Book review as a space of the reader’s cultural code

The interest of science and society in the protection and preservation of traditional cultural values is obvious. The cultural code that develops from generation to generation is both stable and capable of gaining new cultural dominants, which is reflected in modern fiction. The reader’s book review, being a result of an aesthetic experience, also contains elements of the cultural code. Their study is possible on large data sets: digital analysis methods allow extracting and generalizing typical values that are practically indistinguishable with small statistics. Thousands of emotional, spontaneous reader reviews become a common space where signs and symbols of the cultural code stand out. The object of research is the largest library of electronic books LitRes. It is the largest representative of the electronic and audiobook market in Russia and CIS countries that occupies 2/3 of the electronic and audiobook market in Russia and has 166 thousand readers. The subject of the analysis is readers’ reviews of books by laureates of Russian literary awards (Big Book, Russian Booker, National Bestseller, Yasnaya Polyana, Great Literary Prize of Russia, Writer of the Year, Patriarchal Literary Prize, State Prize in Literature and Art) from 2000 to 2020. 7959 reviews of 109 works by 63 authors were extracted. The research methodology included automatic collection of data from the LitRes e-book library; development of a category matrix, a markup codifier, and instructions for annotators; manual markup of reviews and creation of an annotated corpus of texts; identification of statistically significant patterns based on the results of manual markup. The matrix of categories and the markup codifier include: the content of reviews (emotions, facts, or meanings); elements of the value-motivational sphere (motives, interests, and values); typical images and cultural dominants. Using a combination of textual and digital data analysis methods, the following results were obtained. (1) Relevant (24%) and irrelevant (76%) reviews have been established. (2) The components of the value-motivational sphere that are indicative for the explication of the cultural code have been identified using keywords. According to statistics, 50% of the values expressed in reviews are aesthetic; about 18% of readers focus on moral values -honor, conscience, duty, and truth; 32% of reviews combine both values. (3) The typical images that arose in the minds of readers when comprehending what they read (the struggle for truth, the historical past, strong women, the desire for freedom, the Russian language, the truth of life) have been summarized. (4) By theoretical analysis of the concepts and categories prevailing in the reviews and their generalization, the problem of synthesis has been solved: typical images are combined into cultural dominants (respect for national heritage, the connection of times, human sins, the long-suffering of the Russian person, the tragedy of the country, the meaning of life).

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