Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [475]
13 ‘For thou . . . in love’: The extracts from the Orthodox marriage service in this chapter are taken from The Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church, compiled, translated and arranged by Isabel Florence Hap good with the endorsement of the patriarch Tikhon, published since 1918 in a number of editions.
14 ... would be happy: Another popular belief concerning the marriage ceremony. The crowns are customarily held above the heads of the bride and groom during the service, but it was thought that if the crown was actually put on the person’s head, it would help to make the person happy in married life.
15 ‘...reverence her husband’: Ephesians 5:33. The Slavonic version reads ‘fear’ instead of the milder ‘reverence’ of the King James version.
16 elaborate psalm: Psalm 128, beginning: ‘Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord; that walketh in his ways.’
17 see their children’s children: Tolstoy quotes snippets from prayers and petitions in the marriage service (see note 13, Part Five).
18 ‘Rejoice, O Isaiah’: At this central moment in the marriage service, the priest takes the bride and groom by the hand and leads them three times around the lectern, the attendants following them holding the crowns over their heads, while the choir sings certain verses, the best known beginning ‘Rejoice, O Isaiah’.
19 Tintoretto: Jacopo Robusti, known as Tintoretto (1518-94), was an Italian painter of the Venetian school.
20 The Two Origins ... explanation: The Slavophiles (see note 13, Part Four) often touched on the notion of the two origins - Catholic and Orthodox, rational and spiritual, Western and Eastern - of Russian culture. A. S. Khomiakov (1804-60), religious philosopher and poet, an important representative of the Slavophile movement, wrote about the Byzantine origin of Russian history. At the end of the novel, Levin will be ‘disappointed in Khomiakov’s teaching about the Church’.
21 Ivanov-Strauss-Renan: A. A. Ivanov (1806-58), an artist of the ‘Wanderers’ group, was the founder of the historical school of Russian painting; his most famous work was ‘Christ Shown to the People’ (1858). David Strauss (1808- 74), German theologian and philosopher, wrote a famous ‘historical’ Life of Jesus, as did the French religious historian and lapsed Catholic Ernest Renan (1823-92).
22 new school: The artist I. N. Kramskoy (1837-87), also a ‘Wanderer’, met Tolstoy in 1873 and may have told him about his plans for a painting on the subject of the mocking of Christ. The ‘new school’ treated traditional religious subjects with the techniques of realism. Tolstoy thought they had taken a wrong turn; his preference went neither to the traditionally ‘religious’ nor to the new ‘realistic’, but to a ‘moral’ treatment of the subject (see his What Is Art?).
23 Charlotte Corday: Charlotte Corday d‘Armont (1768-93) became famous for assassinating the French revolutionary politician Jean-Paul Marat (1743- 93), a Montagnard, in revenge for the ‘September massacres’ of the Girondin party, which he instigated. She went to the guillotine.
24 Raphael’s: Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520), one of the greatest painters of the Florentine school, was commonly regarded in the nineteenth century as the supreme master of the art of painting. It was his ‘idealizing’ influence above all that the new historical school rejected.
25 Pre-Raphaelite Englishman: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of English painters that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century, W. Holman-Hunt (1827-1910), J. E. Millais (1829-96) and D. G. Rossetti (1828-82) chief among them, revolted against the imitation of nature and favoured convention in art. They held up the Italian masters before Raphael, particularly Giotto and Botticelli, as models. The influential critic John Ruskin (1819-1900) cham pioned their work.
26 Rachel: The Swiss-born actress Eliza Félix (1820-58), known as Mille Rachel, contributed greatly