Orest Vereiskii. Illustration to the
novel Anna Karenina (1975)[/caption][caption id="attachment_23029" align="alig
nnone" width="1920"] Orest Vereiskii. Illustration to the
novel Anna Karenina (1975)[/caption]
T itle: Why Did Anna Go to the Opera? The Question of Authenticity i n Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina
Abstract: Man y interpreters commend Leo Tolstoy for substantiating feminist positions in Anna Karenina. The critics argue that\, despite his intentions to depict Anna negatively\, Tolstoy has created an admirable heroine who chal lenges 19th-century social norms. Anna is thus to be admired for her moral integrity\, as she leaves her husband to live openly with her lover in orde r to be true to herself. In this talk\, Baraban argues the opposite: Anna’s affair leads to the loss of her self-acceptance and authenticity. An analy sis of key scenes and narrative techniques reveals that Tolstoy's title cha racter both plays a role of an ill-fated adulterous woman and acts like a t heatre director in relation to other characters. Whereas in Joe Wright’s 20 12 screen adaptation of Anna Karenina theatricality is used to bla me society for Anna’s demise\, in the narrative by Tolstoy\, the motifs of role-playing and theatre help to contrast authentic and inauthentic charact ers\, underscoring the heroes’ responsibility for their actions.
Elena Baraban is Professor of Russian Studies and Coo rdinator of Central and East European Studies at the University of Manitoba . Her publications include The Akunin Project: The Mysteries a nd Histories of Russia’s Best-Selling Author (U Toronto Press\, 2021)\ , co-edited together with Stephen M. Norris\; Fighting Words and Images : Representing War across the Disciplines (UTP\, 2012)\, co-edited tog ether with Stephan Jaeger and Adam Muller\; articles on literature and cine ma\, especially on representations of Ukraine\, the Civil War\, and WWII. B araban has published in Ab Imperio\, Ukraina Moderna\, Slavic and East European Studies Journal\, Canadian Slavonic Papers\, and other peer-r eviewed journals.
Misse d the lecture on October 15th? You can access the video and audio recording on UBC’s cIRcle database. CATEGORIES:Featured Events,Featured Homepage,Featured Modern European Studies,Featured Russian,Featured Slavic Studies,Featured Undergraduate LOCATION:Online GEO:49.260872;-123.113952 URL;VALUE=URI:https://cenes.ubc.ca/events/event/sawchen-lecture-elena-barab an-why-did-anna-go-to-the-opera-the-question-of-authenticity-in-leo-tolstoy s-anna-karenina/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cene.cms.arts.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2024/09/Baraban_Featured-Image-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Vancouver BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 DTSTART:20240310T100000 TZNAME:PDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR