The paper explores the features of some minor characters taken from the works of Leo Tolstoy, all belonging to the lower classes. In previous studies these characters have been interpreted in the light of an ideal harmony inherited from Rousseau’s theories, however the genesis of such a figure as Platon Karataev, in War and Peace, reveals something different. These characters, who often catalyse the protagonists' “epiphany”, are built on a Rousseauian philosophical background, merged with other lines of thought, namely those coming from the Hermetic tradition.
