The history of writing the novel "Anna Karenina"

• The history of writing the novel "Anna Karenina"

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" - with this phrase begins the well-known work of Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina". Today this novel occupies a prominent place in the golden fund of world literature, and in fact the author of its creation was given quite difficult. He planned to write a book in just two weeks, in the end it took four years. In the hearts of the writer exclaimed: "My Anna bothered me as a bitter radish!"

Leo Tolstoy at work.

According to literature, the idea of ​​creating the novel "Anna Karenina" Tolstoy was born after reading one of the works of Alexander Pushkin. When Tolstoy's flashed before the eyes of the phrase "The guests were going to the country ...", imagination immediately began to draw the plot. As the writer said: "I could not help, accidentally, without knowing why, and what will be, conceived persons and events began to continue, then, of course, I have changed, and suddenly struck up so nice and cool, which was a novel, which I have now finished the rough the novel is very much alive, hot and finished, which I am very pleased and which will be ready, if god wills health, in two weeks. "

The manuscript of Leo Tolstoy.

However, as quickly Tolstoy wrote "Anna Karenina" has failed. From family and community affair turned into a socio-psychological. Tolstoy began work in 1873. When the product of several chapters were ready, the writer took them to the publication of "Russian Gazette". he needs now had to keep up to the exit of each room to write a sequel. Contemporaries remembered how hard it had to Tolstoy. Often it is with inspiration taken for the work, and it also happens that the writer is shouting: "My Anna bothered me as a bitter radish", "unbearable nasty", "My God, if someone me over," Anna Karenina "! only four years later the novel was ready.

A shot from the k / f "Anna Karenina" (1914).

Leo Tolstoy was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but the editor of "Russian Bulletin" Mikhail Katkov did not like the epilogue, and he was not allowed to print. Instead of an epilogue in the magazine there was a note:

"In a previous book by the novel" Anna Karenina "exposed" To be continued. " But with the death of the heroine, in fact, the novel ended. According to the author of the plan would follow another small epilogue sheet in two of whose readers might know that Vronsky in embarrassment and grief after Anna's death sent a volunteer in Serbia and that all the others are alive and well, and Levin remained in his village, and angry Slavic committees and volunteers. The author, perhaps, these chapters will develop to a special edition of his novel ".

Leo Tolstoy repeatedly found fault in the fact that the death of the main character was too brutal. This writer replied quite wisely:

"One day, Pushkin said to his friend:" Imagine the thing threw my Tatiana. She married. That I did not expect from her. " The same I can say about Anna. My heroes are doing what they should do in real life, and not what I want. "

Portrait M. Hartung, daughter of Pushkin. E. Ustinov

About who was the model for the main character, literary critics are wondering still. Describing the appearance of Anna Karenina, Tolstoy imagined the daughter of Alexander Pushkin: "Hairstyle of it was invisible. Noticeable was decorating her little willful curly hair that always stamped on the back of the head and temples. On chiseled, strong neck was a string of pearls. "

A shot from the k / f "Anna Karenina" (1967).

Tolstoy was known family drama of his close friends, in which the wife filed for divorce and remarried. It was unheard of resonance at the time.

About a year before the start of work on the novel near Yasnaya Polyana threw herself under a train a certain Anna Stepanovna Pirogova, abandoned by her lover. Mutilated corpse made a strong impression on Tolstoy.

The image of Leo Tolstoy at work.

Each of the hotel "Russian messenger" thousands of readers eagerly awaited, but modern critics have written on "Anna Karenina" tens of angry reviews. Nikolai Nekrasov even sent Tolstoy biting epigram:

Thick, you have proved with patience and talent that women should not "walk"

With any gentleman of the bedchamber, neither adjutant, when she was the wife and mother. "