Война и міръ — oops …

War and Peace (Russian: Война и мир, Vojna i mir; in original orthography: Война и миръ, Vojna i mir”) is an epic novel by Leo Tolstoy, first published from 1865 to 1869, which tells the story of Russian society during the Napoleonic Era. It is usually described as one of Tolstoy’s two major masterpieces (the other being Anna Karenina) as well as one of the world’s greatest novels.

The Russian words for “peace” (pre-1918: “миръ”) and “world” (pre-1918: “міръ”) are homonyms and since the 1918 reforms have been spelled identically, which lead to an urban legendsaying that the original manuscript was called “Война и міръ” so the novel’s title would be correctly translated as “War and the World”.However, Tolstoy himself translated the title into French as “La guerreet la paix” (“War and Peace”). The urban legend has been perhaps fueled by the Soviet TV quiz show Čto? Gde? Kogda? (Что? Где? Когда?), which in 1982 presented as a correct answer the “world” variant, based on a 1913 edition of “World and Peace” with a misprint in the title. In contrast, there is also a (unrelated) poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky called “Война и міръ” (i.e. “міръ” as “world”), written in 1916.

Взято из Wikipedia.