It's always been my intention to read Tolstoy's great novel and yet somehow, despite a growing interest in Russian language and literature, it never happened.

About a decade ago I was studying Russian history in an evening class. I told the teacher I had the idea to read War and Peace in Russian as an exercise in learning a difficult language from the beginning. She said it would be impossible. I, in the manner of Dostoyevsky's Raskalnikov, smiled at her through my gritted teeth and went home to seethe and writhe in my bed with indignation and rage. How dare she believe I couldn't do it?

And then I didn't do it...

Well now I am doing it. And I'll be telling you all about it here, on Steemit.

But first I should confess: I am no longer a total beginner at Russian. I recently began teaching myself and at the same time passing on what I'd learned through a series of Golos posts designed to help other English speakers learn Russian. In a similar vein, one of the aims of this blog will be to encourage other users to read War and Peace alongside me.

In literary circles, reading War and Peace for the first time is sometimes known as 'The Great Adventure'. Well please feel free to join me on The Great Adventure, or follow me, whether in Russian on Golos or in English on Steemit.

(None of the images used in this post are mine. They were all taken from multiple internet sources )