Anna Karenina facts for kids
Cover page of the first volume of Anna Karenina, Moscow, 1878
|
|
| Author | Leo Tolstoy |
|---|---|
| Original title | Анна Каренина |
| Translator | Constance Garnett (initial) |
| Country | Russia |
| Language | Russian |
| Genre | Realist novel |
| Publisher | The Russian Messenger |
|
Publication date
|
1878 |
| Media type | Print (serial) |
| Pages | 864 |
Anna Karenina (Russian: «Анна Каренина», IPA: [ˈanːə kɐˈrʲenʲɪnə]) is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Widely considered to be one of the greatest works of literature ever written, Tolstoy himself called it his first true novel.
The novel deals with themes of betrayal, faith, family, marriage, Imperial Russian society, and rural vs. urban life.
Trains are a motif throughout the novel, with several major plot points taking place either on passenger trains or at stations in Saint Petersburg or elsewhere in Russia. The story takes place against the backdrop of the liberal reforms initiated by Emperor Alexander II of Russia and the rapid societal transformations that followed. The novel has been adapted into various media including theater, opera, film, television, ballet, figure skating, and radio drama.
Contents
Main characters
- Anna Arkadyevna Karenina (Анна Аркадьевна Каренина): Stepan Oblonsky's sister, Karenin's wife and Vronsky's lover.
- Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky (Алексей Кириллович Вронский): Anna's lover, cavalry officer.
- Prince Stepan "Stiva" Arkadyevich Oblonsky (Степан "Стива" Аркадьевич Облонский): civil servant and Anna's brother, man about town, 34 years of age. (Stepan and Stiva are Russianized forms of Stephen and Steve, respectively.)
- Princess Darya "Dolly" Alexandrovna Oblonskaya (Дарья "Долли" Александровна Облонская): Stepan's wife, 33 years of age.
- Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin (Алексей Александрович Каренин): senior statesman and Anna's husband, twenty years her senior.
- Konstantin "Kostya" Dmitrievich Levin/Lyovin (Константин "Костя" Дмитриевич Лёвин): Kitty's suitor, Stiva's old friend, landowner, 32 years of age.
- Nikolai Dmitrievich Levin/Lyovin (Николай Дмитриевич Лёвин): Konstantin's elder brother.
- Sergei Ivanovich Koznyshev (Сергей Иванович Кознышев): Konstantin's half-brother, celebrated writer, 40 years of age.
- Princess Ekaterina "Kitty" Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya (Екатерина "Кити" Александровна Щербацкая): Dolly's younger sister and later Levin's wife, 18 years of age.
- Prince Alexander Shcherbatsky (Александр Щербацкий): Dolly and Kitty's father.
- Princess Shcherbatsky (no name or patronymic given): Dolly and Kitty's mother.
- Princess Elizaveta "Betsy" Tverskaya (Елизавета "Бетси" Тверская): Anna's wealthy, morally loose society friend and Vronsky's cousin.
- Countess Lidia (or Lydia) Ivanovna (Лидия Ивановна): leader of a high society circle that includes Karenin, and shuns Princess Betsy and her circle. She maintains an interest in Russian Orthodoxy, mysticism and spirituality.
- Countess Vronskaya: Vronsky's mother.
- Sergei "Seryozha" Alexeyich Karenin (Сергей "Серёжа" Каренин): Anna and Karenin's son, 8 years of age.
- Anna "Annie" (Анна "Ани"): Anna and Vronsky's daughter.
- Agafya Mikhailovna (Агафья Михайловнa): Levin's former nurse, now his trusted housekeeper.
Summary
The novel is divided into 8 parts and 239 chapters. Its epigraph is "Vengeance is mine; I will repay", from Romans 12:19, which in turn quotes from Deuteronomy 32:35. The novel begins with one of its most oft-quoted lines:
Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему.
Vse schastlivyye sem'i pokhozhi drug na druga, kazhdaya neschastlivaya sem'ya neschastliva po-svoyemu.
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Historical context
The events in the novel take place against the backdrop of rapid transformations as a result of the liberal reforms initiated by Emperor Alexander II of Russia, principal among these the Emancipation reform of 1861, followed by judicial reform, including a jury system; military reforms, the introduction of elected local governments (Zemstvo), the fast development of railroads, banks, industry, telegraph, the rise of new business elites and the decline of the old landed aristocracy, a freer press, the awakening of public opinion, the Pan-Slavism movement, the woman question, volunteering to aid Serbia in its military conflict with the Ottoman Empire in 1876 etc. These contemporary developments are hotly debated by the characters in the novel.
The suburban railway station of Obiralovka is now known as the town of Zheleznodorozhny, Moscow Oblast.
Translations into English
- Anna Karénina, translated by Nathan Haskell Dole (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1887)
- Anna Karenin, translated by Constance Garnett (London: William Heinemann, 1901). Still widely reprinted
- Revised by Leonard J. Kent and Nina Berberova as Anna Karenina (Random House, 1965), republished by Modern Library (2000)
- Anna Karénin, translated by Leo Wiener (Boston: The Colonial Press, 1904)
- Anna Karenina, translated by Rochelle S. Townsend (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1912; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1912)
- Anna Karenina, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1918)
- Revised by George Gibian (Norton Critical Edition, 1970)
- Anna Karenin, translated by Rosemary Edmonds (Penguin, 1954)
- Anna Karenina, translated by Joel Carmichael (Bantam Books, 1960)
- Anna Karenina, translated by David Magarshack (New American Library, 1961)
- Anna Karénina, translated by Margaret Wettlin (Progress Publishers, 1978)
- Anna Karenina, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (Penguin, 2000)
- Anna Karenina, translated by Kyril Zinovieff and Jenny Hughes (Oneworld Classics, 2008)
- Anna Karenina, translated by Rosamund Bartlett (Oxford University Press, 2014)
- Anna Karenina, translated by Marian Schwartz (Yale University Press, 2015)
Adaptations
The novel has been adapted into various media including opera, film, television, ballet, and radio drama. The first film adaptation was released in 1911 but has not survived.
Film and television
- 1911: Anna Karenina (1911 film), a Russian adaptation directed by Maurice André Maître
- 1914: Anna Karenina (1914 film), a Russian adaptation directed by Vladimir Gardin
- 1915: Anna Karenina (1915 film), an American version starring Danish actress Betty Nansen
- 1918: Anna Karenina (1918 film), a Hungarian adaptation starring Irén Varsányi as Anna Karenina
- 1927: Love (1927 film), an American version, starring Greta Garbo and directed by Edmund Goulding. This version featured significant changes from the novel and had two different endings, with a happy one for American audiences
- 1935: Anna Karenina (1935 film), starring Greta Garbo and Fredric March; directed by Clarence Brown
- 1948: Anna Karenina (1948 film) starring Vivien Leigh and Ralph Richardson; directed by Julien Duvivier
- 1953: Anna Karenina (1953 film), a Russian version directed by Tatyana Lukashevich
- 1953: Panakkaari (Rich woman), a Tamil language adaptation directed by K. S. Gopalakrishnan, starring T. R. Rajakumari, M. G. Ramachandran and V. Nagayya.
- 1960: Nahr al-Hob (The River of Love), an Egyptian film directed by Ezz El-Dine Zulficar, starring Omar Sharif and Faten Hamama.
- 1961: Anna Karenina (1961 film), a BBC Television adaptation directed by Rudolph Cartier, starring Claire Bloom and Sean Connery.
- 1967: Anna Karenina (1967 film), a Russian version directed by Alexander Zarkhi
- 1977: Anna Karenina, a 1977 ten-episode BBC series, directed by Basil Coleman and starred Nicola Pagett, Eric Porter and Stuart Wilson
- 1975/1979: Anna Karenina (1975 film), film of the Bolshoi Ballet production, directed by Margarita Pilikhina, first released in Finland in 1976. U.S. release in 1979
- 1985: Anna Karenina (1985 film), a TV Movie starring Jacqueline Bisset and Christopher Reeve, directed by Simon Langton
- 1997: Anna Karenina (1997 film), the first American version filmed entirely in Russia, directed by Bernard Rose and starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean
- 2000: Anna Karenina (2000 TV series), a British version by David Blair and starring Helen McCrory and Kevin McKidd
- 2012: Anna Karenina (2012 film), a British version by Joe Wright from a screenplay by Tom Stoppard, starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law
- 2013: it:Anna Karenina (miniserie televisiva 2013), an English-language Italian/French/Spanish/German/Lithuanian TV co-production by Christian Duguay and starring Vittoria Puccini, Benjamin Sadler and Santiago Cabrera; alternatively presented as a two-part mini-series or a single 3 hours and 15 minutes film
- 2015: The Beautiful Lie (2015 miniseries), an Australian contemporary re-imagining of Anna Karenina, by Glendyn Ivin and Peter Salmon starring Sarah Snook, Rodger Corser, Benedict Samuel, Sophie Lowe
- 2017: Anna Karenina: Vronsky's Story, a Russian adaption directed by Karen Shakhnazarov
- 2023: Volver a caer, a Mexican version by Almudena Ocaña and Aurora García Tortosa, starring Kate del Castillo, Maxi Iglesias and Rubén Zamora.
Theatre
- 1992: Helen Edmundson adapted Anna Karenina for a production by Shared Experience which toured around the UK and internationally; Edmundson won a Time Out Award and a TMA Award
- 1992: Anna Karenina, musical with book and lyrics by Peter Kellogg and music by Daniel Levine. Opened on Broadway at Circle in the Square, August 26, 1992; closed October 4, 1992 after 18 previews and 46 performances.
- 1994: Anna Karenina, musical by Hungarian authors Tibor Kocsák (music) and Tibor Miklós (book and lyrics)
Ballet
- 1979: Anna Karenina, choreography by André Prokovsky, with music by Tchaikovsky
- 2005: Anna Karenina, choreography by Boris Eifman, with music by Tchaikovsky
- 2019: Anna Karenina, choreography by Yuri Possokhov, with music from Ilya Demutsky
Radio
- 1949: The MGM Theater of the Air, starring Marlene Dietrich and directed by Marx Loeb
Opera
- 1978 Anna Karenina, composed by Iain Hamilton
- 2007 Anna Karenina, composed by David Carlson
See also
In Spanish: Ana Karenina para niños
- Leo Tolstoy bibliography
