P. V. Basinsky. A true story of Anna Karenina

Abstract

1. Basinsky’s A True Story of Anna Karenina [Podlinnaya istoriya Anny Kareninoy] offers an experience of close-reading Tolstoy’s classical novel. The book reconstructs the process of the novel’s writing (1873–1877) and provides an extensive historical and cultural commentary to selected chapters that deal exclusively with the relationships between Anna, Vronsky and Karenin. The monograph also features a philological analysis of the principal artistic images, themes, and motifs and suggests possible prototypes of the novel’s main and secondary characters. In his study, Basinsky relies on factual evidence from the biographies of Tolstoy and his family and friends, as well as their diaries and letters, etc. He supplements his True Story with illustrations, extracts from the memoir of S. Tolstoy, a son of the writer, that concern the novel, and readers’ responses to Anna Karenina (including those from writers, directors, and actors) over the period from its publication to the present day.