Together with the monumental War and Peace, Anna Karenina is one of Leo Tolstoys most important works and a classic of Russian realism. It contains all the hallmarks of that genre, from pointed social critique to psychologically complex characters. Anna Karenina's misadventures and eagerness to integrate into a hypocritical society that condemns her for adultery, but pardons her lover's excesses, offer a portrait of nineteenth-century Russia in all its contradictions. It also encourages us to reflect on the way women are invisibilized in society.
