Izvestiya of Saratov University.
ISSN 1817-7115 (Print)
ISSN 2541-898X (Online)


types of readers

Semantic range of the concept “reader” in contemporary Russian culture

Negative transformations associated with the culture of reading in the 21st century are generally recognized. First of all, and not without reason, the reader of fi ction comes into the fi eld of vision of philologists and teachers. The goal of the article is to analyze the modern range of meanings of the concept “reader” against the backdrop of the established reader’s image in the collective (proverbial) folk memory. The author is interested in the problem of institutionalization of the Russian reader.

“He Is a Very Good Writer. And How He Wrote About Love!”: A. P. Chekhov’s Readers-Characters on I. S. Turgenev

The article presents a wide panorama of consistent types of readerscharacters (in V. G. Belinsky’s terminology – shallow people and Old Believers, people of action and children of a certain doctrine), who on the pages of A. P. Chekhov’s prose and drama works with a different degree of expertise (affectedly, presumptuously, in a silly way, artlessly, passionately) judge the characters, works, literary craftsmanship of I. S. Turgenev, whose life has already expired.