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60 free War and Peace trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This War and Peace trivia quiz follows Tolstoy's novel from Anna Pavlovna's soirée in 1805 to the visit to Bald Hills in 1820. Story questions cover Pierre's inheritance and his disastrous marriage, the duel with Dolokhov, Andrei under the sky at Austerlitz, Natasha's first ball, the elopement that never happens, the comet, Borodino, the burning of Moscow, the prisoner Platon Karataev and the marriages of the epilogue. Then it turns to the making of the book: the draft serialised as 1805, the seven manuscripts Sophia Tolstaya copied, the Schopenhauer influence, the French that Tolstoy cut and put back, the 361 chapters, the 'little man' theory of history and what Flaubert, Thomas Mann and Goncharov said about it. The last stretch covers the screen: Audrey Hepburn and a 50-year-old Henry Fonda, Sergei Bondarchuk's Oscar-winning Soviet epic, the BBC's Paul Dano, Prokofiev's opera and the electropop Great Comet. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the novel, its author, its characters and its adaptations, and each explanation adds one detail worth keeping. It suits book clubs, Russian literature students and anyone who has finished all four volumes and wants credit for it.
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Q 01In which year was the complete novel first published?
1869
An earlier version had been serialised from 1865; Tolstoy then rewrote the whole thing, and his wife Sophia copied out as many as seven full manuscripts.
Q 02Under what title was the first part of an early draft serialised in The Russian Messenger?
1805
Tolstoy disliked that version and let parts appear with a different ending before rewriting everything between 1866 and 1869.
Q 03Which historical conflict provides the novel's backdrop?
The Napoleonic Wars
It runs from 1805 to 1820, from the first campaigns against Napoleon through the burning of Moscow to the years after the retreat.
Q 04How many aristocratic families' interlocking stories does the novel follow?
Five
They are the Bezukhovs, Bolkonskys, Rostovs, Kuragins and Drubetskoys; many were modelled on Tolstoy's own grandparents and their friends.
Q 05Who is the socially awkward, illegitimate son of a rich count at the centre of the novel?
Pierre Bezukhov
Tolstoy based him more than any other character on himself; he was educated abroad and returns to Russia a misfit.
Q 06Where does the novel open in July 1805?
A soirée in Saint Petersburg
The hostess is Anna Pavlovna Scherer, confidante of the dowager empress, and most of the main characters walk in through her salon door.
Q 07Which real Russian commander does Prince Andrei become aide-de-camp to in order to escape his marriage?
Kutuzov
Prince Mikhail Kutuzov is one of roughly 160 real people named or referred to in the novel.
Q 08At which 1805 battle is Prince Andrei badly wounded while trying to save a Russian standard?
Austerlitz
Lying wounded he meets Napoleon, his former hero, and finds him petty beside the 'lofty, righteous and kindly sky' above.
Q 09How old is Natasha Rostova when she is introduced, believing herself in love with Boris Drubetskoy?
Thirteen
Tolstoy introduces her as 'not pretty but full of life'; she is an accomplished singer and dancer.
Q 10Which orphaned cousin, raised by the Rostovs, is in love with Nikolai Rostov?
Sonya
Nikolai promises to marry the dowry-less girl even as his family faces ruin, but ends up marrying Princess Maria instead.
Q 11What is the name of the Bolkonsky family's country estate?
Bald Hills
Nikolai Rostov and Princess Maria eventually settle there and raise Prince Andrei's orphaned son.
Q 12A resentful fellow officer ruins Nikolai Rostov by luring him into a card debt of how many roubles?
43,000
He had just been turned down by Sonya, and takes his revenge at the card table.
Q 13Whom does Pierre marry after inheriting his fortune, despite knowing it is wrong?
Hélène Kuragina
She is rumoured to be involved with her own brother Anatole, tells Pierre she will never bear his children, and dies late in the book of an overdose of an abortifacient.
Q 21Which great 1812 battle does Pierre watch as a civilian from beside a Russian artillery crew?
Borodino
He ends up carrying ammunition; Tolstoy calls it a moral victory for Russia even though the army withdrew the next day.
Q 22Fleeing Moscow, what does Natasha have her family load onto their carts instead of possessions?
Wounded soldiers
Unknown to her, the badly wounded Prince Andrei is among them.
Q 23What is Pierre doing when the French arrest him in burning Moscow?
Defending an Armenian family from looters
He had just rescued a small girl from a burning house; his plan to assassinate Napoleon never gets further than his own head.
Q 14Whom does Pierre wound in a duel over rumours about his wife?
Dolokhov
The result is a shock, since his opponent is a seasoned duellist and Pierre has barely held a pistol.
Q 15Which secret society does Pierre join during his spiritual crisis?
The Freemasons
A mason named Osip Bazdeyev talks him into it; the lodge's rules of forgiveness later persuade him to take his wife back.
Q 16How does Prince Andrei's wife Lise die?
In childbirth
Andrei returns from hospital to find her dying; the child, Nikolai, survives and is later raised by his aunt Maria.
Q 17Where does Prince Andrei meet Natasha and fall for her vivacious charm?
At her first grand ball
His father dislikes the Rostovs and insists the couple wait a year before marrying, which proves fatal to the engagement.
Q 18Which handsome, secretly married rake tries to elope with Natasha, wrecking her engagement?
Anatole Kuragin
He had abandoned a Polish wife; Sonya foils the elopement at the last minute and Natasha attempts suicide.
Q 19What celestial event streaks across the sky as Pierre realises he loves Natasha?
The Great Comet of 1811-12
Dave Malloy's stage musical Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 is built from this stretch of the book.
Q 20Pierre convinces himself through numerology that Napoleon is which figure from the Book of Revelation?
The Antichrist
He decides he himself has an end-times role, and later wanders occupied Moscow with a half-baked plan to assassinate the emperor.
Q 24Which saintly peasant does Pierre befriend as a prisoner of the French?
Platon Karataev
In him Pierre finally finds an honest man without pretence; the fever-ridden peasant is shot by the French during the retreat.
Q 25Which young Rostov is killed in the skirmish that frees Pierre from the French?
Petya
The raiding party is led by two hussar officers; earlier Petya had snatched a biscuit thrown by the Tsar from a Kremlin balcony.
Q 26Where do the Rostovs nurse the dying Prince Andrei after fleeing Moscow?
Yaroslavl
He is reunited with Natasha and forgives her before losing his fear of death and dying.
Q 27Whom does Nikolai Rostov marry in the epilogue, rescuing his ruined family?
Princess Maria Bolkonskaya
He finds marrying for money repugnant but genuinely loves her; they raise Prince Andrei's orphaned son alongside their own children.
Q 28In which year does the epilogue's wedding of Pierre and Natasha take place?
1813
The book closes in 1820 with hints that Pierre and young Nikolenka Bolkonsky will be swept into the Decembrist uprising.
Q 29Which later uprising is hinted at in the closing chapters as the future of Pierre and young Nikolenka?
The Decembrist revolt
Tolstoy originally planned a novel about the Decembrists and worked backwards until he reached 1805.
Q 30Roughly what fraction of the novel is written in French rather than Russian?
About two per cent
Tolstoy cut the French entirely from an 1873 edition, then restored it; some translators such as Briggs still leave it out.