Primary Text Distortions in Modern Archeographic Publications in Art History: Evidence From Articles by Mikhail Gnesin

Abstract

Numerous recent publications of materials from Mikhail Gnesin's journalistic legacy that date back to the 1910s reveal a new page in creative activities by this outstanding musician. At the same time, annoying errors and misprints in archeographic publications (note that it applies to materials published at that time, not to handwritten ones) do not allow for a high-quality comprehensive historical and theoretical analysis of the text of these articles. A significant change in the original author's text often results in a direct meaning distortion. In this view, we have identified a few deformity groups. First of all, these are omissions of individual words, phrases, and even sentences in general. A number of alterations occur due to incorrect endings reproduction. Merging a number of paragraphs into a single one violates the article structure and its logics. There is also a mere "conjecturing" of impaired author's text, even in cases when it can be restored from other sources.