depicted the story of five families against the background of Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Its vast canvas includes 580 characters, many historical, others fictional. The story moves from family life to the headquarters of Napoleon, from the court of Alexander to the battlefields of Austerlitz and Borodino. War and Peace reflected Tolstoy's view that destiny controls everything, but we cannot live unless we imagine that we have free will. The harshest judgement is reserved for Napoleon, who thinks he controls events, but is mistaken. Pierre Bezukhov, who wanders on the battlefield of Borodino, and sees only the confusion, comes closer to the truth. Great men are for him ordinary human beings who are vain enough to accept responsibility for the life of society, but unable to recognise their own impotence in the cosmic flow. Tolstoy's other masterpiece, Anna Karenina, told a tragic story of a married woman, who follows her lover, but finally at a station throws herself in front of an incoming train. Tolstoy joined the crises of family life with the quest for the meaning of life. Anna's love affair with Vronskii parallels with another plot, Konstantin Levin's courtship and marriage to Kitty Shcherbatskaia. After finishing Anna Karenina Tolstoy renounced all his earlier works and wrote Conversion to explain his doctrines. Voskresenia (Reseurrection) was Tolstoy's last major novel. The novel affirmed Tolstoy's belief in the primacy of the individual conscience over the collective morality of the group. In the 1880s Tolstoy wrote philosophical books such as A Confession and What I Believe, which was banned in 1884. He started to see himself more as a sage and moral leader than an artist. In 1884 occurred his first attempt to leave home. He gave up his estate to his family, and tried to live as a poor, celibate peasant. Attracted by Tolstoy's writings, Yasnaya Polyana was visited by hundreds of people from all over the w...
