On the criterion of the adequacy of artistic fiction in the image of the Patriotic War of 1812 (to the question of the controversy of A.S. Norov and Leo Tolstoy)

The article deals with the polemical discourse of A.S. Norov, who was the hero of the war 1812, which he leads with Leo Tolstoy from the point of view of the direct participant in the battles with Napoleon. Analyzing then description of the events of the Patriotic War of 1812 in the novel of Leo Tolstoy “War and Peace”, A.S. Norov opposes them to a description which was made by the hero Yermolov of the war of 1812. The authors speculate that the polemics of A.S. Norov with the Leo Tolstoys’ point of view to the driving forces in the war of 1812 would not be so acute if it is considered in the categories of literary criticism, as a polemical discourse of the work with artistic fiction (the novel by Leo Tolstoy) with a work of documentary where fiction is excluded (wroks by A.S. Norov).

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