“Bloody hell, Prince Vasíli, Genoa and Luca are pretty much just Napoleon’s holiday homes now,” reads the opening line of Leo Tolstoy’s seminal epic, War and Peace.
It goes on to depict a 19th-century St Petersburg populated by “posh wankers”, “complete drongos”, “gorgeous sheilas” and “massive pissheads”. They “talk shit”, give “zero fucks” and drink “cuppas”, and before long, soldiers start “fanging about”.
