 While developing the novel, Tolstoy sketched a character named "Petr", "who passed through a complex evolution" and "was a precursor of both Pierre and Anatole Kuragin".Anatoly Shostak served as the real life inspiration for the fictional Anatole Kuragin.Esther Polianowsky Salaman writes that what "is so interesting about Anatole Kuragin are the many characteristics Tolstoy gives us about him all at once