War and peace; by Leo Tolstoy.

There was a once a one year old telling a parent "isn't that girl beautiful" and the father turned around, but there was no one there. After a bit of talking to the child the father realised the beautiful girl was in fact Audrey Hepburn, the heroine of the film they were watching. Impressed, he informed his wife of their child's beyond the young years capacity of observation and opinion. The two conversations took place during the interval, over half a century ago. (The film of course was War And Peace.)

It so happens Audrey Hepburn was someone who grew up herself in another era of trying circumstances of war, and went on to do much during peace years of her society for people of another war torn continent, on behalf of UN, for peace.

The book is about society in general and a young growing girl in particular during times of a war and later peace in feudal society in Russia, in a bygone era.

It is interesting to compare it with Gone With The Wind, which is on a similar subject, only that one goes on to document far more of a loss as indeed apparent in the title, whereas this one deals with a war that did not yet end the social structure as it then was in Russia.

That - the dissolution of the social structure - happened later and is documented in Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago.