The “ghost of Pugachyov” in the “War and peace” of Leo Tolstoy

The article is dedicated to a comprehensive study of the problem of a revolution and tradition in Leo Tolstoy's epic novel “War and peace”. The chosen problem is regarded in the context of a comprehensive analysis of the paintings of the “bogucharovsky revolt” - the only episode of the “War and peace”, touching upon the theme of popular unrest. The “Bogucharovsky revolt” is one of the spectacular examples of Tolstoy's art of typification, as it appears from the study of the historical material for the first time introduced into the scientific turnover. At the same time, the poetic peculiarities of the episode are conditioned by a religious and philosophical position of the writer. All the minor elements of the poetics of the “War and peace” are perfectly reduced by the artist to this ideological center. Accordingly, an eschatological aspect inherent in the rebellion and self-proclamation theme in Russian history and literature is projected by the writer onto the author's personal conflict of natural life and civilization. Thus, the author’s idea of the contraposition of the national consent of 1812 with the civil unrest trends of the 1860s at the level of the poetics of the episode and the novel, as a whole, follows a rebellious spirit of that time. Between the “War and peace” and the later “Tolstoy revolution” there is a deep continuity.