19th century rabbit hole
Digging around for unrelated info led me down a funny Detective Anna rabbit hole (or a rabbit hole led me to Detective Anna? idk).
In s2 ep11, "The Last Sacrifice", Krutin poisons Anton and leads Shtolman on a scavenger hunt for the antidote. An early scene starts with a beggar (to use a 19th c word) reading a book out loud in the barracks (?), poor house (?). The cover is hard to see, but you can kind of make out "лать," leading me to assume it was Lenin's "что делать" in a kind of intentional/tongue-in-cheek anachronism, since the real book wasn't published until 1901.
BUT, come to find out today there was an earlier book called "что делать" / "What Is To Be Done?" published 1863, by Nikolay Chernyshevsky?? (Look, I've heard of him, ok) Sure enough, a closer look at the book cover and I'm pretty sure the last letters of the authors name are "вский"??
Two fun discoveries in that:
s2 ep13 "The Living Dead" was probably at least slightly inspired by the plot of the Chernyshevsky book, in which a man fakes his own death in order to let his wife marry his best friend with whom she has fallen in love. Doesn't seem like a huge stretch since s1's "The Drama" is very obviously (and meta-textually) "The Seagull."
Per Wikipedia, Chernyshevsky's novel was written as a direct response to Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons," which also features a love triangle, where the young woman/subject of the son's affection falls in love with the son's radical best friend. Except Turgenev's love triangle is resolved when the radical gets what he deserves (lol) and dies. This is all only relevant because Anton reveals Shtolman is reading "Fathers and Sons" when he's arrested in s1's "The Prince".
It's kind of interesting they have Shtolman reading that particular book. Maybe it's just period appropriate and famous? "Crime and Punishment" would be a little too on the nose, lol. It's also a family/romance melodrama, which obviously DA heavily relies on.
But there are other novels they could have chosen... the show very lightly (very lightly) touches on themes of tradition vs modernity. The very first episode features the arrival of a bicycle! Kluyev is bringing electricity to Zatonsk! And a phonograph! And of course, much more so in s2, where I assume by 1894 it's basically impossible to ignore the very serious social/economic/political issues of Tsarist Russia? So it makes sense that between Shtolman and Anna, being diametrically opposed in almost every way, he would be associated with a more traditional/conservative perspective (he literally represents law and order), where Anna is constantly aware of the plight of the poor, and women's subjugated status under patriarchy.
Annnnyway, rabbit hole indeed.
In closing, sharing this amusing thumbnail from imdb. Between the cross-faded images and the title, it looks like Shtolman is dead and visiting Anna as a ghost. Of course, still grumpy af.
