Anna Karenina

Young and beautiful Anna Karenina is married to count Karenin, a high-ranking governmental official. Upon request for help from her brother she travels to Moscow where she meets count Vronsky, a cavalry officer, and falls under the spell of his irresistible charm. Caught between an unfulfilled marriage and the passionate love affair with Vronsky, she decides ¿ against the rigid social conventions of the upper class ¿ to leave her husband and her beloved son, thereby manoeuvring herself into disgrace, loneliness and despair. The relevance of this grandiose work lies in Tolstoy¿s profound knowledge of human nature and his mastery at endowing his characters with a multitude of fundamental traits. He lets these characters act and react upon timeless questions in different circumstances and situations: love in an extramarital relationship, women¿s education, sense of duty and honour, questions of faith and family life, and not least whether one should join fellow believers in combat. A simplified annotated and accentuated Russian classic