My research aims to explore the potential connections between Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Greek tragedy. There is a significant gap in the research regarding the influence of Classical Literature on 19th-century Russian literary production. From the contents of his personal library, we know that Tolstoy owned copies of tragedies by Sophocles and Euripides, and it is also known that he studied Ancient Greek. His initial plan to write a drama—originally focused on Peter the Great and his Westernizing Reforms—and his desire to respond to Chernyshevsky’s solutions to the “woman question” culminated in the creation of Anna Karenina in 1877. Considering the Russian tradition of Classical studies in the 19th century, the influence of the Medea myth in the portrayal of Russian female rulers during the Golden Age, and the stereotype of mothers in Classical tragedies, I intend to investigate Anna Karenina as a potential example of Classical Reception, viewed through the layered lens of Tolstoy’s personal experiences and interests.
