National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia, St. Petersburg, tsherstinova@hse.ru, eokolpaschikova@edu.hse.ru, arseynova@edu.hse.ru, pimaksimenko@edu.hse.ru, rarodionov@edu.hse.ru
The article is devoted to modern readers’ perception of literary texts written about 100 years ago. A selection of 210 short stories written and published in the first three decades of the 20th century by various authors, including both well-known and lesser-known writers, has been read and rated by three independent readers in terms of how much they liked each story and what emotions the reading evoked. The results of the experiment showed that there is no obvious correlation between the fame of the author of a literary text and the reader’s evaluation of this text. The dominant emotional reaction of readers to the stories of the considered era is sadness, the majority of the saddest stories are dated before World War I. The emotional reaction of readers to the story and their general evaluation of this story have a weak positive correlation. One of the “success formula” for a high reader’s assessment of a literary work stems from the ability of the text to evoke intense feelings of happiness and sadness at the same time.
fiction; Russian short story; text perception; reader’s reception; assessment; emotional reaction; quantitative analysis
Download textFor citing: Sherstinova T. Yu., Kolpashchikova E.O., Seinova A.R., Maksimenko P.I., Rodionov R.A. (2023). Russian short story of the 1900–1930ʼs and its perception by the reader: the case study of fictional text quantitative assessment. Human being: Image and essence. Humanitarian aspects. Moscow: INION RAN. Vol. 2(54): Human being on the way towards new practices of the ecology of life, pp. 164-184. DOI: 10.31249/chel/2023.02.09