Paradoxes and "Fruitful Extremes" of the Russian Formalism (methodology / the worldview)
The authors have focused on the methodology of Russian formalists in connection with their worldview. It is said that at the heart of both theoretical constructs and philosophical systems of representatives of the formal school lies a paradox (in the broadest sense of the word). This means an internal contradiction that is not a sign of falsity, but that points to the limitations of methods of research. And this encourages a better understanding of the main subject of literary criticism. Formalism at the end of the article is presented as a link in the Russian utopianism of the early twentieth century (along with Nietzscheanism and Marxism, cosmism and “new religious consciousness”), as a utopian transformation of the world on the basis of the enrichment of human perception with the help of new (primarily verbal) art and new research about it.