Background
- Tolstoy taking on the big issues of his day and our day
(What it is to be a human being. Breadth of his understanding of human nature – tackles the great issues of humanity)
- Polarizes east and west
- Social, political, philosophical, economic issues of his day – cultural and contextual study.
- Set in 1870s Russia – primarily the upper class nobility
- Characters have complete passions: a desire for love, but also a inner moral depth.
(What it is to be a human being. Breadth of his understanding of human nature – tackles the great issues of humanity)
- Polarizes east and west
- Social, political, philosophical, economic issues of his day – cultural and contextual study.
- Set in 1870s Russia – primarily the upper class nobility
- Characters have complete passions: a desire for love, but also a inner moral depth.
Context
- Russia as a society is undergoing massive changes.
- Two intellectual groups: Slavophiles - staunch defenders of the ‘Russian way’ and the Westernizers, who believed that Russia needed to follow more liberal, Western modes of thought and government, competing liberalism.
o Liberal ideas are presenting a threat to conservative ides.
o Traditional notion of the family was being attacked by liberals
o New liberal ways of living – new attitudes
- No democracy in Russian government – the Tsars ruled with an ‘iron first’
- Russia was also undergoing a crisis of political thought, with a series of authoritarian Tsars provoking radical ideas.
- Tolstoy underwent a spiritual awakening or conversion. This novel is a marker for how Tolstoy’s world view and view of the individual in society changed – Levin emerges as the voice of faith in the novel, with his final statement of the meaning of life corresponding closely to Tolstoy’s own philosophy.
o Anna and Levin embody this struggle between society and individual happiness.
o Two characters are reflective of Tolstoy’s own struggle against religion.
- Marriage and female emancipation – radical intelligentsia had been attacking the institution of the family doe more than a decade. Articles appeared advocating sexual freedom, communal living and the communal raising of children. Questions of women’s education, women’s enfranchisement, the role of women in public life were all debated in the popular press – The Woman’s question.
- The 1836 Code of Russian Laws: “unlimited obedience” of the woman – demonstrates inequality between the sexes.
A note on the characters names:
Each Russian has a first name, a patronymic, and a surname. A person’s patronymic consists of his or her father’s first name accompanied by a suffix meaning “son of” or “daughter of.” Hence, Levin is addressed as Konstantin Dmitrich (son of Dmitri), Kitty is called Ekaterina Alexandrovna (daughter of Alexander), and so on. Characters in the novel frequently address each other in this formal manner, using both the first name and patronymic.
When characters do not address each other formally, they may use informal nicknames, or diminutives. Sometimes, these nicknames bear little resemblance to the characters’ full names. For instance, Levin is sometimes called Kostya (the standard nickname for Konstantin), and Vronsky is sometimes called Alyosha (the diminutive of Alexei). Furthermore, surnames in Russian take on both masculine and feminine forms. In Anna Karenina, for instance, Karenin’s wife’s surname takes the feminine form, Karenina. Likewise, Oblonsky’s wife has the surname Oblonskaya, and their sons have the surname Oblonsky while their daughters have the surname Oblonskaya.
- Two intellectual groups: Slavophiles - staunch defenders of the ‘Russian way’ and the Westernizers, who believed that Russia needed to follow more liberal, Western modes of thought and government, competing liberalism.
o Liberal ideas are presenting a threat to conservative ides.
o Traditional notion of the family was being attacked by liberals
o New liberal ways of living – new attitudes
- No democracy in Russian government – the Tsars ruled with an ‘iron first’
- Russia was also undergoing a crisis of political thought, with a series of authoritarian Tsars provoking radical ideas.
- Tolstoy underwent a spiritual awakening or conversion. This novel is a marker for how Tolstoy’s world view and view of the individual in society changed – Levin emerges as the voice of faith in the novel, with his final statement of the meaning of life corresponding closely to Tolstoy’s own philosophy.
o Anna and Levin embody this struggle between society and individual happiness.
o Two characters are reflective of Tolstoy’s own struggle against religion.
- Marriage and female emancipation – radical intelligentsia had been attacking the institution of the family doe more than a decade. Articles appeared advocating sexual freedom, communal living and the communal raising of children. Questions of women’s education, women’s enfranchisement, the role of women in public life were all debated in the popular press – The Woman’s question.
- The 1836 Code of Russian Laws: “unlimited obedience” of the woman – demonstrates inequality between the sexes.
A note on the characters names:
Each Russian has a first name, a patronymic, and a surname. A person’s patronymic consists of his or her father’s first name accompanied by a suffix meaning “son of” or “daughter of.” Hence, Levin is addressed as Konstantin Dmitrich (son of Dmitri), Kitty is called Ekaterina Alexandrovna (daughter of Alexander), and so on. Characters in the novel frequently address each other in this formal manner, using both the first name and patronymic.
When characters do not address each other formally, they may use informal nicknames, or diminutives. Sometimes, these nicknames bear little resemblance to the characters’ full names. For instance, Levin is sometimes called Kostya (the standard nickname for Konstantin), and Vronsky is sometimes called Alyosha (the diminutive of Alexei). Furthermore, surnames in Russian take on both masculine and feminine forms. In Anna Karenina, for instance, Karenin’s wife’s surname takes the feminine form, Karenina. Likewise, Oblonsky’s wife has the surname Oblonskaya, and their sons have the surname Oblonsky while their daughters have the surname Oblonskaya.