The dimensional outlook levels of the writer N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky

In the present article the author analyzes the role of images in the writer’s consciousness. A writer, possessing extensive travel experience and comparative perception of “his” / “her” and “someone else’s” concepts and ideas, will look like a much more trustworthy and objective descriptor of domestic spaces and life realities. The railway trips of the engineer and writer Nikolai Georgievich Garin-Mikhailovsky have produced an impact on the dimensional impressions and his work. The author’s dimensional experience is reflected via the travel sketches “Volynia Pictures”, “Drawing from Nature with a Pencil. Across the Western Siberia”, “Across Korea, Manchuria and Liaotung Peninsula”, “Through the Window of the Wagon”, “Around the World”. Such literary images constitute a unique metageography – a set of subjective images of the surrounding spaces. The concept “road” and its intertwining symbolic meanings has acquired special significance for N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky. The above-mentioned influence may be interpreted due to the participation of engineer Mikhailovsky in the implementation of huge transport projects. In addition to its purely utilitarian meaning, the road in the consciousness of the Russian person has acquired a broader semantic increment. N. Garin-Mikhailovsky’s consciousness has not been limited to the provincial theme, he has also been interested in the problems of the civilization development, the opportunities and challenges of the modern technical era, events and processes referring to the social history. Being in a county town or in the Volga Region village, he has always felt that he belonged to a bigger world. The sketch “Around the World” is notable in this case, reflecting the impressions of a round-the-world trip made in 1898. The civilizational, social and psychological aspects of the author’s reflections are of great relevance and significance.