Linguistic Hypertext in Contemporary Literary Discourse of the Mordva

According to the latest census of 2010, Mordvinians make up more than 750,000 of the Russian population. Though Mordvinians are the largest indigenous Finno-Ugric ethnos of Russia, historically, they are scattered over the Russian regions: Penza (54,703), Nizhny Novgorod (19,138), Orenburg (38,682), Samara (65,447), Tatarstan (19,156), Ulyanovsk (38,977), Moscow (17,095), Bashkortostan (20,300), Siberia (65,650), Russian Far East (29,265), as well as the former USSR republics, Ukraine (9,331) and Kazakhstan (8,031) being the SNA countries with the largest Mordvinian populations. In the 1990s, due to the fall of the ‘Iron Curtain’, there was an increase in Mordvinians’ migration to Western countries, mostly to Estonia, Finland, and Latvia. As a result, currently only fewer than one third of Mordvinians (333,112) live in Mordovia Republic, Russia. Thus, the problem of preserving national identity has arisen most acutely with the Mordvinians. Language is one of the major aspects of ethnic self-identification, though in case of Mordvinians, it is most difficult to preserve, under the conditions of Russian's being the official language on the one hand and territorial disintegration of the Mordvinian people on the other. Various solutions have been suggested to the problem of maintaining Mordvinian languages in the diaspora. Particularly, literary texts (poetry, prose, drama) are considered to be very efficient in establishing dialogue between the scattered Mordvinian clusters and the center of Mordvinian culture (Mordovia Republic). Authentic fiction and poetry texts have great potential to compensate for the lack of live communication. In the diaspora, Mordvinians generally are surrounded by non-Mordvinian speakers; they have no native language environment in the territories they inhabit. Thus, there appears to be a good opportunity to slow down the assimilation processes of the Mordvinians, as literary texts help to develop sustainable interest in their native languages.


Literary process of the Mordva: background information
In general, Mordvinians are subdivided into two major ethnic subgroups: 2 the Erzia, who speak the Erzian language, and the Moksha, who speak the Mokshan language. The languages have dialects: the Erzian dialects split into five types and the Mokshan ones into three. The two languages also have separate literary forms. The Erzian literary language is based on the Kozlov-Ardatov dialects (the eastern part of the Mordovia Republic, Russia), while the Mokshan literary language has developed out of the Krasnoslobodsk-Temnikov dialects (the western part of the Mordovia Republic, Russia). The literary Mordvinian languages were developed from the very beginning using the standard Russian Cyrillic alphabet. As the Erzian literary language was created in 1922 and the Mokshan in 1923, both languages only recently acquired their written forms (Feoktistov, 1976). A point should be made that before the October Revolution written sources in Mordvinian languages were mostly connected to religion and aimed at the dissemination of Christianity among the Mordvinians. 3 Thus, the history of Mordvinian literature started in the 1920s with the first publications in periodicals. At that time the key Mordvinian literary magazines were established: Syatko magazine (published in Erzian since 1929) and Moksha magazine (published in Mokshan since 1928). As for non-periodical editions, the first samples of Mordvinian literary works were published either in the form of collections by author groups (e.g., Erzian pyesat, 1924a collection of Erzian plays by T. Vasilyev, E. Okin, and F. Chesnokov), or in the form of editions by individual authors (e.g. Liya kiyava [The Other Way], 1927a collection of short stories by Fyodor Chesnokov). Though the Mordvinian literary process has a relatively short history of about eighty years, the Mokshans and Erzians definitely succeeded in establishing and developing their own literary traditions. This statement can be supported by the fact that there exist samples of Mordvianian texts in all major literary genres: drama (e.g. plays Narodt lemsa and Shin styama by Grigory 2 Apart from the Moksha and the Erzia, two more Mordvinian ethnic subgroups are distinguished: the Shoksha and the Karatays. However, these subgroups developed neither their own literary languages, nor their literary tradition. Consequently, we do not consider them in our study. 3 Other written sources in the Mordvinian languages included grammar books (the first Mokshan grammar was published in 1838, and the first Erzian grammar was published 1839), dictionaries (about 600 Mordvinian words were included into the Comparative Dictionary of Languages and Dialects of the Russian Empire published in 1787 for the first time), and folklore works (first published in 1830). Merkushkin), poetry (e.g. verse novel Poksh ki langso umarina by Nikolay Kutorkin; numerous books of poems by Erzian poet Artur Moro), short story (e.g., collections of short stories, such as Kyazhi syava and Viren vaigyailkht by Vasily Viard), novel (e.g., Nardishe by Ilya Devin), epic novel (e.g., the trilogy Erzian tsyora by the classical Erzian novelist Kuzma Abramov). At present the national literary tradition continues with the names of Erzian poet Alexander Arapov, Erzian novelist Andrey Bryzhinsky, Mokshan playwright Alexander Pudin, etc.
Overall, the literary production of the Mordvinian people has proven to be sustainable and diverse. Though not a long one in terms of global standards, the national literary tradition was founded and developed successfully. In the course of its development, the tradition has revealed its peculiar features at various stages. Referring to the contemporary Mordvinian literary discourse, we should consider hypertextuality as one of its key characteristics.

Hypertextuality Approaches and Concepts
In this paper, we regard the phenomenon of hypertextuality as a type of intertextual relationship. 4 Our study is based on the hypertext conception suggested by the French literary theorist Gérard Genette (1982). In Genette's theory the term 'hypertextuality' is used to refer to the type of relationships between fiction texts only, where one or more texts derive from the initial text by means of direct transformation or imitation. 5 As a result, literary parodies and pastiches emerge. In this respect, he introduced two terms to describe hypertextual relationships. 'Hypotext' is used to refer to the initial literary text, while 'hypertext' means any new literary text derived from the initial one. In this framework, the central hypothesis can be summed up as follows: hypertextuality is a type of semantic interaction between literary texts, resulting in the emergence of new literary text(s) on the base of the initial one. The following example can demonstrate this type of hypertextual relationship. There is a world-famous best-selling fantasy novel Harry Potter by the English author J. K. Rowling. Similarly, there exists Tanya Grottera Russian fantasy novel series by Dmitry Yemets started in 2002. Tanya's story bears a certain resemblance to J. K. Rowling's world-famous Harry Potter. Like Harry, Tanya is an orphan who attends a school for young wizards. In this case, the initial text is Harry Potter (i.e., hypotext) and its literary clone is Tanya Grotter (i.e., hypertext).

4
Genette's theory has been developed both in the framework of linguistics and literature studies. Currently the term 'hypertextuality' is applied to a wider range of phenomena. In terms of literary discourse, another type of hypertextual relationship arises between the initial literary text (hypotext) and the relevant non-literary texts derived (hypertexts). Taking this fact into consideration, the Russian linguist Nikolay Shekhtman has introduced the term 'linguistic hypertext' to refer to the nonliterary texts resulting from this type of interaction. Initially, he included notes to the literary text in the linguistic hypertext phenomenon (Shekhtman, 2005). Certainly there was a point in doing it in order to distinguish between linguistic hypertext and the other types of hypertext that exist, i.e. electronic and literary hypertexts.
A point should be made that the bulk of hypertext studies in linguistics are being carried out in the field of electronic hypertext. 6 According to this approach, hypertext is closely connected to computer technologies, as the term was introduced by the American researcher V. Bush to refer to any text which cannot be printed on a conventional page (Bush, 1945). The concept of 'hypertext' resulted in numerous studies of electronic texts' organization structure, e.g. hyperlink system, electronic dictionary organization, Web-site structures, blog functioning, etc. Recently the Internet, being the main electronic environment, has acquired the status of one of the key notions in the contemporary hypertext studies. Currently the functioning of electronic hypertexts takes place mostly in the World Wide Web, which provides the proper realization of its intertextual correlation potential by means of hyperlinks.
With regard to linguistic (non-electronic) hypertext, this research area is a less-studied one within the framework of contemporary linguistics, while electronic hypertext is the focus of mainstream research. According to this approach, a hardcopy book can be regarded as a hypertextual structure. In fact, any literary text (a story, a novel, a play, etc.) is presented to the reader in the form of a book mostly. Actually, the book is inseparable from a literary text, and from the reader's point of view these two concepts are merged together. However, any hard-copy edition of a literary text usually includes other non-literary texts that can be regarded as linguistic hypertextse.g., notes, introduction, summary, praise, etc. In this framework, therefore, our task involves assessing correctly the variety of Mordvinian linguistic hypertexts and their functioning in contemporary Mordvinian literary discourse. In simple terms, we must be able to figure out the number of linguistic hypertexts used as well as their characteristics. 5

Linguistic hypertext in Mordvinian literary discourse
With these methodological reflections, we proceed to the analysis of relevant practical material. First, we should reveal the growth trend of Mordvinian linguistic hypertexts in recent decades. The earliest evidence of the phenomenon can be traced back to the 1980s. For instance, the first edition of the novel Nardishe [Green Grass] by the classical Mokshan writer Ilya Devin was published in 1969 and contained only the literary text without any linguistic hypertexts. On the contrary, a 1985 edition of the same author included a short summary of the foregoing literary texts.
[This is a collection of Ilya Maximovich Devin's stories and essays. They tell about our recent hard past when the war guns roared. They also tell about our life now that is full of peaceful working days and holidays. The book presents some deep reflections about the man and his life goal.] To compare this edition with the contemporary hard copy books of Mordvinian authors, it is obvious that all of the latter ones are accompanied by some type of linguistic hypertext or other. The various Mordvinian linguistics hypertexts demonstrate a certain constancy, including the following items: summary, introduction, and the author's biographical summary. Let's consider the items more closely.

Summary as a type of linguistic hypertext
At present a summary of the literary text is compulsory in Mordvinian literary hardcopy editions. It consists of three to five sentences (as a rule extended ones) and gives a short account of the forthcoming literary texts (examples 2, 3, 4 below). Practically, it means that the reader, having taken into consideration this type of linguistic hypertext, decides whether to start reading the literary text or not. Some summaries (3) are designed to interest the potential reader and make him read the literary text consequently. Thus, the informative function of linguistic hypertext is 6 to present the topic of the literary text it refers to. As for its pragmatic function, linguistic hypertext is intended to arouse the reader's interest in the literary text.
[There is nothing identical in the world. This statement refers even to twins. The same is true with love. It is unique and original with every person. What colors do the feelings of love have? That is what the author is trying to depict, using the book's characters.]

Introduction as a type of linguistic hypertext
In fact, introduction is the oldest linguistic hypertext existing, as it was originally used in the first typography-printed literary texts. It was the first-printed edition of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. This historical event took place in London in 1483. The book included an introduction written by William Caxton, the editor. In the framework of Mordvinian literary discourse, this type of linguistic hypertext is quite common. Like the summary, it deals with the foregoing literary text but gives more information about it by going into details. Thus it normally includes an extended summary of the text, as well as its complete literary analysis. As for the Mordvinian introduction authors, they can be divided into two groups: 1) editors and critics (non-writers), and 2) other Mordvinian authors (usually the authoritative ones). When stating the introduction's functions in contemporary Mordvinian literary discourse, we should distinguish between the two general ones. On the one hand, it prepares the reader for the perception of the literary text by the interpretative means (preparatory function). On the other hand, it offers him the text assessment by giving professional views and opinions (assessing function).
Referring to the latest tendencies in Mordvinian literary discourse, we should consider the increase of biographical data inclusion into linguistic hypertexts. For example, introductions include more and more facts about the author's life. As for the constant elements, the author's family background and work experience prove to be stable items in contemporary Mordvinian introductions. We may even say that they have become integral parts of them. Traditionally, family background information includes some official facts from the author's biography--e.g., the place of birth, parents' names and occupations (5). Similarly, the introduction usually includes information about the author's education level, his workplaces in chronological order, and his literary career pursuit (6). On the other hand, the 8 introduction may give the potential reader a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the author in a way, by presenting some moments from his private life such as his childhood dreams and wishes. Consequently, the reader can better understand the author's personality and imagine how he felt at certain periods of his life (7).
[She worked as a prose editor in the Mordovian Publishing House (1973). Then she was the executive secretary of the Moksha journal   (Mishanina, 2002, 5)

Conclusion
To sum up our abovementioned considerations, as well as the potential of the examples demonstrated, we conclude that the role of linguistic hypertext in Mordvinian literary discourse is increasingly important at present, when compared with the situation in the 1970s and 1980s. Currently, there exist more types of linguistic hypertext functioning actively in the framework of contemporary Mordvinian literary production. In this connection we should point out a considerable growth of personal information included in linguistic hypertexts. This implies that readers are really interested in the author as a real person. This fact reflects the anthropocentric paradigm in action, resulting in the humanization of modern society. In our opinion this tendency in Mordvinian literary discourse benefits the preservation of Mordvinian languages and cultural identity. The population settlement pattern of the Mordva makes authentic literary texts a good means of keeping in touch with Mordvinian diasporas around Russia and abroad. Linguistic hypertexts (introductions, summaries, biographical summaries) enhance this process by identifying the author and book in the context of the Mordvinian world. Consequently, the reader starts seeing the author as a real-life Mordvinian native-speaker and has an opportunity to get immersed in the Mokshan or Erzian language even from a great distance.