Story summary
Samenvatting van Sebastopol
- 8 min. leestijd
- 8 parts
- Binnenkort te beluisteren
A visitor walks through besieged Sevastopol, from a hospital full of amputees to the muddy fourth bastion.
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Sebastopol in het kort
Samenvatting: 8 min leestijd
- Leestijd
- Ongeveer 3 h2 h 20 min fast, 3 h 30 min slow
- Lengte
- 42.400 woorden
- Bibliotheekniveau
- Gemiddeld longer sentences, everyday words
- Voor het eerst verschenen
- 1855by Leo Tolstoj
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Hoelang het duurt om de klassiekers te lezen · Bijgewerkt
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Sebastopol in short
Sevastopol is three sketches of one siege. In the first, a visitor crosses the bay, sees the wounded and the sailors at the fourth bastion, and learns that courage here is plain and unspoken. In the second, a shy staff captain and the officers on the boulevard show how vanity and fear tangle together.
What Sebastopol is about
Picture yourself stepping out of a rowboat onto a wharf in a city under siege. A dead horse lies in the mud, women sell rolls, and the guns never stop. This is how Leo Tolstoy opens Sevastopol.
Tolstoy was a young artillery officer in the Crimean War when he wrote these three sketches, which appeared in a Russian magazine in 1855 and 1856. They take you through hospital, bastion and boulevard, and then to two brothers who ride toward the guns. You meet the soldier who does his duty without a speech, the adjutant who boasts, and the boy who fears he is a coward.
Voor wie is het?. Readers who enjoy war writing rooted in the lives of soldiers and officers will love this book, as will admirers of Tolstoy's sharp eye for human character.
The story in 8 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A visitor walks from the wharf to the hospital
The first sketch is set in December 1854, and Tolstoy tells it in the second person, so you are the visitor. At dawn you cross the bay in a rowboat, pulled by an old sailor and a white-headed boy named Mishka. The guns grumble in the distance, and a dead brown horse lies in the mud beside your boat.
On the far shore, soldiers, sailors, merchants, and women selling rolls crowd around cannonballs and gun carriages. Nobody looks afraid or inspired. A soldier watering horses seems as calm as if he were back home in Tula.
Then Tolstoy sends you into the old Assembly House, now a hospital. A gaunt soldier has lost a leg above the knee, and he thanks God, because now he will be discharged. His advice is to stop thinking, since people suffer more from thinking than from anything else. On a cot lies a sailor's wife whose leg was amputated after a bomb wounded her as she carried her husband's dinner to the bastion.
In the next room the surgeons work with bloody arms. Tolstoy says this is war in its true form, not with music, drums, and fluttering flags, but in blood, suffering, and death. Step outside into the sunshine and you forget it.
Courage in Sevastopol is quiet, and the suffering behind it is easy to forget.
- 2Begin gratis met lezen
At the fourth bastion, danger becomes routine
From the hospital you walk into the lively part of the city, where an inn serves cutlets and sour Crimean wine.
- 3Begin gratis met lezen
Vanity walks the boulevard in spring
The second sketch begins in May 1855.
- 4Begin gratis met lezen
One night shows how fear changes every man
Mikhailoff goes home to his small room with its dirt floor.
- 5Begin gratis met lezen
Two brothers ride toward the guns in August
The third sketch opens at the end of August 1855.
- 6Begin gratis met lezen
Volodya meets fear and learns to pray
The brothers cross the bridge over the bay at night, with the black water slapping the planks and bombs bursting overhead.
- 7Begin gratis met lezen
Vanity, courage, and the truth underneath
The three sketches ask the same question from several sides: what makes a man go forward?
- 8Begin gratis met lezen
Tolstoy tells the siege in a plain, direct voice
The way Tolstoy tells these sketches is part of their force.
Read all 8 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Mikhailoff A shy, ungainly infantry staff captain who dreams of the Cross of St. George and fears that tonight at the bastion will be his last.
- Kalugin A vain adjutant who loves his reputation for bravery and tries to hide his fear under fire.
- Prince Galtsin A proud guards officer visiting from Petersburg, who treats the front like an amusing spectacle.
- Praskukhin An empty-headed cavalry captain who clings to the circle of aristocrats and owes money to Mikhailoff.
- Mikhail Kozeltzoff A wounded line officer with a strong ego who returns to his company and cares more for his men than for his comfort.
- Volodya Kozeltzoff His seventeen-year-old brother, fresh from the academy, who longs to be a hero and fears he is a coward.
- Vlang A devoted young cadet who adores Volodya and cannot hide his terror of bombs.
- Nikita Mikhailoff's drunken, loyal servant, who has lived with him for twelve years and loves him dearly.
How it ends (spoiler)
In the second sketch, Captain Praskukhin is killed by a shell fragment and Mikhailoff is only slightly wounded. The next day on the boulevard, the officers speak mainly of their own parts in the fight. In the third, a French assault takes the Malakoff mound. Mikhail Kozeltzoff is wounded, and Volodya is killed beside his mortars. Vlang escapes. That night the Russian army crosses the bridge to the north shore, ordered to abandon the city after eleven months.
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Vragen over Sebastopol
What is Sevastopol by Tolstoy about?
It is three linked sketches about the siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, set in December 1854, May 1855, and August 1855. They follow soldiers, officers, and a pair of brothers through hospitals, bastions, and the boulevard.
Is Sevastopol by Tolstoy a true story?
The setting and events come from the real siege, and Tolstoy served there as an artillery officer. The characters are invented, though drawn from what he saw. He wrote the sketches in 1855 while the siege was still going on.
Who is the hero of Sevastopol?
Tolstoy says in the second sketch that no one is the hero or the villain, since everyone is good and everyone is evil. He names the truth as his hero, and he presents the Russian soldiers as the true strength of the defense.
Why is the first Sevastopol sketch told as you?
Tolstoy speaks to the reader as a visitor who walks from the wharf to the hospital and the fourth bastion. This makes you see and feel the scenes yourself, rather than watch from far away.
What is the main message of Sevastopol?
Tolstoy shows war without glamour. He praises the quiet courage of ordinary soldiers, exposes the vanity of those who seek rank and medals, and asks that readers be honest about fear, pride, and suffering.
Verwijs naar deze uitgave
Tolstoy, Leo. Sevastopol. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/sevastopol.
Tolstoy, L. (2026). Sevastopol. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/sevastopol (Original work published 1855)
Tolstoy, Leo. Sevastopol. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/sevastopol.
@book{tolstoy2026sevastopol,
author = {Tolstoy, Leo},
title = {Sevastopol},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/sevastopol},
note = {First published 1855}
}
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