(Warner Bros.) Count LeoTolstoy’s tale of love and morality follows the doomed romancebetween the beautiful, well-born Anna Karenina and Count AlexeiVronsky. Anna, though a wife and mother, plunges into a tempestuousaffair with the dashing Vronsky, shocking Russian society andrending her family apart.
The progress of their liaison is contrastedwith the romance and marriage of two of their friends, Levin andKitty, who seem an unlikely match at first but find increasinghappiness and fulfillment as their relationship deepens over time.The desperation and despair of one couple and the ever-growingwarmth and devotion of the other trace two separate choices inlove and reveal the consequences of each.
Although the story of Anna Karenina is notautobiographical, it does deeply reflect Tolstoy’s own beliefsand his desire to impart these beliefs to others. In many ways,the character of Levin is one with whom Tolstoy identified closely,and Levin’s experiences as he is transformed by his loveand marriage to Kitty were a message to readers of the novel.
Tolstoy, the son of wealthy Russian landowners,wrote Anna Karenina after achieving worldwide distinctionfor War and Peace. An educated and cosmopolitan man, Tolstoyhad studied Oriental languages and law at the University of Kazanand then led a life of pleasure until 1851, when he fought asa member of an artillery regiment in the Crimean War. After participatingin the defense of Sebastopol, Tolstoy wrote The SebastopolStories, which established his reputation.
He married in 1862 and had 13 children overthe next 15 years. During that time he managed his vast estates;studied and implemented educational methods in order to help thelocal peasant population; and wrote his two greatest works: Warand Peace (1865-68) and Anna Karenina (1874-76). ImperialRussia was in its heyday during this period, opening new culturaland commercial doors between Russia and Western Europe, and bringingTolstoy’s master works to an international audience.
However, A Confession, which Tolstoywrote from 1879-92, marked a change in his life and outlook; hebecame an extreme rationalist and moralist. In a series of pamphletshe wrote after 1880, Tolstoy rejected the Church and State, renouncedthe demands of the flesh and denounced ownership of private property.His writing earned him many followers in Russia and abroad, butalso generated strong opposition. In 1901, Tolstoy was excommunicatedby the Russian Orthodox Church.
In an ironic parallel to the end of histragic heroine, Tolstoy died in 1910 during a journey, at thesmall railway station of Astapovo in Russia. It was a scant sevenyears before the Bolshevik revolution that transformed Russianhistory and politics.
