HSE Publishing House

Utopia and utopian consciousness have long been among the central themes of political debate and artistic practices. Ivan Boldyrev's book is devoted to Ernst Bloch (1885-1977), a German thinker who greatly contributed to the special philosophical and historical status of this subject and was able to bring together Marxist activism, eschatological metaphysics, and avant-garde art under the Utopian banner.  The book describes Bloch's intellectual evolution and his complex and ambiguous relationships with the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century– Georg Lukacs, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor Adorno. The 'polemic totality' of these relationships helps the paradoxical logic of utopian messianism to be understood.