Winter cold day. Zheleznodorozhnaya station (in 1877 a IV class station) of a small town of the same name, 23 kilometers from Moscow (until 1939 - Obiralovka). It was in this place that, according to L. Tolstoy, a terrible tragedy occurred. It's quiet here today. I get off the platform and approach the tracks. Sparkling in the sun, they blind the eyes. I can’t help imagining that moment: how Karenina stands, stunned by despair, ready at any second to throw herself under the wheels of a rumbling freight train. She has already decided everything and is just waiting for the opening between the heavy wheels of the carriage to open...
- No! Everything was wrong! - Vladimir Sarychev stops my thoughts, local, an engineer by profession, now a businessman and also a long-time researcher of history railways Russia. “She didn’t throw herself under the train at all.” And she couldn’t even do it the way Tolstoy talked about it. Read more carefully the scene of the death of Anna Karenina: “...She did not take her eyes off the wheels of the passing second carriage. And exactly at that moment, when the middle between the wheels caught up with her, she threw back the red bag and, pressing her head into her shoulders, fell under the carriage on hands and with a slight movement, as if preparing to immediately stand up, she sank to her knees.”
“She couldn’t have ended up under the train, falling to her full height,” explains Vladimir. - It's easy to see in the diagram.
He takes a pen and draws a human figure standing next to a freight train. Then he depicts the trajectory of the fall: the figure, in fact, falling, rests his head on the casing of the car.
“But even if she managed to find herself between the wheels,” continues Vladimir, “she would inevitably run into the brake bars of the car.” The only way, in my opinion, of such suicide is to stand, sorry, on all fours in front of the rails and quickly stick your head under the train. But it is unlikely that a woman like Anna Karenina would do this.
History testifies: as soon as trains appeared, suicides immediately flocked to them. But they left for another world in the usual way - they jumped onto the rails in front of the moving train. There were probably quite a few such suicides, since special devices were even invented for locomotives that clung to them from the front. The design was supposed to gently pick up a person and throw him aside.
By the way, the freight train that “ran over” Karenin was made at the Aleksandrovsky foundry; it weighed up to 6,000 poods (about 100 tons) and moved at a speed of about 20 kilometers per hour. The rails on which her rebellious soul rested were cast iron, 78 millimeters high. The railway gauge at that time was 5 feet (1,524 millimeters).
Despite the dubious (without touching on the artistic side, of course) suicide scene, the writer nevertheless chose Obiralovka not by chance, Vladimir believes. The Nizhny Novgorod road was one of the main industrial routes: heavily loaded freight trains often ran here. The station was one of the largest. In the 19th century, these lands belonged to one of the relatives of Count Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky. According to the directory of the Moscow province for 1829, in Obiralovka there were 6 households with 23 peasant souls. In 1862, a railway line was built here. In Obiralovka itself, the length of sidings and sidings was 584.5 fathoms, there were 4 switches, a passenger and residential building. 9 thousand people used the station annually, or an average of 25 people per day. The station village appeared in 1877, when the novel Anna Karenina itself was published. There is nothing left of the previous buildings at the current station...
Frankly, I left the former Obiralovka somewhat discouraged. On the one hand, I was “rejoiced” for Anna Karenina. If she really existed, then her fate would not have ended so tragically. On the other hand, it was a little disappointing that the classic seemed to mislead us a little. Indeed, to a large extent, it was thanks to the tragic final scene of the novel that Anna Karenina became popular “among the masses.” Whichever local I asked: “Do you know that in your city Anna Karenina...”, I invariably heard the answer: “Is she the one who threw herself under the train?” And it must be said that most of those surveyed did not really hold the book in their hands.
- Do you have trains here? Lately no one rushed? - just in case, I asked Vladimir, referring to a certain tragic aura of this area.
“As long as I’ve been living here, I don’t remember a single incident,” the interlocutor answered.
Whether it was my imagination or not, I heard disappointment in his voice. He probably already regretted that he so imprudently began to destroy the legend.
To understand why Anna Karenina threw herself under a train, what was the reason for this act, we should analyze the society of that time. Leo Tolstoy's novel describes the morals and customs of high society late XIX, and the strength of its influence on a person. Society imposes its own rules and demands their strict observance.
Adultery is not condemned, and rather was the norm of that time, but it had to be hidden, and not flaunted. Anna challenged the hypocritical rules of society, for which she paid.
Why did Anna Karenina throw herself under a train?
Anna's prosperous life in the novel is described quite vividly. The husband is a wealthy royal official, strong, thorough, but not loved. Anna did not oppose marriage, however, she felt only respect for her husband, but not love. She gave all her tenderness to her little son, and it was he who became the center of the universe for her. In society, Anna was respected, valued, and her advice was listened to. Her intelligence and charm made her a welcome guest in any home.
Young woman created an illusion happy family, but everything shattered in an instant when a chance meeting turned her world upside down. The brilliant officer Alexei Vronsky awakened in her heart those feelings that Anna had not previously suspected. The struggle with herself, with the imposed rules and the inability to live in a lie leads to Anna demanding a divorce from her husband.
However, rules, laws and adherence to etiquette are more important to the husband. He is ready to forgive Anna, turning a blind eye to her betrayal. After all, a divorce could affect his career, and Anna’s feelings were not taken into account. The main thing is the rules. According to the concepts of that time, the spouse showed nobility, however, is this act actually noble? He was not jealous of Anna, but only demanded that she “keep up appearances.”
Why did Karenina throw herself under a train? After all, Anna still went to her loved one, and even gave birth to his daughter?
In her new relationship, Anna did not find peace and harmony. Her husband separated her from her beloved son, and the sanctimonious society condemned and rejected her. Vronsky was forced to resign and the young lovers left the city, where they were condemned.
Deprived of her son and friends, Anna could not find a place for herself. Her whole world narrowed only to Vronsky, and she strived to become the whole world for him. She understood that Vronsky had sacrificed a lot for her, but it seemed to her insufficient. Anna did not see a way out of this situation, and any step she took would bring pain to someone close to her.
The feeling of guilt exhausted the young woman, made her insecure and jealous. The sudden realization of what she had become shocked the unfortunate woman even more. She just wanted happiness, she wanted to live honestly, without hiding her love, but this was unacceptable for high society.
Morphine, which she began to drink to calm her down, only aggravated her feelings. Under the influence of dope, Anna was jealous of Vronsky's fictitious women, which caused quarrels between lovers. Anna's love began to weigh on Vronsky, and he tried to be at home less often.
Vronsky’s desire to go to his mother led to another quarrel. Anna went to the station to Once again reproach Alexey for the fact that she found herself in such a situation.
Once at the station, Anna witnesses a conversation between the spouses. In their benign smiles, she saw the same falsehood and hypocrisy. They hated each other, but "kept up appearances."
This question based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel can be considered not even a plot question, but a philosophical one. Many critics and fans of this novel have given their own interpretations of the answer, ranging from the overtly humorous to the deeply moral. If you carefully follow the plot, you can reveal the true reason why the main character of the novel of the same name fell on the rails.
Let's start with brief retelling. Anna lived with her unloved husband in prosperity and luxury, she had a son, Serezhenka. Everything seemed to be fine, but Anechka just wanted “wind new love", passion, fire. And suddenly a “prince” appeared - Vronsky, the embodiment of all the dreams and fantasies of a woman. And she ran away with her sweetheart, and they began to live, but not happily ever after, as it should be in fairy tales. After all, life itself is not particularly magical and fabulous. Karenina’s idyllic idea of life was destroyed, and even she could not love her newborn daughter, apparently regretting her abandoned son Seryozha. And this is where the main subtle point begins - the struggle within the main character.
Karenina had a heightened sense of justice, and therefore she could not simply, as they say now, “forget” the opinions of others and her own past life. Anna begins to torment herself, to expect the worst, to fear condemnation from society - they say, what kind of wife and mother is she that she abandoned her husband and child. And Karenina’s subtle spiritual organization could not be in harmony - the darling, in her torment, rushed to the railway rails. And then, as luck would have it, the train was moving, and this seemed to Anna the best salvation from all troubles. She decided to generously rid the world of herself - so bad and unformed. Well, a moving train seemed like a solution to all her problems and troubles. Already throwing herself onto the rails, Anna seems to be changing her mind, but the jump has already been made and nothing can be changed. It turns out that the woman died unsettled anyway.
There is one more small detail described in the novel - Karenina used opium as a sedative and sleeping pill. Many people did this at that time, not knowing or not wanting to know that it was a potent psychotropic drug, a drug. So her mood changed regularly, and suicidal thoughts appeared. You could even say that Karenina was depressed (though at that time such a concept did not yet exist). She believed that Vronsky’s only interest should be his family, and any of his departures, even on business, were considered by Karenina to be a reason for her husband to break up. An attentive reader may find several paragraphs in Tolstoy's novel that say that Karenina, in the last days before her suicide, wanted to take revenge on her husband for his inattention, to attract his interest in herself. So one of the reasons for “jumping in front of the train” can be considered personal prejudices and far-fetched reasons for Karenina herself. Women don’t live in peace; they are used to looking for flaws in everything, which is why cases like Anna Karenina and Katerina from Ostrovsky’s novel “The Thunderstorm” happen. These two heroines are constantly compared with each other, and indeed, there is something similar between them - the desire for better life, and in the end it all ends very tragically.
I’m answering this question here too)
Recently I just wanted to talk to someone about Anna Karenina, but no one wanted (((((
I read it twice - at age 20 and ten years later. The first time it seemed to me that Anna’s story and her suicide were far-fetched circumstances, but in fact the novel was about Levin, about Kitty, about the unfortunate Karenin, and so on and so forth. And in general, Anna is such a “snickering lady” who couldn’t sit still, she went crazy, ruined everyone’s life, and especially poor little Seryozha (my daughter was just born then and I, like a crazy mother, was ready to throw this Anna with stones). Then I thought that this train was Lev Nikolaevich’s production move, since he did not know how to end this tedious thing.
Then I watched a Soviet film and almost vomited - Samoilova seemed to me like some kind of unkempt buffalo, and all the characters were too “Soviet” and unnatural. I clearly saw that Lanovoi, Yakovlev and Plisetskaya were walking around instead of true characters. I didn’t even want to watch other film adaptations.
Then I forgot this topic, and at the age of 30 I wildly wanted to re-read it.
And so I read, and I’m amazed at how many interesting and unusual things I didn’t see ten years ago. Anna seemed beautiful to me (apparently because this time she turned out to be the same age)), Vronsky was an unhappy lover, Karenin was an unhappy beautiful person, Levin was just a bore, Steve was a dunce, and so on and so forth. I rightly lamented the fact that in early youth the brains are still not enough to understand some things. The presence of "Anna Karenina" in school curriculum. What can you talk about with reflective teenagers? What can they even see there?
And yet I didn’t fully understand why “Anna Karenina”? Why not another name, like “War and Peace,” more neutral, since so many destinies are described? Unclear.
And now another year has passed and just recently, literally a month ago, the TV was playing in the background, and there was Samoilova’s anniversary. I really don’t like her, even in “The Cranes Are Flying” she wildly infuriated me with her stone face, I always thought that the film was clearly a loser with her participation, despite the palm branch.
Here is an interview with an unpleasant old Samoilova, she smokes all the time and says strange things. All this lasts for a long, long time, then Anna Karenina begins. Yakovlev gallops, Iya Savvina blows her nose into her handkerchief every minute, I’m almost asleep, but I’m watching.
In short, I watched the entire film without stopping, and then almost cried for some time. What kind of Lev Nikolaevich turned out to be! He was also known as harsh and tough towards his wife, and how accurately and vividly and heartbreakingly he showed a woman’s fate) What is Tatyana Samoilova like? I couldn’t take my eyes off her face, which was once completely repulsive to me! And the incomparable, breathtaking actor Gritsenko? It was during the scenes with Karenin that I started sobbing into my pillow, and then I couldn’t stop.
To quickly complete the graphomania, I’ll briefly say why Anna threw herself under the train.
If you try to put yourself in her place, this solution becomes obvious. Early marriage to a much older man, without love, without life experience. The birth of a son, some kind of life, beauty and sensuality gaining momentum, then Anna’s passionate nature bursts into the light and then young Vronsky turns up, an unremarkable, in general, subject. Completely empty dude. But he is young, handsome, in love with Anna - and she decides to change her life - to live in love (the fact that true love is Karenin’s love is not yet clear to her, and this is where her fatal mistake lies). But the passion passes, society despises it (which is not so scary), Karenin suffers and is at the same time disgusted by it, their son is taken away, a daughter is born in pain, Vronsky lives his independent male life, where Anna is assigned a certain place. He no longer breathes her, no longer catches her every glance. Yes, he loves her, but what is this love? Anna, who is older and wiser than him, feels the duality of her position - no freedom, no former love, no son, no Karenin, albeit an unpleasant, but transferred being, no longer the former Vronsky, no recognition in society, moreover, this society he cruelly executes her and despises her.
It would seem that whatever you want is your own fault. But what? The fact that you gave yourself up to love? If we remember what we see at the beginning of the work: a scene with Stiva - the wife found evidence of adultery, but what does it look like? A comical and absurd scene, zero remorse for the husband, useless fussing with suitcases for the wife, and everything fell into place, everything was forgotten, everyone was happy. And what do we see from Anna? Also betrayal, but not some kind of affair, but for the sake of great love, and how many destinies have been broken, what a resonance in society and what a tragedy of several lives... In fact, the novel is about the difficult fate of women - responsibility for children and strong dependence on them (equal to the strongest love for them), the desire and impossibility of a strong feeling, dependence on society, dependence on a man, on anyone, on the unloved and the loved, on his actions and decisions. And the complete misunderstanding between a woman and a man, the difference is so obvious that it simply hurts the brain. And in the line of each couple, Tolstoy tirelessly emphasized this - even the simple land-lover Levin cruelly manipulates Kitty. Perhaps only Stiva is quite harmless, but not noble, that’s for sure. In short, if “War and Peace” is a hymn to a man (the stern and courageous Bolkonsky, the infinitely noble and comprehensive Pierre), then “Anna Karenina” is undoubtedly a hymn to a woman.
It was simply impossible not to throw yourself under the train.