This episode examines Tolstoy’s influences in the sense that Tolstoy takes attitudes from major events of his day, including the humiliating defeat of the Crimean War of 1856, and imposes them on his characters. Tolstoy was conceptualizing and writing War & Peace in the 1850s and 60s, when liberal reforms were being pursued. Tolstoy therefore brings an idealism to his rendition of the victory over Napoleon in 1812. The episode also has a brief review of Part 1 of Book 1 to ready the reader to take on Part 3, as many major characters were absent from Part 2.

Over the first two parts of Book 1, there is a contrast of storing-telling. Part 1 involves the more relatable domestic affairs of high society combined with an eye toward Napoleon’s advances in the Summer of 1805. Part 2 is a historical exposition of the acceleration of the War of the Third Coalition during the Fall of 1805.

War & Peace is the product of thousands of pages of drafts as well as the unfinished works, “The Distant Field” and “The Decembrists.” Greater exposition of this process is detailed on the 1996 book by Kathryn B. Feuer, “Tolstoy and the Genesis of War and Peace.”

The Decembrist Revolt was a failed movement some characters of War & Peace would have been involved with after the story ends. The rebellion occurred after Emperor Alexander died in 1825 and one of the goals was to replace the autocracy of Czar with a Constitutional monarchy. Many involved were executed or sent to Siberia. Exiles were only released around 1856, when reforms sought in 1825 were being re-evaluated. In one sense, this novel involves men similar to Pierre and Andrei, who could not imagine what they were being thrown into in 1805 and ultimately became Decembrists 20 years later.

Pierre, who can described as "the heart" of the novel, unpredictably inherits the largest fortune in the country, and was exposed to the ideals of his time. He pursued the goal of absorbing and implementing the best of reforms. That is perhaps the greatest hero journey of War & Peace.

Tolstoy also takes the reader back to when serfs were conscripted to fight in the major wars, which he witnessed the final stages of. Ironically, it was the serfs contact with Central and Western Europe that highlighted Russian authorities could no longer keep citizens tied to the land. Later in the novel, you will meet the symbolic Platon Karataev, a simple serf, who lives in the moment with a wisdom and decency that escapes members of Tolstoy’s class.

Yet the enduring nature of this work is how it did not result in a novel centered on politics or history, but became a work of morality and even spirituality.

War & Peace also presents number of everlasting contrasts beyond class, including traditional values v. reform and urban/government centers v. the countryside. The latter aspect involves Tolstoy’s descriptions of cultured landowners, who he believes should manage their estates as if there are Garden of Edens.