Abstract
Lev Tolstoy’s War and Peace, first published in 1869, contains a memorable scene depicting the lynching of a young man. Vereshchagin stands accused of disseminating defeatist literature in Moscow as Napoleon’s army sweeps eastward. On the eve of the city’s fall in September 1812, a crowd of fearful and panicked Muscovites assembles in front of the residence of the city’s governor, Count Rostopchin. Disconcerted by its unpredictable and riotous potential, Rostopchin pronounces the prisoner responsible for Moscow’s surrender and orders his dragoons to cut Vereshchagin down in front of the crowd. Yet events quickly run out of control:
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