The Stone of the Iron Road – A Forgotten Legacy

Abstract

While the twenty-first century is moving into its third decade and the whistle of the steam locomotive rumbles with the longing of the youth of Generation X into final oblivion, except for rare performances of railway romance or nostalgia, exclusively commercial impulses, stone, as an omitted element of the industrial revolution, deserves a specific review. The aim of the paper is to point out the inevitable changes initiated by new technologies and the neoliberal concept. Historical method, descriptive analysis and secondary sources are used in the paper. The locomotive brought together more people than all the poets, writers, philosophers of earlier centuries, it “carries the industrial revolution”, gets its place of honor, often synonymous with economic progress locomotion mobile; in the case of the poet, he even breathes, breathes tensely, as if he has been waiting for a long time to leave, he often exudes brilliance even when he stops (standing) still. At the same time, the stone that carries it, without which there can be neither it, nor its railway, industry, economy, world, neoliberal paradigm... a complete two centuries carries an ordinary, non-sacred, almost unsightly, contemporary stone, which is like Andrić's symbolism the stone in the bridge, instead of someone else, sacrificed himself here.