Anna Karenina

Character Guide

Spoiler-free — fuller detail (with spoilers, if you want them) lives in the reader's Guide tab.

Anna Karenina (Anna Arkadyevna)

A beautiful, magnetic married society woman from Petersburg who becomes entangled in a passionate relationship with the young officer Vronsky, setting the novel's central drama in motion.

Alexey Vronsky (Count Vronsky)

A dashing, wealthy cavalry officer who falls deeply in love with Anna after initially courting Kitty Shtcherbatskaya, upending both women's lives.

Alexey Alexandrovitch Karenin

Anna's much older husband, a rigid, high-ranking government official who values propriety and appearances above emotion.

Konstantin Levin

A sincere, socially awkward landowner devoted to agriculture and philosophical questioning, who is in love with Kitty and represents a contrasting moral thread to Anna's story.

Kitty Shtcherbatskaya (Princess Ekaterina)

A young, idealistic princess courted by both Levin and Vronsky, whose romantic disappointments shape her early character arc.

Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky (Stiva)

Anna's amiable, pleasure-loving brother, whose own marital infidelity opens the novel and whose easygoing nature contrasts with the seriousness of those around him.

Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya (Dolly)

Stiva's long-suffering wife and Kitty's older sister, a devoted mother grappling with her husband's unfaithfulness.

Sergey Ivanovitch Koznishev

Levin's intellectual half-brother, a respected writer and thinker who embodies a more detached, cerebral approach to life.

Seryozha

Anna and Karenin's young son, whose innocent affection for his mother becomes a source of deep tenderness and pain.

Princess Betsy Tverskaya (Betsy)

A fashionable, worldly society hostess and Vronsky's cousin, who moves comfortably through Petersburg's more permissive social circles.

Varenka

A gentle, selfless young woman befriended abroad by Kitty, admired for her quiet devotion to caring for others.

Nikolai Levin

Konstantin Levin's troubled elder brother, living a dissolute and declining life apart from the family estate.

Glossary

Muzhik

A Russian peasant farmer; used frequently to describe the rural laboring class on the estates.

Zemstvo

A local elected council system in Imperial Russia responsible for regional administration, roads, schools, and welfare.

Barin

A term of respect used by peasants and servants to address a landowner or gentleman.

Izba

A traditional Russian peasant log cabin or cottage.

Samovar

A heated metal container traditionally used to boil water for tea, central to Russian domestic life.

Troika

A traditional Russian carriage or sleigh drawn by three horses harnessed abreast.

Kammerjunker

A junior court title/rank in Imperial Russia denoting a gentleman of the emperor's household.

Corps of Pages

An elite Russian military academy that trained young noblemen for officer and court careers.

Puerperal fever

A dangerous infection historically contracted by women after childbirth, often fatal before modern antibiotics.

Panslavism / Slavophile sentiment

A 19th-century Russian political and cultural movement emphasizing solidarity with fellow Slavic peoples, which drives some characters toward volunteer military causes abroad.

Palazzo

Italian for a grand mansion or palace, used to describe the Vronsky-Anna household while living abroad in Italy.

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