K.D. FoxIndependent Reading ReportAnna KareninaLeo TolstoyTolstoy was born on August 28 in 1828 on his family’s estate in the Tula region of Russia. His parents died when he was very young, leaving him and his siblings to be brought up by other family members. In school, he was unwilling to learn and did not finish his university education. After building up debts and joining the army, Tolstoy finally started writing. All of his writing has social, familial and economic themes, based on certain points of his life and the things he was exposed to. In the book Anna Karenina, he obviously used his life as a basis on what themes to include, like religious thoughts, military involvement, and politics.His wife, whom he married in 1862, was much younger than him, but praised him endlessly for his work. She helped as his proofreader in their young marriage- as he wrote both of his classics, War and Peaceand Anna Karenina, during this time. He went on to write many others. However, his later life with his wife was constantly strained. He died in 1910 after abandoning his family. Being unhealthy when he left home, he soon came down with pneumonia. After his death, thousands of peasants came to his funeral, dubbing him one of the most popular writers from Russia.Historical and Social ContextDuring this time, Russia was undergoing a crisis of political thought, with a series of royalty and intellectuals demanding European constitutional and revolution in Russia. The portrayal of democracy in Anna Kareninashows how uncertain the practice could
