Memorable Book of Peter Ivanov. The 1870s Generation as an Interpretative Community
The article analyzes the reading practices of the seminarian Peter Ivanov xed in his dairy. The author considers Ivanov as a member of the 1870s generation for whom reading was one of the criteria for self-identi cation. Based on S. Fish’s interpretive community concept, the article reconstructs the rules adopted among radical youth for how to read literature. Comparing these rules with Ivanov’s individual reading practices challenges the picture we know from the records in autobiographical narratives which presume the deep assimilation of the canonical texts by young members of the populists movement. Despite the fact that Ivanov’s reading experience was determined by existing conventions, his diary shows a different picture of a chaotic and super cial reading of the canonical texts of self-development circles. The demand of the authority or the achievements of “real science” was realized through a random selection of articles from democratic journals and popular scienti c literature. Attempts to study scienti c texts independently ran into a dearth of knowledge which led to excuses about the lack of time for a detailed acquaintance with the book or to confessions of misunderstanding of what was read. As a result, Ivanov’s worldview was based on second-tier literature to which he reacted more emotionally than rationally, empathizing with the poor and oppressed or admiring the heroes of a coming-of-age stories. Ivanov was a typical reader of the 1870s who preferred familiarization to detaled reading but at the same time was capable to recognize and assimilate social criticism from ction.