Seraphic Gender in “Doktor Serafikus” by V. Domontovych

The article explores the seraphic gender and its main features as an essential part of groundless existence, which was symptomatic of the Ukrainian 1920s, and examines its existentialist intentions in literature, tracing its origin back to the early European modernist literature. The research closely refers to transformations of seraphic discourse throughout the 1910s-1940s and analyzes the unexplored chapters of the novel that influence the path of Doktor Serafikus. The elaborated theory of seraphic gender is presented through the following components: first, the meaningful constituents of seraphicity viewed through the early modernist perspective on sexuality and gender (androgyny, “imaginary sexuality,” and homosexuality); secondly the interrelations of desire and writing; and thirdly, seraphicity in its expanded definition as an anthropomorphic landscape and its dissolution in music. The research is based on a partial reconstruction of s the cultural and historical circumstances that contributed to the evolution of Doktor Serafikus, as well as feminist psychoanalytic criticism as proposed by Julia Kristeva and a post-structural approach to textual analysis.