Studia Litterarum

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Лицензия Creative Commons

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

Early Manuscripts of the Novel Anna Karenina: A History of Research

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  • For citation:

    Gorodilova, N.I., Mozharova, M.A. “Early Manuscripts of the Novel Anna Karenina: A History of Research.” Studia Litterarum, vol. 11, no. 3, 2026, pp. 186–205. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2500-4247-2026-11-3-186-205
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  • Author: Natalia I. Gorodilova
  • Information about the author:

    Natalia I. Gorodilova, PhD in Philology, Leading Research Fellow, А.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25А, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

    https://orcid.org/0009-0004-0856-3083

    E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • Author 2: Marina A. Mozharova
  • Information about the author 2:

    Marina A. Mozharova, PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, А.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25А, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

    https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9925-5585

    E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • Received: August 25, 2025
  • Approved after reviewing: December 02, 2025
  • Published: September 25, 2026
  • Issue: 2026 Vol. 11, №3
  • Department: Russian Literature
  • Pages: 186-205
  • DOI:

    https://doi.org/10.22455/2500-4247-2026-11-3-186-205
  • EDN:

    https://elibrary.ru/AGZRYU
  • UDK: 821.161.1.0
  • BBK: 83.3(2Рос=Рус)52
  • Publication Type: Research Article and Publication of Archival Documents
  • Keywords: L.N. Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, A.S. Pushkin, history of the text, poetics, textual criticism, autograph
  • Abstract: The article is devoted to the initial versions of Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina, the chronological sequence of which has become a subject of disagreement for researchers. N.K. Gudziy’s point of view is reflected in the accompanying articles and commentaries on his first publications of draft manuscripts of the novel, and above all in Volume 20 (1939) of the 90-volume Jubilee Edition of Leo Tolstoy’s Complete Works. A different approach to the first autographs of Anna Karenina is presented in the Description of the Manuscripts of Fiction by Leo Tolstoy (1955), as well as in V.A. Zhdanov’s monograph The Creative History of Anna Karenina (1957). The current stage of studying and commenting on the novel is associated with the preparation of the academic Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy in 100 volumes (published since 2000), in which the manuscripts will be presented in full for the first time. Variants of the beginning of Anna Karenina will be included in Volume 11 (series 2) of this edition. A new study of the novel’s early autographs begun by L.D. Gromova-Opulskaya and continued by the authors of this article, confirmed the correctness of N.K. Gudziy, who called the first attempt at the novel Anna Karenina a sketch entitled “A Brave Woman” (“Molodets-baba”). The main justification for this conclusion was, along with textual evidence, the comparison of Tolstoy’s text with the Pushkin passage “The guests were arriving at the country house...,” the artistic images and plot features of which determined the origin and formation of Tolstoy’s idea.

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References


1 Babaev, E.G. Iz istorii russkogo romana XIX veka (Pushkin, Gertsen, Tolstoi) [From the History of the Russian Novel of the 19th Century (Pushkin, Herzen, Tolstoy)]. Moscow, Moscow State University Publ., 1984. 272 p. (In Russ.)
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