Pułapki utopizmu w Wojnie i pokoju Lwa Tołstoja

• Authors: Wojciech Gorczyca

Title variants

EN

The pitfalls of utopism in Lev Tolstoy’s War and Peace

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The mélange of utopia which takes place in War and Peace is reconsidered by the author from the perspective of identified toposes in the novel (the topos of a rule from God, the topos of Rome [Moscow as the third Rome], the Old Bible topos as well as the fighting Moscow’s prophetism [and sacrifice]). At the same time, the author refers to the use of metaphors of these toposes which occur in the Old Russian literature and points to the specific Tolstoy’s “evolutionism”. Falsifying accepted hypotheses, the author refers to the wide historical-juridical background, including military accessories connected with Napoleon’s war with Russia (so-called second Polish war). The author states that historical knowledge is lethal for Tolstoy as an utopist and speculative-constructive call of historical time deforms problems of the social nature. In this sense Tolstoy propagates Tsar’s profanations of European law (for example pacta sunt servanda), rejects the achievements of The Third of May Constitution, including its Fifth article with the most vital entry “ All rule of the human society originates from the nation’s will.

Keywords

EN

Political utopia; topos of rule from God; topos of Rome; motive of sacrifice; expulsion of morality in favour of public law

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Opolski
• Journal: Studia Slavica
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 7-24

Contributors

author

Wojciech Gorczyca

• Akademia Techniczno-Humanistzczna, Bielsko-Biała