping? Go on!.
Go On!" And cries of terror were heard in the crowd." .
The dilemma of the soldiers, in their predicament, as if you were there, the scene comes alive. .
Along with the historical events, Tolstoy describes the different classes of Russian society.