Talk:Anna Karenina

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Oprah's Thesis?

Hmmm. Wikipedia isn't exactly a place to promote an interpretation or thesis, so I'm not sure the new rewrites should stand. Surely this reader got the idea after the last Oprah installment on TV? Mandel 06:38, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Russian diminutives in synopsis; note on transliteration

Someone recently changed the names Kitty and Dolly to "Katya" and "Dasha." While these are both correct in general, they are not correct in the context of AK. English was a fashionable language among the upper classes (though not as much as French), and these English names (along with Betsy and Annie) appear phonetically spelled out in the original Russian text as Кити, Долли, Бетси, and Ани.

I never quite knew why these characters had such diminutives, but I'm guessing it was one of Tolstoy's jabs at aristocratic affectations. In any case, if anyone would like to check out the original, here's a link to the original Russian text.

Also, I strongly feel that the Russian letter Щ should be transliterated as "shch", and not as "shtch", as a previous contributor had done. (Actually, I feel it should just be transliterated as "sh," since it's easier for us, and it's pretty much how most Russians pronounce it anyway, but I guess that's not linguistically accurate...)

Wikipedia also recommends the "shch" transliteration (see Transliteration of Russian into English), as it's the standard in the U.N., RF, blah blah blah. And frankly, I've never seen "shtch" before. I'm not a native speaker, but I've been studying and speaking Russian for over 15 years (including time spent living in the FSU), and this is a new one to me. "Shch" is jarring enough in English, and even though I understand the logic behind it, "shtch" is just too much!

--dablaze 16:59, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

Aha, now I see why Dasha and Katya were abbreviated to Dolly and Kitty. I thought it was just someone being lazy and using anglicised versions. Olga Raskolnikova 13:32, 26 March 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I checked Wikipedia's article in ANNA KARENINA in several languages: French, German, Italian. They all use the English nicknames "Kitty" and "Dolly" for Ekaterina and Darya, presumably reflecting how the novel is translated in those languages. So I guess that even in Russian, Tolstoy had the English nicknames in mind. A previous poster said this was "one of Tolstoy's jabs at aristocratic affectations"; yet the novel treats the Sherbatskis sympathetically, not as pompous aristocrats.71.59.43.26 (talk) 04:00, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thought here was best place for my query. Why is it Anna Karenina when my copy is Anna Karenin (Penguin Classic) throughout and in title. Timmytimtimmy (talk) 02:50, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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New lede

I have tried to expand/ improve the lead of this article. I think it's better now but happy if anyone else wants to pitch in as well. Budapest Joe (talk) 00:06, 17 July 2018 (UTC)BudapestJoe[reply]

Opening line and "A Tale of the Tub"

Compare Karenina's opening line to this from Jonathan Swift's Preface to "A Tale of the Tub":

For, as health is but one thing, and has been always the same, whereas diseases are by thousands, besides new and daily additions; so, all the virtues that have been ever in mankind, are to be counted upon a few fingers, but his follies and vices are innumerable, and time adds hourly to the heap.

Snapdragon630 (talk) 02:21, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

100 Books for Schoolchildren etc..

Anna Karenina is included in the following lists:

Oprah's Book Club selection (2004)
Rant Lifestyle's 25 Greatest Books of All Time
1,000 Books to Read Before You Die Page-A-Day Calendar (2021)
100 books on the history, culture and literature of the peoples of the Russian Federation, recommended for schoolchildren to read independently
1000 best works of world art. Literature in Russian translations recommended for the acquisition of the school library.
1000 Books to Read Before You Die
1001 boeken die je gelezen moet hebben! (editie 2017)
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006/2008/2010/2012 Edition)
40 best books to read before you die
50 Books to Read Before You’re 50
500 Must Read Books
66 Bücher, von denen alle sagen, dass du sie gelesen haben musst
Are these the greatest books ever written?
BBC's Big Read (Best loved novel, No 54 – 2003)
Best Russian novels by Piero Scaruffi
Best Works of Literature by Piero Scaruffi
Daily Telegraph's 100 Best Novels, 1899
Daniel S. Burt's Novel 100 (013)
Easton Press: The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written
Eesti Päevalehe romaaniklassika (44)
From Zero to Well-Read in 100 Books
Genome of the Russian soul
Greatest Books algorithm
Greatest Books Voted by Authors (1915)
The Greatest Stories Ever Told
The Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read (Love)
Guardian Critics Pick Books For All Ages
Guardian Essential Library (Fiction in Translation)
The Guardian top 100 books of all time
Harenberg Buch der 1000 Bücher
Harvard Book Store Top 100
A Hundred Books for a Village Library (1897)
Hungarian Big Read
Newark Public Library's 1904 List of a Thousand of the Best Novels
Newsweek's Top 100 Books: The Meta-List
Norwegian Book Clubs' top 100 books of all time
The Observer's 100 Greatest Novels of All Time
Reading the world in 196 books (Russia)
Selecting the 100 Best Millennium Works (Jap. Best of List)
Six Professors from "Esteemed" Universities Favorite Books
The Telegraph's 100 novels everyone should read
The Ten Greatest Books of All Time - TIME (2007)
Top 20 Romantic Reads
The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books (171 points)
Torchlight List
Unsere Besten – Die Lieblingsbücher der Deutschen
Western World's Greatest Books - Project Gutenberg

This is not a complete list. I don't think we should be mentioning these lists, unless it is discussed in multiple reliable secondary independent sources, and something more can be said besides "It is in the list". -- GreenC 18:17, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]