by Anna Karenina (tr Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky) (Penguin Classics) (epub)
31 burden is light: Cf. Matthew 11:30: ‘For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’
32 mystical mood … in Petersburg: See note 34, Part Two.
33 ‘He that humbleth himself…’: See Luke 14:11.
34 Komisarov: In April 1866 a certain O. I. Komissarov (1838–92), a peasant hatter from Kostroma (Tolstoy spells the name with one s), turned up by chance near the fence of the Summer Garden in Petersburg and inadvertently hindered Karakozov’s attempt to assassinate Alexander II. For that he was granted nobility and became socially fashionable for a time. He eventually drank himself into obscurity.
35 Ristich–Kudzhitsky: That is, Yovan Ristich (1831–99), a Serbian political activist who opposed Turkish and Austrian influence in Serbia. His name was well known in Russia. The ‘Slavic question’ was the question of freeing the Slavic peoples from the Ottoman yoke, one of the most important political issues of the 1870s. In 1875 a popular revolt broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 1876 in Montenegro. Serbia declared war on Turkey that same year. Bulgaria placed its hopes in Russia. In 1877 Russia declared war on Turkey, and there was talk of ‘taking Constantinople’ in revenge for the Russian defeat in the Crimean War (1854–6).
36 the Alexander Nevsky: That is, the Order of Alexander Nevsky, created by Peter the Great in 1722, named after St Alexander Nevsky (1220–63), a prince whose victories over the Swedes and the Teutonic knights made him a national hero.
37 ’He that is married …’: Cf. 1 Corinthians 7:32–3. Karenin inverts the two halves of the sentence.
38 throw the stone: See note 33, Part One.
39 Slav tutor: It was traditional to have an English or French tutor; Karenin follows the new fashion in having his son learn Russian from a Slav tutor.
40 the Vladimir … Andrew the First–called: That is, the Order of St Vladimir, named after Prince Vladimir of Kiev (956?–1015), who laid the foundations of the Kievan state and in 988 converted his people to Christianity, and the Order of St Andrew the apostle, patron saint of Russia, traditionally known as ‘the first–called’ from the account of his calling in John 1:37–40.
41 Enoch… alive to heaven: See Genesis 5:18–24 and Hebrews 1,1:5.
42 Patti: Carlotta Patti (1835–89), Italian opera singer, elder sister of the more famous Adelina Patti (1843–1919), toured in Russia from 1872 to 1875.
43 perfumed glove: The long, tight–fitting gloves fashionable at the time could only be put on by first being rolled up like a stocking.
Part Six
1 Gvozdevo … near side: The topography of Pokrovskoe resembles that of Tolstoy’s estate Yasnaya Polyana down to the smallest details. The marsh where Tolstoy used to hunt was divided in two by railway tracks; that is why Levin says ‘on the near side’.
2 Automedon: Achilles’ charioteer in the Iliad.
3 tax farmers: private persons authorized by the state to collect taxes in exchange for a fixed fee. The practice was obviously open to abuse, and tax farmers could become extremely wealthy, though never quite respectable. The practice was abolished in the 1860s by the reforms of Alexander II.
4 Gretchen: Diminutive of Margarete, a peasant girl in Goethe’s Faust who is seduced and abandoned by Faust.
5 hat of Monomakh: A slightly altered quotation from Pushkin’s historical drama Boris Godunov. The ‘hat of Monomakh’ is the hereditary crown of the Russian tsars, named after Prince Vladimir Monomakh (1053–1126).
6 bring forth children: See Genesis 3:16 (Revised Standard Version).
7 Gautier: An actual bookshop in Moscow, owned by V. I. Gautier, located on Kuznetsky Bridge.
8 ’— kiss the cross’: It was customary to seal an oath by kissing the cross.
9 ’… sancta simplicitas’: ‘O holy simplicity’ – words said to have been spoken by the Czech reformer Jan Hus (1369–1415), as he was being burned at the stake, to an old woman who came up to add a stick to the fire.
10 bast: The flexible inner bark of the linden, which had many uses (as roofing material, fibre for binding, material for shoes) in rural Russia.
11 vestals: The Vestal Virgins were priestesses who tended the sacred fire in the temple of Vesta, goddess of the hearth and household, in ancient Rome.
12 the brothers: That is, ‘brother Slavs’ – Serbians, Bulgarians, Montenegrins –whose struggle for independence drew sympathy and aid from Russian society (see note 35, Part Five).
13 Taine: Hippolyte Taine (1828–93), French philosopher, historian and critic. His book Intelligence was published in 1870. In What Is Art? Tolstoy includes him among the futile reasoners about beauty.
Part Seven
1 Montenegrins… fighters: Over the course of some six centuries Montenegro never ceased its resistance to Turkish rule. In 1876 the Montenegrins formed bands and embarked on a guerrilla war in the mountains, which was followed closely in the European press.
2 Svintich’s fiftieth birthday: An ironic reference to the celebrating of all sorts of anniversaries that became fashionable in the 1870s.
3 the university question: The January 1875 issue of the Russian Herald, in which the first chapters of Anna Karenina were published, also contained an article by Professor N. Liubimov on ‘The University Question’. Liubimov, who opposed the autonomy of the universities, was accused by young professors of handing them over to the government.
4 Ment: The name of the poet Ment, which means ‘[he] lies’ in French, is Tolstoy’s invention, as is the name of the scholar Metrov, from ‘metre’ or ‘measure’.
5 Journal de St–Petersbourg: A semi–official magazine published in French from 1842, reflecting the political views of the higher aristocratic circles.
6 Buslaev’s grammar: F. I. Buslaev (1818–97), Russian scholar and philologist, was the author of two fundamental works of historical grammar.
7 King Lear on the Heath: This fantasia is Tolstoy’s parody of the programme music that had become popular in nineteenth–century concert halls, which he disapproved of (see What Is Art?). Two Russian composers used Shakespeare’s King Lear as a subject: M. A. Balakirev (1837–1910) in his King Lear (1860), and P. I. Tchaikovsky (1840–93) in The Storm (1874). Tolstoy believed that the need for adjusting music to literature or literature to music destroyed creative freedom.
8 das ewig Weibliche: The notion of the ewig Weibliche comes from the finale of Goethe’s Faust.
9 Wagnerian trend …: Like Levin, Tolstoy considered the operas of Richard Wagner (1813–83) and the musical ‘trend’ that followed from them another form of programme music. His strongest attack on Wagner and his theory of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total or composite work of art) appears in What Is Art?
10 … poet on a pedestal: Tolstoy has in mind the model for a monument to Pushkin by the sculptor M. M. Antokolsky (1843–1902), which was exhibited in the Academy of Art in 1875. Pushkin was shown sitting on a rock with the heroes of his works coming up some stairs towards him, the intention being to illustrate Pushkin’s lines: ‘Now an invisible swarm of guests comes to me,/ Familiar of old, the fruits of my dream.’
11 panikhida: A memorial service for the dead.
12 Lucca: Paulina Lucca (1841–1908), an Italian–born opera singer who made her career in Austria, visited Russia in the early 1870s. She had great successes as Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Carmen in Bizet’s Carmen.
13 folle journée: The French phrase, taken from the comedy La Folle Journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro, by Beaumarchais (1732–99), came to be applied to all sorts of carnivals and festive evenings.
14 foreigner … to exile abroad: In October 1875 a commercial credit bank in Moscow was suddenly closed, and its directors and board members were arrested. The chief cause of the scandal was a certain foreign negotiator whose fraudulent dealings led to the bank’s collapse. His trial lasted until November 1876, when he was found guilty and banished from Russia, a ‘punishment’ which aroused widespread indignation.
15 Krylov’s fables: The poet Ivan Krylov (1769–184
3) was the father of the Russian fable. Levin’s phrase is modelled on the line, ‘And the pike was thrown into the river’, from the fable ‘The Pike’, in which a corrupt court punishes the guilty pike by throwing it into the river.
16 ’Rejoice, O Isaiah’: See note 18, Part Five.
17 Bible illustrations…: The French graphic artist Gustave Doré (1832–83) is most famous as an illustrator of classics such as The Divine Comedy, Don Quixote, and Gargantua and Pantagruel. In 1875 a luxury edition of the Bible with Doré’s illustrations went on sale in Russia. Tolstoy disapproved of Doré’s illustrations for being ‘merely aesthetic’.
18 Zola, Daudet: Tolstoy is thinking of the naturalist movement in French literature in the latter half of the nineteenth century, headed by Émile Zola (1840–1902), based on the exact reproduction of life and the total absence of novelistic fiction. For a time Alphonse Daudet (1840–97) was also an adherent of naturalism. Tolstoy criticized the movement for its lack of ‘spiritualizing’ ideas.
19 United Agency … Banking Institutions: The title of the post is a parody conflating the names of two actually existing institutions of the time: The Society of Mutual Land Credit and The Society of Southwestern Railways.
20 Rurik: See note 4, Part One.
21 … face of fire: The simile is borrowed from Psalm 68:2: ‘as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God’ – which is sung in the Orthodox Easter service and has thus become proverbial.
22 Landau … Bezzubov: Influential mediums were a feature of society life at that time. Landau resembles the medium Douglas Hume, who travelled and ‘prophesied’ in America and Europe, enjoyed the sympathy of Napoleon III and was received at the court of Alexander II. Hume had surprising success in Russia, married the daughter of Count Bezborodko (‘Beardless’) and thus became a count himself. Tolstoy parodies his success by having Landau adopted by Countess Bezzubov (‘Toothless’).
23 Saul: The reference is to the conversion of Saul (the apostle Paul) recounted in Acts 9:3–9.
24 Apostle James: Oblonsky quotes from James 2:26: ‘For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.’ This teaching seems to be a contradiction of St Paul’s notion of ‘justification by faith’ (see Romans 4, Galatians 3), so much so that Martin Luther, who (like Karenin and Countess Lydia Ivanovna) preached justification by faith, wanted to have the Epistle of James removed from the Bible. The two apparently contradictory assertions are in fact complementary.
25 … Under the Wing: Titles, which Tolstoy gives in English, of pious tracts in the spirit of the ‘new mystical trend’ connected with the sermons of the Protestant missionary Lord Radstock (Granville Augustus William Waldgrave, Lord Radstock, 1831–1913), who visited Russia twice, in 1874 and 1878, and was a popular figure in the high–society salons of Moscow and Petersburg. Lord Radstock, a graduate of Eton and Oxford, was invited to Russia by Countess Chertkov, the mother of Vladimir Chertkov, who later became the most important of Tolstoy’s ‘disciples’.
26 Trinity Monastery: The Trinity–St Sergius Monastery, some thirty miles north of Moscow, is a spiritual centre and place of pilgrimage founded in the fourteenth century by St Sergius of Radonezh (c. 1314–92).
Part Eight
1 Northern Beetle: The title is a parody of the Northern Bee, a reactionary newspaper edited by Faddey Bulgarin (1789–1859), who was also a bad novelist and a secret agent specializing in the denunciation of writers, Pushkin among them.
2 American friends … Slavic question: After the failed attempt on the life of Alexander II in 1866, an American diplomatic mission arrived in Petersburg and presented the tsar with an expression of sympathy and respect on the part of all the American people. The ‘American friends’ were met with receptions and banquets in the capital. In 1871–2 there was drought in Samara province, followed in 1873 by famine. Committees were organized for relief of the peasants there, and Tolstoy was one of the first to respond with a large donation. For the ‘Slavic question’ see note 35, Part Five.
3 volunteers: ‘Slavic Committees’ appeared in Russia soon after the outbreak of the Serbian war in 1876, recruiting volunteers to send to the aid of Serbia. Prior to Russia’s entry into the war, only retired officers like Yashvin and Vronsky could serve as volunteers.
4 Tsaritsyn station: The name of Tsaritsyn, a major city on the Volga, was changed to Volgograd in 1925, then to Stalingrad, and has now been changed back to Volgograd.
5 Ristich … Milan: For Ristich, see note 35, Part Five. Milan Obrenovich (1852–1901), prince of Serbia, declared war on Turkey in 1876 with the promise of Russian support. Serbia achieved complete independence in 1878, and in 1882 the country was made a kingdom with Milan Obrenovich as king. In 1889 he abdicated in favour of his son Alexander I.
6 Plato … life: Before and during his work on Anna Karenina, Tolstoy assiduously studied philosophy, convinced that it gave the best answers to questions about the meaning of life and death. Like Levin, he was particularly interested in the works of Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer and Spinoza.
7 love … will: Tolstoy was both fascinated and repulsed by the philosophy of the German thinker Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), who maintained that a blind will underlies phenomena, in opposition to the representation of the world produced by the intelligence. Tolstoy considered his views hopeless, dark and pessimistic; hence Levin’s attempt to substitute love for will.
8 Khomiakov: See note 20, Part Five.
9 ’infidel Hagarenes’: That is, the Muslims, reputed to be descendants of Hagar, concubine of Abraham and mother of Ishmael (Genesis 16).
10 Pugachev… Khiva: Emelian Pugachev (c. 1742–75), a Cossack and impostor, claimed to be the tsar Peter III and led an uprising in an attempt to take the throne. He was defeated and executed. For Khiva, see note 20, Part Three.
11 Karr … Prussia: Alphonse Karr (1808–90), a witty Parisian journalist and pamphleteer who wrote for the collection Guêpes (Wasps), published anti–military pamphlets before the Franco–Prussian War in 1870.
12 ‘… not peace but a sword’: A slight misquotation of Matthew 10:34: ‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.’
13 Varangians: See note 4, Part One.
14 the Eastern question: See note 42, Part One.
[Back Cover]
"Pevear and Volokhonsky are at once scrupulous translators and vivid stylists of English, and their superb rendering allows us, as perhaps never before, to grasp the palpability of Tolstoy's 'characters, acts, situations.' "
—James WOOD, The New Yorker
"In their version, Anna Karenina becomes a surprising rediscovery. . . . Pevear and Volokhonsky may truly be said to be the reinventors of the classic Russian novel for our times."
—PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize Citation
"At last, a version of Tolstoy's great novel that is neither musty, nor overly modernized, nor primly recast as a Victorian landscape. With their usual fastidious precision for Russian contexts and
modes of address, the prizewinning Pevear/Volokhonsky team has given us a pellucid Anna Karenina that speaks (as Tolstoy himself wished to speak) from within its own time, but for all times."
—Caryl EMERSON, A. Watson Armour III University Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Princeton University