Boris Drubetskoy

Boris Drubetskoy is the son of Princess Anna Mikhaylovna Drubetskaya and a childhood friend of Nikolai Rostov. His decisive significance lies in the contrast between personal advancement and inner allegiance. While other young men imagine military service through honor, enthusiasm, or battle, Boris learns to treat the army, the court, and even social friendship as a network of opportunities. His rise is not presented as accidental: he studies the rules of influence, cultivates the powerful, and turns outward composure into a form of authority.

Identity and Introduction

Boris first appears through his mother’s urgent efforts to secure him a place in the Guards. Princess Anna Mikhaylovna Drubetskaya is poor and has been absent from influential society, yet she comes to Saint Petersburg largely to obtain an appointment for her only son. At Anna Pavlovna Scherer’s reception, she follows Prince Vasili Kuragin into the anteroom, takes his hand to prevent him from leaving, and asks him to speak to Emperor Alexander I on Boris’s behalf. Prince Vasili responds with reluctance and directs her toward another channel, but her persistence makes clear that Boris’s career begins inside a system of patronage rather than through an impersonal meritocracy.

Boris belongs to the same youthful circle as Nikolai Rostov, but the two men are deliberately contrasted. They are childhood friends of the same age and both handsome, yet Boris is tall, fair, calm, and regular in feature, whereas Nikolai is shorter, curly-haired, open, impetuous, and enthusiastic. At the Rostovs’ house, Boris handles the awkward family atmosphere with quiet humor, telling a story about the doll Mimi and the damage she has suffered over the years. When Natasha Rostova withdraws, Boris does not laugh after her; he turns instead to his mother and calmly asks whether she wants the carriage. His self-possession is already a social instrument, distinguishing him from the emotional spontaneity of the Rostov household.

Early Social Conduct and Ambition

When Boris visits Pierre Bezukhov in Moscow, he enters a world charged with family illness, inheritance, and uncertainty. Pierre has been shut away by Prince Vasili Kuragin and is behaving with theatrical, almost delusional energy, imagining himself Napoleon Bonaparte and acting out the capture of London. Boris, by contrast, remains composed. He does not embarrass himself when he realizes that Pierre does not recognize him, and he delivers Count Ilya Rostov’s invitation to dinner with measured politeness. Pierre mistakenly identifies him as a Rostov, but Boris corrects him deliberately and without embarrassment, stating that he is the son of Princess Anna Mikhaylovna Drubetskaya.

The episode establishes Boris’s method. He does not rely on intimacy merely because it existed in childhood, nor does he show distress when another person misreads his identity. His manner is controlled enough to preserve his dignity and his usefulness. The contrast with Pierre is particularly sharp: Pierre’s openness makes him erratic and vulnerable, while Boris’s reserve allows him to move through uncertain social circumstances without surrendering control.

At Olmutz, Boris begins to pursue advancement with conscious calculation. The day after a review, he rides there in his best uniform, encouraged by Vasily Berg’s good wishes, hoping to profit from Prince Andrei Bolkonsky’s friendliness and secure the most desirable position available, preferably as adjutant to an important personage. Boris explicitly distinguishes his situation from Nikolai’s: Nikolai can speak proudly about refusing to cringe because Count Ilya Rostov sends him large sums, while Boris believes that he possesses only his brains and therefore cannot afford to miss opportunities. His ambition is not vague aspiration but a practical doctrine of self-preservation.

Mastery of the Service Hierarchy

Boris initially finds the exalted world at Olmutz intimidating. The headquarters, diplomatic corps, two Emperors, courts, households, carriages, plumes, ribbons, and medals make him feel like an insignificant Guards officer whose existence the great figures cannot even notice. The orderlies and adjutants at Mikhail Kutuzov’s quarters treat him as one of many petitioners. Yet the very coldness of this environment strengthens his resolve. He returns repeatedly, and he learns that access is itself a form of power.

By the time he appears again in Anna Pavlovna Scherer’s drawing room, Boris has transformed the lesson of Olmutz into a career. He is now an aide-de-camp to a very important personage and has returned from Prussia as a special messenger. His service and his mother’s efforts have placed him among the people who can distribute advancement. He has become thoroughly familiar with an unwritten code according to which an ensign may rank higher in practical importance than a general, and according to which success depends not chiefly on effort, courage, or perseverance, but on knowing how to get on with those who grant rewards.

Boris is both beneficiary and student of this code. He is often surprised by the speed of his own success and by other people’s inability to understand how it has been achieved. The discovery changes his entire way of life. He spends his last groat to dress better than those around him, sacrifices pleasures rather than appear in a shabby equipage, and refuses to be seen in an old uniform on the streets of Saint Petersburg. He seeks acquaintances only among those above him who may prove useful. The polished exterior is therefore not mere vanity; it is a deliberate investment in social credibility.

His preferences also reveal the emotional cost of this strategy. Boris likes Saint Petersburg and despises Moscow. He has not visited the Rostovs since leaving for the army because the memory of their house and of his childish love for Natasha Rostova has become unpleasant to him. The withdrawal is more than a change of taste: it marks his rejection of relationships that belong to an earlier, less calculating version of himself. He now regards entry into Anna Pavlovna’s drawing room as an important step in service and immediately understands the role expected of him, allowing his hostess to make use of whatever influence he possesses.

Relations with Pierre, Prince Andrei, and the Brotherhood

Boris’s relation to Pierre Bezukhov exposes a fundamental difference in their moral and social temperaments. Pierre approaches people impulsively and warmly, while Boris appraises faces, ranks, and possible advantages. At Anna Pavlovna’s reception, Boris takes the seat placed beside Helene Kuragina and listens to the political conversation, simultaneously assessing the room. His social intelligence gives him an appearance of effortless belonging, but the narrative makes clear that he is actively calculating the benefits of each connection.

His relation to Prince Andrei Bolkonsky is similarly instrumental at first. At Olmutz, Boris hopes that Prince Andrei’s friendliness will help him obtain a desirable appointment. Prince Andrei, who is welcomed by reformers, conservatives, and the fashionable world because of his intelligence, wealth, lineage, and reputation, occupies precisely the kind of elevated social position Boris seeks to enter. Boris does not approach him simply as an old acquaintance; he approaches him as a possible threshold into a more powerful circle.

Boris’s admission into Freemasonry provides the clearest test of the distance between appearance and conviction. Pierre, serving as the Rhetor, nominates him and conducts the initiation. In the dark chamber, Pierre experiences an unexpected feeling of hatred toward Boris and suspects that Boris has entered the Brotherhood chiefly to become intimate with influential members. Boris has asked whether Nikolai Rostov and Sonya Rostova belong to the lodge, and Pierre reads his attention to connections, status, and outward appearance as evidence that he lacks genuine respect for the order’s spiritual purpose.

The scene does not prove that Boris is openly fraudulent in every respect, but it confirms that he carries his worldly habits into a setting organized around moral self-improvement. His admission allows him to acquire another network while Pierre searches for an inward discipline. The contrast turns Freemasonry into a measure of character: Pierre treats its rituals as a challenge to transform himself, whereas Boris appears to treat them as another possible avenue of access.

Power, War, and Social Ascension

By 1812 Boris has risen dramatically. At Count Bennigsen’s country house near Vilna, he is a rich man of high honors who no longer seeks patronage and now stands on equal footing with the most prominent men of his age. He has left his wife in Moscow and is temporarily living as a bachelor. His contribution of a large sum to the aides-de-camp’s entertainment shows that he can now purchase participation in the highest circles rather than beg for admission to them.

At the fete, Boris dances the mazurka with Helene Kuragina, whom he has not seen for a long time. Their former history no longer governs the meeting; because Helene enjoys the favor of an important personage and Boris has recently married, they interact as established friends. Even while speaking to Helene and observing her dazzling appearance, Boris watches Emperor Alexander I without interruption. The dance becomes a miniature of his whole career: social charm occupies the visible foreground, while attention remains fixed on power.

When Adjutant General Balashev brings important news to the Emperor during the entertainment, Boris notices every movement. He observes the Emperor’s amazement, the path cleared through the crowd, and Count Alexei Arakcheev’s displeased, envious reaction as the sovereign leaves with Balashev. Boris’s instinct is not merely to enjoy the spectacle but to read its political meaning. He has learned to watch the circulation of information because information reveals where authority is shifting.

At the approach to the Battle of Borodino, Boris remains at headquarters despite the removal of unnecessary personnel. He has established himself with Count Bennigsen, who regards him as invaluable, and he aligns himself with Bennigsen’s party against Mikhail Kutuzov’s. Boris presents servile respect toward Kutuzov while encouraging the impression that the old commander is ineffective and that Bennigsen controls events. His position is therefore deliberately double: outward obedience protects him, while private alignment places him near a possible victor.

Boris understands the coming battle as a political contest as well as a military one. If Kutuzov is destroyed, power will pass to Bennigsen; if Kutuzov wins, Boris believes that people will still claim the victory was Bennigsen’s achievement. Either outcome promises rewards and the arrival of new men at the front. This expectation fills Boris with nervous vivacity throughout the day. The battle is not reduced to personal ambition, but Boris’s perspective reveals how ambition can occupy the same headquarters as genuine apprehension about life and death.

Change, Limits, and Narrative Function

Boris’s development is an ascent in rank, wealth, and social confidence rather than a moral conversion. He begins as the son of a poor princess whose future depends on a favor from Prince Vasili Kuragin; he becomes a special messenger, an aide-de-camp, a rich man, and a participant in the highest political and military circles. Each stage confirms his ability to convert appearance, timing, and relationship into practical power.

His success also separates him from the people who once defined his emotional world. He avoids the Rostovs, distances himself from childish affection for Natasha Rostova, and chooses acquaintances according to their usefulness. His restraint, which first appears as admirable composure, increasingly resembles self-discipline in the service of ambition. The character’s flatness is purposeful: Boris is organized around the single governing idea that advancement belongs to those who understand the hierarchy. Yet the surrounding narrative gives that idea changing contexts, from a mother’s desperate petition to the manipulation of military factions, allowing the reader to see both its effectiveness and its impoverishment.

Boris functions as a social realist counterpoint to characters who seek meaning through love, friendship, spiritual renewal, or patriotic feeling. He is not a battlefield hero, nor is he a tragic rebel against the system. He is a skilled participant in the system’s ordinary operations. His achievement lies in recognizing that power is distributed through rooms, uniforms, invitations, introductions, patronage, and carefully managed impressions. His limitation is that the same intelligence that carries him upward appears unable to produce loyalty independent of advantage. Through Boris Drubetskoy, the novel makes social ambition visible not as a single dramatic act but as a continuous practice of watching, adapting, and choosing the next useful connection.