March 29, 1873
В Yasnaya Polyana by Leo Tolstoy began work on Anna Karenina (one of its first titles was The Young Woman). A novel that portrays Russian society in the 1870s, it was named the best book of all time by Time magazine.
Everything is mixed up in the Oblonskys' house
Tolstoy saw the first lines of the novel in an unfinished story Pushkin ("Guests were arriving at the dacha"). As the writer's wife recalled, Sofia Tolstaya, He brought her a sheet of paper with sketches, exclaiming: "This is how you should write!".
The plot is based on the tragic love story of a married socialite and a brilliant officer against the backdrop of noble life in the second half of the 19th century.
There are no conditions a person can't get used to, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives the same way.
By that time, Tolstoy was known as the author of War and Peace, which he called "a book about the past." He considered Anna Karenina "a novel about contemporary life."
All happy families are alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way
The story is partly based on real events: in 1872, a certain Anna Pirogova Because of unrequited love, Anna Karenina threw herself under a freight train near Yasnaya Polyana. To this incident, Tolstoy added real-life stories from his relatives and circle, preserving the tragic ending (in the original version, Anna Karenina drowned, not threw herself under a train).
There! - she said to herself, looking into the shadow of the carriage, at the sand mixed with coal with which the sleepers were covered, - there, to the very middle, and I will punish him and get rid of everyone and myself
According to one version, the main character's appearance was based on Pushkin's eldest daughter. Maria Hartung (in the author’s drafts, Karenina was once called Pushkina).
During the four years he worked on the novel, Tolstoy complained that he was burdened by it and that the “boring and vulgar” heroine was repulsive to him.
My Anna is as boring as a bitter radish.
(from a letter to Afanasy Fet)
The novel was published in parts in the magazine "Russian Herald." The final part was published as a separate brochure. Mikhail Katkov did not share the author's views: through the mouth of his alter ego, Konstantin Levin, Tolstoy criticized the sending of Russian volunteers to the Serbian-Turkish war.
Reviews of the novel ranged from enthusiastic to utterly disappointing. Critic Petr Tkachev condemned its "scandalous emptiness of content," and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin sarcastically called Anna Karenina a "cow novel."
It's terrifying to think that it's still possible to base novels on sexual impulses alone. And the conservative party clings to all this, triumphant. Can one imagine Tolstoy's cow novel being turned into some kind of political banner?
(Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin)
Most people saw Anna Karenina as an attack on the nobility and high society.
Tolstoy, you have proven it
with patience and talent,
that a woman should not "walk"
neither with the chamberlain,
neither with the aide-de-camp,
when she is a wife and mother
(Nikolai Nekrasov)
This novel is a strict, incorruptible judgment of our entire way of life.
(Afanasy Fet)
Tolstoy did criticize morals and laws, including the complex divorce process in the Russian Empire. At that time, there were only three possible grounds for divorce: the disappearance of one of the spouses, infertility, and adultery.
Since the law requires evidence that is almost impossible to obtain, the case is usually settled by one of the spouses voluntarily admitting guilt and, in the pursuit of evidence of infidelity, often creating scenes that are cynical and completely indescribable. The person who admits guilt is ordered to repent by court order and is deprived of the right to remarry.
(St. Petersburg newspaper "Voice", 1873)
In the USSR, the novel was interpreted from a Marxist perspective, exposing the aimless life of the idle class and contrasting the “fallen” union of Karenina and Vronsky with the sublime marriage of Levin and Kitty (one of the novel’s first titles was “Two Marriages”).
In total, the novel has been adapted into more than 30 films worldwide. One of the most ambitious is the 1967 Soviet film. Alexandra Zarkhi, с Tatyana Samoilova и Vasily Lanovoy starring.
