Railway as a Way of (Non)Being in the World: Based on the Collection of Travel Essays "Empty Trains 2022" by Dmitry Danilov

Abstract

This article analyzes the railway motif and its role in the collection of travel essays by contemporary Russian writer Dmitry Danilov. To deepen this reflection, the author also examines Danilov’s other autofictional texts: 146 Hours and Sit and Watch. The research employs terminological and methodological tools developed within the framework of humanities studies on space and literary railway discourse. The analysis considers key elements of the „railway text,” such as the train, its movement, railway stations, and the surrounding infrastructure. Furthermore, the article examines how Danilov portrays railway workers and passengers, including the book’s protagonist. In constructing the auto-narrative, the writer anthropomorphizes technology, employs intertextual references, the poetics of the fragment, and other postmodern literary devices. Trains are presented in a positive light; they possess a complex typology and structure, play a significant role in the context of regional identity, and serve as an individual refuge, an observation point, and a site of memory (lieu de mémoire). Ultimately, the railway emerges as an effective form of therapy and escapism—a means of coping with grief and loss while communing with emptiness.