Anton Chekhov's prose in modern Russian literature: Types of productive artistic reception by non-professional authors

In the modern literary process, the productive or creative reception of Russian classics has become noticeably more relevant, attracting active research attention. Noting the vagueness of the concept of "creative/productive reception" (from convergence with intermediality to the interpretation of this type of reception as "perception and reinvention based on perceived own thoughts, ideas, texts; the intersection of impact and perception, "recreation" and "re-creation", leading to the generation of meaning, scientists (S.E. Trunin, M.S. Sloistova, V.V. Abramovskikh, and others) build a typology of such a reception. However, the available typologies and, accordingly, the research field exclude productive artistic reception that is not related to the professional one: works created as a result of the reception of classics by non-professional authors, which constitutes the subject of the proposed research, determines its aim, relevance and novelty. This article on the creative reception of Chekhov's works by modern non-professional authors presents the collected material in the aspect of the problem of the text's existence and transformations in a digital society. The methodological basis is Michel Foucault's theory of social discourse, his understanding of the text as a product generated by specific socio-historical practices that define the theme, structure, modality, etc. and relegate to the background the individuality, uniqueness of the creative act of creating and perceiving the text. Within the framework of this theory, the leading role in modern textual and semantic generation, designed for the general reader, is obvious, realized most often not by a professional writer, but by a reader who transforms himself into a writer, not so much of the genre as of the text format, which means the way it is presented (in a broad sense), orienting the creation of the text to a certain the perception of the mass reader seen primarily as a consumer of content who highly appreciates the technical possibilities of presenting text, Internet communication about the text. By random sampling, 25 essays were selected and analyzed. Summarizing the main features of the presented corpus of texts, it can be seen that the range of Chekhov's writings that modern non-professional authors focus on in search of their author's "self' is mainly his early works, which become for them a kind of a universal text that generates their writings. On the other hand, the study shows how wide the range of modern works and their non-professional authors who respond to Chekhov's work is - they create a special kind of hypertext to the creative legacy of the classic writer. A significant result of the study is the revealed paradigm of the author's receptive strategies - from remake to paraphrase, from simplification of the meanings of the classic works, which is most common, to new meanings, which, however, are very far from Chekhov's. The most popular type of reception is artistic, direct, and formal (according to M.S. Sloistova's classification). The general conclusion is made that the small online prose of nonprofessional authors, which is the result of the productive reception of Chekhov's prose, characterizes the modern literary process and reveals the transformation of the concepts of fiction, literary creativity, reading. It is in demand by the readers of the portal, influencing the formation of a modern readership. However, all this requires a more complete argumentation and, consequently, the continuation of research on the problems stated in the article, which, in the author's view, should be carried out in line with the arguments of scientists about the modernization of society and all spheres of its activity, including culture. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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