Pierre Bezukhov
Encyclopedia
Rosemary Edmonds
Rosemary Edmonds , born Rosemary Lilian Dickie, was a British translator of Russian literature whose editions of Leo Tolstoy have been in print for 50 years.-Biography:...
translation) is a central fictional character
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
in Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
's novel War and Peace
War and Peace
War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in 1869. The work is epic in scale and is regarded as one of the most important works of world literature...
. He is the favourite of several illegitimate sons of the wealthy nobleman Count Kirill Vladimirovich Bezukhov.
Description
At the opening of the novel, Pierre is a young man who has recently returned to RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
to seek a career after completing his education abroad. Although a well-meaning, kind hearted young man, he is awkward and out of place in the Russian high society in whose circles he starts to move. Pierre, though intelligent, is not dominated by reason, as his friend Prince Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky
Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky
Prince Andrei Nikolaevich Bolkonsky is a fictional character in Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace....
is. His lack of direction leads him to fall in with a group of profligate young men like Anatole Kuragin and Dolokhov whose pranks and heavy drinking cause mild scandals. After a particularly outrageous escapade in which a policeman is strapped to the back of a bear
Bear
Bears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...
and thrown into a river, Pierre is sent away from St. Petersburg.
Pierre's life changes after he becomes the sole heir to his father's vast estate, and his position in society is changed from that of an illegitimate son to the new Count Bezukhov. His inability to control his emotions and sexual passions lead him into a marriage with the vapid but sensually beautiful Princess Helene
Helene Kuragin
Elena "Hélène" Vasilyevna Kuragina is a fictional character in Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace and its various cinematic adaptations.-Biography:...
, a match which her self-serving father, Prince Vasily, sets up to secure his access to Pierre's newly acquired vast fortune. Helene is not in love with Pierre, and has affairs. From jealousy, Pierre shoots her suspected lover, Dolokhov, in a duel. He is distraught at having committed such a crime and eventually abandons Helene in order to become a Freemason. His madcap escape into the city of Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and his subsequent obsessive belief that he is destined to be Napoleon’s assassin show his submission to irrational impulses. Yet his search for meaning in his life and for how to overcome his emotions are a central theme of the novel. He eventually finds love and peace with Natasha Rostova
Natasha Rostova
Countess Natalya "Natasha" Ilyinichna Rostova is a central fictional character in Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace.-Biography:...
and their marriage is perhaps the culmination of a life of moral and spiritual questioning.
Daniel Rancour-Laferriere calls Pierre "one of the best known characters in world literature." Merriam-Webster lists him among "the most attractive and sympathetic characters in literature..." And M. Keith Booker describes Pierre as one of Tolstoy's "most memorable characters..."
External links
Pierre Bezukhov in the Encyclopedia of literary characters- "Pierre Bezukhov (Character) from Voyna i mir (1967)," The Internet Movie Database