Summary of Second Chat Session – Wednesday, Sept. 21

There was so much what he wanted to have done, and so much he regretted not doing, that he seemed to think it had really happened like that. Well, maybe it had. Who could tell in the confusion what had happened and what hadn’t?

-An unnamed general

In this week’s reading, we encountered the first depictions of war in War and Peace. The discussion largely focused on the experience of war, what factors dictate the outcome of battle, and how heroes are made. Tolstoy toys with the question of fate and the interpretation of history—even if that history is the battle that just took place 20 seconds ago! Here is a summary on major themes and thoughts on Volume I, Part II.

The Russian Military and the Experience of War

Tolstoy describes war through a variety of characters whose position in the military largely shapes their experience. Noblemen and the aristocracy usually filled the upper ranks, serving as generals, officers, adjutants, and aids, whereas peasants and serfs, sent by their masters, served as soldiers. By depicting these varied experiences, Tolstoy draws a number of comparisons of how these groups experience war. There are certain adjutants far from the front interested in advancing their military careers by getting close to the generals and the Tsar. Prince Andrei’s high position introduces us to the inner workings at the top of the military. Nikolai opens us up to his own as well as a number of characters’ experiences stationed at the front, where theoretical tinkering and strategizing usually proved useless. Someone made the observation that “military strategists are officers with an aristocratic background, but the soldiers or common serfs, the backbone of the military, are the ones whose instincts and reactions garner success on the battleground.” Another participant pointed to notion of strategy versus instinct when considering the Tushin episode, where Bagration orders to retreat, yet the order fails to make it to Tushin and his battery on time. The communication mishap, however, allows Tushin to lead his men through a crucial moment of delaying the French advancement, which Prince Andrei considers to have saved Kutuzov’s army that day. Plans sometimes fail to materialize on the field—and sometimes to positive effect! Many people in this week’s discussion questioned what roles strategy versus instinct play in war—especially when communication is difficult, the battlefield is chaotic and covered in gun smoke, and the enemy breaks truces, springing surprise attacks.

Who's who? This section of the novel introduces us to a number of historical figures during the war. Here are the major military figures in Part II (left to right): (top row) Tsar Alexander I, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor Francis, (bottom row) General Kutuzov, Prince Bagration, Marshal Murat

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Oft Go Awry

Tolstoy certainly seemed to have had this notion in mind when writing Part II! Many in the discussion agreed that the in-the-moment performance during battle showed to be more effective for the Russians instead of strategy and military “science.” The unknown seems to take over in battle, and the soldiers have to respond and be flexible, or even throw out premade plans. Strategists assume incorrectly, orders are misunderstood, and messages are delayed. In such extreme moments of flux, decisions of soldiers and commanders in the heat of the moment largely shape the outcome of the battle. One participant observed that the importance of military hierarchy even dissipates, and action and performance take precedence. The actions of lower-level men, like Tushin and Denisov, have great impact on the course of the war itself. The Tsar’s adjutant negotiates a truce with Napoleon’s forces, but Tushin is the one who holds the French army back when Napoleon’s army advances at Schongrabern. Fate plays a crucial role in the outcome of battle. The example that waiting for more Russian troops to gather saves Bagration’s platoon because the engagement does not start immediately came up in discussion. In another scene, a petty Russian soldier yells, “Hurrah!” and a whole group of soldiers come rushing behind him, perhaps changing the tide of the battle. Could such small actions alter the course of the battle? One observed that the battles are filled with cases of “what ifs.” Tolstoy seems to suggest that it’s impossible to really know what exactly happened in battle or what could have happened, but all the more, he points to the importance these small, in-the-moment decisions.

Tolstoy expands the idea of strategy versus instinct when describing the leadership in the Russian army. These higher-ups certainly must consider strategies when going into battle, but Kutuzov’s solemn presence and Bagration’s “wise passivity” leave a strong influence over the soldiers. Bagration goes around saying, “Carry on!” without actually giving orders. Prince Andrei speculates that “Prince Bagration was just trying to pretend that everything they were being forced to do, every accidental development or anything brought about by individual commanders, was happening, if not according to his orders, then at least part of his plan.” Bagration’s presence is described as “reinvigorating and he put a swagger and new courage into soldiers’ steps.” His leisureliness suggests a sort of “instinctual strategizing,” allowing him to make decisions when the moment calls for it. It is difficult to tell “what actually happened” in battle, which somehow matches up with Bagration’s passitivity. It was mentioned that Bagration rides around encouraging troops, just nodding as if whatever happens is what is supposed to happen—he takes the punches as they roll. He seems to put a greater importance on the spirit of the troops, by encouraging people through what comes up in battle, rather than relying on hardline orders to carry out.

An artistic rendition of Tushin with “Uncle” or “Matthew’s Girl.” Illustration by A. Nikolayev.

Zooming in on The Experience of War

The soldiers had different reactions to such extreme moments of flux. Nikolai fumbled around, as someone put it, “lost and confused.” In his first moments of war at the front, he’s relatively useless—he forgets equipment, falls off his horse, and injures himself. Someone described his experience as a “baptism by fire,” where his first reaction to war was denial. He wonders why the enemy would possible want to kill him, dear Nikokai, when his mother and Sonya and everyone at home loves him. He wonders, “Does anyone love me anymore?” He struggles with the notion that he may actually get hurt or be killed in the war.

Prince Andrei, on the other hand, glides into war with a natural ease. He has a very different experience than Nikolai—although he sometimes is at the front, like when he meets up with Tushin—Prince Andrei is more likely to be found at a meeting rather than in the battlefield. He talks with diplomats in Brno, attends required social gatherings with others in high positions in the military, has a hearing with the Austrian Emperor Francis, and discusses issues with generals. Someone pointed out that his conceptions of heroism are crushed at the staff meeting at the end of the section. Another participant mentioned that Andrei constantly daydreams about the glories of war and his successful participation—his version of Napoleon’s Toulon—but he finds that simply following his superiors’ orders won’t get him there.

Nikolai and Prince Andrei share this certain “lack of preparation” for war, and they don’t realize it until they actually begin to experience it. They both experience this “rude awakening.” Nikolai is clearly still a child, naïve and inexperienced, whereas Prince Andrei’s dreams of rising as a military genius and hero like Napoleon are dashed. They’ve both come to realize that, as those in the discussion mentioned, action shows the true worth of the individual in battle where officers and soldiers alike are subject to the same laws and unknowns. This relates to the idea discussed before—the question of fate. Those high in military rank aren’t the only ones to change the course of the battle. Those like the simple Captain Tushin or a petty soldier taking charge have that power as well. This supports Prince Andrei’s hopes of becoming a hero—that military rank doesn’t determine the heroes but instead decisions and actions that turn the tide in the heat of the moment. So, who are/who decides the heroes in war?

Battle of Schongraben by K. Bujnitsky, 1898.

The “Heroes”

Tolstoy introduces us to a number of heroes and the expectations of what a hero is. Since the outset of the book, we’ve been exposed to opinions on Napoleon, admired by young men, but considered “overrated” by the older generation like Anna Pavlova and Count Bolkonsky. Prince Andrei refers to Napoleon over and over again and dreams and waits for his own version of Toulon. He can’t reconcile any other vision of a hero. Tushin emerges as an accidental hero—Tolstoy does a good job making us see him as a hero—but Prince Andrei has to convince Bagration that Tushin deserves recognition as a hero. Those in the discussion agreed that Tushin is a hero—he seems to be “Tolstoy’s vision of a true Russian soldier, focused on his job and duty without regard for fame and position for their actions.” (Not like the braggart Dolukhov seeking a rise in the ranks!) Many brought up the scene of Prince Andrei helping the woman in the road, simply doing the right thing. However, this doesn’t convince Prince Andrei that he is a hero—aiding a woman on the road doesn’t equate to winning a battle with genius insight and flawless leadership. He even seems embarrassed by helping her!

Someone made the interesting point that “there are all these ‘stories’ of war and expectations, which are juxtaposed against what actually happens.” Those involved in battle later tell stories that don’t match up to what actually happened. Their stories tend to glorify their own actions in the battle as well as the battle itself. We can see this with Dolokhov, who approached the major after the battle, boasting about his brave action of killing two French officers and taking another one as prisoner. But with Tushin, Bagration only recognizes his actions after Prince Andrei interjects and insists that Tushin’s battery saved the entire army. Tushin emerges as a sort of “accidental” hero, not like Prince Andrei who mentally plans his own rise to heroism, a rise modeled after that of Napoleon. Here we find Prince Andrei disappointed: “It was all so strange, so unlike what he had been looking forward to.” He discovers that heroism is not objective. A participant in the discussion noted that heroism is not acknowledged and rewarded in the way Prince Andrei wanted and expected. Many officers discussed fictionalized events and took credit for things they didn’t do. Being a hero takes a certain pride, fictionalization, and improvisation, which was described as “problematic” for Prince Andrei. Perhaps his disappointment at the end of Part II stems from the fact that image is important in entering the status of “hero”, as some one noticed. In this respect, the mechanics of war is not very different from the mechanics of aristocratic society—image is built not only by action, but also by recognition and building a certain reputation by being talked about and even fictionalized. The creation of stories to create heroes touches on Tolstoy’s conception of writing history. Soldiers retell and recreate past events “based on what they wanted to happen or wish happened to conform with notions of glory and heroism.” A great point was made, that “memory is largely emotional,” and soldiers tended to cast themselves in the best light. As objective accounts of the past are impossible to create, the soldiers’ story telling doesn’t necessarily detract from the writing of history—they are perhaps all that is there is to base history on.

A Note on Reading War and Peace in Translation

Last session, many people were curious about how different translations influence reading and interpretation. Many shared the opinion that Briggs “makes the book come alive,” whereas the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation was thought of as “tedious and laborious.” The Maude translation was lukewarmly received, so the Briggs translation seems to be the group’s favorite!

Keep on reading, and join us next Wednesday to continue the discussion on War and Peace!

Book One, Part Three - What happens when war and peace collide

In my last post, I mentioned how important it is to remember the conjunction in Tolstoy's title: War AND Peace. We have already witnessed several instances in Parts One and Two where Tolstoy weaves war into the peace scenes and vice versa. In the very first lines of the novel, Anna Pavlovna Scherer greets Prince Vasily Kuragin, a guest at her peacetime salon, with words about war with Napoleon. Several of the male characters are getting ready to go off to join the war, while Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoy is maneuvering to secure an advantageous beginning to her son's military career. She is a "little Napoleon of the drawing room," devising strategies and tactics, and even practically engaging in hand-to-hand combat with her enemy to gain the spoils of war: wealth, power, and an inlaid portfolio.


In Part Two, Andrei Bolkonsky seems to have found a new lease on life through his wartime activities, even though during his visit to the diplomat Bilibin and the Austrian court he does the same round of parties and social calls that he had done in Petersburg. And when Nikolai Rostov is wounded on the battlefield, he longingly recalls the family hearth.

Peace and war are now overtly combined in Part Three, a feature highlighted by the very structure of this section of the novel. Rather than being separated (Part One = peace scenes, Part Two = war scenes), Part Three contains both. The first chapters revolve around Prince Vasily Kuragin's attempts - both successful and unsuccessful - to marry off his children. We then switch to the scene where the Rostovs receive Nikolai's letter about his martial exploits, which leads us through association to transition to Nikolai himself, who now fancies himself to be the swaggering war hero. Now that we are focused on Nikolai, once again through association we follow him and then the Russian army throughout the disastrous confrontation with Napoleon's army at the Battle of Austerlitz. The ending of this section, with Andrei on the battlefield at Austerlitz contemplating the sky, encountering Napoleon, and thinking about his wife and family, is one of the most famous and well-known scenes of the novel.

Tolstoy carries through this intertwining of peace and war not just structurally, but thematically as well. Some of the most important themes, scenes, and images from Parts One and Two reappear in Part Three. For instance, the issue of the untrustworthy nature of language can be seen both in the craftiness with which Prince Vasily organizes the engagement of Pierre to his daughter Helene and in this scene's use of French: Pierre knows that "something is supposed to be said" on such occasions, and what he finally manages to utter is cloaked in French - "Je vous aime." It is a fittingly false ending to a completely manufactured situation. As in Part One, we are invited to compare different families and familial relationships: the Kuragins reappear, as do the Bolkonskys and the Rostovs. And once again, as in Part Two, the Battle of Austerlitz is depicted through the lens of the "fog of war" (both literally and metaphorically). It is not accidental that in describing the battle, Tolstoy's narrator over and over again emphasizes not only the confusion experienced by various characters, but their sensory deprivation. What is true for all authors is especially true for Tolstoy - when he repeats something, it's important. Again and again in setting up the battle, his narrator focuses on the early-morning fog, how nothing is visible, nothing can be clearly made out - a detail that finds its mirror in the fact that the high command, for all its battle plans and dispositions, really has no idea where Napoleon's army is located.

However, Tolstoy is not just repeating themes and images, he is building on them. War and Peace was first published serially in one of the "thick journals" that were the backbone of 19th-century Russian literary culture. In a draft to an introduction to the novel, Tolstoy wrote, "It will not be possible to read the second part without having read the first, but having read the first, it will be very possible not to read the second." Now, obviously I don't recommend you take to heart the second half of this statement and stop reading the novel! But the first half is quite revealing: "it will not be possible to read the second part without having read the first." The reason for this, I think, is because, as I mentioned in another post, the novel is constructed as a "labyrinth of connections." Characters, themes, and images constantly refer forward to things to come and backward to things that have already happened. When we read War and Peace, we have a sense of deja vu so that we stop and ask ourselves, now where did I read that before?

War and Peace is a goldmine of compare and contrast situations that professors so love to give as the subject for papers and essay questions. When we start to connect the dots among things in the novel that give us that sense of deja vu, we arrive at a whole web of connections; the whole becomes much more than the sum of its parts. I'll trace a few examples to show you what I'm talking about. Part Three opens with a description of Prince Vasily Kuragin and the words, "Prince Vasily was not given to planning ahead. Still less would he think of doing any harm to other people in order to gain an advantage." As we continue to read, the narrator informs us that "Various plans and considerations were always forming in his mind, according to circumstances and individual encounters, but he was never fully conscious of them, even though they were his main interest in life." Furthermore, Prince Vasily just "knew instinctively" whether a man might be of use to him, and that he would ingratiate himself with a useful person "again instinctively and without any forethought."

If we realize that this sounds familiar, that we've read it somewhere before, it suddenly occurs to us that these statements are very similar to previous descriptions of Bagration, Tushin, and other true heroes in the war scenes. They too act instinctively, without forethought, based on the demands of the moment and the heat of battle - and moreover, this seems to be a good thing, as opposed to all the elaborate battle plans that never work out. But then we might find ourselves in a conundrum: but wait a second, this "living-in-the-moment, go-with-the-flow" attitude is a good thing in relation to Bagration and Tushin, right? So are we supposed to think this is a good thing in relation to Prince Vasily?? I would argue that no, not necessarily. Bagration and Tushin are acting appropriately given the context in which they find themselves. War is necessarily a disorienting experience, and it is complete hubris to think that you can absolutely understand every aspect of it at any given moment. But Prince Vasily takes the tactics of war and applies them to a different context - his supposedly peaceful relations with other people. He treats others as if they were the enemy and he is at war with them, laying traps, ruses, and ambushes. Anna Pavlovna Scherer is cast in a similar light, especially with regard to her role in matching Pierre and Helene, for she is described as a "general on the battlefield."

When we see Pierre together with Vasily, we should remember when we last saw them together. At two points: first at Anna Pavlovna's salon and again at the death scene of Pierre's father, Count Bezukhov. Because these two scenes "sandwich" or "bookend" Pierre's character, they again make their appearance here. We are treated to another salon at Anna Pavlovna's, complete with Helene and even AP's aunt, but invited to see the vast differences between the two parties in terms of both society's new attitude toward Pierre and how the scenes play out. In Part One, Pierre acted extremely passively during the events surrounding his father's death. He gave himself over completely to Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoy's guidance, thinking that everything that was happening was meant to happen. Pierre acts and thinks the same way in Part Three. He ignores the inner voice inside him that tells him that marriage to Helene would be shameful and instead allows himself to be guided in his actions by others, again thinking that everything that is happening is meant to happen. Again, this makes us think of Bagration and his "wise passivity" - but for me this raises the question, is all passivity in the novel necessarily wise? Is there a fundamental difference between how Pierre acts and how Bagration acts?

Or to put it another way - once Vasily manages to square things with Pierre and Helene, he heads off to Bald Hills to pay a visit to the Bolkonskys and try to get his son Anatole married off to Princess Marya (a scheme cooked up, by the way, by Anna Pavlovna Scherer and Prince Vasily in the first chapters of the book). The scenes are mirror images of each other, with the genders of the protagonists and antagonists reversed. Princess Marya is even described as being "short-sighted," just as Pierre was, and she has some of the same thoughts and feelings that Pierre had, which makes the connection between the two of them and their roles more clear. Like Pierre, Princess Marya hears an inner voice, one that tells her to desire nothing for herself, seek nothing, but live in readiness for anything that God may bring. So she, like Pierre and like Bagration, relinquishes her will in favor of allowing herself to be guided by some kind of external force. But her story ends very differently from Pierre's and we are asked to question why that is. Is it because she is "wise" in her passivity, whereas Pierre is just passive? That is the conclusion that I have been mulling over. To complete the circle, much later in Part Three on the night before the Battle of Austerlitz, Andrei once again dreams of achieving glory and recognition. He also hears an inner voice that contradicts his fantasies, asking "Yes, but what about death and agony?" Whereas Marya listened to her inner voice, both Pierre and Andrei ignore theirs.

There are several other such moments in this section: when Nikolai Rostov recounts the Battle of Schongraben to Boris and Berg, he tells the story not as it really happened but as he wished it had happened, much like the officers in Part Two and even Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoy's "creative reimagining" of the scene between Pierre and his father in Part One. Nikolai's love for Tsar Alexander I is depicted in the terms of romantic love, which connects his admiration for the Tsar with the matchmaking in the earlier chapters. And both Nikolai and Andrei meet their idols, Tsar Alexander I and Napoleon, respectively. I don't want to give too much away here, in case you're still reading. But the similarities and differences between these two meetings will be worth discussing.

So here are a few questions for Wednesday's discussion: What impulses move Pierre in his relations with Helen? How "free" is Pierre in his actions in these scenes? Why do Pierre and Marya's situations end so differently? One of my students asked in class the other day, "Do the Kuragins exist in the novel just to ruin people?" It's a good question! What does their function seem to be? What is the function of Nikolai's love for Tsar Alexander? How is the Tsar depicted in this section? How can we compare Nikolai and Andrei's encounters with their heroes? And what is the meaning and symbolism of the sky as Andrei views it on the field at Austerlitz?

Book One, Part Two - War

In Book One, Part One, we saw Tolstoy focus on "peace" scenes - family gatherings, parties, and domesticity. As one participant in Wednesday night's chat session pointed out, we seem to see peoples' "normal" lives before the war drops in like a cannonball. But even in these early scenes that are supposedly peaceful, the threat of war is still felt, even from the first lines. This should be a reminder to us that Tolstoy's novel is titled War AND Peace. He, obviously, didn't capitalize his conjunction, but it is an interesting feature of human nature and psychology that even though he combines the two concepts, as readers we still tend to separate war and peace into two different realms.

In Part Two of Book One, we transition to more obvious scenes of war - the Russian troops arriving in Austria and eventually taking part in the battle of Schongraben. The transition, though, from peace to war is not complete: soldiers are depicted as engaging in "peaceful" pursuits (Tolstoy's word), such as cooking food, mending clothes, warming themselves by the fire. The family theme presented in Part One is picked up in Part Two through the relationships between officers and soldiers and members of a regiment. The diplomat Bilibin has more than a little in common with Anna Pavlovna Scherer - when Andrei first arrives at his house, Bilibin complains of being sick (like Anna Pavlovna at the beginning of Part One), he loves to create bons mots in his "laboratory," which is similar to AP being a foreman adjusting the machinery of conversation, and the reappearance of Hippolyte Kuragin connects Bilibin to Anna Pavlovna Scherer's salon.

Another theme that connects the "peace" scenes of Part One with the "war" scenes of Part Two is the use and misuse of language, expressed through both the character of Bilibin (who speaks in French, only using Russian for words he particularly wants to mock), and in the army orders. Orders for the army are often garbled, not clearly expressed, misunderstood, or understood too literally. When Kutuzov asks Andrei to write a memo about the disposition of the Austrian forces, Andrei understands what he needs to do more by what Kutuzov doesn't say than what he does say.

So themes that were highlighted in Part One carry through into Part Two. At the same time, however, the reverse is also true: certain things that were in the background in Part One move to front and center in Part Two. Another issue that came up in Wednesday night's conversation is how well the male characters really seem to understand war in Part One. For Nikolai, the whole thing seems like a game, a way to prove himself as an adult and a man. For Andrei, it is not perhaps so much a game as a way to achieve glory and masculine independence.

In Part Two, Tolstoy highlights the real experience of war - one lived on the battlefield, rather than in the drawing room. Tolstoy himself had been a soldier and had fought in one of the bloodiest and most famous battles of the Crimean War. His "Sevastopol Stories," published a few years prior to War and Peace, are a kind of warm-up to his great novel. In these stories, Tolstoy explores the experience of war, mainly in order to strip the romantic halo from it. War is not what you think it is. The impressions of war that you have from reading books is nothing like the reality of it. In this particular section of the book, Tolstoy's narrator primarily follows two characters - Nikolai and Andrei - as they experience war both in their fantasies and in reality.

So some questions to think about for this section: What experiences do Nikolai and Andrei have? What are their expectations, and what reality do they find? There are two aspects to the army and war, logistics and morale. How does Tolstoy depict both of these? The question of glory, heroes, great men, and the writing of history - all major themes throughout the rest of the book - are explored here. How are these things depicted in this early stage?

Part One was in many ways a foundation for the rest of the book, with major characters and themes being introduced. The same is true for Part Two - all the major "war" themes and ideas are introduced (though these themes and ideas will, of course, bleed into the peace scenes). Perhaps the biggest and most important idea for the rest of the book, one that Tolstoy will return to again and again and again (and again!), is the question of free will. To what extent do we have free will, and to what extent are events organized in a way that is beyond our control and comprehension? And if we really can only see and understand a tiny portion of the events that are unfolding around us, aren't the ideas of glory, action, and heroism at the end of the day nothing but pure folly?

Two figures that will be key in the novel are the two Russian generals Kutuzov and Bagration (pronounced: Bag-ra-ti-on, not "Bagrashun"!). Note in particular the scene when Andrei watches Bagration on the battlefield, and he realizes to his surprise that Bagration is not actually giving any orders. Instead, he acts as if everything that is happening is good and was meant to happen. This passage represents a concept that I have adopted from a former professor of mine called "wise passivity" - Bagration (and later Kutuzov) is the antipode to Napoleon. Napoleon is arrogant enough to think he controls events, Bagration is wise enough to know that he doesn't. But his presence, as the narrator points out, is for all that entirely necessary. It is a difficult concept for 20th- and 21st-century Americans to come to terms with. I often hear the criticism: "But he doesn't do anything!" That's precisely the point, and in this way Tolstoy challenges not just 19th-century Russian assumptions about war and heroes, but our own assumptions today.

So many names, so little time!

For people not familiar with Russian culture, one of the most difficult things about reading Russian literature is not the exploration of deep philosophical questions, the detailed depiction of the inner workings of a character's psychology, or the violation of all the rules of genre, but... all those names! Here is a quick guide to Russian names:

All Russians have three names: first name, patronymic, and last name. The first name is pretty self-explanatory, although keep in mind that there is a much smaller pool of names that Russians choose from than what we might be used to (that's one reason why there are so many Anna's or Alexander's or Natalya's).

Instead of a middle name, Russians have a patronymic. To form the patronymic, you take the father's name and add the suffix -ovich or -evich for a man, -ovna or -evna for a woman. So Andrei's name and patronymic are Andrei Nikolaevich, while his sister Marya's name and patronymic are Marya Nikolaevna (since their father's name is Nikolai).

The last name is just the last name, but one important point that may or may not be visible in your translation is that all Russian last names have a masculine form and a feminine form, so Andrei Bolkonsky but Marya Bolkonskaya. Likewise, Nikolai Rostov, but Natasha Rostova. Many translators (but not all) simplify the last names of female characters: Natasha Rostov.

The first name and patronymic are used when addressing someone in a formal situation - basically, where we would say "Mr. Smith" or "Ms. Johnson." It can imply respect, if a person is older than you or of a higher social standing, or it can imply distance or lack of familiarity. It's used in polite situations.

With somebody you are closer to or more informal with, you use just the first name without the patronymic. But here is where things can get rather tricky: Russians have a whole system of diminutive forms for first names, and these diminutives can have a whole range of connotations. Some are neutral, others are used mainly for children rather than adults, some convey affection, others condescension, etc., etc. Some names don't lend themselves readily to their diminutive forms - Andrei is pretty much always Andrei, so when Princess Marya uses the diminutive form "Andryusha" before he goes off to battle, it is loaded with affection and childhood memories. Boris is another name that doesn't really lend itself to a diminutive form under normal circumstances - the diminutive "Borya" implies a great degree of familiarity. But other names are always used in the diminutive form - two examples in War and Peace are Natasha (the diminutive form of "Natalya") and Sonya (the diminutive of "Sofya" or "Sophia"). Nikolai can be Kolya or - to express a great deal of affection - Kolenka. The same with Pyotr - Petya - Petenka.

And if all of that isn't complicated enough, Tolstoy complicates things still further by giving several of the characters frenchified names. This is particularly noticeable with the Kuragin family: Anatole is the French version of the Russian name Anatoly; Helene is the French version of the Russian name Yelena; Julie is the French version of the Russian name Yuliya. And Andrei's wife flip-flops between Lise (French) and Liza (Russian diminutive form of Elizaveta). Note that Natasha, though, is always Natasha, unless somebody decides to suddenly call her "Nathalie" (French) and Princess Marya is always Marya unless somebody decides to call her "Marie" (French). And the Anna's in the book are occasionally called "Annette" (French).

I am tempted to make some kind of sweeping generalization that the characters who are primarily called by French names are all ridiculous, and sometimes even despicable, while the ones known by Russian names are more natural and less artificial. However, as always with Tolstoy, such sweeping generalizations break down somewhere - in this case, when we get to Pierre. Pierre's name is technically Pyotr, but of course he's never called that. The question came up in Wednesday's chat session about Pierre's name and whether it is meant to mark him as a "foreigner," an outsider who is different from everyone else and who doesn't think or act like a Russian. I would definitely agree with the first half - that he is a "foreigner" who is different from everyone else - but the quotation marks are important. Pierre is a "foreigner" in the sense that he is definitely an outsider, as has been noted in several different places on this blog. But I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that he doesn't act or think like a Russian. Pierre is a good guy; as was noted in the chat session, he is ineffectual, but bumbling and kind, and above all authentic. It's this authenticity that gets him in trouble in Anna Pavlovna's salon. I'm not sure how obvious this is in your translations, but in the Russian original, when Tolstoy's narrator introduces Pierre, he states that Anna Pavlovna Scherer is terrified by the "intelligent, shy, observant and natural look" on his face, a look that "differentiated him from everybody else in the drawing room."

So I think it could be possible to dip deeper into what Pierre's name might mean for his character, but as with everything else in War and Peace, I would guard against sweeping generalizations. I will point out one other thing about Pierre's name, though: after Count Bezukhov dies and Pierre is officially recognized as his legitimate heir, he (Pierre) becomes not just Pierre (as he had been throughout Part I), but Count Bezukhov. The name "Bezukhov" in Russian has the connotation of "without ears" or "Pierre the earless." And combined with the eye-glasses he always wears, well, Pierre's not always aware of what's going on around him!