“Soul Dialectics” in the Speech Strategies of L. N. Tolstoy and His Characters (Analysis of an Excerpt from the Novel “War and Peace”)

This article analyzes the excerpt from from the novel “War and Peace” by L. N. Tolstoy in the aspect of dialogue strategies as a form of psychological depiction of the characters and the relations within. Analysis of Andrei Bolkonsky’s farewell conversation with Knyazhna Mary is based on a comparison of the speech plan with the intentions in the context, and shows, how the writer shows conversation tactics of Bolkonsky’s family to the reader: silence, avoiding unpleasant subject of conversation, changing to an unfavorable subject of the speech for the interlocutor, or taking the conversation on the preferred way.

In addition, the article discusses a number of techniques used by Tolstoy to verify communicative tactics: repetitions, an imaginary redundancy, and the author’s interpretation. The importance of the dialogue tactics is proved thereby to be as an artistic means for the psychologically accurate and deep drawing of every character`s inner world. The speech of the characters is also compared with the speech of the narrator, that makes it possible to identify the author`s strategies aimed at the formation of a certain model of interaction between the reader and the literary text.

The results of the study provide deeper understanding of Tolstoy’s prose psychology and can be used in teaching practice of Russian literature.