Collage 515

Here is another instance of Tolstoy giving us his view of "real" history. He sees forces of war (or any momentous human event) with some sense of outcomes being determined not by the leaders celebrated in the history books and studies of military campaigns, but as almost predetermined by the culture of the time. On the abandoning and burning of Moscow:

"Every Russian, not on the basis of reasoning, but on the basis of the feeling that is inside us and was inside our fathers, could have predicted what was to take place."

Lucy Arrington
from page 285-286, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 5/13/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 831-832