Die Verflüssigung des Realismus

Abstract

Using Dmitrii Mamin-Sibiriak’s novel Chleb (Grain, 1895) and Aleksandr Serafimovič’s narration Peski (Sand, 1908) as exemplary texts, this paper discusses how the mill becomes a central figure of reflection of catastrophic ecological and economic transformations in the Russian empire at the turn of the century. These transformations are conceptually condensed in the term “liquefaction”, which Zygmunt Bauman famously defined as the “key metaphor of modernity”. In motifs and metaphors of the liquid, I argue, economic and ecological logics intertwine, leading not only to a new spatial but also to a new temporal and social order of society.