To the Hermitage

Interesting Facts

• The novel skillfully intertwines two temporal layers: the journey of contemporary scholars to St. Petersburg and the imagined return of Diderot to eighteenth-century Russia, creating a mirrored labyrinth of meanings and eras.
• The book offers subtle irony about the academic world, where scholarly symposia turn into theatrical performances and scholars become actors on the stage of history.
• The author masterfully plays with genres: the novel is at once a philosophical parable, a detective story, a satire, and a historical reconstruction, inviting the reader on an intellectual journey.
• St. Petersburg in the novel is not just a city, but a mystical character, filled with mists, shadows, and echoes of the past, where every corner preserves traces of great ideas and passions.
• The narrative seamlessly blends real historical figures and fictional characters, creating a sense of a blurred boundary between truth and invention, between document and fantasy.
• The novel is filled with allusions to the philosophical debates of the Enlightenment, reflections on freedom, truth, and the fate of art, turning the reading into a fascinating intellectual dialogue with Diderot’s era.