Literary places in Russia

War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy

Across the Napoleonic Wars of 1805 to 1812, Tolstoy follows the Bezukhov, Bolkonsky and Rostov families through the salons of Petersburg, the society of Moscow, the country estates, and the battlefields where private lives and vast history collide. The novel maps a real geography: the imperial capital and the old city, the Bolkonsky estate in the provinces, the field of Austerlitz where Prince Andrei looks up at the infinite sky, and Borodino, after which Moscow burns and the French begin their ruinous retreat.

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