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Prince Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky (Russian: Андрей Николаевич Болконский Andrej Nikolaevič Bolkonskij) is a fictional character in Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace.
Laura Jepsen explains that unlike "many of the other characters for whom the author found living prototypes, Prince Andrey is entirely fictitious."[1]
Brief background
At the beginning of the novel, the handsome and intellectual Andrei, disillusioned with married life and finding his wife preoccupied with trivialities, becomes an officer in the Third Coalition against his idol, Napoleon Bonaparte. He leaves his pregnant wife, Lise, to live with his father and sister in the country, while he goes to war.
Andrei is wounded at the Battle of Austerlitz. He has an epiphany while lying on the battlefield, realising that he has the potential to be happy. Shortly afterwards, Andrei is rescued from the battlefield by Napoleon, who takes a liking to him. However, Prince Andrei is not listed among the dead or the officers taken prisoner, leading his father and sister to assume the worst. Neither inform Lise that he is unaccounted-for, fearing to cause her any anxiety in the final stages of her pregnancy. Andrei arrives, fully recovered, while his wife is in labour and sees her briefly before she dies in childbirth. The child, a boy, survives.
Disillusioned with war, Andrei spends the following years serving under his father. In 1809, Andrei is recalled to Petersburg, where he is formally introduced to Countess Natasha Rostova for the first time. Andrei wishes to marry Natasha, but his father expresses concern: he does not wish to see his son rush into another marriage he will regret, especially to a woman barely half his age. Nikolai demands that they wait a year before marrying. Andrei proposes marriage to Natasha, who happily accepts, though she is horrified at the one-year wait. In the meantime Andrei decides to tour Europe.
In Andre's absence, however Natasha develops an infuatiation with the libertine Prince Anatole Kuragin and plans to elope with him. She is stopped by her cousin Sonya, who suspects that Anatole is already married to another woman.
Andrei's engagement with Natasha is broken off, and he receives news of the death of his father, Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky. He decides to go off and fight again in the war with Napoleon. At Borodino he was hit by a grenade and seriously wounded in the stomach. While in agony, he sees Anatole, whose leg is amputated due to war wounds, and realizes that he has the capability to forgive both Anatole and Natasha, and that he truly still loves her. He is driven back to Moscow, where Sonya (Natasha's cousin) noticed him. She takes him to her house, and he and Natasha are reunited. Although she tries to nurse him back to his health, his wounds are too serious, and Prince Andrei dies in his Natasha's care.
References
- ^ Laura Jepsen, "Prince Andrey as Epic Hero in Tolstoy's War and Peace," South Atlantic Bulletin 34.4 (Nov., 1969): 5.
External links
- "Nikolai Andreyevich Bolkonsky (Character) from Voyna i mir (1967)," The Internet Movie Database
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