AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, Volume 10. Number 2. May 2026 Pp.113-127
Institute for National and International Security (INIS)
Belgrade, Serbia
The study examines the ethical aspects of mercy and moral duty in War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, showing how societal forces and personal conscience shape moral understanding during times of social turmoil and war. The study’s objective is to determine how Tolstoy establishes ethical meaning through the psychological growth of his main characters, Pierre Bezukhov, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, and Natasha Rostova. Tolstoy’s moral thought on human compassion, moral agency, and responsibility in times of war remains applicable today, as the study shows. The study uses content analysis in conjunction with a descriptive qualitative methodology. The corpus comprises selected narrative passages from the book that depict the main characters’ periods of moral turmoil, empathy, and personal growth. The researcher selected particular texts because they highlight moral dilemmas and demonstrate how individuals relate to one another and how they view war and human suffering. Mercy, moral obligation, human conscience, and the impact of societal and cultural norms on ethical decision-making are the analytical concepts that direct the analysis. The study’s findings demonstrate how Tolstoy portrays morality in War and Peace as a dynamic ethical framework that adapts to historical developments and human experiences. Through historical accuracy and psychological insight, the novel demonstrates how people’s experiences shape their ethical consciousness. In conclusion, Tolstoy presents an ethical existence through compassion, empathy, and introspection, making War and Peace pertinent to current discussions of moral obligation and human endurance.
Almomani, B. R. S.(2026). Mercy and Moral Responsibility in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace: Ethical Ambiguity and Human Conscience in Times of Conflict. Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies 10 (2):113-127.
Al-Fahham, S. a. A., & Sulaiman, S. S. M. (2024). The Psychological Impacts of Familial Distance and War in Maaza Mengiste’s Beneath the Lion’s Gaze and Inam Kachachi’s Tashari. Arab World English Journal for Translation and Literary Studies, 8(2), 227–240. https://doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol8no2.16
Barker, A., & Grant, B. (Eds.). (2010). The Russia reader: History, culture, politics. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11sn2wd
Becker, D. (2014). Tolstoy and Schopenhauer and War and Peace: Influence and ambivalence. Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 48(4), 418–447. https://doi.org/10.1163/22102396-04804002
Berlin, I. (2013). The Hedgehog and the fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History – Second Edition. Princeton University Press.
Brunstetter, D. R., & Holeindre, J.-V. (2018). The ethics of war and peace revisited: Moral challenges in an era of contested and fragmented sovereignty. Casemate Publishers.
Carlson, M. A. (2017). Performance: A critical introduction (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315271026
Carson, R. (1962). Silent spring. Houghton Mifflin.
Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative, and history. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Caws, P. (2000). Moral certainty in Tolstoy. Philosophy and Literature, 24(1), 49–66. https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.2000.0005
Cicovacki, P. (2024). Tolstoy’s War and Peace: Philosophical Perspectives.
Correa Cabrera, J. (2025). Coping with a disenchanted world: The portrayal of Enlightenment in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Literatura: Teoría, Historia Crítica, 27(1), 230–257. https://doi.org/10.15446/lthc.v27n1.116795
Dahl, T. (2020). Empathy and ethics in 19th-century Russian literature. Cambridge University Press.
Eliot, T. S., & North, M. (2001). The Waste Land: Authoritative text, contexts, criticism. W. W. Norton.
Emerson, C. (1985). The Tolstoy connection in Bakhtin. PMLA, 100, 68–80.
Emerson, C. (1997). Prosaics and the problem of form. The Slavic and East European Journal, 41(1), 16–39. https://doi.org/10.2307/309508
Emerson, C. (2002). Tolstoy’s aesthetics. In D. T. Orwin (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Tolstoy (pp. 237–251). Cambridge University Press.
Emerson, C. (2009). Leo Tolstoy on peace and war. PMLA, 124(5), 1855–1858. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2009.124.5.1855
Fagan, A. (2016). Ethics and the post-traumatic subject: Modernity and the politics of compassion. Routledge.
Gale, C. L. (2015). A study guide for Leo Tolstoy’s War and peace. Gale, Cengage Learning.
Herman, J. L. (1997). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence—from domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books.
Kochmar, A. (2024). Perception peculiarities of L. N. Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace by modern high school students. Pedagogical IMAGE, 175–188. https://doi.org/10.32343/2409-5052-2024-18-2-175-188
Korchinsky, A., & Kudalina, A. (2023). The contingency of an event in history and fiction: Notes on the historicism of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin. Literary Theory, Linguistics, Cultural Studies Series, 52–62. https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2023-5-52-62
Krause, P. (2025). Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace: The odyssey of love. Yale University. https://www.academia.edu/39257840/Leo_Tolstoys_War_and_Peace_The_Odyssey_of_Love
LaCapra, D. (2001). Writing history, writing trauma. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Lebedev, Y. V. (2021). A.S. Khomyakov and “people’s thought” in the epic novel by Leo Tolstoy War and Peace. Philological Sciences Scientific Essays of Higher Education, 1(6), 91–97. https://doi.org/10.20339/phs.6-21.091
Morson, G. S. (1987). Hidden in plain view: Narrative and Creative Potentials in ‘War and Peace.’ Stanford University Press.
Morson, G. S. (1994). Narrative and freedom: The Shadows of Time. Yale University Press.
Nersessova, I. R. (2008). Ravage, rejection, regeneration: Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace as a case against forgetting. Senior Honors Theses & Projects, 176. https://commons.emich.edu/honors/176
Orwin, D. T. (2013). Tolstoy’s art and thought, 1847–1880. Princeton University Press.
Pavlova, I. (2021). Concerning the world harmony and the human debt in the epic novel War and Peace (Symbolism of Petya Rostov’s premortal dream). In Collected works on Tolstoy studies (pp. 131–155). https://doi.org/10.22455/LT-978-5-9208-0664-2-131-155
Shcherbakov, V. (2021). Moscow and Petersburg in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. In The reflection of Tolstoy’s spiritual and moral views in his works (pp. 117–130). IWL RAS. https://doi.org/10.22455/LT-978-5-9208-0664-2-117-130
Shkolnikov, V. (2023). On Tolstoy and Foucault: Intellectuals, conscience, and the entanglements of bio-power. Russian Literature, 141, 13–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ruslit.2023.05.002
Steiner, G. (1960). Tolstoy or Dostoevsky : an essay in contrast.
Tolstoy, G. L. (1967). Tolstoy’s writings on civil disobedience and non-violence. Humanities Press International.
Tolstoy, L. (2016). War and peace (L. Maude & A. Maude, Trans.; D. Studzinski, Ed.). DAST. https://ia903407.us.archive.org/9/items/war-peace/war-peace.pdf
Dr. Baha’ Aldeen Raed Suliman Almomani is a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the Jordanian Armed Forces and a PhD holder in English Literature from UniSZA, Malaysia. He has held key leadership and instructional roles in Jordanian and international military and academic institutions. His research focuses on espionage studies, international security, and postcolonial literature.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8383-1986