Tolstoy's use of repetition

Two weeks ago I went to Dr. Bartlett’s lecture The Modernity of Anna Karenina, about the Russian novel Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. Throughout the lecture Dr. Bartlett went over the ways that the novel was revolutionary for its time. One of her examples that I found interesting was how Tolstoy employed a type of writing style that was new for his time in which he repeatedly used the same words and phrases. Although he was criticized for this style, which some thought made reading it confusing, Tolstoy refused to make any changes and kept it as it was.