M. Gorky’s journalistic cycle “Cursory notes” through the prism of content analysis

The purpose of the work is to study the cycle of Maxim Gorky’s essays “Cursory notes” by means of a computer package for content analysis “Lekta”. Content analysis is a method of systematic quantitative analysis of large volumes of textual information, including those applicable to works of a journalistic nature. The application of the method to Gorky journalism was experimental in nature and was aimed at exploring the possibilities of the method. The main result of the research was the systematization of key cultural, philosophical and other concepts found in the cycle, as well as the identification of the main array of semantic nuances and parallels characteristic of the author’s style in the context of the problems and prospects of social development of Russia at the end of the 19th century. As a result of the factor analysis it was possible to combine the essays of the cycle into several thematic groups, as well as to identify cross cutting motives that combine essays of different issues and express the writer’s attitude to modern realities and historical contexts. The most significant of the thematic groups are devoted to the development of domestic industry, the representation of various regions of Russia at the exhibition, the problem of national mentality, as well as discussions about contemporary art. The analysis of the dictionary of the cycle made it possible to supplement observations on the writer’s style and to show in a reasoned way how, by lexical means, the end to end motives of disparate essays form an integral image of the exhibition, inscr