BBC Adapting Tolstoy `War and Peace` Mini-Series, Slated for 2015
Baku, February 20 (AZERTAC). The BBC has commissioned a six part mini-series adaptation of Leo Tolstoy`s "War and Peace." The script will be adapted by Andrew Davies, whose credits include 1990`s original "House of Cards." Davies states calls "War and Peace" a "thrilling, funny and heartbreaking story of love, war and family life. The characters are so natural and human and easy to identify with, and Natasha Rostova just beats Lizzy Bennet as the most lovable heroine in literature." There have been many iterations of Tolstoy`s classic, including King Vidor`s 1956 version with Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda. Tolstoy`s "Anna Karenina" has been equally popular; Joe Wright was the latest to tackle the story, with Keira Knightley at the helm last year. The BBC`s recent projects include Jane Campion`s "Top of the Lake" and the upcoming "Burton and Taylor" with Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter.
War and Peace is well known as being one of the longest novels ever written, though not the longest. It is actually the seventh longest novel ever written in a Latin or Cyrillic based alphabet and is subdivided into four books or volumes, each with sub parts containing many chapters.
Tolstoy came up with the title, and some of his themes, from an 1861 work of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: La Guerre et la Paix (`War and Peace` in French). Tolstoy had served in the Crimean War and written a series of short stories and novellas featuring scenes of war.
He began writing War and Peace in the year that he finally married and settled down at his country estate. The first half of the book was written under the name "1805".
During the writing of the second half, he read widely and acknowledged Schopenhauer as one of his main inspirations. However, Tolstoy developed his own views of history and the role of the individual within it.
The first draft of War and Peace was completed in 1863. In 1865, the periodical Russkiy Vestnik published the first part of this early version under the title 1805. In the following year, it published more of the same early version. Tolstoy was dissatisfied with this version, although he allowed several parts of it to be published with a different ending in 1867, still under the same title "1805". He heavily rewrote the entire novel between 1866 and 1869. Tolstoy`s wife, Sophia Tolstaya, wrote as many as seven separate complete manuscripts by hand before Tolstoy considered it again ready for publication. The version that was published in Russkiy Vestnik had a very different ending from the version eventually published under the title War and Peace in 1869.
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