Posted by Katia on September 28, 19100 at 17:22:00:

In Reply to: Based on a true story? posted by Carl Bielke on July 25, 19100 at 18:51:25:

: I would like to know if Anna Karennina is a fictional character or if she's based on a real person.
There is an interesting parallel between a late 19th century Tzar around the time (1870's) that Tolstoy set Anna Karenina. Tzar(his name escapes me, but it would have to be an Alexander I or III- I know it wasn't Alexander II, or possibly it was Nicholas I) had a long term affair with an undercl woman who was greatly despised by Petersburg society. Close to death, he wanted to marry her publicly (after his first wife had died) and introduce her to society. He knew the aristocracy would not accept her so he planned to make some concessions to a group of popular constitutionalists that had emerged. He drew up a doent that would have formed the primitive beginnings of constitutional government in Russia, but he died the next morning and his son destroyed it before it was ever made public. His affair and the court scandal is similar to Anna, although I doubt that she is based off of this woman.

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: : I would like to know if Anna Karennina is a fictional character or if she's based on a real person. : There is an interesting parallel between a late 19th century Tzar around the time (1870's) that Tolstoy set Anna Karenina. Tzar(his name escapes me, but it would have to be an Alexander I or III- I know it wasn't Alexander II, or possibly it was Nicholas I) had a long term affair with an undercl woman who was greatly despised by Petersburg society. Close to death, he wanted to marry her publicly (after his first wife had died) and introduce her to society. He knew the aristocracy would not accept her so he planned to make some concessions to a group of popular constitutionalists that had emerged. He drew up a doent that would have formed the primitive beginnings of constitutional government in Russia, but he died the next morning and his son destroyed it before it was ever made public. His affair and the court scandal is similar to Anna, although I doubt that she is based off of this woman.

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