Problems and prospects of electronic scientific publishing "The Tale of Bygone Years"

Andreycheva Marianna Yur'evna ORCID: 0000-0001-6415-7347 PhD in History senior researcher at the Center for Source Studies of Russian History, Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences 19 Dmitry Ulyanov str., Moscow, 117292, Russia anuta.andr@gmail.com

Introduction

History knows several turning points in the development of media. The initial stage is the time of the formation of handwritten book publishing, when over time the traditions of creating manuscripts and their replication developed. They were replaced by printed publications that incorporated the most stable forms of handwritten tradition design and initiated new archaeological rules of publication. At the moment, we can say about a fairly stable set of requirements applied to printed publications of various types of texts, depending on their informational purposes (popular, popular science or scientific).

In the new digital age, new technological tools are taking publishing to a completely different level. To date, we already have extensive experience in electronic publications, showing a variety of ways to represent texts: from the creation of electronic libraries and archives to thematic historical-oriented resources, including a highly specialized selection of documents.

The development of methods of computer representation of texts, as well as other types of information sources, is within the competence of Digital Humanities, a field engaged in the development of digital and information and communication technologies in the field of humanities.

In the field of "Digital Humanities", the term "electronic publication" has already been established and is interpreted quite widely: This is the name given to digitized printed publications posted on the WEB, electronic texts of sources presented on thematic historical-oriented resources, or electronic articles posted in online periodicals. That is, we are talking about electronic publications of sources and research created according to certain rules of editorial and publishing processing ^{[1, p. 4]}. However, as practice shows, these rules are based on the requirements formulated for publications on printed media ^[2]. That is, the electronic publishing space still lives by the rules of an alternative paper medium. In itself, this is not bad, but it is not good either. First of all, this clearly shows the continuity of publishing traditions, but, on the other hand, inertia and unwillingness to use new technological opportunities to improve the quality and effectiveness of such publications. Nevertheless, as the researchers note ^{[3, p. 158],[4, p. 23]}, publications of sources using modern technologies can reveal almost inexhaustible possibilities to scientists. Firstly, unlike printed media, the web space allows you to place an unlimited number of documents in it. Secondly, the hypertext link system allows you to link text units (words, phrases, large fragments of text) with each other, with visual and graphic images, forming a semantic network that significantly expands the possibilities of both research operations and, as a result, scientific interpretations.

Within the framework of Digital humanities, there is a sub-branch of Digital history ^[5-9] related to the use of digital tools and services in the tasks of digitization, presentation and visualization of historical sources and aimed at solving the problems of digital public history.

An unconditional feature of the current situation in the development of Digital History, researchers note the predominance of the interests of popularization of information over the technological side of this process, which implies the improvement of the electronic tools of such publications ^{[3, p. 188]}.

Nevertheless, the need to develop electronic scientific publications of sources and create electronic standards based on them has been discussed more than once by researchers ^{[10],[11, pp. 144-146, 149],[12, pp. 155-156],[13, p. 160],[3, p. 159]} working within the framework of historical informatics, engaged in the implementation of computer technologies in solving problems of source studies. However, no global step in this direction has been taken, and the stated attempts have been unsuccessful, since in fact they have degenerated into testing electronic techniques in their own highly specialized interests. As an example, such projects dedicated to the electronic publication of sources as "Manuscript" ^[14] and "Source" can be cited. The first historical-oriented resource was developed by the staff of Udmurt State University and represents an impressive collection of ancient Russian manuscripts. However, the authors of the "Manuscript" chose the creation of electronic tools for linguistic research of ancient Russian texts as their main goal, leaving the question of their effective and convenient representation on the periphery of their interests. Approximately the same result was reached by the developers of the resource "Source" (a project of Petrozavodsk State University), which was based on a complex of historical sources "Moscowitica–Ruthenica" (end of the XII century – beginning of the XVIII century) about the relations of Riga, Livonia, the Hansa and individual German cities with ancient Russian lands and a collection of documents on the history of Dinaburg the middle of the XVII century . The authors of the resource tried to demonstrate the benefits of a tree-like organization of information for source studies (using the example of an XML tree implemented in the TEI standard), which allows using multi-level text markup to carry out a formulary analysis of a set of documents. Unfortunately, the result of the activity of Petrozavodsk historians is not available on the Internet, and it can only be found in the form of a description set out in the monograph ^[4] and a review of it ^[15].

The problem here, apparently, is that researchers still cannot define the boundaries between the tasks of Digital History and historical informatics: preparing a technologically perfect representation of the source information and creating computer tools for analyzing this information.

The lack of adequate implementation of initiatives in this direction is also explained by the conservatism of historians and their inability to work with IT technologies. Nevertheless, foreign and domestic experience in creating scientific electronic publications of sources allows us to approach the problem in a meaningful way and, summarizing the results already available at this stage, proceed to the development of a model for electronic scientific publication of sources. It is important to note that the creation of such an electronic model should be based on the archeographic rules of printing, transformed into new technologically convenient forms. The development of the model also cannot be abstract, because, as is known, archaeography has always been at the service of source studies, which explores the specifics of certain sources. And the originality of the latter has always had a decisive influence on the practice of their representation. Hence, it seems necessary to develop a model by choosing a narrative monument as a basis, which, on the one hand, will best demonstrate the features of a whole range of sources, and on the other hand, it is well studied enough to show by its example a detailed study of the source study capabilities of the electronic publication sample being created.

Such a monument can be the Tale of Bygone Years (hereinafter — PVL) — an essay whose importance for the history of the Fatherland is difficult to overestimate, since it is the main source telling about the ancient past of our country for the first three centuries of its history (from the IX to the beginning of the XII century). The PVL was included in a number of chronicle collections, which corresponds to the above—stated requirement of representing a set of sources, in this case, the chronicle. The chronicle has been well studied from a source and textual point of view and has been repeatedly printed in accordance with the archaeographic rules of scientific publication ^[16-20]. However, in the new digital age, it became obvious that the pace of studying the monument (accumulation of new interpretations, discovery of new sources of the chronicle text, development of textual stems) significantly outstrips the pace of the appearance of its new commented editions. Hence, there is an urgent need to publish this text (in all its lists and translations) in a new digital format, which would help to present all the accumulated information about the monument in the most complete and at the same time convenient and visual form — its archeographic, source studies and textual study. It is also important to note that the development of an electronic model in this case will make it possible to make the publication of the Tale of Bygone Years not completed, but open, that is, it will be possible to replenish it over and over again with new data on the history of the chronicle text.

The basis of such a publication should be the hypertext of the monument, that is, a text that includes a system of internal hyperlinks that allow you to visually represent its lists, translations and original handwritten appearance, its stratification in textual stems, as well as textual and semantic intersections with other monuments of the studied era. Thus, the electronic scientific publication of the Tale of Bygone Years should become a kind of database of all the achievements of scientific research of this monument.

What could serve as an example for the development of this model? The experience of representing one of the most ancient hyperlinked texts — the Bible. It was the biblical text, whose printed publications already included a standard system of mutual references to its various chapters and verses, that served as a kind of forerunner for electronic hypertext ^{[21],[22, p. 28],[23, p. 40]}. Currently, the Internet presents a rich variety of resources (online sites, mobile applications) dedicated to the Bible [24-26, etc.]. Technological solutions embodied in their development can become a starting point for creating a model of electronic scientific publication of the PVL.

You can also refer to the experience of electronic publications of sources in Russia and abroad. For example, publications of Qumran manuscripts ^[27], where the translation of the text is directly connected by markup with a fragment of the manuscript (that is, the manuscript has a primary character of representation in the resource, and the translation to it is secondary). A positive example of showing the source is undoubtedly the Russian resources dedicated to birch bark letters ^[28] and the publication of manuscripts on the website of the Russian National Library ^[30]. The basis of the first resource was a database that included photographs of birch bark letters, their pro-Russian, ancient Russian texts, translations into modern Russian and basic information about the documents. It was part of a more extensive information system containing complete archaeological information about documents and a text corpus with morphological markings, in addition, its linguistic component was included in the National Corpus of the Russian Language ^[29]. The second above-mentioned resource, implemented by the Russian National Library, represents a replenished database of ancient Russian manuscripts, including digital copies of monuments connected with their transliterated text. The publication of manuscripts is accompanied by archaeographic and codicological descriptions and a multi-level search system.

Thus, after developing a working model, it can be tested on other types of sources. A full-fledged result of the work on the project can be the creation of a designer of electronic publications of various levels (scientific, popular science, etc.).

The development of a model for electronic scientific publication of sources will solve the following tasks:

1. Present the source in all the variety of its lists and translations in a convenient format for comparison;

2. Create an updated database of scientific and critical comments on the text of the Tale of Bygone Years;

3. Visually display the stratification of the text, according to the latest data from the textual study of the monument;

4. To develop an optimal search system for the text of the Tale of Bygone Years;

5. To create a database of historiography devoted to the study of the Tale of Bygone years.

6. Prepare the basis for creating models of electronic publications of other types of sources;

7.     Identify technological solutions that will allow you to create elements of an electronic publication designer in the future.

The electronic scientific publication of the PVL should give impetus to new research on the monument. And for this, it is fundamentally important that the model of electronic scientific publication is not technologically overloaded and has an accessible interface, so that any interested user (from a student to a professional historian) can access it.

The electronic scientific publication of the Tale of Bygone Years will appear in the form of an open semantic network, the content of which will be updated as the monument is further studied. An indexed electronic scientific journal can be created on its basis, in which works devoted to the study of PVL will be published. As a result, the electronic scientific publication of the Tale of Bygone Years is designed to become a full-fledged scientific platform that will bring the study of the chronicle text to a new research and technological level.

Description of the PVL electronic scientific publication model

The general structure of the electronic scientific publication of the PVL should include the following basic sections:

1. The main page;

2. Lists and translations;

3. Comments;

4. Sources;

5. Textology;

6. Historiography.

The main page, according to the tradition that has already developed for websites, should reflect the basic information about the published monument (Fig. 1). It will also reflect the main sections of the portal.

Fig. 1. The main page.

The first of them, "Lists and Translations" (Fig. 2-3), should contain a normalized and phototypic reproduction of the texts of the Tale of Bygone Years according to the main handwritten lists: Lavrentievskaya, Radzivilovskaya, Moscow Academic Chronicles, Ipatievskaya and its Khlebnikov list, as well as the lost Trinity Chronicle (in the reconstruction of M. D. Priselkov ^[31]), parallel to the places of the Novgorod I Chronicle of the younger Izvod (includes the hypothetical Initial Code of the 1090s) and the Chronicler Pereyaslavl of Suzdal.

Fig. 2. Drop-down window of the "Lists and translations" section

Fig. 3. The section "Lists and translations". The mode of viewing the normalized text of the chronicle in comparison with the phototypic image of the manuscript

The normalized text of these manuscripts can be taken from their printed edition in the Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles. Phototypic reproduction of the text should be an image of the manuscript sheets in a vector format that allows scaling without loss of image quality during display.

Viewing normalized and phototypically reproduced texts should be conducted in parallel windows. The display of texts in windows can be in synchronous mode or in independent viewing mode.

In the same section, a "Compare" mode should be provided (Fig. 4-5), which makes it possible to compare several lists of PVL in the form of their normalized texts, as well as correlate them with modern translations into Russian ^[31] and foreign languages.

Fig. 4. The section "Lists and translations". Selecting texts to match

Fig. 5. The section "Lists and translations". Viewing collated lists of chronicles

This option is designed to make it easier for both novice researchers of domestic media studies and scientists from abroad to work with the source. It should also be noted that the last time the translation of the PVL into Russian was carried out in 1997 by O. V. Tvorogov ^[20], and the need to update it has long been overdue. Therefore, it would be very timely to make the necessary adjustments to the Russian translation of the chronicle within the framework of this project.

Structuring the text for the purpose of further hyperlink markup is of paramount importance for hypertext representation. Normalized chronicle texts should serve as the basis for creating a hypertext of the PVL. The biblical text, divided into chapters and verses, can serve as a sample for markup here. As you know, initially the biblical texts were continuous, but over time, primarily for liturgical purposes and in order to facilitate the study of the text, they were divided into large and smaller parts. Chapters are based on the principle of complete semantic segments, and poems are in the form of a complete expression (a structural phrase or a unit of meaning). However, a number of modern electronic models for publishing the biblical text suggest that the division into lexemes should also be included in this markup of the text ^[25].

Thus, the chronicle text can be marked up on three levels for successful orientation: conditional levels — tokens (level 1) and poems (level 2) and authentic — weather articles (level 3).

Level 1 markup can be designed in the form of pop-up windows with linguistic data (needed for linguistic commentary).

The level 2 markup should be numbered, since it will be the search unit when comparing the lists of PVL. You can consider several options for level 2 markup. This is either a highlighted complete expression (sentence) of the normalized text, or a markup along the lines of the manuscript selected as the general one. This version of the markup for comparing the manuscripts of the chronicle was proposed by D. Ostrovsky, who carried out the printed edition of the PVL according to five handwritten lists ^[32]. In it, the researcher, refusing to give discrepancies in the lists, published the chronicle text in full, placing under the first line of the Laurentian list the corresponding line of the Trinity list, under it the line of Radzivilovsky and so on. To conditionally divide the text into lines. Ostrovsky used the edition of the Laurentian List by E. F. Karsky ^[33], indicating when quoting the PVL in digits before the comma — the page, and in digits after the comma — the line in the specified publication.

Thus, the experience of publishing D. Ostrovsky can be taken into account when creating a level 2 markup, which will be designed to link lists of manuscripts using hyperlinks in order to show their discrepancies. The same markup can be used to highlight the specified fragments of the display in the phototypic reproduction of the text (an example of such markup can be seen on the site with Qumran manuscripts) ^[27].

As for the level 3 markup (according to weather articles), it will be primarily important for the implementation of an in-text search. To do this, the search engine will have to be built in such a way as to make it possible to search in the normalized text for both individual words (level 1 markup), poems (or lines) (level 2 markup), and weather articles (level 3 markup), which in themselves are significant objects of source analysis.

On the "Lists and Translations" page, in the "Description" subsection, paleographic and codicological descriptions and source data on the origin of the published manuscripts will also be placed. An advanced search system should also be presented here, which will allow searching inside the source according to various linguistic parameters.

Thus, the display of the PVL in this section should provide the researcher with ample opportunities for a multidimensional analysis of the chronicle text, making it as convenient and effective as possible from a technological point of view.

Let's take a closer look at the "Comments" mode presented in the "Lists and translations" section. This part of the electronic scientific publication is extremely important for the researcher, since it is designed to reflect a full-fledged database of linguistic and source studies of the Tale of Bygone Years. As mentioned above, the linguistic commentary will accompany the text of the chronicle at the level of individual lexemes (we are talking about level 1 markup) and look like pop-ups with linguistic explanatory and translational explanations (Fig. 6). The basis for the latter will be current research in the field of modern study of the Old Russian language (dictionaries, data from the National Corpus Russian language, etc.).

Fig. 6. The section "Lists and translations". The "Comments" mode. Viewing the token value

As for the source commentary, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of this section, since for the first and, unfortunately, the last time a generalized assessment of the sources that formed the basis of the PVL was given almost a hundred years ago by A. A. Shakhmatov in his fundamental work "The Tale of Bygone Years and its Sources" ^[34]. After a long period of time, summing up the results of the source study of the chronicle text was included in the form of comments in the translations of the PVL by D. S. Likhachev ^[35] and O. V. Tvorogov ^[36]. Nevertheless, due to the intensive study of the monument over the past decades, a large amount of new knowledge about the sources of PVL has accumulated. It mainly presents source studies related to individual subjects of the chronicle, and is scattered in the mass of Russian and foreign periodicals. Its collection into a special source database should be the primary task of the "Comments" text viewing mode.

It is assumed that in this mode, in the normalized texts of the chronicle lists at the level of markup level 2 (verses), it will be possible to show the results of studying the sources of a particular fragment of the chronicle (Fig. 7-8).

Fig. 7. The section "Lists and translations". The "Comments" mode. Viewing the New Testament parallels of the phrase "temporary letters"

Fig. 8. The section "Lists and translations". The "Comments" mode. Viewing the parallels of the phrase "temporary letters" in the Explanatory Gallery

The display will include bringing textual and semantic parallels from other sources to each fragment of the chronicle and displaying information about research works (Fig. 9), in which these parallels were disclosed and analyzed.

Fig. 9. The section "Lists and translations". The "Comments" mode. Viewing the historiography dedicated to the title of the Tale of Bygone Years

Moreover, in the "Comments" mode, the researcher will have the opportunity to view not only the parallels to the chronicle text, but also go to the full-text version of the source from which the chronicler borrowed a fragment. This opportunity can be provided when it comes to such important monuments for the formation of the chronicle as the texts of Holy Scripture, the Chronicle of George Amartol, Nikiforov chronicler soon, the Life of Basil the New, the Word of Methodius of Patara, the Word about the executions of God and others. When switching to the full-text version of the borrowed source, the researcher will be able to get acquainted with the commentary on its origin and existence in Russia, as well as with the results of studying its intersections with the chronicle.

If the text of the chronicle has repeated intersections with one or another source, the user of an electronic scientific publication will have the opportunity to display only these intersections on the screen (Fig. 10). This option will allow you to get a full idea at what stage and in what form the compilers of the chronicle code attracted this or that monument during its formation.

Fig. 10. The section "Lists and translations". "Comments"/"Show quotes" mode

Thus, the "Comments" viewing mode is designed to accumulate the fullness of the achieved knowledge about the sources of the Tale of Bygone years, becoming a periodically updated database of source data. Its technological capabilities should provide the researcher with the necessary tools for further analysis of the chronicle for its sources and help to form new generalized conclusions in this regard.

The next section, "Sources" (Fig. 11), will allow you to get acquainted in detail with the available online publications of PVL sources, starting with biblical texts and ending with apocryphal literature.

Fig. 11. The "Sources" section

This section should be followed by the mode of viewing reconstructed PVL texts — the section "Textual analysis" (Fig. 12).

Fig. 12. Section "Textual analysis"

It should be noted that the general textology of the PVL, unlike its source studies, is the most developed area of chronicle research. The PVL is a heterogeneous text that has been formed in several stages and has absorbed a lot of data from various sources. All this makes studying the history of its creation difficult and painstaking work. The foundations of her textual research were laid at the beginning of the XX century in the works of A. A. Shakhmatov ^[37] and V. M. Istrina ^[38-39]. Thanks to their endeavors, the textology of the PVL has been steadily developing throughout time up to the present. During this period, the methodological base of the textual research of the PVL was comprehensively developed and on its basis many stems were developed schematically representing the development of the chronicle text.

Information about this facet of the PVL research should be provided by the specified section of the electronic scientific publication. The basis for the section "Textual analysis" should be the author's stems and corresponding reconstructions of the text of the PVL, as well as a database of textual data.

There are about ten working stems [37-50, etc.], developed by researchers with varying degrees of validity. It would be advisable to represent each stem graphically so that any part of it can be expanded into a fragment of a normalized chronicle text, given within the boundaries specified by the creator of the scheme. In the expanded text, fragments related to certain stem windows should be marked with special highlights (a color scheme is proposed in Fig. 12) and provided with appropriate background information.

In the same section, a database on the textual research of the Tale of Bygone Years should be presented, which will include a digital library of works devoted to this topic. The fact is that there are particularly acute problem areas in the study of the textology of PVL, to which the attention of researchers is still focused. These are questions about the relationship between the PVL and the so-called Initial Code of the 1090s (reflected in the Novgorod I Chronicle of the younger izvod) ^{[51, p. 96]} [52-53, etc.], about the nature of borrowings in the chronicle from the Chronicle of George Amartol ^[54], about the secondary nature of the Explanatory Palea in relation to the PVL [55-57, etc.], as well as the authorship of the codes [58-60, etc.], which formed the basis of the latter, etc. The researcher will be able to find full-fledged information about the latest achievements in the study of these highly specialized textual issues in the textual database.

Thus, the section "Textual Studies" should schematically and meaningfully present the completeness of information about the textual study of the monument and thereby help modern textual scholars in mastering the developments carried out by their predecessors, as well as in developing new knowledge about the history of the creation of the text of the Tale of Bygone Years.

The next section "Historiography" (Fig. 13) is intended to include an updated database of publications devoted to the study of the Tale of Bygone Years. It should provide an opportunity to view bibliographic data both in alphabetical order (by authors) and in thematic order, allowing the search for works in accordance with thematic queries. It is also necessary to ensure that, if possible, each bibliographic description is accompanied by a digitized text of the publication or a link to a resource where the desired research could be found online.

Fig. 13. Section "Historiography"

The ongoing publication of the bibliography of works on Ancient Russian literature (which began to be published in 1961) can serve as a model for this section. It published information on domestic medieval studies in several stages, starting in 1917 ^[61]. The last volume of the bibliography was completed in 2002, and published in 2009. In fact, there is currently no bibliographic list of works that would reflect the results of medieval studies on the history of Russia over the last twenty years. The database of historiographical data of the electronic scientific publication of the Tale of Bygone Years in terms of modern research could become the basis for the continuation of the publication of the "Bibliography of works on Ancient Russian literature" only in electronic form.

The functionality of the Historiography section can also be expanded by including an indexed scientific electronic journal that will publish research on the history of Ancient Russia. Thus, when working with the electronic scientific publication PVL, the medievalist will have additional motivation to bring the results of his research to his colleagues and a wide range of readers.

Of course, the description of the electronic scientific publication model presented in this paper is only a general theoretical outline of its technical capabilities. During the implementation of the project, it is assumed that a number of proposed solutions will be improved, and some will have to be abandoned for the reason that there are more effective methods of displaying information.

The detailed elaboration of the model, its creation and permanent updating should be carried out with the involvement of competent specialists: historians, philologists and IT professionals who will be part of the editorial team of the publication. In order to adequately set tasks and effectively solve them, it is necessary that the group's employees take advanced training courses, during which specialists in the humanitarian field could get acquainted with the latest achievements of IT technologies, and programmers received information about the historical source on the basis of which an electronic scientific publication model will be developed. In this way, it will be possible to bridge the information gap between the humanitarian who publishes the source and the programmer who creates the technical conditions for publication.

It is important to understand that electronic publishing is only at the beginning of the path and its success depends on the correct designation of primary and secondary (subsidiary) goals. The main purpose of electronic scientific publication of sources should be an archaeographically and conventionally perfect representation of the content of the source, allowing any novice historian or professional to take advantage of its technical capabilities. Secondary goals include the creation of new tools for source studies or linguistic analysis of the source, which will help the specialist to answer his narrow research needs. The development of such tools is very important, but their adequate implementation is possible only when the main goal of creating an electronic scientific publication model is achieved.