The phenomenon of railway construction as the greatest geopolitical and media factor of the modern era

Kasparov Igor Viktorovich, Nagornov Evgeniy Aleksandrovich

The article deals with the medialogical component of the cultural phenomenon of railway transport in its historical aspect in relation to the modern era. The focus is on the phenomenon of the development of railway traffic at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. The authors believe that railways as a media were the most important part of the picture of the world of the modern era and an integral part of its cultural representation. In the course of the study, it is proved that the development of railway transport was predetermined by all the previous development of Western civilization, especially its written culture. According to the authors, railways played a large role in the cultural translation of Modernity to other peoples and civilizations and were an important part of the production of "modernity". Railways are considered as mechanical means of communication, carrying out within the framework of Western civilization, according to the concept of M. McLuhan, a technological "explosion in the outside". As a result, according to the authors, these technologies belong to the centralist means of communication (centralism) such as, for example, the wheel or the road. This allows us to consider the railways as a continuation of the ancient "domodern" imperial projects, which found their embodiment in the modern era. Railways are also presented in the work as one of the "great equalizers" of modernity, along with other media that destroyed the usual oppositions that created the "domodern" world.

Keywords:railways, modern, media, representation, means of communication.