Talk:Anna Karenina

Scholarship needed
The article has lots of discussions of English translations (reproducing the subjective comments of specific reviewers); what would be useful instead is totally missing: a description of the genesis of the novel, its significance in Tolstoy's time, its place in world literature, its influence on other authors. In some way the article completely remains to be written. It would be much appreciated if people with a good understanding of the topic could contribute. Fuchsias (talk) 12:48, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

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!

--da blaze  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)


 * 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)

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)

Name of Sergius/Sergey Ivanovich Koznyshev
Why is the first name of Сергей Иванович Кознышев transliterated into Sergius here? As far as I'm aware, Сергей should be Sergey (or Sergei). Note, however that I only checked a few chapters of the Russian text, which brings me to my next question: Is he ever referred to as Sergius in one of the French/English speaking parts? Or is Sergius used by a certain translation? The one I read was by Constance Garnett, precisely the version on Project Gutenberg, which uses Sergey. Thank you in advance if anyone can clear this up. Dewclouds (talk) 07:53, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

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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