Semantic Editions of Classical Texts: How Social Networks Change Cognitive Strategies of Interaction with Literary Heritage

The paper introduces the phenomenon of semantic editions: a new digital representation of texts and personalities of the Great Literature, e. g., The World of Dante, Mapping the Republic of Letters, Chekhov Digital, Tolstoy Digital, and Pushkin Digital. The author analyzed these platforms to reveal the methods and ideology behind this new format. The everyday practice of social networks and messengers serves as a cognitive strategy: the literary heritage undergoes fragmentation, tagging, clustering, and visualization. Semantic editions and network communication share the following features. Information is fragmented and classified by tagging for subsequent clustering. The links are horizontal, e. g., co-occurrence graphs, contact networks, etc. Quantitative data provide qualitative conclusions, e. g., frequencies of mention for toponyms and anthroponyms. Expert comments and hypertext merge into a polyphony.