Leo Tolstoy is very popular for writing the novel War and Peace. Ranked among the longest novels ever written, War and Peace is subdivided into four volumes each with subsections and containing numerous chapters. The epic novel is based on the story of the Napoleonic intrusion of Russia in 1812. Tolstoy had served in the Crimean War and wrote a number of short stories and novels featuring war scenes. His participation in the war allowed him to better understand the writing of the novel War and Peace. To begin with, Tolstoy borrowed the title and some of its ideas from a well-known economist and anarchist, Pierre Joseph Proudhon. Leo Tolstoy began writing the novel War and Peace the year he finally married and settled down. Considered one of the most important works in history, the novel War and Peace is considered one of Leo Tolstoy's best literary achievements. However, according to Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1873-1877), another major achievement of his literary genre, deserves to be considered a true novel. This was due to the fact that he firmly believed that the best Russian literature did not conform to standard standards. As a result, he was reluctant to present War and Peace as a novel. Mysteriously, Tolstoy defines War and Peace neither as a novel, nor as a poem, nor as a historical chronicle. This can be attributed to the fact that much of the work consists of philosophical discourse rather than narrative. War and Peace delineates the events surrounding the French invasion of Russia and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society. The first publication of the book in its entirety was first carried out in 1869. However, segments of an earlier version of the novel, which was then known...... middle of paper...... his only son. Finally, we have the Kouraguine family, made up of three children with questionable character. Tolstoy based his writings on these five families to reflect the events of Napoleon's war. The book was first written in Russia. However, some parts of the novel are written in French. The characters in the novel alternate between the two languages. It was a reflection of the Russian aristocracy of the 19th century, where a foreign language, French, was widely spoken and considered a more prestigious language than Russian. The use of French diminishes as the book progresses and the wars with the French intensify. Tolstoy uses this in his text to demonstrate how Russia freed itself from foreign cultural supremacy. Reference “War and Peace”. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. March 2. 2014. Internet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace