Opera in Imperial St. Petersburg

[Stefani, Sara Marie]

"If we are to believe that it was the following winter (as in, they stayed almost a year in Italy) it would throw them out of sync with Levin and Kitty's timeline."

Vronsky and Anna's timeline is out of sync with Kitty and Levin's for much of the book. They consummate their relationship in part two about a year after they have met, but in the very next chapter after the consummation scene we are with Levin in the country, and it is "three months" since Kitty rejected him. At this point, Stiva shows up at Levin's estate and they go hunting together (the novel opens in February, so three months later it would be May), but in the next section he appears at the horse races with Vronsky and Anna, and it is August. After the horse race, we follow Kitty to Germany, then Levin mows his fields, he goes to visit Dolly, and he dreams by the haystacks, but immediately afterwards (Part 3, chapt. 19), we switch back to Vronsky, and it is the day after the races. Also, Vronsky and Anna leave for Italy not long after the baby is born, but when they are on Vronsky's estate during the summer, Anna doesn't know how many teeth her daughter has. This seems to suggest that she is more or less about a year old by that point. 

Nabokov writes about the mismatch in the two timelines in the section on "Anna Karenina" in his "Lectures on Russian Literature." His ideas about the two "time-teams" (this is Nabokov's term; he insists that it be used with acknowledgments!) are very interesting and worth reading.


Sara Stefani

Assistant Professor

Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Indiana University

Ballantine Hall 502

Bloomington, IN 47405

samastef at indiana.edu

________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of Brett Winestock [brettrw at STANFORD.EDU]
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2014 11:32 PM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Opera in Imperial St. Petersburg

Yes, I know Serezha's comments make it seem like winter. But then I ask another question: how is it so?

Baby Anna falls in ill February (4.10) and "чрез месяц" Anna and Vronsky leave for Italy (4.23). They travel there for three months (5.7) before returning to St. Petersburg before planning on spending the summer on Vronsky's estate (5.13), which would mean they return in June.

If we are to believe that it was the following winter (as in, they stayed almost a year in Italy) it would throw them out of sync with Levin and Kitty's timeline. The Levins get married before Lent (5.1), and then in the third month of their marriage (5.14) Nikolai dies and Kitty realizes she is pregnant, to a baby she gives birth to that winter.

During the summer before Kitty gives birth, Anna and Vronsky are already on their estate (Dolly goes to visit them). Vronsky and Anna move to Moscow from the country "в конце ноября" (6.32) of that year, when the Levins are already there.

This means that Vronsky and Anna return to St. Petersburg BEFORE June, which would mean they spend even less than 3 months in Italy, or that Kitty is pregnant for a year and a half!

If you've got a clearer idea of this part of the timeline, I would love to hear it, I've really been racking my brain on this one!

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