War and Peace — who's who

The hapless, sincere, intellectually serious illegitimate son who becomes Russia’s wealthiest bachelor in Volume One. Masonic seeker, accidental duelist, prisoner of war, Karataev’s companion, Decembrist sympathizer, Natasha’s husband. The figure through whom Tolstoy works out what an honest religious-political seriousness looks like.

Thirteen in 1805, twenty-eight in 1820. The exuberant girl at the ball, the fool in love with Anatole, the woman who throws the furniture off the carts to load the wounded, the nurse who watches Andrei die, the matron who has stopped singing.

Brilliant, proud, and thirty at the novel’s start. Seeks glory at Austerlitz, receives instead the infinite sky. Returns to find his wife dead in childbirth. Engaged to Natasha, betrayed, fights at Borodino, mortally wounded by a shell. Dies over fifty pages, with Natasha beside him.

Andrei’s plain, devout sister, imprisoned at Bald Hills by her bullying old father until 1812. Endures without breaking. Inherits the estate and nearly fails to escape the peasant revolt. Rescued by Nikolai Rostov. Marries him. Becomes the moral centre of the closing chapters.

A warm, generous, financially ruinous old count whose inability to manage money will eventually destroy the family estate. His hospitality is genuine and his judgment is poor.

A hussar officer who starts the novel in romantic love with military glory and ends it as a careful estate manager at Bald Hills, married to Princess Marya, paying off his family’s debts without touching his wife’s property.

Natasha’s cousin, raised by the Rostovs, secretly in love with Nikolai for the entire novel. Faithful, self-sacrificing, ultimately left behind as Nikolai marries Marya. Tolstoy calls her a sterile flower — not unkindly, but without sentimentality.

Andrei’s father: a former military commander under Catherine, brilliant, domineering, and growing crueller as he ages. He dies in 1812 as the French advance on Bald Hills.

The most beautiful woman in Petersburg society, married by Pierre in Volume One through a scheme of her father’s. Shallow, amoral, skillful at social machinery. Dies during the French occupation of Moscow.

A handsome, reckless, secretly already married rake who nearly elopes with Natasha in Volume Two, destroying her engagement to Andrei. His leg is amputated at Borodino. Andrei, dying, forgives him.

Reduced from legend to a small, vain man who believes he moves the armies he commands. Petty in his bath, baffled as Moscow burns with no surrender delegation arriving. Tolstoy’s exhibit A for the great-man theory of history reduced to its actual size.

The aging, one-eyed, apparently lazy Russian commander who refuses battles, surrenders Moscow to save the army, and weeps when Napoleon finally retreats. Tolstoy’s genuine hero of the campaign: a man who understands that the best thing is sometimes nothing.

A captured peasant who shares Pierre’s captivity during the French retreat. His cheerful acceptance of suffering and immediate kindness toward strangers is the closest the novel comes to a working model of how to live. Three scenes. Dies shot by a French soldier as the retreat thins the stragglers.

A soldier of enormous physical courage and moral ruthlessness who fights a duel with Pierre over Helene, ruins Nikolai Rostov at cards, and leads a partisan band during the French retreat.