Anna Karenina

Author: (Russian) Tolstoy / Jiang Ming
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-01-01
Features: Anna Karenina, a noblewoman from St. Petersburg, is the wife of the high-ranking official Karenin. Her brother Oblonsky lives in Moscow, leading a dissolute life. He has an affair with his former family governess, which his wife Dolly discovers, causing her great distress. Anna comes to Moscow to mediate the conflict between her brother and sister-in-law. On the train, she meets Prince Vronsky, a guards officer. The elegance and warmth of Anna, combined with a suppressed vitality in her demeanor, captivate Vronsky. Meanwhile, the aristocratic nobleman Levin arrives in Moscow. Over thirty, he feels the need to establish a family and decides to propose to Kitty, whom he has loved since his youth. However, Kitty is infatuated with Vronsky and rejects Levin. After meeting Anna, Vronsky no longer associates with Kitty. Anna's arrival brings reconciliation between Dolly and her husband but plunges Kitty into misfortune. Levin returns to the countryside and dedicates himself to agricultural reforms, hoping to escape personal disappointments. He tries to raise high-quality livestock and introduce agricultural machinery, but fails to achieve the desired results. On her way back, Anna discovers that Vronsky is on the same train, and she feels both uneasy and excited. Upon returning to St. Petersburg, Anna and Vronsky frequently encounter each other in social circles. At a banquet, Vronsky confesses his love to Anna. Their prolonged time alone together attracts gossip, and upon returning home, Karenin warns Anna to adhere to social etiquette and modesty. This hypocrisy and preaching instead lead Anna to shut her heart off, and she falls deeply in love with Vronsky. Their relationship is exposed at a horse race when Anna's behavior becomes completely upon Vronsky's horse falling. On the way home, Anna admits to Karenin that she is Vronsky's lover, but Karenin insists on maintaining the status quo, forbidding Vronsky from visiting their home. Levin works alongside the peasants in the countryside, yearning for a new, simple life like them, but learns that Kitty has recovered from a serious illness abroad and is returning. His love for her rekindles, and he proposes again, finally marrying her. They live a happy life on the estate, but Levin does not find true happiness. His agricultural experiments often fail, and the peasants distrust the landowners. He fantasizes about establishing a shareholder cooperative system to benefit both peasants and landowners, replacing mutual hostility with harmony of interests, but his new methods prove ineffective. He struggles to find meaning in life and nearly commits suicide until a peasant tells him, "People live not just to fill their bellies, but for their souls and for God." Anna's situation worsens as she becomes pregnant and suffers from puerperal fever during childbirth, nearly dying. On her deathbed, she asks her husband for forgiveness and hopes he will reconcile with Vronsky. Karenin, moved by Christian compassion, agrees. However, once recovered, Anna cannot continue living with her husband and, without waiting for his consent, flees with Vronsky to abroad. After traveling in Europe for three months, Anna misses her son and, on his birthday, bursts into the house where she lived for nine years. Seeing him, she is overcome with emotion and embraces him tightly. Only when Karenin enters the children's room does Anna hastily leave. From then on, Anna loses her beloved son, cannot obtain a divorce, and lives in an illegal union with Vronsky. The upper class shuts its doors on her, and she faces constant coldness. She lives alone in Vronsky's estate, trying to pass the time. When Vronsky is away, she suspects he has taken a new lover, leading to arguments. After a heated argument, Anna is driven to despair. She writes a letter and sends a telegraph while following Vronsky to the train station. In a daze, she recalls their previous meeting and the scene of a worker being crushed by the train. It seems to foreshadow her fate. Anna throws herself under the oncoming train, extinguishing the flame of life and forever escaping her suffering.
Author Bio: Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) was a Russian writer. Born on September 9, 1828, in Yasnaia Polyana, a property in the Tula province (now part of Shakhovskaya District), Tolstoy belonged to a noble family with roots tracing back to the 16th century, with ancestors receiving noble titles from Peter the Great. His father, Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, served in the 1812 War and retired as a lieutenant colonel. His mother, Maria Nikolaevna Tolstoy, was the daughter of Prince Nikolai Sheremetev. Tolstoy lost his mother at 18 months and his father at 9. After his guardian aunt, Aunt A. I. Osten-Saken, died in 1841, he was placed under the care of Aunt P. I. Yushkova in Kazan, leading his family to move there. He received a typical noble education. In 1844, he entered Kazan University's Department of Eastern Languages, studying Turkish and Arabic to become a diplomat. However, he failed his final exams and transferred to the Law Department the following year. Unfocused on his studies, he indulged in social life while developing an interest in philosophy, particularly moral philosophy, admiring Rousseau's teachings and personality. He also widely read literature. During his university years, he noticed the superiority of his peers from humble backgrounds. He dropped out in April 1847 and returned to Yasnaia Polyana, which became his mother's dowry and later his inheritance. Upon returning to the estate, he attempted to improve the lives of the peasants but gave up due to lack of trust. In April 1849, he briefly attended law exams in St. Petersburg before returning home. That autumn, he founded schools for peasant children. Starting in November, he held a nominal position in the Tula Provincial Administration, promoted to the 14th rank in December, though he spent his time among relatives and Moscow's upper class. However, he grew weary of this life and, in April 1851, joined his older brother Nikolai in the Caucasus as a volunteer in the campaign against mountain tribes, serving as a bombardier for two and a half years. Despite his excellence, his promotion to ensign depended on relatives' support. In March 1854, he joined the Danube Army and, during the Crimean War, volunteered for Sevastopol, serving as a battery commander in the most dangerous Fourth Redoubt and participating in the city's final defense. His experiences with the common soldiers and officers strengthened his empathy for the people and his critique of serfdom. While in the Caucasus, Tolstoy began writing, publishing novels like "Childhood," "Boyhood," and "Sevastopol Sketches" in the magazine "The Contemporary." In November 1855, he arrived in St. Petersburg as a rising literary figure, welcomed by writers like Turgenev and, and gradually met other writers and critics such as Goncharov, Fet, Ostrovsky, Druzhinin, Annenkov, and Botkin. He was seen as eccentric due to his lack of worldly sophistication and unrestrained behavior, and his disdain for Homer and Shakespeare also caused astonishment. Soon after, he met Chernyshevsky but disagreed with his literary views. At the time, Druzhinin and others promoted "art for art's sake," opposing "didactic art," which was essentially revolutionary democratic literature. Tolstoy leaned toward Druzhinin's views but believed art must be rooted in social life. By 1859, he broke with "The Contemporary." He retired as a lieutenant in late 1856 and traveled to France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany in early 1857. The "social freedom" in France impressed him, while the sight of the guillotine in Paris repelled him. In Switzerland, he witnessed the selfishness and cruelty of English bourgeois gentlemen, further stirring his indignation. However, the trip broadened his literary and artistic horizons and deepened his awareness of Russia's backwardness. Regarding the abolition of serfdom and revolutionary trends in the 1850s–60s, Tolstoy's thoughts were deeply conflicted. As early as 1856, he drafted plans to free the peasants through redemption payments and tried it on his estate, but failed due to peasant resistance. He sympathized with the peasants and abhorred serfdom but believed, based on "historical justice," that land should remain with the landowners, while also worrying about the landowners' dilemma of choosing life or land. He rejected the views of liberals, Slavophiles, and conservative serfowners, recognized the hypocrisy of the czar's top-down "reforms," but opposed abolishing serfdom through revolution, instead seeking his own path. Unable to resolve his ideological conflicts, he tried to escape reality through philosophy and art but soon grew disillusioned. The death of his older brother Nikolai in 1860 deepened his pessimism. From 1859 to 1862, he nearly stopped writing, founding over 20 schools for peasant children in Yasnaia Polyana and nearby villages, studying Russian and Western education systems, and traveling to Germany, France, Italy, England, and Belgium to observe schools. He also founded the educational magazine "Yasnaia Polyana." These activities drew the attention of the czarist government. Additionally, as a peace mediator in the serfdom reforms, his frequent sympathy for peasants earned him the enmity of noble serfowners. In July 1862, while traveling, his estate was searched for two days by gendarmes, and soon after, he closed his schools. The turmoil in his thoughts and the perspectives he absorbed from his frequent interactions with peasants marked the beginning of his worldview transformation. From summer 1856 to winter 1857, Tolstoy was briefly infatuated with nearby neighbor V. F. Arsenieva but failed in his marriage efforts afterward. In September 1862, he married Sofia Andreevna Berest, the daughter of a court physician and 8th rank official, Anna Yevseyevna. Throughout his life, his wife managed his household, estate, and even transcribed his manuscripts, such as multiple drafts of "War and Peace." However, she could not escape societal prejudices and prioritized family and children, failing to understand Tolstoy's transformed thoughts after his ideological crisis. Their marital discord led to tragedy. After their marriage, revolutionary fervor subsided, and Tolstoy gradually overcame his crisis. He withdrew from society, settled on his estate, acquired more land, and lived a simple, tranquil, harmonious, and happy life. From 1863 to 1869, he wrote the epic "War and Peace" over six years. A significant event during this period was his defense of soldier Shybin in a military court in 1866. Shybin was executed for slapping an officer, despite Tolstoy's efforts to save him, leading Tolstoy to begin forming views against courts and the death penalty. Tolstoy's inner peace and harmony did not last long. In September 1869, while passing through Arzamas, he suddenly felt an unprecedented sorrow and terror in a hotel at night—a phenomenon known as the "Arzamas Terror." Around this time, in letters to friends, he expressed his recent dark thoughts of awaiting death. From autumn 1868 to summer 1869, he developed an interest in Schopenhauer's philosophy, though it affected him only temporarily. Starting in the early 1870s, the intensification of "the destruction of all 'old foundations' in rural Russia" and the rise of social movements like "going to the people" triggered a new ideological crisis and exploration period. He grew anxious, doubting the purpose and meaning of life and suffering from the "terrible position" of his noble life, unsure of "what to do." He studied various philosophies and religious texts but found no answers. He even hid a rope and refused to carry a hunting rifle, fearing suicide for. These sentiments are vividly reflected in his novel "Anna Karenina." Afterward, he consulted priests, bishops, monks, and hermits and met peasant Konstantin Chertkov, an independent believer. He eventually rejected the state church and accepted the beliefs of peasant communities. By the turn of the 1870s–80s, under the influence of the new revolutionary situation and a nationwide famine, he renounced his class and completed the worldview transformation he had beening since the 1860s, aligning himself with the peasant standpoint. In essays like "Confessions" (1879–1880) and "What Is My Faith?" (1882–1884), he elaborated on his ideological transformation, strongly denouncing the life and foundation of the wealthy and educated class—private land ownership—as well as attacking the state and church. Yet, he opposed violent revolution, advocating Christian love and self-cultivation, seeking solutions to social conflicts through religion and ethics. This was because he not only reflected the peasants' hatred and anger toward the ruling class but also accepted their non-violent resistance due to their political immaturity. Lenin analyzed this remarkable contradiction: "As a prophet inventing a new salvation doctrine, Tolstoy was ridiculous. As the embodiment of the thoughts and emotions of millions of Russian peasants at the dawn of the bourgeois revolution, Tolstoy was great. Tolstoy was original because his entire worldview, broadly speaking, reflected the characteristics of the bourgeois revolution in Russia. From this perspective, the contradictions in Tolstoy's views truly mirrored the various contradictions faced by peasants in their historical role in the Russian revolution." From then on, Tolstoy rejected his and his surroundings' noble life, engaging in manual labor—plowing, sewing, and building houses for peasants—abstaining from luxury and eating vegetarian diets. He also revised his literary views, condemning his past works, including "War and Peace," as "games of lords," shifting his focus to essays and political tracts to directly promote his social, philosophical, and religious views, exposing the evils of the landlord-bourgeoisie society. The plays, short stories, and folk tales he wrote during this time served the same purpose. He also engaged in extensive social activities. In 1881, when his children needed education, the family moved to Moscow, where he visited the poor.