Possibilities of digital commenting on works of Russian classics (on the example of Ivan Bunin’s story “At the Dacha”)

The article examines the issue of new principles for presenting text variants and academic commentary in digital editions of Russian classics. As an example, an early story by I.A. Bunin “At the Dacha” was chosen, for this story is an attempt to comprehend Tolstoyism as an ideological, cultural and social phenomenon, it is rich in generalizing and symbolic details and requires extensive commentary. The first part of the article is devoted to the possibilities of digital representation of text variants. Several proposals were made: to provide the ability to view text variants both together and separately; show the text variants both directly in the text and next to the main text; divide the variants into significant (changing the meaning of the work) and minor ones and show them both separately and all together. In the second part of the article, a model of digital commentary to the story “At the Dacha” is built, organized in stages (a system of windows opening one after another) according to cloud-semantic criteria. The commentary, compared to the traditional book format, expands significantly: it incorporates visual and audio information, as well as a broad cultural context (which is especially important in cultural stories such as “At the Dacha”). This type of commentary takes into account the different research questions that a research reader may have, as well as the different backgrounds of the potential readers. In addition, the digital commentary is open to changes: if new facts appear, the commentary articles can be supplemented. The commentary model presented in the article does not claim to be complete or binding; the author invites all interested researchers to dialogue.