A Historical Perspective In the Time Period of Anna Karenina:

     Leo Nicholaevich Tolstoy (Лев Николаевич Толстой) was born in 1828 and died in 1910. This time period bore witness to significant global change. In 1812, before Tolstoy was born, Napoleon invades Russia – with disastrous results for the French army. In 1815, Napoleon is defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. In Russia in 1925, Tsar Alexander I dies, leading to the Decembrist Revolution. High ranking reform-minded soldiers demand a constitution and support the ascension of Alexander’s son Constantine to the throne. These high ranking soldiers order the lower ranking soldiers to chant “Constantine and Constitution.” A commonly told anecdote about this period is that many of the soldiers forced to chant were so misinformed about the purposes of the revolution that they believed Constitution was the name of Constantine’s wife.

     Important events of the 1830s and 1840s include a Polish revolt against Russian rule, which is defeated, Queen Victoria’s ascension to the British throne, a year of revolution all across Europe in 1848, and the publishing of the Communist Manifesto in the same year.

     1853, Tsar Nicholas I declares war on the Ottoman Empire, sending troops to occupy the Crimea. France and England came to the Sultan’s aid, fearing the spread of Russian territorial ambitions. In 1855, Russian forces are defeated at Sevastopol by French, British, and Turkish troops. In February of that year, Tsar Nicholas I dies, and Tsar Alexander II succeeds him. The Russian people hope that Tsar Alexander II will be more humane than his predecessor. In 1856, Tsar Alexander II begins debate over the question of freeing the serfs. In 1861, Tsar Alexander II proclaims emancipation for the serfs.

     Outside of Russia, Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 in Britain. The American Civil War begins in 1861, and President Lincoln of the United States is assassinated on April 14, 1865. The Franco-Prussian War is fought in 1870, ending with the Prussians defeating the French. Parisians revolt against the peace agreement between France and Prussia, seize Paris, and create the Commune of Paris. The Third French Republic is established.

     In 1873, the opera Ivan the Terrible premieres in St. Petersburg. Russia declares war on Turkey in 1877, as it sides with Serbia against the Islamic population in the Balkans. Russia wins victory over Turkey in 1878. Swan Lake premieres in 1877. In 1881, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский), author of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, among other works, dies. Tsar Alexander II also dies in 1881, and is succeeded by Tsar Alexander III. Ivan Turgenev, best known for Fathers and Sons (Иван Тургенев) dies in 1883.

     In the United States, 7 officers are killed by a bomb in Chicago’s Haymarket Square in 1886 at an anarchist rally. This bombing escalates fears of immigrants, unions, and radicals. In 1892, famine strikes the central and southwestern provinces of Russia. The Dreyfus Affair takes place in France in 1894. In the same year, Tsar Alexander III dies and is succeeded by Nicholas II, a ruler who exercise autocracy in order to appear strong.

     In the 1890’s, the Zionist movement is launched and the Spanish-American war is fought. Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900. In 1901, Queen Victoria of England dies, ending the longest reign – 64 years – in the history of the British Empire. In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War erupted. Tolstoy wholeheartedly condemned this war, as he was a complete pacifist. Peace is made in 1905 at the instigation of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.

     The Russian Revolution erupts in 1905. Workers march on the Winter Palace in Moscow in January. After “Bloody Sunday,” strikes, reactionary programs, and rural insurrections occur. The battleship Potemkin mutinies in June 1905 and steams into Odessa to support striking factory workers. In October 1905, the Tsar grants the Russian people freedom of assembly, the press, conscience, and speech. He also promises the Russian people a parliament which will be elected by universal suffrage. However, these concessions fail to appease revolutionary sentiment.

     In 1909, the NAACP is founded in New York City. Tolstoy dies in 1910 in Astapovo of pneumonia contracted during his short period as a wandering ascetic.