Mikhail Saltykov

To the Story of Anna Karenina. Parody as a Precedent Text

It is generally known that the novel of Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina is connected with the unfinished work of Mikhail Saltykov Blagonamerennaya povest’ (The loyal story), which was dedicated to the criticism of ‘natural’ motivation of human’s social life. However, already in 1863 Saltykov published a text which looked like a parody of a typical Leo Tolstoy hero portrait and like a precedent text with regard to the portrait of Anna Karenina.