Quest of the Spirit: From Suffering to Acceptance

98.Truth,History,Leadership: Tolstoy's War and Peace!

                                 Truth, History, and Leadership in Tolstoy's War and Peace

        "The question, 'What causes historic events?' will suggests another answer, namely, that the course of earthly happenings is predetermined from on high, and depends on the combined volition of all who participate in those events, and that the influence of a Napoleon on the course of those events is purely superficial and imaginary" (Tolstoy 932). This passage from Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace suggests the author's strong disagreement with historians of his era that a biographical approach to the understanding of history cannot singularly provide a representative depiction of historical events or their underlying motives. Tolstoy contends that knowledge of historical causes merely provides a partial reflection of the true picture. According to the author, "It is by renouncing our claim to discern a purpose immediately intelligible to us, and admitting the ultimate purpose to be beyond our ken, that we shall see a logical connection in the lives of historical personages, and perceive the why and wherefore of what they do which so transcends the ordinary powers of humanity. We shall then find the words chance and genius have become superfluous" (1343). Focusing upon the life of a famous person rather than the sociological factors influencing a particular historical phenomenon excludes other levels of interpretation and fails to reflect an accurate portrayal of the truth, he contends. Tolstoy maintains that historians, overwhelmed by Napoleon's so-called genius, have adopted a popular approach which disregards the role of free will, ignores the possibility of moral improvement, and impairs one's perception of history as a means of defining one's place and purpose. In essence, the author analyzes events in Napoleon's Russian Campaign of 1812 to show how historians have ineptly lionized him by misinterpreting his victories and his losses. In the narrative, the author also traces the social and moral coming of age of Prince Andrei, Pierre, Natasha, Princess Maria, and Nikolai to reinforce the notion that free will plays a greater role in moral development and history itself than the cause-effect approach popular in the 1860's.

             Tolstoy initially suggests that contemporary historians have been remiss in their responsibility by focusing upon Napoleon the leader rather than the society that motivated him. These writers have neglected to consider the moral consciousness of the common people participating in the war. History, according to the author, cannot be interpreted as the result of a single individual's actions. In his own words, "To elicit the laws of history, we must leave aside kings, ministers and generals, and select for study the homogeneous, infinitesimal elements which influence the masses. No one can say how far it is possible for man to advance in this way towards an understanding of the laws of history; but it is obvious that this is the only path to that end, and that the human intellect has not, so far, applied in this direction one-millionth of the energy which historians have devoted to describing the deeds of various kings, generals, and ministers, and propounding reflections of their own concerning those deeds" (Tolstoy 977). In another passage, he says, "The life of nations cannot be summarized in the lives of a few men, for the connection between those men and the nations has not been discovered. The theory that this connection is based on the transference of the collective will of a people to certain historical personages is a hypothesis is not supported by the experience of history" (1416). In this respect, the author indicts those critics who interpret history biographically. He contends that historical events are determined through the courage and enthusiasm of their participants, not through the power or strategies of their leaders. Unfortunately, historians often fail to discern this distinction, and as result, are compelled to devise their own methods which cleverly support their claims. For instance, Tolstoy says, "In giving and accepting battle at Borodino, Kutuzov and Napoleon acted contrary to their intentions and their good sense. But later on, to fit the accomplished facts, the historians provided cunningly devised proofs of the foresight and genius of the generals, who of all the blind instruments of history were the most enslaved and involuntary" (896). In another section, he says, "All the strange discrepancies, which we find incomprehensible to day, between the events as they happened and the official record arise solely because the historians writing their histories have described the noble sentiments and fine speeches of various generals, instead of giving us a history of the facts" (1271). Alluding to the popularity of Napoleon's so-called genius, he expresses a similar criticism: "When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic thread of historical ratiocination any farther, when an action flagrantly contradicts all that humanity calls good and even right, the historians fetch out the saving idea of 'greatness.' 'Greatness' would appear to exclude all possibility of applying standards of right and wrong. For the 'great' man nothing is wrong; there is no atrocity for which a 'great' man can be blamed" (1267). Tolstoy's strongly asserts that leaders should never be morally exempt from the death and destruction of their wartime policies in the name of peace. In his novel Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky considers this issue as well. The argument of moral exemption, inherited from the concept of divine right, and known as the Superman Theory is espoused by Dostoyevsky's protagonist, a deranged hero who commits the perfect crime in the name of the common good, yet ultimately repents and undergoes spiritual rebirth. In his initial madness, however, Raskolnikov even refers to Napoleon when alluding to his murder of the pawnbroker Lizaveta: "It was like this: I asked myself one day this question—what if Napoleon, for instance, had happened to be in my place, and if he had not had Toulon nor Egypt nor the passage of Mont Blanc to begin his career with, but instead of all those picturesque and monumental things, there had simply been some ridiculous old hag, a pawnbroker, who had to be murdered too to get money from her trunk (for his career, you understand). Well, would he have brought himself to that if there had been no other means? Wouldn't he have felt a pang at its being so far from monumental and . . . and sinful, too? Well, I must tell you that I worried myself fearfully over that 'question' so that I was awfully ashamed when I guessed at last (all of a sudden, somehow) that it would not have given him the least pang, that it would not even have struck him that it was not monumental . . . that he would not have seen that here was anything in it to pause over, and that, if he had had no other way, he would have strangled her in a minute without thinking about it!" (Dostoyevsky 326). Interestingly, both Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy suggest that the harms and atrocities Napoleon committed failed to be guided by any sense of moral code. Thus, so-called greatness should not exempt a leader from moral accountability, particularly during wartime, and neither should it be a historian's rationale for inconsistencies and contradictions associated with historical events. Writing in Don Quixote, Cervantes expresses a similar sentiment when he says, "History is like a sacred writing, for it has to be truthful; and where the truth is, in so far as it is the truth, there God is. But notwithstanding this there are some who compose books and toss them off like fritters" (Cervantes 490).