#bolkonskys

[sincerely-zoemurphy]

Just some interesting annotations in the Great Comet book

[pjransones]

bbc’s war & peace

episode 3

[andryushas]

I was gonna make this meme but there's like three of them and most of them suck just at least a little

[nikolenka]

andrei and marya as kids. andrei being mischievous but protective big brother

this is 100% an elaboration of @andryushas wonderful wonderful headcanon that andrei tucked marya into bed each night after their mother died. i’m not particularly sure that that counts as mischievous but it hits the other targets so here we are

In the wake of their mother’s death, Andrei tucks Marya into bed every night, determined to let his sister sleep with lighter thoughts than before. He knew, in the back of his mind, how their father would disapprove once he knew—don’t coddle the girl, Andrei, she’s not a baby. Baby or not, Andrei counters in his head, it’s still worth it to make Masha smile, or laugh, or look anywhere happier than she had been.

Some nights he reads to her, short fairy tales like The Princess Who Never Smiled or The Wise Little Girl. Other nights, he improvises his own, stories about talking dogs and happy ghosts in the house. Right after her death, Andrei just let Masha lean on him, cry quietly and fiddle with her braid, until her breathing slowed again. He’d then make a silly face, wiggle his fingers and stick his tongue out, until she was laughing despite her blotchy face and wet eyes.

Their father finds out, of course, and tells Andrei exactly what he expected him to say. Andrei resigns to tucking his sister in one last time, partially for his own sake. He needs to come up with something to think about at night that doesn’t revolve around… well.

He pulls the sheets up to Marya’s chin as he tells her. She pauses, her eyes—eyes like their mother’s, good Lord—filled with a tired hurt.

“I don’t know how I’ll sleep,” she says.

“You can read a story, or make up your own. Just like I did.”

After a moment, she nods.

“I’ll miss this.”

Andrei looks down at the sheets.

“Me, too.”

[nikolenka]

@uranowitz asked me The Question, aka Why do i love the bolkonskys, and i love love love them as a collective because andrei & marya are not perfect siblings, but they love each other and look out for each other (even if andrei can be a dick to her, re: her god’s folk).

one other detail that i really love about them is how they are foils to each other in the love they seek: andrei has earthly love from his wife, his family, his peers (/pierre), but lacks a feeling of heavenly fulfillment; inversely, marya is essentially loveless (and she wants to be loved So Badly) but finds comfort in her deep devotion to god, which comes easily. yay foils!!

i also love them as individual characters for so so many other reasons but as a Whole that is why !

[nikolenka]

Does it ever say in War and Peace what happened to Princess Bolkonsky? Did she die having Marya? When Andrei and Marya were young? Sometime during Andrei's early adulthood? Or does it just not say? Or maybe she's alive the whole time and Tolstoy just casually forgot to name or mention her.

we know, at the very least, One Thing about the late princess bolkonskaya, and it’s that she safely gave birth to marya in a small town (i’m guessing) called kisheynov with only the assistance of a “moldavian peasant woman” (book two, part one, chapter 8). it’s assumed that she died when the bolkonsky siblings were both very young—aside that, we know Nothing, which is such a shame, because marya and andrei had to have gotten all their good character traits from someone !!

[nikolenka]

far-off follies

a/n: i come back….. just to write about the bolkonskys then disappear again…..

Characters: Andrei Bolkonsky, Marya Bolkonskaya, Amélie Bourienne

Fandom: War and Peace

Haunted by the loss of Lise and the loneliness of the house, the Bolkonsky residents try to find a moment of peace.

link!

[nikolenka]

carolinebowman replied to your post “who would i be without the marya icon, honestly,”

Okay I know you’re joking but your ‘andrei who????’ tag hurts my heart / But yes Mama Bolkonskaya is important. I wish we knew literally anything about her (gdi Tolstoy)

1a. andrei who???? 

1b. while a facetious statement honestly..... that kind of dismissal fits quite well. considering everything he’s done (not standing up to his father for marya, generally being a dick to lise, kind of hating people).... andrei who

2. i don’t know who mother bolkonskaya is, i will never truly know, but i adore her anyways