The Novel “Anna Kareninaˮ in the Assessment of the “Russkiy Vestnikˮ (“Russian Bulletin”)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of critical reviews of the novel by L.N. Tolstoy “Anna Karenina&8j1;, published by the Moscow journal “Russkyi Vestnik” (“Russian Bulletin”). The article examines the articles of V.G. Avseenko and M.N. Katkov, united by a single task to fit “Anna Karenina&8j1; into the framework of the general policy of the publication and rank it as the genre of a high-society novel. In accordance with this, subjectivity and bias in the interpretation of the work are revealed. In particular, it is noted how the author’s intention is simplified, reduced to Anna’s love drama, the topicality of the problem is persistently denied, and Tolstoy is opposed to modern fiction writers as an author who did not succumb to the process of democratization of literature and remained faithful to the previous stage of its development. At the same time, valuable observations of Avseenko, his interesting judgments regarding the artistic world of the novel are noted. The reviews of the “Russkiy Vestnik” fit into the context of the development of journalism in the 1870s and in the 19th century with its clear differentiation according to social and political convictions and tendentious approach to the phenomena of literary literature.