ABSTRACT
The figures of the Messiah and messianism are supposed to lead to victory. The noun victory always has an advantage because it shapes the revolutionary aspect of Benjamin’s Messiah, and vice versa: the use of the word messianism implies that it is not some victory (one among many), but rather, the last and final victory. What interests me nearly a century after Benjamin himself went to great lengths to resolve his own dilemmas in this regard, is that there is still an uncertain and complicated register when speaking of victory, the victor, and the vanquished. What does it mean to win, to be victorious? Who or what needs vanquishing and in what way? Is it today even possible to speak of final victory, of final anything?
