British novels start with a mild tragedy and end with marriage and muffins. Russian novels start with a tragedy and end with frostbite and theological despair. It’s decorum versus doom. A cup of Darjeeling versus a shot of existential vodka.
Take Pride and Prejudice: a delightful British rom-com where misunderstandings are sorted out over walks in the garden and everyone ends up with exactly the person they deserve.
Now take Anna Karenina: a Russian plunge into the soul of a woman slowly crushed under the weight of social judgment, bad decisions, and trains.
But what if we did the unthinkable? What if Pride and Prejudice had been written by a Russian, and Anna Karenina had been written by a Brit?
Prepare yourself.
Mr. Darcy, Meet the Gulag
If Pride and Prejudice had been written by Leo Tolstoy (or worse, Nikolai Gogol), the Bennet sisters wouldn’t be lightly gossiping over tea. No, they’d be huddled around a smoky samovar in a drafty estate, slowly realizing that the inheritance laws are a metaphor for the futility of human effort in a godless world.
Elizabeth Bennet wouldn’t sass Mr. Darcy. She’d deliver ten pages of philosophical monologue while pacing a birch forest in the snow. Darcy, instead of being socially awkward but charmingly rich, would be an aristocrat wracked with guilt over inherited privilege, prone to opium hallucinations, and possibly in exile for writing the wrong pamphlet.
By Chapter 20, Mr. Collins would denounce himself to the Tsar. By Chapter 30, Lydia would join a nihilist cult. By Chapter 50, Elizabeth and Darcy would almost kiss, but then stare wordlessly at a candle while pondering death.
The novel would end not with a wedding, but with a funeral during an ice storm, with Kitty reciting Ecclesiastes while the family estate is requisitioned by the Ministry of Sorrows.
Anna Karenina Gets a Nice Cup of Tea
Now imagine Anna Karenina had been written by Jane Austen.
We open on Anna, disillusioned but determined, arriving in London for the Season. She’s unhappy in her marriage, sure, but it’s not so bad. Karenin is emotionally distant but wealthy and passably polite. She frowns attractively while rearranging floral centerpieces.
Enter Vronsky: not a sweaty horse-obsessed disaster, but a dashing, misunderstood viscount with a complicated inheritance and a tragic fencing injury.
The affair never actually happens—they merely exchange several emotionally charged glances and one gloved touch at a ball. Anna retreats to the countryside for moral reflection.
Kitty and Levin are still around, but Kitty is now the heroine, and she solves all emotional conflicts through embroidery and quiet determination. Levin, instead of wringing his hands about the meaning of life, takes up beekeeping and finds contentment in a well-balanced marriage and good linen.
Instead of flinging herself in front of a train, Anna writes a stern letter, takes up charitable work, and eventually becomes a respected matron who helps young women avoid foolish flirtations.
Russian Bingley and British Death
In the Russian version of Pride and Prejudice, Charles Bingley would not be a cheerful rich neighbor. He’d be a melancholic ex-soldier who stares out the window reciting Pushkin and regrets that he survived the war. Jane Bennet, ever angelic, would be in love with him, but tragically betrothed to a bureaucrat she loathes.
Their romance would unfold through soul-crushing silences, interrupted only by devastating blizzards and long sermons about fate.
Meanwhile, the British version of Anna Karenina would fix things with manners and plot twists. Karenin, rather than emotionally gaslighting Anna into madness, would simply discover her feelings and awkwardly step aside. Anna would go on a spa retreat with Emma Woodhouse.
Vronsky, wounded by honor but not too deeply, would realize he actually likes equestrian sports better than women. He’d open a countryside riding school for underprivileged youths.
The train? Delayed by sheep. No one dies.
Darcy’s Soul Cracks Open Like a Siberian Lake
Russian Darcy is a man broken by silence. He walks the halls of Pembergrad, haunted by the moans of serfs past. His confession to Elizabeth is not an awkward compliment—it’s a 47-page treatise on the burden of legacy, written in verse.
Elizabeth, instead of giving him sass, gives him silence. She stares into the fire. Outside, a wolf howls.
Russian Wickham is not merely a scoundrel. He’s a double agent for the secret police who once betrayed Darcy’s brother to the gulag. Lydia marries him and is never seen again.
Meanwhile, in British Anna Karenina, every dinner party ends in polite epiphanies. Levin reads a pamphlet on moral improvement and finally just... cheers up. Anna writes a self-help column. Vronsky joins the Reform Club. Karenin remarries and starts the Royal Society for Moderate Emotions.
The last line of the British Anna Karenina? “And so, with lessons learned and reputations restored, they all found themselves a little wiser, and remarkably well-dressed.”
Final Thoughts from the Wreckage
So what have we learned?
If Tolstoy wrote Pride and Prejudice, we’d all be buried under six feet of metaphysical snow, muttering about fate and salted fish. If Austen wrote Anna Karenina, it would have ended with a wedding, a reform bill, and a summer picnic.
British novels say: Life is confusing, but tea helps.
Russian novels say: Life is a painful illusion, but at least there is suffering and despair to help break up the monotony.
So if you want hope, propriety, and a well-fitted waistcoat, stay with the Brits. If you want despair, theological torment, and an avalanche of emotional disintegration, go Russian.
Or better yet, read both. That way you can believe in love... and then prepare for it to destroy you.
Cheers. Or... whatever the Russian word is for “weep into the void.”