Private Diary as a Chamber Document: Discourse Peculiarities

The diary is presented as a type of a chamber document that is referred to a type of auto-communication, communication limited to one person or a small group of people. The diary is viewed as a fixation of impressions and ideas and a source of information about its writer. It is obvious that the completed diary can be viewed as a document, an evidence of something. The possibilities of studying the diary in synchronic and diachronic, real and potential aspects are demonstrated from the perspective of the writer and the reader. It is stated that in the real dimension the diary does not have limitation, completeness or integrity, it possesses these attributes in potential measurement because its writer does not know how the events can unfold. However, the diary has a certain plot for its reader. The author reveals such signs of the diary as literary rawness, unpreparedness, and iconicity, defines its main functions: accumulative, cognitive-generating, compensatory, regulating. The article explains that the objectivity of the diary entry is expressed in the fact that it conveys the writer's way of thinking and feeling with documentary accuracy, but the writer's point of view is not an objective interpretation of anything. The peculiarity of the setting (space and timeline) in the diary is in its linearity, which determines the specificity of the diary division on the chronological principle. Leo Tolstoy's diary is of a particular interest for the study of chamber documents.