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History, people and female characters in “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy

The article deals with the female characters in “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy. The aim of the article is to advance a new view at Tolstoy’s heroines and to improve and extend the modern ideas of Tolstoy’s gender perceptions. The applied methods are the structural, semiotic and mythopoetics analyses. General opinion about Tolstoy’s gender perceptions is based on the character of Natasha Rostova. The usual approach to the study of Tolstoy’s matrimonial philosophy has passed into belief that Natasha Rostova is the main and the ideal female character in Tolstoy’s novel. So it is generally accepted that Leo Tolstoy gives recognition to the patriarchal family only (Bezukhov’s family in the epilogue of “War and Peace”). But to obtain a fuller understanding of Tolstoy’s gender perceptions it is necessary to introduce the analysis of other female characters. First of all, it is princess Mary. She became aware of the cruelty of war and overcame the tragedy of loneliness. She is a self-sacrificing daughter and aunt (her little nephew is an orphan). So her life is much more sorrowful than Natasha’s. However, her family in the epilogue of “War and Peace” is not patriarchal. Tolstoy represented two kinds of women and two types of families in the epilogue of his novel. According to the traditional view, Tolstoy confines a woman to her family circle, but the character of princess Mary is connected not only with the family problems, but with the problems of philosophy of history, folk confidence, non-resistance and the most profound spiritual achievements of Tolstoy’s as well. The image of Princess Mary Bolkonskaya in Tolstoy’s novel “War and peace” is a rare female image in the history of world literature that invites the reader to discuss a wide range of topical philosophical, religious, and socio-historical issues.