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I have some issue with this excerpt of Анна Каренина by Tolstoy (часть 8, глава 8):

Он не мог признать, что он тогда знал правду, а теперь ошибается, потому что, как только он начинал думать спокойно об этом, всё распадалось вдребезги; не мог и признать того, что он тогда ошибался, потому что дорожил тогдашним душевным настроением, а признавая его данью слабости, он бы осквернял те минуты.

In "Он не мог признать, что...", the role of что is clear to me: it is a подчинительный союз. But in "не мог и признать того, что..." I don't get why we don't have "не мог и признать, что..." like before. In a sentence like "Я не из тех, что боятся работы.", что is an относительное слово in the nominative because что is the subject of боятся, but the situation is not similar with "не мог и признать того, что он тогда ошибался", because the subject of ошибался is он, so how can we explain the construction of "не мог и признать того, что он тогда ошибался" and would "не мог и признать, что он тогда ошибался" be correct with the same meaning?

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  • IMHO using transitive verbs with the omission of a direct object may be regarded as an inaccurate language. You'd better put "Он не мог признать, что..." and the like with the direct object "того", especially when the subject of main and subordinate clauses is not the same. I.e. "Он не мог признать того, что она его не любит (..., что поезд уехал etc.)"
    – Eugene
    Commented Dec 6 at 10:06
  • @Eugene I did't get why you wrote "IMHO using transitive verbs with the omission of a direct object may be regarded as an inaccurate language.". What is the point?! The question was: why did Tolstoy not write "не мог и признать, что он тогда ошибался,..."?
    – Bruno
    Commented Dec 6 at 12:53
  • Tolstoy might have not written "не мог и признать, что он тогда ошибался" based on aspiration for making his lines more versatile. Because it's better (but not obligatory) not to use transitive verbs in patterns of this kind omitting a direct object "того" [wich is a demonstrative pronoun "то" in the accusative case] of the transitive verb "принимать", especially when the subject of main and subordinate clauses is not the same [what is not the case here]. But Tolstoy could have equally written "не мог и признать, что он тогда ошибался,...".
    – Eugene
    Commented Dec 6 at 15:12
  • I don't think there is any stringent rule in the issue in question. You can even put it up this way (from Quassnoi's answer): "не мог он признать и, что…". I guess it would have grated on someone's ear in the times when people were literate and educated but not nowadays...
    – Eugene
    Commented Dec 6 at 15:18
  • не хочет признать, что is perfectly fine, same subject or not: ruscorpora.ru/s/boxVX. *не хочет признать и что would be a problem.
    – Quassnoi ♦
    Commented Dec 6 at 16:22

4 Answers 4

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In this sentence, и is a cumulative conjunction that means "nor": "he couldn't admit that he then had known the truth …, nor that he had then been wrong …".

This conjunction should be put before the constituent that is a part of enumeration. In this case, it's slightly misused: the verb (признать) is the same, and it's its complements that are being enumerated: "he could admit neither A, nor B".

Put this way, it would have said не мог он признать и того, что … In this case, того is strongly called for to avoid using two conjunctions in a row.

It's not a mistake, just some redundancy: you can say "he couldn't admit A, nor admit B" just as well. However, in this case, того is not strictly needed, although it doesn't hurt to put it here either.

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  • Thank you and to the two other answerers, who all confirm that того is optional. Your explanation is, in my opinion, the most comprehensive because it tries to explain why we have того. I was unable to find other examples of this use of того, что... - probably such examples could help understand how to use it. Indeed I have some issue to parse grammatically the sentence: What is the complement of признать? того itself? , что он тогда ошибался, (since того is optional - then what is the grammatical role of того?)? Or того, что он тогда ошибался,?
    – Bruno
    Commented Dec 3 at 23:54
  • того here means "the fact (that)", it's the complement of признать, yes
    – Quassnoi ♦
    Commented Dec 4 at 1:08
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You're right that «того» in «не мог признать [того], что...» is optional, when the sentence stands alone. Here though we have contradicting statements: «не мог признать, что [...] знал правду; не мог и признать, что [...] ошибался», the variant with «того» sounds slightly better to my ear.

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  • But sounding better to someone's ear is not an explanation. Why does it sound better to your ear? Can you think of an explanation? Does the и play a role here?
    – pompey1969
    Commented Dec 2 at 16:13
  • @pompey1969 I think that "и" is rather playing here the role of "also" (maybe the role of the combination "and...also"). "He was unable to admit that he had known the truth then and was now deluding himself...; [and] he couldn't also admit the fact that he had been deluded then.
    – Eugene
    Commented Dec 6 at 10:47
  • @Eugene I think we are in the realm of non sequiturs here. Of course и means "also". What I'm talking about is whether the genitive того, что is more likely after the и in line with mustaccio's statement that "it just sounds better". I think we are delving into part of Russian grammar that native speakers just cannot help with.
    – pompey1969
    Commented Dec 6 at 19:51
  • @pompey1969 I think it's a matter of style. (I could have said: "I think that it's a matter of style"). In English there is also a good shoal of such cases.
    – Eugene
    Commented Dec 6 at 20:08
  • @Eugene Native speakers often cannot explain their own language. "A matter of style" explains nothing. What stylistic nuance is conveyed by choosing this style? I think a non-native would be better at explaining this at this point.
    – pompey1969
    Commented Dec 6 at 20:47
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This word is used here, probably, to make an emphasis on the second part. The word “того” could also be missed, and it wouldn’t be a mistake. But the aim here was, probably, was to make an accent on the contradiction of reasons: the person couldn’t admit that.., however, he also couldn’t admit another thing.

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Того is demonstrative pronoun that functions as conjunction here. Due to the structure of the sentence it could be omitted.

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