The City (Pidmohylny novel)

The City (Ukrainian: «Місто», romanized: 'Misto') is an urban novel by Ukrainian writer Valerian Pidmohylny, published in 1928. Its first English translation is The City, transl. with introduction by Maxim Tarnawsky. Harvard University Press, Harvard Library of Ukrainian Literature, 2025.

Pidmohylny created the modern novel, which is focused on urban problems and touches upon philosophical questions of being. In this novel psyche of the characters is analyzed and the conflict takes place between people with different worldviews. Misto is the first urban novel in the Ukrainian literature, with new characters, issues and narrative style. At its core, the novel is a philosophical search for harmony in a world where our intellectual side expects rational order, whereas the instinctive natural world follows its own principles. The resulting alienation and disorientation reflect the basic principles of existential philosophy, in which Pidmohylnyi is close to his European counterparts of the day.