I will repay vengeance with the epigraph. Interpretations on Rome

In the original editions of the novel (in one of the earliest it was ironically titled "Well done baba"), the heroine was drawn both physically, externally, and mentally, internally, unattractive. Her husband looked much prettier. Researchers argue whether this text is the first autograph for the novel. When preparing the text of the novel for publication in the new Complete Works of L.N. Tolstoy in 100 volumes, it turned out that this was the first autograph of the novel (see: Gromova-Opulskaya L. D. A. Pushkin at the origins of "Anna Karenina": Textology and poetics // Slavic literature. Culture and folklore of Slavic peoples. XII international congress of Slavists (Krakow, 1998). Reports of the Russian delegation. M., 1998. P. 163; about the history of the creation of the novel see: Zhdanov VA Creative history of "Anna Karenina". Moscow, 1957; Zhdanov VA ., Zaydenshnur E.E. The history of the creation of the novel "Anna Karenina" // Tolstoy L.N. Anna Karenina: A novel in 8 parts. M., 1970. (Series "Literary monuments"). Pp. 803-833; . G. "Anna Karenina" Leo Tolstoy. M., 1978.).
The plot of the novel is connected with the plot of Pushkin's “Eugene Onegin”: “It is obvious that“ Anna Karenina ”begins with what“ Eugene Onegin ”ends with. Tolstoy believed that in general the story should begin with the fact that the hero got married or the heroine got married<…>... In the harmonious world of Pushkin, the balance of marriage is preserved. In the confused world of Tolstoy's novel, it collapses. Yet in Anna Karenina, the epic triumphs over tragedy. The search for the meaning of life, which haunts Levin, lies, however, not only outside love, but even the family, although Leo Tolstoy was inspired in this novel by “family thought” "(Gromova-Opulskaya L.D. AS Pushkin at the origins of "Anna Karenina": Textology and poetics. pp. 170-171; earlier the same idea was expressed by E. G. Babaev: Babaev E. G. Roman and time. Tula, 1975, p. 228).
The novel rests on "couplings", like "War and Peace". The action continues after the death of the main character. Explaining the constructive principle of the work, the author wrote to N.N.Strakhov, who participated in the preparation of a separate publication: , at first. And if myopic critics think that I wanted to describe only what I like, how Oblonsky dines and what kind of shoulders Karenina has, then they are mistaken. In everything, in almost everything that I wrote, I was guided by the need for a collection of thoughts linked together to express myself, but each thought expressed in words in a particular way loses its meaning, terribly decreases when one of the cohesion in which it is taken is taken. located. The link itself is not composed by thought (I think), but by something else, and there is no way to express the basis of this linkage in words; but it is possible only mediocre - describing images, actions, situations in words ”(April 23, 1876).
Approximately the same author of Anna Karenina explained to another correspondent, S.A. Rachinsky: “Your opinion about A. Karenina seems to me incorrect. I am proud, on the contrary, of the architecture - the vaults are brought together in such a way that it is impossible to even notice where the castle is. And this is what I tried most of all. The connection of the building is made not on the plot and not on the relationships (acquaintances) of persons, but on the internal communication<…>It is true that you are not looking for it there, or we understand the connection differently; but what I mean by connection is the very thing that made this business significant for me - this connection is there - look - you will find. "
The author called his work "a wide, free novel."
The main character, Anna Karenina, is a delicate and conscientious person, she is connected with her lover Count Vronsky with a real, strong feeling. Anna's husband, a high-ranking official Karenin, seems to be soulless and callous, although at some moments he is capable of high, truly Christian, good feelings. "Karenon" in Greek (Homer) "head", from December 1870 Tolstoy studied the Greek language. According to Tolstoy's son Sergei, the surname "Karenin" is derived from this word. "Is it not because he gave such a surname to Anna's husband, because Karenin is a leading man, because in him reason prevails over the heart, that is, feeling?" (Tolstoy S.L. On the reflection of life in "Anna Karenina" // Literary heritage. M., 1939. T. 37/38. P. 569).
Tolstoy creates circumstances that seem to justify Anna. The writer tells in the novel about the connections of another socialite, Betsy Tverskaya. She does not advertise these connections, does not flaunt it and enjoys a high reputation and respect in society. Anna is open and honest, she does not hide her relationship with Vronsky and seeks to achieve a divorce from her husband. And yet Tolstoy judges Anna on behalf of God himself. The payment for treason to her husband is the heroine's suicide. Her death is a manifestation of divine judgment: as an epigraph to the novel, Tolstoy chose the words of God from the biblical book of Deuteronomy in the Church Slavonic translation: "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay." Anna commits suicide, but it is not divine retribution - the meaning of Anna's divine punishment is not revealed by Tolstoy. (In addition, according to Tolstoy, not only Anna deserves the highest judgment, but also other characters who have committed a sin - first of all, Vronsky.) Anna's guilt for Tolstoy lies in evading the destiny of his wife and mother. The connection with Vronsky is not only a violation of marital duty. It leads to the destruction of the Karenin family: their son Seryozha is now growing up without a mother, and Anna and her husband are fighting each other for their son. Anna's love for Vronsky is not a lofty feeling in which the spiritual principle prevails over physical attraction, but a blind and destructive passion. Its symbol is a furious blizzard, during which Anna and Vronsky are explained. According to BM Eikhenbaum, “the interpretation of passion as a spontaneous force, as a“ fatal duel ”and the image of a woman dying in this duel are the main motives of“ Anna Karenina ”prepared by Tyutchev's lyrics” (Eikhenbaum B. Lev Tolstoy: Seventies Leningrad, 1960.181).
Anna deliberately goes against the divine law that protects the family. This is her fault for the author.
Later, Tolstoy wrote about the biblical saying - the epigraph to Anna Karenina: “People do a lot of bad things to themselves and to each other only because weak, sinful people have taken upon themselves the right to punish other people. "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay." Only God punishes, and then only through the person himself. " According to A. A. Fet, “Tolstoy points to“ I will repay ”not as a rod of an obnoxious mentor, but as a punitive force of things.<…>"(" What happened after the death of Anna Karenina in the "Russian Bulletin" "// Literary heritage. T. 37-38. P. 234). Tough moralism and the desire to judge one's neighbor are rejected by Tolstoy - only callous and sanctimoniously pious natures like Countess Lydia Ivanovna, who turned Karenin against Anna, are capable of doing this. “The epigraph of the novel, so categorical in its direct, original meaning, opens to the reader with another possible meaning:“ Vengeance is mine, and I will repay ”. Only God has the right to punish, and people have no right to judge. This is not only a different meaning, but also the opposite of the original one. In the novel, the pathos of indecision is increasingly revealed. Depths, truths - and therefore indecision.
<…>In “Anna Karenina” there is no one exclusive and unconditional truth - in it many truths coexist and at the same time collide with each other ”, - this is how EA Maimin interprets the epigraph (Maimin EA Lev Tolstoy. M., 1978, p. 122 ).
But one more interpretation is also possible. According to Christ's words, “from everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required” (Luke 12: 48). Anna is given more than those who are not loyal to Betsy Tverskaya or Steve Oblonsky. She is mentally richer and thinner than them. And it was charged more severely from her. This interpretation corresponds to the meaning of the epigraph to the text of the first finished edition of the novel: "The same thing, marriage is fun for some, for others it is the wisest thing in the world" (Tolstoy L. N. Anna Karenina: Novel in 8 parts. M., 1970. ( Series "Literary Monuments"), p. 687). For Anna, marriage, marriage is not fun, and the heavier is her sin.
In Tolstoy's novel, three storylines are connected - the stories of three families. These three stories are both similar and different at the same time. Anna chooses love, ruining her family. Dolly, the wife of her brother Steva Oblonsky, for the sake of the happiness and well-being of the children, reconciles with her husband, who has cheated on her. Konstantin Levin, by marrying Dolly's young and charming sister, Kitty Shtcherbatskaya, seeks to create a truly spiritual and pure marriage in which husband and wife become one, similarly feeling and thinking being. On this path, temptations and difficulties lie in wait for him. Levin loses his wife's understanding: Kitty is alien to his desire for simplification, for rapprochement with the people.
G.Ya. Galagan correlates the fate of the heroes of the novel, their life choice with the interpretation of the eastern parable of the traveler and the dragon, contained in Tolstoy's treatise-autobiography "Confession". In Confessions, Tolstoy writes about four ways in which people of his circle try to hide from the fear of life: this is the exit of ignorance, this is the exit of Epicureanism, this is the exit of strength and energy (the ability to commit suicide) and this is the exit of weakness (life in the illusory hope of finding meaning and salvation). “Each of these paths (and not just the path of“ insight ”), containing in itself from the beginning the embryos of self-destruction, even before its philosophical and symbolic interpretation in the treatise, was figuratively embodied in the artistic fabric of Anna Karenina. The path of “ignorance” (Karenin and Vronsky), the path of “epicureanism” (Steve Oblonsky), the “path of strength and energy” (Anna) and the path “from weakness to insight” (Levin), symbolizing the possible fate of the Russian “educated class” and closely related to each other, determine the socio-philosophical orientation of the novel<…>"(Galagan G.Ya. LN Tolstoy // History of Russian Literature: In 4 volumes. L., 1982. T. 3. S. 832-833).
Some details are debatable. Anna's suicide - it is very important that this is the suicide of a woman who thinks that her lover has grown cold towards her, and not a "philosophical" decision to commit suicide - can hardly be called a "release of strength and energy." But still, in the main, the comparison between the novel and the treatise is justified.
The history of Levin's marriage to Kitty, their marriage and Levin's spiritual quest is autobiographical. (The surname should be pronounced "Levin", Tolstoy was called "Lev Nikolaevich" in the domestic circle, in accordance with the Russian, and not Church Slavonic, pronunciation norms. See: Babaev E. G. Comments // Tolstoy L. N. Complete works: In 22 t. M., 1982. T. 9. S. 440.) It largely reproduces the episodes of marriage and family life of Lev Nikolaevich and Sofya Andreevna. So, Levin's explanation with Kitty by means of the first letters in words written in chalk - exactly corresponds to the explanation of Tolstoy with Sofya Andreevna, described in the diary of the writer's wife (Tolstaya S.A. Diaries: In 2 volumes. T. 1. P. 481). Have easily recognizable prototypes and other characters in the novel; for example, the prototype of brother Levin is the brother of the writer Dmitry Nikolaevich. (The article by SL Tolstoy "On the reflection of life in Anna Karenina" is devoted to the prototypical plan of the novel. See also: Babaev E. G. Comments. Pp. 438-444.)
A distinctive artistic feature of the novel is the repetitions of situations and images, which play the role of predictions and predictions. Anna and Vronsky meet at the railway station. At the moment of the first meeting, when Anna accepted the first sign of attention from a new acquaintance, the train coupler was crushed by the train. An explanation of Vronsky and Anna takes place at the railway station. Chilling Vronsky to Anna leads her to suicide: Anna throws herself under the train. The image of the railroad is correlated in the novel with motives of passion, a deadly threat, with cold and soulless metal. The death of Anna and Vronsky's guilt were foreseen in the scene of the horse races, when Vronsky, because of his awkwardness, breaks the back of the beautiful mare Frou-Frou. The death of the horse, as it were, foreshadows the fate of Anna. Anna's dreams, in which she sees a man working with iron, are symbolic. His image echoes the images of railway employees and is fanned with threat and death. Metal and the railway are endowed with a frightening meaning in the novel. (The poetics, including symbolism, of "Anna Karenina" by Vladimir Nabokov is brilliantly analyzed: Nabokov V. Lectures on Russian Literature. Transl. From English. M., 1996. pp. 221-306. See also: Lönnqvist B. Symbols of iron in the novel "Anna Karenina" // Celebrating Creativity: Essays in Honor of Jostein Börtnes / Ed. K. Andreas. Bergen, 1997. P. 97-107.)
A subtle and deep characterization of the composition, the poetics of coincidences in Tolstoy's novel belongs to the Czech writer Milan Kundera: “At the beginning<…>novel<…>Anna meets Vronsky under strange circumstances. She's on the platform where someone just got hit by a train. At the end of the novel, Anna throws herself under the train. This symmetrical composition, in which the same motive appears at the beginning and at the end of the novel, may seem too "novel" to you. Yes, I can agree, but on condition that you understand the word “novel” not as “invented”, “artificial”, “unlike life”. For this is how human lives are arranged.
They are arranged in the same way as a piece of music. A person, guided by a sense of beauty, turns a random event (<…>death at the station) into a motive that will forever remain in the composition of his life. He returns to it, repeats it, changes it, develops, like a composer, the theme of his sonata. After all, Anna could have committed suicide in some other way! But the motive of the station and death, this unforgettable motive associated with the birth of love, attracted her with its gloomy beauty and in moments of despair. Without knowing it, a person creates his life according to the laws of beauty even at a time of the deepest despair.
Therefore, one cannot reproach the novel for being mesmerized by secret encounters of accidents (like the meeting of Vronsky, the railway station and death<…>), but one can rightly reproach a person that in his daily life he is blind to such accidents. His life thereby loses its dimension of beauty ”(Kundera M. The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Novel / Translated from Czech N. Shulgina. St. Petersburg, 2002, pp. 65-66).
A blizzard, a whirlwind, during which Vronsky and Anna meet on the platform is symbolic. This is a sign of the elements, fatal and unbridled passion. The dream in which Anna hears a voice predicting death in childbirth is also full of deep meaning: Anna dies in childbirth, but not when she gives birth to a daughter, but when, in love for Vronsky, she herself is born to a new life: the birth does not take place, she does not love her daughter could, the lover ceases to understand her.
In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy uses the technique of an internal monologue, descriptions of chaotic, randomly replacing observations, impressions from the world around and the thoughts of the heroine (Anna, driving to the station after a quarrel with Vronsky).
Anna Karenina is a work not only full of philosophical meaning, but also topical. The novel takes place from 1873 to 1876 (Babaev E.G. Comments. P. 444), and the author responds to all burning topics: he writes about peasant reform, and the introduction of an independent court, and about military reform, and about the volunteer movement in support of the rebellious Serbs. Tolstoy's assessments of the reforms are very harsh: the thoughtless adoption of Western institutions is harmful, the landlord economy has been undermined. The hero-ideologist, boldly challenging the accepted liberal opinions, is Levin.
“Based on the novel by Tolstoy, one can study the deep processes of the post-reform era - an epoch of internally explosive, full of sharp contradictions, changeable in its essence. In this epoch, indeed, “everything has turned upside down and is only still being fitted”.<…>It was a very accurate description of the era and exact words ”(Maimin EA Lev Tolstoy, p. 131).
Anna Karenina was even less fortunate in criticism than War and Peace. Leftist criticism perceived the novel as an apology and apotheosis of the high society (P. Nikitin [pseudonym of PN Tkachev] - Salon Art // Delo. 1878. No. 2, 4 and other responses); the largest critic of that time, N.K. Mikhailovsky, in his article "The Hand and Shuytsa of Leo Tolstoy" (see: Library of Russian Criticism. Critique of the 70s of the 19th century. M., 2002, pp. 207-333) practically ignored the novel, preferring analysis of the pedagogical views of L. N. Tolstoy and casually making it clear that "Anna Karenina" - a high society novel. The critic wrote about the author of the novel: “True, he also gets satisfaction here as a person of a certain stratum of society, who may not be alien to everything human, but especially the interests, feelings and thoughts of this particular stratum are close. This is true, but this is precisely the deviation from the path recognized by Count Tolstoy as correct, and this is where his shuytsa begins.<…>... Indeed, what does it mean to emboss the subtlest and most detailed analysis of the various vicissitudes of the mutual love of Anna Karenina and the aide-de-camp of Count Vronsky or the story of Natasha Bezukhova, née (nee - AR) Countess Rostova, etc.? In the words of the gr<афа>Tolstoy, the publication in many thousands of copies of the analysis, for example, of Count Vronsky's feelings at the sight of the broken ridge of his beloved horse does not in itself constitute a "reprehensible" act. He is “pleased to receive money and fame for this”, but we, “society”, not all, of course, mainly secular people and cavalrymen, are very curious to look in an excellent artistic mirror ”(Ibid. P. 263, quotations - from Tolstoy's article "Progress and Definition of Education").
In conservative criticism, the novel, as well as in the radical left, was interpreted as an essay from high society life, which this time the author was credited with (A<всеенко В. Г.>... About the new novel gr<афа>Tolstoy // Russian Bulletin. 1875. No. 5). But the publisher of the journal text of the novel, ultra-conservative journalist and critic M.N. Katkov, in an unsigned article, considered the idea of ​​the novel not worked out (Russkiy Vestnik. 1877, No. 7).
And in non-ideological criticism, the novel was not really appreciated. So, A.V. Stankevich, on the pages of Vestnik Evropy, reproached the writer for violating the laws of composition and genre, assuring that Tolstoy instead of one novel had two.
Of the writers, only F.M. Dostoevsky. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, like radical critics, classified it as a salon novel with a harmful tendency (see about these reviews: Babaev E. G. Comments. Pp. 434, 445-449), and Nekrasov responded with a derogatory epigram:
Tolstoy, you proved with patience and talent,
That a woman should not "walk"
Neither with the chamber-cadet, nor with the aide-de-camp,
When she is a wife and mother.
In judgments - both disapproving and sympathetic - about the aristocratic position of L.N. Tolstoy, the author of Anna Karenina, and there is both truth and untruth about his work as a high society novel. Tolstoy, a nobleman from an old family, on the maternal side of Rurikovich, a descendant of the holy martyr Prince Mikhail of Chernigov, prior to the "renunciation" of his former life and its values, which took place at the turn of the 1870-1880s, was very dear to his origin. The ancient nobility for him was the bearer of high principles of honor and personal independence, education and upbringing, without which a firm moral position is impossible. Another draft of War and Peace contained the statement: “I am an aristocrat because I cannot believe in the high mind, delicate taste and great honesty of a person who picks his nose with his finger and whose soul talks to God” (Tolstoy L. N. Complete Works: In 90 volumes. Moscow; Leningrad, 1934. P. 239).
In Anna Karenina "the author's understanding of aristocracy is expressed by Levin in a conversation with Steve Oblonsky:"<…>You say: aristocracy. And let me ask you, what is the aristocracy of Vronsky or anyone else - such aristocracy that you can neglect me? You think Vronsky is an aristocrat, but I am not. A man whose father got out of nothing by sneakiness, whose mother, God knows with whom, was not in touch ... No, I'm sorry, but I consider myself an aristocrat and people like me, who in the past can point to three or four honest generations of families, those who were at the highest degree of education (talent and intelligence are another matter), and who never sycophantic anyone, never needed anyone, as my father and my grandfather lived. And I know a lot of them.<…>I AM<…>I value family and labor ... We are aristocrats, and not those who can exist only with handouts from the powers that be and whom you can buy for two kopecks. "
For Tolstoy, an aristocrat is not just a nobleman, even if titled like Count Vronsky, but a nobleman from a good, old family, a bearer of family traditions, cherishing family memory, a landowner working on hereditary land. In a similar way, Pushkin understood aristocracy, who valued his six-hundred-year-old nobility. The difference between him and Tolstoy is that the author of "Eugene Onegin" and "The Captain's Daughter" was not a landowner, and therefore for him the labor of a landowner was not among the main merits of a nobleman. However, in the unfinished prose essay, published under the tentative editorial title "Novel in Letters", his hero Vladimir, expressing thoughts that are likable to the writer, is in tune with the creator of "Anna Karenina": "I will retire, marry and leave for my Saratov village. The title of landowner is the same service. It is more important to manage three thousand souls, whose entire well-being depends entirely on us, than commanding a platoon or rewriting diplomatic dispatches ...<…>The negligence in which we leave our peasants is unforgivable.<…>We live on debt our future income, we go broke, old age finds us in need and in trouble.
This is the reason for the rapid decline of our nobility: the grandfather was rich, the son was in need, the grandson was walking around the world. Ancient surnames come to nothing; new ones rise and disappear again in the third generation. The fortunes merge, and not a single surname knows its ancestors. Where does this political materialism lead? I don’t know. But it’s time to put obstacles in front of him.
Without regret, I could never see the destruction of our historical families; no one here values ​​them, starting with those that belong to them. "
Tolstoy, with a similar view of the Russian nobility, appreciates the aristocracy, but by no means the light - deceitful, vicious, empty. "Anna Karenina" is a novel, if you like, "aristocratic", but in no way "high society", not "salon".
Westerner Turgenev in a letter to A.S. Suvorin of March 14, 1875, when only the first chapters of Anna Karenina were published, he sarcastically remarks "about the influence of Moscow, the Slavophil nobility, old Orthodox virgins." In fact, Tolstoy's real social position during these years only coincided with the Slavophil in some particulars. Sharing the Slavophil idea of ​​the people as the guardian of the national spirit and skeptical about the adoption of Western forms of state and social life, characteristic, in his opinion, of the reforms of the 1860s, Tolstoy was indifferent to the Pan-Slavist pathos and was alien to belief in the special mystical vocation of Russia. The sarcastic depiction in Anna Karenina of the volunteer movement in defense of Serbia from the Turks on the eve of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 is indicative. Slavophiles, for example, I.S. Aksakov, on the contrary, were ardent enthusiasts and inspirers of this movement. Initially, the pages dedicated to the volunteers were not the eighth part of the novel, but its epilogue. In the journal M.N. Katkov's "Russian Bulletin", where the novel was originally published, the epilogue was not published. Let's give the floor to researchers of the creative history of the novel: “Because of the content of the epilogue, the author had a conflict with the publisher. M.N. Katkov was dissatisfied with the negative coverage of the volunteer movement in Russia in favor of the insurgent Serbs and refused to publish the last part of the novel in this form. In the fifth issue of "Russian Bulletin" there was an anonymous note - "What happened after the death of Anna Karenina" - in which it was reported: "In the previous book, under the novel" Anna Karenina "," The end follows. " But with the death of the heroine, the romance itself ended. According to the author's plan, a small epilogue of two pages would follow, from which readers could learn that Vronsky, in embarrassment and grief after Anna's death, volunteers to Serbia and that everyone else is safe and sound, and Levin remains in his village and is angry with the Slavic committees and volunteers. The author, perhaps, will develop these chapters for a special edition of his novel. "
Tolstoy took the manuscript, and the eighth part of "Anna Karenina" was published as a separate book "(Zhdanov V.A., Zaydenshnur E.E. History of the creation of the novel" Anna Karenina "// Tolstoy L.N. Anna Karenina: Novel in 8 parts. ., 1970. (Series "Literary Monuments"). S. 812).
About the Slavophils in one of the letters to N.N. To Strakhov, Tolstoy expressed himself very clearly and sharply: "One of two things: Slavophilism or the Gospel."
The difference between the position of the writer and the Slavophil was precisely noted by N.K. Mikhailovsky (Mikhailovsky N.K. Hand and Shuytsa of Leo Tolstoy. S. 237-247). However, the Slavophiles, indeed, were closer to Tolstoy than the Westernizers. July 19, 1905 "L. N. started talking about the Slavophils.
-They had autocracy in the foreground; on the second - Orthodoxy; on the third - nationality. Respect for the Russian people. Autocracy - they imagined that the tsar was an impartial, arbitrator.<…>Westernism repels, - said L.N. - What they say in the West, we repeat it already according to<одному>what it says. And then the people were lovely<…>"(At Tolstoy: 1904-1910. Yasnaya Polyanskie notes of DP Makovitsky // Literary heritage. M., 1979. T. 90. Book. 1. S. 348-349).
Anna Karenina is the last great work of Tolstoy, written before his departure from the Church and its teachings. In it, Tolstoy still retains his adherence to Orthodoxy, although he understands the Orthodox faith not so much as Truth, but as a tradition dear to his heart and understandable to his soul. Despite the tragic denouement of Anna's storyline, the novel, written shortly before the spiritual turning point, turned out to be one of the writer's brightest works.

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After the end of "War and Peace" L.N. Tolstoy continues to be interested in the history of the Decembrists, then, carried away by the events of the beginning of the century, he thinks of writing a historical novel about the era of Peter 1. In the 70s, L.N. Tolstoy began to think more and more deeply about the problems of marriage and family. The surrounding reality provided a lot of materials for reflection on the issues of family life. In January 1872, Anna Stepanovna Pirogova threw herself under a train at the Yasenki station. Illegal wife of the neighboring landowner Bibikov. The Tolstoy family knew the deceased woman well, and her tragic fate was echoed in the novel Anna Karenina. Tolstoy worked on the new novel for over four years, from 1873 to 1877. The theme of the family, put forward at first, turned out to be connected with social, social, philosophical issues; the work grew into a large social novel, which reflected the life of the writer today. Tolstoy built Anna Karenina in two ways: denouncing urban life and bourgeois culture (Anna-Karenin-Vronsky's line) and depicting patriarchal estate life (Levin's-Kitty's line).

In Moscow, at the station of the Nikolaev railway, Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky met his mother who was coming from St. Petersburg. While waiting for the train, he thought of young Kitty Shtcherbatskaya, of her love for him, from which he "felt better, cleaner himself." “Vronsky followed the conductor into the carriage and stopped at the entrance to the department to make way for the lady who was leaving. With the usual tact of a secular person, by one glance at the appearance of this lady, Vronsky determined her belonging to the high society. He apologized and was about to go to the carriage, but felt the need to look at her again ... When he looked around, she also turned her head. Shining, seemingly dark from thick eyelashes, gray eyes friendly, attentively rested on his face, as if she recognized him, and immediately transferred to the approaching crowd, as if looking for someone. " It was Anna Arkadyevna Karenina. Having met by chance, Anna and Vronsky cannot forget each other.

Anna Karenina - married woman, mother of an eight-year-old son; she understands that Vronsky cannot and should not interest her. However, at the Moscow ball, Kitty, who was watching her, sees that "Anna is drunk with the wine of the admiration she arouses ..." Anna decides to leave Moscow and return home to St. Petersburg so as not to meet Vronsky. She fulfilled her decision, and the next day her brother accompanied her to Petersburg. But at the stop in Bologoye, getting out of the carriage, Anna met Vronsky.

“-I didn't know you were going. Why are you going? - she said ... And irrepressible joy and animation shone on her face.

Why am I going? - he repeated, looking her straight in the eyes, - you know. I am going to be where you are, ”he said,“ and I cannot do otherwise.

He said what her soul desired, but what she feared with her mind. She did not answer, and on her face he saw the struggle. " The writer emphasizes the confusion and anxiety in Anna's soul by describing the raging nature. “And at the same time, as if overcoming an obstacle, the wind poured snow from the roofs of the cars. He ruffled it with some torn iron sheet, and the thick whistle of a steam locomotive roared gloomily. All the horror of the blizzard seemed to her even more beautiful now. "

This meeting decided the fate of Anna. No matter how hard she tried, returning home, to live in the old way, she did not succeed. Love for Vronsky made her take a different look at her married life. "... I realized that I can no longer deceive myself, that I am alive, that I am not to blame, that God made me such that I need to love and live," Anna thinks. The inability to deceive, sincerity and truthfulness draw her into a difficult conflict with Karenin and the secular environment.

The fate of Aleksey Aleksandrovich Karenin, Anna's husband, is undoubtedly tragic, and much in her makes me feel sorry for him. Karenin is not an “evil machine,” as Anna calls her husband in a fit of despair. Tolstoy shows his sincerity, humanity in the scene of reconciliation with his wife. Even Vronsky admits that at the moment of reconciliation Karenin was "at an unattainable height." While truthfully revealing the full gravity of Karenin's human experiences, Tolstoy at the same time deeply analyzes his attitude towards his wife and his behavior. Already not a young man, Aleksey Alekseevich met with Anna Arkadyevna, who was 20 years younger than him.

"He proposed and gave his wife all the feeling he was capable of." Having created that "atmosphere of happiness" that had become his habit, Karenin suddenly discovered that it had broken down in an "illogical" way. Tolstoy compares Karenin to a man who calmly walked across the bridge and suddenly saw "that this bridge has been dismantled and that there is an abyss." This abyss was life itself, the bridge was the artificial life that Alexey Alexandrovich lived. "Karenin tests his living, natural feelings with the concepts and norms established by the state and the church." Having learned about Anna's betrayal, after "a strange feeling of physical pity for her," he felt that he was now occupied with the question of "how the best, most decent, most convenient for himself and therefore the most just way to shake off the dirt with which she splashed him in her fall, and continue to walk the path of an active, honest and rewarding life. " But he is undoubtedly an egoist, he is not at all interested in why Anna changed, he does not care that Anna is unhappy with him, he only needs to shake off the dirt. He is a worthy son of the environment in which he moves. However, methodicalness, caution, lifeless systematicity - features characteristic of the highest circles of the bureaucratic environment - proved to be powerless in the collision with life.

Vronsky passionately fell in love with Anna, this feeling filled his entire life.

An aristocrat and a gentleman, "one of the best examples of the golden youth of St. Petersburg," he defends Anna before the world, takes on the most serious obligations in relation to his beloved woman. Decisively and directly “he announces to his brother that he looks at his relationship with Karenina as if it’s a marriage ...” In the name of love, he sacrifices his military career: he retires and, contrary to secular notions and morals, leaves with Anna abroad. The more Anna got to know Vronsky, "the more she loved him"; and abroad she was unforgivably happy. But "Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the full realization of what he had wished for so long, was not quite happy ... He soon felt that desires of desires, longing had risen in his soul."

Attempts to engage in politics, books, painting did not give results, and, in the end, the solitary life in an Italian city seemed boring to him; it was decided to go to Russia.

Secular society forgave Vronsky for the open relationship between Anna and Vronsky, but not Anna. All the houses of her former acquaintances were closed to her. Vronsky, having found the strength to neglect the prejudices of his environment, does not completely break with this environment even when secular society began to persecute his beloved woman. The military-palace environment in which he rotated for a long time influenced him no less than the official and bureaucratic spheres on Karenin. And just as Karenin could not and did not want to understand what was going on in Anna's soul, so Vronsky was very far from this.

Loving Anna, he always forgot what “constituted the most painful side of his relationship to her - her son with his questioning, disgusting, as it seemed to him, look. This boy was more often than anyone else a hindrance to their relationship. " In the scene of Anna's meeting with her son Serezha Tolstaya, with the unsurpassed skill of an artist-psychologist, he revealed the depth of the family conflict. The feelings of a mother and a loving woman felt by Anna are shown by Tolstoy as equal. Her love and motherly feeling - two great feelings - remain unconnected for her. She has associated with Vronsky the idea of ​​herself as a loving woman, with Karenin - as an impeccable mother of their son, as a once-faithful wife. Anna wants to be both at the same time. In a semi-conscious state, she says, referring to Karenin: “I am still the same .... But there is another in me, I am afraid of her, - she fell in love with that one, and I wanted to hate you and could not forget about the one that was before. That is not me. Now I am real, I am all. "

The feelings of a loving mother for an abandoned child, passion for Vronsky, protest against the false morality of high society and the uncertainty of the situation form a knot of contradictions in Anna's fate that she is unable to untie. Her words, addressed to Dolly Oblonskaya, sound tragic: “... I am not a wife; he loves me as long as he loves ... "" You must understand that I love, it seems, equal, but both are more than myself, two creatures - Seryozha and Alexei ... Only these two creatures I love, and one excludes other. I cannot connect them, but this is the only one I need. And if this is not, then all the same. Everything, all the same ... "And when Anna realized that her passionate love was not enough for Vronsky's happiness, and he, for whom she sacrificed her son," more and more wants to leave her, "she realized her situation as hopeless, as tragic dead end.

The idea of ​​the writer to show a woman who has lost herself, but is not guilty, is emphasized by the epigraph to the novel: "Vengeance is mine and I will repay."

St. Basil the Great

Question... What means: "Make room for anger"?

Answer... Or "Do not resist evil" as written, but striking "On the right cheek" to reverse the other, etc. (Matthew 5, 39 - 41) or: "When they will persecute you in one city, run to another"(Matthew 10:23).

Rules summarized in questions and answers.

St. John Chrysostom

Art. 19-21 Do not take revenge on yourself, love, but make room for anger. It is written that there is: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. If your enemy thirsts, bite him: if he thirsts, give him a drink: when you do this, gather up a fiery coal on his head. Be not conquered from evil, but conquer evil with good

Do not take vengeance on yourself, beloved, but give place to anger: it is written that there is: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord (art. 19)... What kind of anger should we give room to? Of God. Since the offended one most desires to see and enjoy the retribution for his offense, then God gives the same to a greater extent: if you do not take revenge yourself, He will be your avenger. So, to Him, says (the apostle), grant vengeance. Here's what the words mean: give room to anger. Then, for greater comfort (the apostle) brought a testimony and, thereby encouraging the listener even more, requires him to be more wisdom, saying: if your enemy is hungry, bite him, if he is thirsty, give him a drink. Doing this, gather the coals of fire on top of it (Proverbs XXV, 22, 23). Be not conquered from evil, but conquer evil with good(vv. 20, 21). Why do I say, continues (the apostle), that one must live in peace with the enemy? I command and do good to him. Give it a drink, drink it, - said. And since he commanded very difficult and great things, he added: Doing this, gather fiery coals on its head. The apostle said this in order to humble the offender with fear, and to encourage the offended with the hope of retribution. When the offended person weakens (in spirit), he is not so much supported by his own blessings as by the punishment of the one who offended him. After all, nothing is so pleasant as to see the enemy punished. And what a person desires, then (the apostle) and gives him first; when the poison is extracted, he offers him exhortations more sublime, saying: be not defeated from evil.(The Apostle) knew that the enemy, even if he was a beast, being fed, would not remain an enemy, and that an offended person, even if he was very faint-hearted, having fed and watered the enemy, would no longer desire his punishment. Therefore, being sure of the significance of the case, he not only did not forbid, but becomes generous in punishment. Doesn't say that you will take revenge, but - Gather the coals of fire on its head. And then he commanded him, saying: be not conquered by evil, but conquer evil with the good. And with this, he kind of hinted slightly that he should not act with such an intention, since remembering an offense means already being defeated by evil. At first (the apostle) did not say this, because it was still untimely; when he had exhausted the anger of the hearer, then he added, saying: conquer evil with the good. This is victory. After all, even a fighter wins a victory more successfully, not when he exposes himself to the blows of the enemy, but when he puts himself in such a position that the enemy is forced to spend his strength in the air. Thus, he not only escapes the blows himself, but also depletes all the strength of the enemy.

Homilies to Romans.

St. Ambrose Mediolansky

Do not avenge yourself, beloved, but make room for the wrath of God. For it is written: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord

This is written so that the anger of another person does not move you to sin when you want to resist or repay him. But you can remove the blame from him and from yourself if you decide to give in.

Messages.

St. Theophan the Recluse

Do not take revenge on yourself, beloved, but make room for anger: it is written that there is: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord

I have already said that they do not repay evil for evil: what does it mean not to avenge oneself. What does the new suggestion not to avenge yourself mean? Or repeating the same to strengthen the commandment; because vengeance is so seductive and is covered with such plausibility that it is not considered a sin - and yet cases of this are very frequent in everyday encounters. This repetition reminds the Apostle to be attentive, it would not break through as a feeling or a matter of revenge. Or, perhaps, saying this, the Apostle had in mind a special kind of vengeance - by judgment, namely: when you endure some vain from another, obviously wrong, do not seek the restoration of your right by judicial order, for: έκδικεΐν - this actually means. Although this is, in a civil way, and unrepentant business; but as with this the feeling of revenge is nourished and satisfied, the Apostle does not order to start legal cases at all. Better endure, better be offended, as the Epistle to the Corinthians says: almost offend naturally? (1 Cor. 6, 7) - or as the Savior teaches: if anyone wants to take your robe, give him the shit too(cf .: Matthew 5:40). We will attribute this or that intention to the Apostle, most of all we should pay attention to the urge to non-vengeance put forward here, namely, the surrender of the matter to the judgment of God. The vengeful one considers his deed to be right and, in revenge, keeps that thought and that feeling that stands for the truth. The suppression of revenge seems to him like a deviation from the truth. The Apostle rejects this thought, saying, as it were: the truth will not tolerate anything from your compliance. There is an avenger of truth - God. Commit the deed to the vengeance of God; He will reward if he must. This is what the words mean: make room for anger- the wrath of God, that is, His righteous retribution: for God does not have anger, but there is a righteous retribution, which seems to be anger to the one who is subjected to it. This is how Saint Chrysostom interprets: “Whose anger should we give place to? Of God. And as the offended one most desires to see this, in order to enjoy the vengeance; then God will give that to a greater extent. And if you do not take revenge yourself, then He will be your avenger. So, to Him, says the Apostle, grant vengeance. Here's what the words mean: make room for anger! The blessed Theophylact expresses the same idea somewhat more strongly: “Give, he says, a place for the wrath of God in relation to those who offend you. If you avenge yourself, then God will not avenge you; and if you forgive, then God will avenge him more severely. " - Ecumenius adds: "If you yourself avenge yourself, then the wrath of God, having come, will not have what to repay the one who offended, because you have already exacted from him in advance." And Ambrosiastes even suggests that the wrath of God, having come, will find that you, having taken to stand for the truth, have overstepped the measure of truth, seeking the more due, more than the measure, and, instead of retribution to the one who offended you, you will be rewarded for the excess punishment you allowed ... And that this is possible, you can judge by the quality of anger, which always stands in partnership with vengeance. Anger never observes the righteous measure, but always takes it above the measure. Why the apostle James wrote: the anger of a husband will not make the truth of God(cf .: James 1:20). Ambrosiastes precisely writes: “in order to preserve the union of peace, the Apostle urges to refrain from anger, because especially because in anger it is impossible not to sin: for one who is driven by anger usually expects more than what an unjust deed demands, - which he harms himself, being wrong for a reason disproportionate punishment, and makes the offender worse, while condescension could correct him. Why the wise Solomon teaches: do not wake the truthful velmi ... there is a righteous one perished in their truth(cf .: Eccl. 7, 17, 16): for when anger takes hold of us, the enemy finds a place in us and, under the semblance of righteousness, instills unjust and pernicious things. "

It is written that there is: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord... “For greater conviction, the Apostle gave his testimony, confirming his word” (Saint Chrysostom, blessed Theophylact). This is not my commandment; but such is the will of God, such is the law of God's providential actions about us. God Himself takes the work of vengeance. Do not interfere in this matter, he says, as it were, I will repay it myself, this is my business. You will not be able to do it properly. In your opinion, now it is necessary to take revenge, but in the best order - it is better to postpone revenge, or for a while, or completely. It is possible to do without revenge at all: the one who offended himself will come to his senses and correct his untruth; which is much better. - Or - now take revenge on him, and he will be hardened more; but punish him with something afterwards, and he will soften in heart and correct himself. As you do not know anything about this, then do not tackle this thing better. In addition, you, offended, yourself have been wrong in many ways. I sent this to you in vain, as a reward for your iniquities and sins, in order to save you from future reward. If you endure, see what kind of trouble you will prevent? And if you take revenge, you will destroy all the good fruit for you from vain. Your sins remain on you, and wait for eternal retribution, if another in vain does not fall to your lot in cleansing. So don't seek vengeance. I know better than you how to act in the whole truth with the one who caused you in vain, and you accept it as a medicine for you and as a diversion of the greatest and most terrible evil. With Me everything is directed towards the fact that good will come out of everything - not temporary, but eternal, not earthly, but heavenly, not visible, but spiritual. This is the case when you do not interfere with your truths; and when you interfere, you disturb My orders and, instead of good, you multiply and reap evil.

The words: Vengeance is mine, I will repay- not read word for word in the Old Testament Scriptures, but this thought is clearly expressed by the prophet Moses in other words, namely: on the day of vengeance I will repay (Deut. 32, 35). The Apostolic Spirit took the thought of the prophetic spirit - the same with the Apostolic one - and expressed it in another, powerful word.

Interpretation of the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans.

Venerable Ephraim Sirin

Do not avenge yourself, beloved, but make room for the wrath of God. For it is written: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord

Blzh. Theophylact Bulgarian

Do not avenge yourself, beloved, but make room for the wrath of God. For it is written: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord

Give, he says, a place to the wrath of God in relation to those who offend you. If you avenge yourself, then God will not avenge you; and if you forgive, then God will avenge him more severely. He also brings testimony to support his word. He says this for the approval of the faint-hearted; because they want nothing else but to see that their enemies have received vengeance for them.

Interpretations on the Epistle to the Romans.

Right. John of Kronstadt

Do not avenge yourself, beloved, but make room for the wrath of God. For it is written: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord

Do not be embarrassed by injustices or harsh words of a boss or subordinate, but see if there is also in a harsh word of truth, useful and necessary for you, and in any case, keep your spirit calm, for embarrassment is a passionate, sinful state of mind, revealing the passions of self-love hidden in the soul , ambition, anger, envy, impatience, pride, willfulness, stubbornness, etc. Leave your enemies and your offenders to the Lord, do not take revenge on them: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord- and how soon he will reward! And you pray for them, wish them well, love them! Commit yourself, one another, and your whole belly to Christ God. People and their unrighteousness will soon pass away, but the truth will endure forever and exalt you.

Diary. Volume XIX. 1874-1876

Ambrosiastes

Do not avenge yourself, beloved, but make room for the wrath of God. For it is written: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord

In order for peace to be preserved, anger must be avoided, Paul teaches; especially because sin usually comes through anger. The angry one desires more vengeance than the cause of the sin itself deserves, and puts himself at a disadvantage if he wants retribution, and does more harm: he destroys the one whom he could correct and restore ... Paul forbids revenge not only against subordinates, but also relatively equals and superior. That is, we should not seek vengeance on the brother sinning against us, but should forgive, leaving judgment to God, so that while we are seized with anger, the enemy will not find a place to strengthen and act against us. To be more convincing, Paul confirms his words with an example from the law: Vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord(see Deut. 32:35). Paul shows that if we do not do what the Lord teaches, then we are neglecting Him. But if we give vengeance to God, this will bring a double benefit: the person who overcomes anger will become more perfect, and vengeance, but now of God, will be accomplished.

The novel "Anna Karenina" (1873-1877), in contrast to the epic novel "War and Peace", dedicated to the depiction of the "heroic" era in the life of Russia, in the problems of "Anna Karenina" in the foreground was "family thought." The novel became a real "family epic": Tolstoy believed that it was in the family that one should look for the knot of contemporary social and moral problems. The family in his image is a sensitive barometer, reflecting the changes in public morality caused by the change in the entire post-reform way of life. Love and marriage, according to Tolstoy, cannot be regarded only as a source of sensual pleasure. The most important thing is moral obligations to family and loved ones. The love of Anna Karenina and Vronsky is based only on the need for pleasure, and therefore leads to the spiritual separation of the heroes, making them unhappy. But if Anna did not understand the requirements of the moral law, she would not have had a sense of guilt. There would be no tragedy either. The tragedy of Anna's fate is predetermined not only by the callousness of the person whom she married not for love, the cruelty and hypocrisy of the world, Vronsky's frivolity, but also by the very nature of her feelings. Tolstoy's Anna is an extraordinary nature, mentally rich, endowed with a lively moral sense. Love for Vronsky prompts her more clearly than before, to realize herself as a person, sharpens her critical instinct in relation to the world around her and to herself. And the main reason for her death is not so much the hypocrisy of the secular environment or an obstacle to obtaining a divorce, as the destructive effect of passion on her own soul, the inability to reconcile feelings for Vronsky and affection for her son, and more broadly, the inability to find herself in a world where “everything is not true , all lies, all deception, all evil. " The conflict between the pleasure gained at the cost of destroying the family and the duty to his son turned out to be insoluble. We are faced with a situation of moral choice.

Critic Babaev E.G ... - Anna is close to Levin precisely by this sense of guilt, which indicates her deep moral nature. She was looking for moral support and did not find it. "All lies, all lies, all evil." Passion was not the only thing that ruined her. Enmity, disunity, the brutal and imperious force of public opinion, the impossibility of realizing the desire for independence and independence lead Anna to disaster. Anna belongs to a certain time, a certain circle, namely, the high society aristocratic circle. And her tragedy in the novel is depicted in full accordance with the laws, customs and mores of this environment and era. Anna ironically and sensibly judges her own environment: "... it was a circle of old, ugly, virtuous and pious women and smart, learned, ambitious men." However, she had the same skeptical opinion about the piety of Lydia Ivanovna, who was carried away by spiritualistic phenomena and "communication with spirits," as she was about the scholarship of Karenin, who read an article in the latest issue of the newspaper about the ancient "Eugyubic inscriptions", which, in fact, he had no time for. there was nothing to do. Betsy Tverskoy gets away with everything and she remains a lady of high society, because she is fluent in the art of pretense and hypocrisy, which was completely alien to Anna Karenina. It was not Anna who judged, but she was judged and condemned, not forgiving her sincerity and spiritual purity. On the side of her persecutors were such powerful forces as law, religion, public opinion. Anna's "rebellion" met with a decisive rebuff from Karenin, Lydia Ivanovna and the "forces of evil" - public opinion. The hatred that Anna feels for Karenin, calling him "an evil ministerial machine", was only a manifestation of her powerlessness and loneliness before the powerful traditions of the environment and time. The "indissolubility of marriage", sanctified by law and the church, put Anna in unbearably difficult conditions, when her heart split between love for Vronsky and love for her son. She found herself "exhibited at the pillar of shame" just at the time when the painful work of self-consciousness was being performed in her soul. Tolstoy's socio-historical view of Anna's tragedy was shrewd and sharp. He saw that his heroine could not withstand the struggle with her environment, with all the avalanche of disasters that fell on her. That's why he wanted to make her "pathetic, but not guilty." Exceptional in the fate of Anna was not only the violation of the law "in the name of the struggle for a truly human existence", but also the consciousness of her guilt before people close to her, before herself, before life. Thanks to this consciousness, Anna becomes the heroine of Tolstoy's artistic world with its lofty ideal of moral self-awareness.

The meaning of the tragedy is expressed by the epigraph "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay." FM Dostoevsky explained the epigraph as follows: it is about Anna's lack of jurisdiction to the human court. The supreme judge for Anna Karenina is not "empty light", but her son Seryozha: "he understood, he loved, he judged her."

The idea of ​​the writer to show a woman who has lost herself, but is not guilty, is emphasized by the epigraph to the novel: "Vengeance is mine and I will repay." The meaning of the epigraph is that God can judge a person, his life and deeds, but not people.

b the epigraph "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay" 10 to Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina" was written by everyone who wrote about the novel (and it was mainly about the fate of Anna Karenina), since without understanding the meaning of the epigraph it is impossible to adequately perceive the main ideas of this works of Tolstoy.

When the seventh part of Anna Karenina appeared in print, readers and critics remembered the epigraph to the novel. Many thought that Tolstoy condemned and punished his heroine, following this biblical dictum. In the future, critics tended not only to this accusatory point of view, but also adhered to another, justifiable position that Tolstoy takes regarding his heroine. Thus, the criticism saw in the epigraph a reflection of Tolstoy's position in relation to Anna Karenina and decided the question: who is the author for her - a genius prosecutor or a genius lawyer?

The character world of Anna Karenina

ANNA KARENINA is the heroine of the novel by L.N. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1873-1877); one of the most popular female images of Russian classical literature. Tolstoy wanted to write a novel about a woman from high society who “lost herself,” around whom many male types were easily grouped, awakening the writer's creative imagination. A.K. there were prototypes, including the sister of Tolstoy's close friend M.A. Dyakov-Sukhotin, who survived the divorce proceedings and had a second family. Contemporaries found many other prototypes, individual circumstances of life and death of which correlated with the storyline of the heroine of the novel, in particular, the history of the relationship between actress M.G. Savina and N.F.Sazonov is mentioned.

In the first part of the novel, the heroine appears as an exemplary mother and wife, a respected socialite and even a conciliator of troubles in the Oblonsky family. The life of Anna Arkadyevna was most filled with love for her son, although she somewhat exaggeratedly emphasized her role as a loving mother. Only Dolly Oblonskaya sensitively sensed something false in the entire stock of the Karenins family life, although the attitude of A.K. to her husband was based on unconditional respect.

After meeting with Vronsky, not yet giving vent to the incipient feeling, A.K. realizes in herself not only the awakened thirst for life and love, the desire to please, but also a certain force beyond her control, which, regardless of her will, controls her actions, pushing her toward rapprochement with Vronsky and creating a feeling of being protected by the “impenetrable armor of lies”. Kitty Shtcherbatskaya, carried away by Vronsky, during the fateful ball for her sees a "devilish glint" in the eyes of A.K. and senses in her "something alien, demonic and charming." It should be noted that, unlike Karenin, Dolly, Kitty, A.K. not religious at all. Truthful, sincere A.K., who hates all falsity and lies, having a reputation in the world as a fair and morally impeccable woman, herself gets entangled in a deceitful and false relationship with her husband and the world.

Under the influence of the meeting with Vronsky, the relations of A.K. with everyone around her: she cannot tolerate the falseness of secular relations, the falseness of relationships in her family, but the spirit of deception and lies existing against her will carries her further and further towards the fall. Having approached Vronsky, A.K. is aware of himself as a criminal. After her husband repeatedly showed generosity towards her, especially after the forgiveness received during the postpartum illness, A.K. more and more begins to hate him, painfully feeling his guilt and realizing the moral superiority of her husband.

Neither the little daughter, nor the trip with Vronsky to Italy, nor the life on his estate give her the desired peace, but only bring her awareness of the depth of her misfortune (as in a secret meeting with her son) and humiliation (a scandalous and humiliating episode in the theater). A.K. feels the impossibility of uniting his son and Vronsky together. The deepening mental discord, the ambiguity of the social position can not be compensated for by the environment artificially created by Vronsky, nor luxury, nor reading, nor intellectual interests, nor the habit of sedatives with morphine. A.K. She constantly feels her complete dependence on Vronsky's will and love, which irritates her, makes her suspicious, and sometimes encourages her uncharacteristic coquetry. Gradually A.K. comes to complete despair, thoughts of death, with which she wants to punish Vronsky, remaining for everyone not guilty, but pitiful. The life story of A.K. reveals the inviolability of "family thought" in the work: the impossibility of achieving one's own happiness at the expense of the misfortune of others and forgetting one's duty and moral law.

OBLONSKY is the central character in Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina (1873-1877). The prototype of this image was a descendant of a noble family, an official and landowner Vasily Stepanovich Perfiliev, an old friend of Tolstoy. The writer was involved in his fate, had a clear idea of ​​his personality, mental disposition, his "virtues and sins" and "light hobbies." Tolstoy also used letters from Perfiliev's wife, Praskovya Fedorovna, and the manuscript of her story "A Strange Case" about a "catastrophe" that happened in her family - her husband's betrayal with a "sweet, fallen creature." Like Perfiliev, O. does not feel any guilt in himself, finding no reason to "regret that he, a thirty-four-year-old handsome man in love, was not in love with his wife." His rule: “Watch the shrine at home. Don't tie your hands. " O. served in one presence and was "completely indifferent to the business he was engaged in"; "Neither science, nor art, nor politics interested him, he firmly adhered to those views on all these subjects, which held the majority." The image of O. in the novel has no definite sign: both positive and negative principles are an organic property of his nature. O. is impeccably honest, he never deceives anyone, except his wife, and does not deceive anyone. "He was absolutely equal and equally treated all people, no matter what state and title they may be." At the same time, O. is complacent and benevolent, full of love of life, joyful perception of being O. is an epicurean, a gourmet, striving for pleasures and "light entertainment." Tolstoy emphasizes that O. always has "shining eyes" - even on Vronsky's wires two months after the funeral of his bitterly mourned sister Anna.

LEVIN is a provincial landowner, belonging to a good noble family, living on his estate, not an employee, seriously keen on farming. Behind the outwardly measured life and everyday worries lies the intense work of the hero's thoughts, deep intellectual needs and moral searches. L. is distinguished by sincerity, poise, a serious and benevolent attitude towards people, loyalty to duty, and straightforwardness. From the very beginning of the novel, he appears as a hero with a fully formed character, but an evolving inner world. Readers get to know L. during a difficult period of his life, when he, having arrived in Moscow to propose to Kitty Shtcherbatskaya, is refused and goes home, trying to regain his peace of mind. Kitty's choice was dictated for L. not only by feelings for her, but also by the attitude towards the Shtcherbatsky family, in the curtain he saw an example of the old, educated and honest nobility, which was very important for the hero, since his ideas about true aristocracy were based on the recognition of rights honor, dignity and independence, in contrast to the modern admiration for wealth and success. L. is painfully worried about the fate of the Russian nobility and the obvious process of its impoverishment, about which he talks a lot and with interest with Oblonsky and his landlord neighbors. Likewise, he does not see any real benefit from those forms of management that they are trying to bring from the West; Negatively refers to the activities of zemstvo institutions, sees no point in the comedy of noble elections, as, indeed, in many of the achievements of civilization, considering them evil. Constant life in the countryside, observation of the work and everyday life of the people, the desire to get closer to the peasants and serious farming work out in L. a number of original views on the changes taking place around him, it is not for nothing that he gives a capacious and accurate definition of the post-reform state of society and the characteristics of its economic life. , saying that "everything has turned upside down" and "is just getting it right." However, L. seeks to contribute to how "everything will fit." The methods of management and reflection on the peculiarities of the national way of life lead him to an independent and original conviction of the need to take into account in agriculture not only agronomic innovations and technical achievements, but also the traditional national warehouse of the worker as the main participant in the whole process. L. seriously thinks about the fact that with the correct formulation of the case on the basis of his conclusions, it will be possible to transform life, first in the estate, then in the county, province and, finally, throughout Russia. In addition to economic and intellectual interests, the hero is constantly faced with problems of a different kind. In connection with his marriage to Kitty and the need to confess before the wedding, L. thinks about his relationship to God, not finding sincere faith in his soul. The most important events turn to the circle of moral and religious questions and reflections on the meaning of life, on the mystery of birth and death: the death of a brother, and then the pregnancy of his wife and the birth of a son. Not finding faith in himself, L. simultaneously notices that in the most serious moments of his life he prays to God for the salvation and well-being of his loved ones, as it was during Kitty's birth and during a thunderstorm that found her with her little son in the forest. At the same time, L. can not satisfy the recognition of finiteness, and, consequently, some kind of meaninglessness of human existence, if it is based only on biological laws. The persistence of these thoughts, the desire to find the enduring goal of life, sometimes bring L., a happy husband, father, a successful landowner, to desperate moral torment and even thoughts of suicide. L. searches for the answer to his questions in the works of scientists and philosophers, in observations of the lives of other people. Serious moral support, an impulse for searching in a new, religious and moral direction is the remark he heard about the peasant Fokanych, who “lives for God”, “remembers his soul”. The search for moral laws and foundations of human life makes L. related to Anna Karenina, whose fate depends on the attitude to the moral foundations of life. The search for the hero does not end at the end of the novel, leaving the image as if open.

Levin tries to live by his conscience. It is open to people, to the world. He is saved by Fokanych, who advises him to live in truth, to live in a divine way; God's judgment, not the mind. But Levin is not the ideal of family life. The recipe for family happiness is just outlined

VRONSKY is self-confident ("He looked at people as at things") and at heart is ambitious, does not feel the need for family life, does not love and does not respect his mother, is busy only with the affairs of the regiment, with the company of cheerful hang-friends and accessible women , military career, thoroughbred horses; according to the free to immoral rules of his idle high society circle and guards environment, it is quite possible to captivate a girl from a good family and not marry her. His cheerful officer cynicism makes the naive Kitty unhappy, she follows the foolish advice of a vain mother and the deceptive voice of girlish pride (Vronsky is one of the best suitors in Russia) and makes a mistake, which life then corrects for a long time and difficult. Remarkable is the scene of the ball, which begins with the happiness and triumph of Kitty's "pink" (meaning the color of her tulle dress) and ends with Anna's complete "demonic" triumph, wearing a magnificent black dress: "There was something terrible and cruel in her charm." But it is not only Vronsky's sudden betrayal that amazes Kitty, she is "crushed" (Tolstoy's exact expression) by despair and remorse, with one thought: "Yesterday she refused a man whom she might have loved, and refused because she believed in someone else." She is taken away to be treated for a non-existent disease to the European waters she does not need (compare this with the illness and treatment of Natasha Rostova). Dolly's sister helps her to cope with mental anguish by "rolling up her sleeves morally" (a wonderful expression of the moralist Tolstoy).

Vronsky lives by secular patterns. He did not love Anna for the sake of love, but for the sake of satisfying his vanity. Anna saw through Vronsky. He is not ready to be responsible for Anna. Vronsky's silent betrayal ruins her. He died spiritually when Anna died. Vronsky realized that it was he who had killed her. Karenin's minute of forgiveness for Anna was another exposure of Vronsky.