Ana Karenjina

The story takes place in Russia in the 1870s and follows two parallel stories:

• Anna Karenina – a beautiful, intelligent and unhappily married woman in the high society of St. Petersburg. She falls in love with the young, charming officer Count Alexei Vronsky. She leaves her husband Karenin and son Seryozha, and flees with Vronsky to Italy and the countryside. Their passionate love turns into suffering due to social condemnation, jealousy, feelings of guilt and the inability to live outside conventions. Anna ends tragically – by committing suicide under a train.
• Konstantin Levin – a landowner, Tolstoy's alter ego, who searches for the meaning of life in the countryside. Marriage to Kitty Shcherbatskaya, work on the farm, philosophical reflections on faith, death and happiness lead to spiritual enlightenment.

The novel explores themes of love, marriage, family, social hypocrisy, women's fate, faith, morality and the meaning of life. Tolstoy contrasts passionate, destructive love (Anna–Vronsky) with stable, natural family happiness (Levin–Kitty). The style is realistic, psychologically profound, with rich descriptions of Russian society, peasant life, and the characters' inner monologues.

Anna Karenina is an epic portrait of 19th-century Russia—from the aristocracy to the peasantry—with a universal message about the consequences of violating moral laws and the search for true happiness.