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A PALINDROME OF DEATH
Discussing the characterization of War and Peace’s epic hero, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky
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Donna Tussing Orwin describes this as a time where “Russians were struggling
to define themselves as a modern people”, adding that Tolstoy’s writing contributed immensely “to that project of a
national identity”1
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With this freedom Tolstoy sets out to write an epic work of fiction with no true precedents, War and
Peace, a text that presented realism, Gary Saul Morson reflects, “as no one else has ever practiced it”2
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While most of the characters in War and Peace are in part inspired by “living prototypes”3, the character of
Prince Andrei Bolkonsky is a complete work of fiction
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When asked
who the figure of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky was modelled after, Tolstoy replied:

In the Battle of Austerlitz… I needed a brilliant young man to be killed… I decided to make the brilliant young
man a son of the old Bolkonsky
...
4

With this fundamental decision to spare the “brilliant young man” from tragic death, Tolstoy subverts his original
intention and makes Prince Andrei Bolkonsky a vehicle for the portrayal of the central thematic driving forces present
in the novel: the paradox of life in death, the myth of the heroic ideal and the pursuit of meaning
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From his earliest conception, Prince Andrei was born with the purpose of dying
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The theme of death is a shadow that hangs over Prince


1 Donna

Tussing Orwin, The Cambridge Companion to Tolstoy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002),
50
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Donna Tussing Orwin
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 65
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4
(November 1969): 5, accessed October 22, 2012, JSTOR
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1

Andrei at all moments throughout the novel
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It is
only at the end, that his beginning is resolved, and that is with his death, that is described as an “awakening from life”5
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This
metaphysical palindrome evokes the biblical: “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return"6 (Genesis 3:19)
Laura Jepsen reminds us that Tolstoy defined his masterpiece as “Homeric”7 and insisted that War and Peace
was a “new Iliad”8 and therefore an epic
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He
begins with Andrei seeking refuge in Homeric heroism as a means to escape his own nihilism, hence his search for
purpose in glory, the obsession with “triumphing”9, rising above men, and the idealization of the self glorified
Napoleon
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Unable to practice his heroism, he spends the greater part of the novel in search of a cause to
fulfil his role as a hero
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On his deathbed, he achieves that which corresponds to the glory of the Christian hero:
he acquires vision, “the veil that had till then concealed the unknown was lifted from his spiritual vision”10
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The dream he has before dying, where “something not human-death”11 tries
to force its way through a closed door, on the other side of which is Andrei, is a reference to the Book of Revelation:

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and
will sup with him, and he with me
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Like Pierre Bezhukov, and Tolstoy himself, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky is a seeker of truth
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Throughout the novel he embarks on a philosophical journey, clinging to various
systems of belief to then renounce them
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3:19
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4
(November 1969): 5, accessed October 22, 2012, JSTOR
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9 Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (Cambridge World Classics), Kindle, 23%
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11 Ibid
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3:20
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4
(November 1969): 5, accessed October 22, 2012, JSTOR
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2

determinism, agnosticism, until he reaches his final conclusion in death and Christianity
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If by “integrity” Morson refers to Andrei’s unchanging impulse for the pursuit of meaning, there is
little to be said to the contrary
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The process of Andrei’s embracing and abandoning of every new system of belief is always closely related to
the theme of rebirth and the life in death paradox
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16

The death of his wife Lise similarly forces Andrei to reconsider his life and priorities, and scars him deeply
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The personification of the tree thus acts to accentuate Andrei’s
desolate and disillusioned state of being, as he projects his nihilism onto the world that surrounds him: “ … this oak
seemed to say… Are you not weary of that stupid meaningless, constantly repeated fraud?”18
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Donna Tussing Orwin
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 74
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16 Ibid
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18 Ibid, 35%
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Again the oak is a projection of Andrei’s inner motions
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On his quest for the discovery of the ultimate world view and a unifying meaning, Andrei goes through a
constant process of psychological death and re-birth: as one system of belief is abandoned, a small part of Andrei dies,
only to be born again with the newest epiphany
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The meaning he ultimately finds in Christian love has similarly always been present, with his sister Marya as
its most eminent representative
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Andrei’s resolution takes on a circular pattern and is a
return to his origins, recalling the very reason for which Tolstoy wrote his epic
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It follows
that by his very nature, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, is characterized as the embodiment of the spirit of War and Peace: a
search for meaning and origin
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20 Ibid, 36%
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4

Bibliography
Genesis
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Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 1973
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"Prince Andrey as Epic Hero in Tolstoy's "War and Peace"" South Atlantic Bulletin 34, no
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Accessed October 22, 2012
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Morson, Gary Saul
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Morson, Gary Saul
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" In The Cambridge Companion to Tolstoy, edited by Donna Tussing Orwin, 6579
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Orwin, Donna Tussing
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Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002
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In King James Bible
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Tolstoy, Leo
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Cambridge World Classics
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5



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