Count Nikolai Ilyich Rostov (Russian: Николай Ильич Ростов) is a character in Leo Tolstoy's 1869 novel War and Peace.
Nikolai is initially easily influenced and acts out of emotional responses; unlike his childhood friend, the social climber Boris Drubetskoy, who writer Dimitri Pisarev regarded "as the complete antithesis".
[2] He refuses to use his family's contacts to improve his rank in the army, and comes under the influence of the libertine Dolokhov, losing large amounts of money to him at cards.
Nikolai promises to marry his cousin Sonya but on his first leave home he pays no attention to her, and regularly goes to visit a courtesan.
The book ends with his successful marriage to Maria Bolkonskaya and the couple's close friendship with Natasha and Pierre Bezukhov.