The problems of the preparation of a historical (“real”) commentary (based on Dostoevsky's novel “The idiot”)

The article is devoted to theoretical and practical issues that emerge while preparing the historical (“real”) commentary on Dostoevsky's writings. The work studies traditional and modern approaches to commenting of literary texts, provides variants of the classification of linguistic commentaries of different types, and identifies types that are relevant to the study of Dostoevsky's works. In the article, as exemplified in Dostoevsky's novel “The Idiot” (its handwritten and printed texts), the question of the tasks, subject, content and limits of a historical (“real”) commentary on literary texts is examined. The problem of the word interpretation is analyzed taking into account the semantic context. The article analyzes the issues of commenting the names of real historical persons and characters, allusions to historical ideas, biblical quotes, literary intertexts, including auto-reminiscences. As a result of the accomplished analysis, the historical (“real”) commentary on Dostoevsky's novel “The Idiot” was refined, clarified and supplemented.