Walter Benjamin: Moscow Diary (1980–) [EN, ES]

The life of the German-Jewish literary critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) is a veritable allegory of the life of letters in the twentieth century. Benjamin’s intellectual odyssey culminated in his death by suicide on the Franco-Spanish border, pursued by the Nazis, but long before he had traveled to the Soviet Union. His stunning account of that journey is unique among Benjamin’s writings for the frank, merciless way he struggles with his motives and conscience.

Perhaps the primary reason for his trip was his affection for Asja Lacis, a Latvian Bolshevik whom he had first met in Capri in 1924 and who would remain an important intellectual and erotic influence on him throughout the twenties and thirties. Asja Lacis resided in Moscow, eking out a living as a journalist, and Benjamin’s diary is, on one level, the account of his masochistic love affair with this elusive–and rather unsympathetic–object of desire. On another level, it is the story of a failed romance with the Russian Revolution; for Benjamin had journeyed to Russia not only to inform himself firsthand about Soviet society, but also to arrive at an eventual decision about joining the Communist Party. Benjamin’s diary paints the dilemma of a writer seduced by the promises of the Revolution yet unwilling to blinker himself to its human and institutional failings.

Moscow Diary is more than a record of ideological ambivalence; its literary value is considerable. Benjamin is one of the great twentieth-century physiognomists of the city, and his portrait of hibernal Moscow stands beside his brilliant evocations of Berlin, Naples, Marseilles, and Paris. Students of this particularly interesting period will find Benjamin’s eyewitness account of Moscow extraordinarily illuminating.

First published as Moskauer Tagebuch, Suhrkamp, 1980

English edition
Preface by Gershom Scholem
Translated by Richard Sieburth
Edited by and Afterword by Gary Smith
Published in October journal 35, Winter 1985, MIT Press
ISBN 0262751852
151 pages

Benjamin at Monoskop wiki

Moscow Diary (English, 1985, no OCR; updated on 2012-7-18)
Moscow Diary (English, 1985, OCR; missing Preface and Afterword; updated on 2012-7-18)
Diario de Moscú (Spanish, trans. Marisa Delgado, 1990, added on 2014-3-10)

Camilla Gray: The Russian Experiment in Art, 1863-1922 (1962–) [EN, SC]

When the original edition of this book was published, John Russell hailed it as a ‘massive contribution to our knowledge of one of the most fascinating and mysterious episodes in the history of modern art.’ It still remains the most compact survey of sixty years of creative dynamic activity that profoundly influenced the progress of Western art and architecture.

Publisher Thames and Hudson, 1962, 1970
Revised and enlarged edition by Marian Burleigh-Motley, 1986
ISBN 0500202079, 9780500202074
324 pages

Reviews: Wladimir Weidlé (Slavic Review 1963), Vyacheslav Zavalishin (Russian Review 1963), Nina Juviler (Slavic and East European Journal 1964).

Publisher

PDF (1970 US edition, 45 MB; added on 2014-3-2)
PDF (1971 UK edition, 111 MB, no OCR; added on 2018-11-4)
PDF (1986 UK edition, 35 MB, no OCR; updated on 2012-7-17)
PDF (Serbo-Croatian, 1978, 28 MB, added on 2024-2-17)

Lizbeth Goodman, Jane de Gay (eds.): The Routledge Reader in Politics and Performance (2000)

“The Routledge Reader in Politics and Performance brings together for the first time a comprehensive collection of extracts from key writings on politics, ideology, and performance.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, and including new writings from leading scholars, the book provides material on:
* post-coloniality and performance theory and practice
* critical theories and performance
* intercultural perspectives
* power, politics and the theatre
* sexuality in performance
* live arts and the media
* theatre games.”

Publisher Routledge, 2000
Performance Studies series
ISBN 0415174732, 9780415174732
322 pages

publisher

PDF (updated on 2016-12-23)