Tolstoy considered AK his first true novel, by which I assume he meant a narrative focused on the domestic lives of ordinary families, as announced in the famous opening sentence: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Translator Richard Pevear states that when Tolstoy published AK in the 1870s, “the family novel was hopelessly out of fashion,” replaced by polemics about contemporary man, communal living, sexual freedom, the woman question, etc. The conservative Tolstoy, in other words, was being provocative, polemical, in writing a family novel. [However, note that Middlemarch was published in 1871—admittedly, an English novel—and Brothers Karamazov in 1880.] Moreover, he did not avoid hotly debated topics such as the proper role of women, the education of children, farm management, new directions in art and music, new political and judicial institutions, Slavophilia, and the Eastern question. These controversial issues come up naturally in conversations among the characters or through developments in the plot—as when near the end of the novel Levin’s half-brother, traveling to Levin’s estate by train, encounters Vronksy on his way to join the Serbian War against the Turks. We learn from the conversation between Sergei Ivanovich and Vronsky’s mother, who is traveling with him partway, that the Count was completely devastated by Anna’s suicide and fighting for the Serbs and Montenegrins is “the only thing that could have lifted him up again.” [Bakhtin called Tolstoy’s practice of presenting all possible attitudes toward an issue—his own, his characters’, his readers’—“a sharp internal dialogism” and noted that the lines of “dialogization . . . were tightly interwoven in his style.”] Apparently Tolstoy’s presentation of the Serbian issue was so controversial that his publisher refused to print the final part of the novel and Tolstoy had to bring it out in a separate edition at his own expense.

There were also some contemporary complaints about the structure of the novel—namely, that the two themes had no connection. However, it seems clear enough that Kitty and Levin are the happy marriage; Anna and Vronsky the unhappy relationship announced in the opening sentence of the novel. Tolstoy himself pointed to an even more profound connection, or contrast, between Anna and Levin. Related by marriage (Anna’s brother, Stiva, is the husband of Kitty’s sister Dolly, making them in-laws), they meet only once in the novel; his admiration for her (perhaps) reminds us of her tragic stature. Levin struggles with and overcomes his obsession with death after the death of his brother; Anna is haunted by and finally succumbs to death. I agree with translator Pevear that the stream of consciousness rendering of Anna’s last hours—when her mind wanders from her jealousy and terror of being abandoned by Vronsky to trivial observations about her surroundings and back—“gives us what are surely the most remarkable pages in the novel, and some of the most remarkable ever written.”

Is Anna really a tragic figure? Vronsky a villain? Is Anna more than a beautiful society woman, one who radiates warmth and composure? Undoubtedly she is responsive to others in a way that reassures them of their self-worth—as happens in her meeting with Levin—not an unimportant quality. However, I feel that we don’t learn enough about the early years of her marriage to sympathize with her aversion to Karenin and infatuation with Vronsky. And, even if he goes about it in the wrong way, given the mores of their society, isn’t Karenin justified in warning Anna about the danger to her reputation of her liaison with Vronsky? Karenin also seems justified in keeping their son although he goes too far in attempting to prevent contact between mother and son. The reasons why Anna finds Vronsky attractive are obvious: He is young, handsome, “dashing” (he races horses), supremely amiable—admired by his fellow soldiers and officers. He does not seem particularly “deep,” but neither is Anna. When they go abroad to Italy, Vronsky takes up painting, but it is clear that he is never more than a dilettante. He becomes bored with their shiftless life; he has given up his only real vocation, soldiering. When they return to Russia, he throws himself into the management of his ancestral estate, with notable success (a bit like Levin, only he is enamored of the latest farm equipment, techniques, and decorating style). Anna, on the other hand, tries to find purpose for her life in caring for a needy English family, but this doesn’t seem to satisfy her. Moreover, whereas Vronsky is accepted by society, she is shunned by her former circle (the vicious double standard for women and men). Anna descends into jealousy. Vronsky becomes impatient with her and they heatedly and repeatedly quarrel. His feelings for Anna have obviously “cooled,” but he is not a cad. Despite what she thinks, there is no evidence that he has taken up with other women or that he intends to abandon her. Given the mores of late 19^th century Russia—marriages of convenience (for money, status), the difficulty of divorce, and limited life choices for women—the deterioration of Anna and Vronsky’s relationship appears to have been inevitable.