Sevastopol (Tolstoy)
Short summary
Sevastopol, December 1854. The besieged Russian city was alive with the sounds of cannon fire and the bustle of soldiers, sailors, and civilians. A visitor arriving by boat witnessed the wharf crowded with wounded men, supplies, and women selling food. Inside a makeshift hospital, amputations were performed under chloroform while soldiers bore their suffering with quiet dignity. On the fourth bastion — the most dangerous post — sailors and soldiers manned the guns with calm composure, exchanging fire with the French enemy just thirty fathoms away. The narrator marveled at their courage, rooted not in glory-seeking but in love for their country.
Six months later, in May 1855, the siege continued. On the city boulevard, officers promenaded and gossiped while the bastions thundered. Staff-Captain Mikhaïloff, a modest infantry officer, dreamed of promotion and recognition as he made his way to the bastion for his turn of duty. Adjutant Kalugin and the aristocratic Prince Galtsin socialized at headquarters, watching the battle from a safe distance. That night, a sortie was launched. Kalugin rode to the bastion, twice overcome by fear but concealing it. Young Yunker Pesth fought in a confused melee and killed a Frenchman, later embellishing the story. Praskukhin, walking beside Mikhaïloff, was killed by a bomb splinter. Mikhaïloff himself was struck by a stone and lightly wounded, yet returned to his men out of duty. The next day, officers on the boulevard recounted the engagement with self-congratulation, while the dead were barely mourned.
Tolstoy concluded this sketch by declaring that no single character — neither the vain Kalugin, the hapless Praskukhin, the shy Mikhaïloff, nor the inexperienced Pesth — could be called a hero or a villain. Instead, he named something else as the true hero of his tale.
The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the strength of my soul, whom I have tried to set forth in all his beauty, and who has always been, is, and always will be most beautiful, is—the truth.
In August 1855, Lieutenant Kozeltzoff returned to Sevastopol after recovering from a wound, and his younger brother Volodya arrived fresh from military academy, eager but frightened. Volodya was assigned to a mortar battery on the Malakoff mound, where he overcame his terror and performed his duty bravely. On August 27th, the French launched a massive assault. The elder Kozeltzoff led a charge against the attackers and was mortally wounded, dying with the belief that the Russians had repulsed the enemy. Volodya was killed at his battery as the French overran it. That night, the Russian army abandoned Sevastopol, crossing the bay in silence, blowing up the bastions behind them. Soldiers and sailors looked back at the burning city with grief and defiant resolve.
Detailed summary
The subtitles added to the three stories and the division of each story into sections are editorial.
Sevastopol in December, 1854: a narrators tour of the besieged city
The harbor approach; Sevastopol observed from the bay
The first sketch opened at dawn, as the narrator — addressing the reader directly as 'you' — guided an imagined visitor through the besieged city of Sevastopol in December 1854. The morning light barely touched Sapun Mountain, and the dark surface of the bay still held the chill of night. At the wharf, the visitor encountered a dense mixture of smells — coal, manure, dampness, and beef — alongside heaps of timber, iron, and flour, and crowds of soldiers, sailors, merchants, and women. Retired sailors offered their boats, and the visitor was rowed across the bay by an old sailor and a white-headed boy, both pulling silently at the oars. From the water, the city appeared beautiful in the rosy morning light, its buildings tinted crimson, while sunken ships showed their black masts above the surface and the distant enemy fleet rocked on the horizon.
It cannot be that, at the thought that you too are in Sevastopol, a certain feeling of manliness, of pride, has not penetrated your soul, and that the blood has not begun to flow more swiftly through your veins.
The hospital and the quiet heroism of the wounded
Landing at the Grafsky wharf, the visitor passed through the busy streets and was directed to the former Assembly House, now serving as a hospital. Inside, forty or fifty seriously wounded men lay on hammocks and on the floor. An old soldier, who had lost his leg above the knee, spoke calmly about his wound, saying that the worst thing was thinking too much about it. A woman — his wife — stood nearby and told the story of his suffering with shining eyes, while the soldier himself turned away as though embarrassed by her words. Further along, a dying man with a swollen pale face lay with his mouth open, emitting labored breaths, his remaining arm wrapped in bandages. In the operating room beyond, doctors with blood-stained arms performed amputations on men under chloroform, while other wounded men watched in dread from their stretchers.
You behold war, not from its conventional, beautiful, and brilliant side, with music and drum-beat, with fluttering flags and galloping generals, but you behold war in its real phase—in blood, in suffering, in death.
The fourth bastion and the indomitable spirit of Russias defenders
Leaving the hospital, the visitor made his way through the city's ruined streets toward the fourth bastion — a place spoken of with a peculiar mixture of pride and dread by those who had been there. The path led past barricades, broken buildings, and scattered cannon-balls. At the bastion itself, a naval officer rolled cigarettes with perfect composure while sitting on a gun, and described how only one cannon had remained usable during the bombardment of the 5th, with just eight gunners surviving to serve it. When the officer ordered a shot fired, fourteen sailors stepped up briskly and loaded the gun with calm efficiency. The narrator observed in their sunburned faces and broad shoulders the simplicity and straightforwardness that he identified as the source of Russia's strength. After a bomb wounded a sailor nearby, the man said farewell to his comrades in a trembling voice before being carried away on a stretcher. The narrator concluded that the defenders of Sevastopol acted not for crosses or titles, but out of love for their country — the feeling that lay at the bottom of every man's soul.
Men will not accept these frightful conditions for the sake of a cross or a title, nor because of threats; there must be another lofty incentive as a cause, and this cause is... love for his country.
Sevastopol in May, 1855: officers, vanity, and a deadly sortie
Officers on the boulevard; social rivalries and vanity in a city under siege
Six months had passed since the first cannon-ball flew from the bastions. The second sketch opened with a reflection on the thousands of men who had died, been wounded, or had their ambitions satisfied or disappointed in that time. On the boulevard of the besieged city, the regimental band played, and officers and women promenaded in the spring sunshine as though at a peacetime resort. Among those walking was Staff-Captain Mikhaïloff, a shy and self-conscious infantry officer who had just received a letter from a friend in the provinces, whose wife Natasha wrote warmly of him and imagined him performing heroic deeds.
As Mikhaïloff walked, he daydreamed of promotion, of receiving the Cross of St. George, of eventually becoming a general. On the boulevard he spotted a group of officers he considered aristocrats and hesitated before approaching them. The group included Adjutant Kalugin, Prince Galtsin, a colonel, and a cavalry captain named Praskukhin. Kalugin greeted Mikhaïloff warmly enough, but Praskukhin — who owed Mikhaïloff money — gave only a slight bow, unwilling to acknowledge the acquaintance in front of the more distinguished company. The narrator paused to observe that vanity had penetrated every rank of Russian society, from merchants to generals, and that even on the brink of death men were consumed by the desire to appear superior to one another.
An evening at Kalugins; a sortie is ordered and officers depart for the bastions
That evening, Kalugin hosted Prince Galtsin, the colonel, and Praskukhin at his quarters. They drank tea, sang gypsy songs, and talked about acquaintances in Petersburg with the ease of men entirely at home, showing none of the arrogance they displayed in public toward infantry officers. A messenger arrived with orders from the general, and Kalugin announced that something was going to happen that night. Praskukhin buckled on his sword and departed for the bastion. Kalugin rode out on a Cossack horse to deliver orders and await the outcome of the affair, while Prince Galtsin, gripped by the restless emotion of a spectator near battle, paced the streets without purpose. As the night deepened, the sounds of rifle fire grew into a sustained roar, and the distant cry of 'Hurrah!' reached the city from the direction of the bastions.
The battle; Praskukhin killed by a shell, Mikhailoff wounded but steadfast
Mikhaïloff had gone to the lodgements with his company, and after three hours under bombardment received orders to withdraw. As he marched back with Praskukhin beside him, a bomb fell directly in the middle of the battalion. Both men threw themselves to the ground. Praskukhin lay still, eyes shut, and in the seconds before the bomb burst, an entire world of thoughts flashed through his mind — debts owed, a gypsy song, a woman he loved, a man who had once insulted him. When the bomb exploded, a splinter struck him in the chest. He ran a few steps, stumbled, fell, and died on the spot, killed instantly.
Mikhaïloff was struck by a stone and fell senseless, but recovered to find himself only lightly wounded in the head. His first sensation on regaining consciousness was something like regret — he had prepared himself so calmly for death that returning to the world of bombs and trenches felt almost disappointing. His second feeling was joy at being alive, and his third was a desire to leave the bastion as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, when his drummer urged him toward the field hospital, Mikhaïloff turned back to his men, unwilling to abandon them. He also went back to search for Praskukhin, dragging himself through the trench until he confirmed the man was dead. Meanwhile, Yunker Baron Pesth had participated in the sortie, during which he had stumbled forward in a daze, accidentally bayoneted a Frenchman, and afterward told an embellished version of events to Kalugin, claiming heroic deeds that had occurred largely by accident.
The truce; truth declared as the true hero of the tale
The following day, a truce was declared. White flags hung from the bastions and the French trenches, and in the valley between them, laborers collected and carted away the disfigured corpses. Officers from both sides exchanged pleasantries and small gifts — a cigar-holder for a cigarette-case — while soldiers joked with each other across the language barrier. A boy of ten wandered among the dead, picking wildflowers, until he touched the stiffened arm of a headless corpse and fled in terror. On the boulevard, Kalugin, Prince Galtsin, and a colonel discussed the engagement with expressions of official sorrow, though none had lost anyone close. Mikhaïloff, his head bandaged, encountered them and was treated with polite condescension. The narrator closed the sketch with a direct address: none of the characters — not Kalugin with his vanity, not Praskukhin who died for the faith, not Mikhaïloff with his shyness, not Pesth with his borrowed convictions — could be called either hero or villain. The true hero of the tale, the narrator declared, was truth.
Yes, white flags are hung out from the bastion and the trenches, the flowery vale is filled with dead bodies, the splendid sun sinks into the blue sea, and the blue sea undulates and glitters in the golden rays...
Sevastopol in August, 1855: the Kozeltzoff brothers and the fall of the city
Lieutenant Kozeltzoff returns from hospital; reunion with his younger brother Volodya
The third and longest sketch opened at the end of August 1855, as Lieutenant Mikhaïl Kozeltzoff rode in a light cart along the dusty road toward Sevastopol, returning from the Simferopol hospital where he had been treated for a head wound received on the 10th of May. He was stocky and broad-chested, with an unhealthy yellowish complexion, and possessed a sharp egotistical energy that made him need always to dominate those around him. At a posting-station crowded with officers waiting for horses, he encountered a group of young officers newly arrived from the military academy in Petersburg. Among them, to his surprise and delight, was his younger brother Volodya.
Volodya was seventeen years old, with chestnut curls, red cheeks, and the open, eager face of a young man who had volunteered for Sevastopol partly out of shame at remaining in Petersburg while others fought, and partly out of a desire to be near his brother. The two embraced warmly, though after a few minutes of conversation they fell into the slightly awkward silence of people who love each other but have little in common. Mikhaïl asked why Volodya had not gone into the guards as expected; Volodya explained that he wanted faster advancement and had been ashamed to stay behind. Mikhaïl smiled at his brother's idealism. The reunion was briefly troubled when it emerged that Volodya had run up a small debt to a fellow officer through card-playing and borrowed sugar, and Mikhaïl gave him the money with a stern remark about playing cards without funds. Volodya, deeply sensitive, felt the implied insult to his honor and could barely hold back tears, though the brothers were reconciled before they set out together.
The brothers assigned to their posts: Mikhail to the 5th bastion, Volodya to the mortar battery
Crossing the great bridge over the bay at night, the brothers were surrounded by the sounds and sights of bombardment — bombs tracing arcs of fire across the dark sky, waves slapping the pontoons, wounded men being carried past on stretchers. Volodya felt a sudden overwhelming terror. The damp darkness and the angry sea seemed to warn him away, and he crossed himself quietly and prayed. On the far side, the brothers parted: Mikhaïl went to find his regiment at the fifth bastion, while Volodya was directed to the fifth light battery on the Korabelnaya. Mikhaïl reported to the new regimental commander, a former comrade who had acquired the cold pride of authority, and was assigned to command the ninth company. He walked through the trenches to greet his men in their casemate, where soldiers were reading aloud from a primer by candlelight. They welcomed him with genuine warmth, and he felt at home among them.
Volodya, meanwhile, presented himself to the battery commander, a stout officer with a bald crown and a confident manner, who assigned him a bunk in a bare lower room and said little more. That night, alone in the dark, Volodya was tormented by fear — of bombs, of the French breaking in, of death. He rose, paced the room, and at last knelt and prayed as he had been taught in childhood. The prayer brought him a sudden calm, and he fell asleep to the sound of the bombardment rattling the windowpanes.
“If I must die, if I must cease to exist, ‘thy will be done, Lord,’” he thought; “let it be quickly; but if bravery is needed, and the firmness which I do not possess, give them to me...”
Volodyas first night and day at the mortar battery; overcoming terror under bombardment
The next morning Volodya was assigned by lot to take a crew to a mortar battery on the Malakoff mound. He drew the slip marked 'I go' and accepted the duty with a sigh. A young yunker named Vlang was assigned to accompany him as gun-sergeant. Volodya studied the artillery manual, copied out firing tables, and marched his twenty men to the battery at seven in the evening, calling out 'Good day, children!' in a ringing voice that pleased the soldiers.
On the Malakoff mound, Volodya noticed that Vlang constantly ducked and flinched at every passing shell, and that many of the soldiers did the same. This observation steadied his own nerves considerably. He found the two assigned mortars in poor condition — one cracked in the muzzle by a cannon-ball, the other on a ruined platform — and the charges were not of the prescribed weight. A giant gun-captain, a veteran sailor who had served on the mortars since the beginning of the siege, promised to set everything right by morning and guided Volodya through the bastion by lantern-light as calmly as if it were his own kitchen garden. The bomb-proof assigned to the crew was a narrow excavation covered with thick oak planks. Vlang rushed inside first and huddled in a corner, barely emerging again. Volodya lit a candle, lay on his cot, and smoked, listening to the shots overhead. The soldiers settled around him, exchanging stories and jokes. One man, a fat sandy-complexioned soldier named Melnikoff, wandered outside with perfect indifference to the bombs, claiming he knew he would not be killed by one.
Volodya sat at the threshold of the bomb-proof for three hours, watching the bombs arc overhead and learning from which direction most of the fire came. By the following morning he felt fresh and active. The soldiers spread out in the open air, joking and carving crosses from spent bullets. Volodya had the mortars repaired and ready to fire by ten o'clock. When he led his men to the battery and called out his first commands, he felt a surge of genuine courage — not the forced bravery of the night before, but the natural confidence of a man doing his duty in the company of others who trusted him. He climbed onto the banquette and unbuttoned his coat so as to be clearly visible, and the commander of the bastion, passing on his rounds, paused to admire the handsome young officer directing his fire with animated eyes and clapping hands.
The French assault on the Malakoff; Mikhail charges and is mortally wounded, Volodya dies at his post
At half past eleven the bombardment ceased on both sides, and at precisely noon the French launched their assault on the Malakoff mound and on the second, third, and fifth bastions simultaneously. At the fifth bastion, Mikhaïl Kozeltzoff had fallen into a heavy sleep after losing all his money — including the gold pieces sewn into his cuffs — at cards through the night. He was woken by the alarm and ran to his company at full speed. Bullets flew in swarms overhead, and the area where his battalion had stood was veiled in smoke. Hearing that the French had taken the Schwartz redoubt, he refused to believe it, grasped his sword, and shouted 'Forward, children! Hurrah!' His voice was strong and ringing, and fifty soldiers rushed after him. He ran across an open square under a hail of bullets. Two struck him — he had no time to determine where — but he ran on until he could see blue uniforms and red trousers ahead of him. He was convinced he was about to be killed, and this conviction gave him courage. He ran until everything blurred before his eyes and he felt a pain in his chest, and fell.
Half an hour later he lay on a stretcher near the Nikolaevsky barracks, feeling no great pain but wanting only something cool to drink and to be left in peace. A doctor examined his wound without a word and moved on. A priest approached, and Mikhaïl asked whether he was dying. The priest recited a prayer and offered the cross. Mikhaïl pressed it to his lips and wept. He asked whether the French had been repulsed, and the priest told him the victory had remained with Russia at every point — concealing the truth that the French standard already flew on the Malakoff. Mikhaïl gave thanks to God, and thought for a moment of his brother, hoping the same good fortune would be granted to him. At the mortar battery on the Malakoff, Volodya had been firing grape-shot at the advancing French when the assault overwhelmed the position. Twenty Frenchmen appeared behind the battery. Melnikoff was killed by a bullet at Volodya's side. Vlang, seizing a handspike, charged at the French with a ferocious expression that startled them, shouting desperately for Volodya to follow him and run for the trenches. Vlang escaped; but when he looked back, Volodya was no longer standing. Something in a coat lay prostrate where the young officer had been, and the battery was full of Frenchmen.
The fall of Sevastopol; the Russian army evacuates across the bay in grief and defiance
That evening, Vlang crossed the bay on a steamer loaded with soldiers, horses, cannon, and wounded men. The bastions of Sevastopol, which had seethed with life for so many months, were now silent and abandoned. Explosions continued to shake the air as the Russians destroyed what they could not take with them. The sunken ships settled deeper into the water, and the red glow of fires was reflected across the bay. The entire Russian army moved slowly through the darkness across the bridge and toward the northern fortifications, pressed together in an anxious, grieving mass. On the steamer, Vlang drew out a piece of bread and began to eat, then suddenly burst into loud weeping as he thought of Volodya. The soldiers around him heard it and remarked on it quietly. One soldier, Vasin, said that it was provoking to leave Sevastopol to the French, but that the walls remained and the breastworks were destroyed, and that if the emperor commanded, the army would win it back.
The army of Sevastopol, like the gloomy, surging sea, quivering throughout its entire mass, wavering, ploughing across the bay, on the bridge... moved slowly through the impenetrable darkness of the night...
Almost every soldier, as he gazed back at the abandoned city from the northern shore, sighed with inexpressible bitterness and menaced the enemy. Behind the instinct to survive lay a deeper feeling — something resembling repentance, shame, and hatred. The city they had defended for eleven months against a force twice their strength was gone, but the spirit that had held it had not been broken. The men crossed themselves as they stepped off the bridge onto the far shore, and moved on into the darkness.