Serhij Domazar was born in Pyriatyn, Poltava region, the Ukraine. As a former member of the Ukrainian army with strong anti-Soviet views, he was forced to move and change jobs often. He worked with the Kurbas Theatre as a prompter, stagehand and make-up artist. Later he worked as a proofreader and translator from German. He and his family spent World War II as labourers in a camp in Germany, where he wrote for the Ukrainian language press. He published his socio-economic essay Velyki pytannia [The Big Questions] from the camp in Aschaffenburg in 1948.