THE WRINKLES AND TOYS OF WALTER BENJAMIN: "THE MOSCOW DAIRY" AS A METHOD APPRAISAL

This paper considers Walter Benjamin's The Moscow Diary as a unique testament to the particular historical and biographical context for the development of the methodology of socially critical research that made Benjamin one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. This methodology allows us to draw analogies between the most diverse spheres of experience-from erotica to politics, from science to poetry-because only in abstraction do they exist in isolation. The task of the thinker is to fix them in the unity of the "dialectical image," which makes it not only possible to see the ambiguity of the phenomenon or situation, but also reveals the real possibility of resisting the tendencies to homogenize the experience of existence. The life of post-revolutionary Moscow contributed, in no small way, to the formation of Benjamin's unique way of seeing the world, with its special attention to the fundamental "stops" of thought, no less important than thought's movements. It is hard not to see the similarity between the wrinkles on the face of a beloved woman, frost on the windows of Moscow's trams, the disappearance of handmade toys in Moscow stores and, for example, barricades and trenches on the boulevards of Paris in the era of the Commune. Together they form that constellation (or collection) of material moments that enable the living to counter the deadly forces of History and Progress with the messianic hope for happiness. Benjamin's stay in Moscow, which initially pursued "big" goals (love, work, politics), is increasingly confronted with the "dampening" of these initial intentions as it delves deeper into the material. But due to this, the material itself "crystallizes into a monad," and is experienced in its radical historicity.