Doctor Seraphicus

Written in 1929, first published in 1947, V. Domontovych's experimental novel about the eccentric professor Komakha has received a new visual design from Osnovy. Illustrations by Olha Selyshcheva transport us to the constructivist urban landscapes of the early 20th century. The story of Komakha's friendship with five-year-old Irtsia, his platonic love for the eccentric actress Ver and the artist Korvyn, a meticulous scientific work with many notes behind which the essence is lost, unfolds on the streets and beaches of Kyiv in the 1920s.

In addition to the authentic text of the novel's lifetime edition, Osnovy returns two important literary studies. In the afterword, Ihor Kostetskyi analyzes the heterogeneous style of “Doctor Seraphicus” and its place in Ukrainian literature, while Solomiia Pavlychko inserts this “intellectual provocation” into the discourse of Ukrainian modernism and tries to understand the mysterious figure of the author.

Both afterwords, as well as the novel itself, are accompanied by comments by Pavlo Krupa and Katarzyna Glinianowicz, contemporary researchers of V. Domontovych work.