Reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace

Harvard FAS

Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1865-69) is a magnificent work of art by a world-class writer tackling life’s “big questions” and it is also a pleasure to read. We will go through War and Peace closely together, savoring the details, while exploring Tolstoy’s artistic biography and the larger cultural and historical contexts for classic Russian novels. We will also consider the significance of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) in Russian…