III. Вечір у садку
, , . , , . , . . , . , . . , .
A Cossack bride in 17th-century Moscow
The Noblewoman Бояриня
Lesya Ukrainka
A MovaReader retelling in plain modern Ukrainian prose, not Lesya Ukrainka’s original verse drama, written for learners who already manage everyday Ukrainian and want a story with real history behind it. In the catalogue it is B1: about 5,100 words in 10 chapters, 11 words per sentence on average, and about 40% of the text is dialogue. A Cossack officer’s daughter marries a Ukrainian-born boyar and follows him from the Dnieper into the closed women’s rooms of a Moscow house.
- B1
- 5 123 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
A2
Earlier
At A2 you will stop often: sentences of 11 words join two clauses with бо, а or що, and words of the 17th-century court, such as терем, дяк or воєвода, need a tap.
A2B1
This text
You can read it at B1 if you know the past tense and reported speech: much of the story is conversation retold with сказала, що..., and key words such as звичай, чужина and неволя return until you no longer need to translate them.
Check this passageB2
With room to spare
At B2 it reads almost without translation, a quick way to know the story before the complete Ukrainian classics in the catalogue, such as Kotsiubynsky’s Intermezzo.
Start readingThe average sentence has 11 words, the same as in the catalogue’s retelling of Lesya Ukrainka’s The Forest Song (11) and above the A2 adaptations such as Natalka Poltavka (9-10). Long words are rare: a word of 9 letters or more makes up 4.3% of the text, against 5.3% in The Forest Song, and most of them are everyday verbs such as засміялась or подивилась. What keeps it at B1 is the content: about 40% dialogue, much of the rest retold speech (сказав, що..., спитала, чи...), and the vocabulary of the Muscovite court (терем, воєвода, дяк, супліка, присяга) next to that of Cossack Ukraine (старшина, корогва, жупан). The original is a five-act play in verse, printed in the spelling of its time (се for це); here everything is plain modern prose. The difficulty is even: the chapters range from 10.3 to 12.1 words per sentence. Hence B1. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 5 123
- words
- 11
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
MovaReader. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
In the 1660s, the years of civil war that Ukrainians call the Ruin, a young man named Stepan comes from Moscow to a Cossack town on the Left Bank of the Dnieper. He is Ukrainian by birth, but like his late father he serves the tsar as a boyar. At the table of the Cossack officer Oleksa Perebiinyi, Oleksa’s son Ivan calls such service treason, and Stepan answers that he will never raise a weapon against a brother. Oleksa’s daughter Oksana takes his side, and that same evening in the garden they confess their love. After the wedding Oksana follows Stepan to Moscow, where a kind mother-in-law and his sister Hanna welcome her. But in the terem, the women’s upper rooms, wives cover their faces, girls never go out alone and are matched through a matchmaker, and a guest may claim a kiss from the hostess. Stepan carries a petition from Ukrainian Cossacks to the tsar and asks Oksana to break off contact with her friends and her brother, who are tied to Hetman Doroshenko’s cause. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Бояриня
VI. Московський звичай
, . , . , « », .
— ? — , .
— , ?
— , , , !
— , , — . — , . , , « » , . ?
Choose an underlined word.
“They” with no subject
In якого випустили з темниці, “whom they let out of the dungeon”, the verb випустили is plural and has no subject. Ukrainian uses this form where English would say “who was let out”: the doer is unknown or does not matter. You will meet it again in Бояр покликали на великий бенкет, “the boyars were invited to a great feast”.
What «слово й діло» meant
«Слово й діло», “word and deed”, was a real formula in 17th-century Muscovy: anyone who shouted it accused someone of a crime against the tsar, and the accused was taken for questioning, often under torture. Next to it stands the idiom зігнути в три погибелі, literally “to bend into three deaths”, that is, to crush someone completely.
Chapters
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
€1 a month
With the Reader plan, MovaReader translates the whole sentence where a conditional joins two clauses, as in Якби ми тут не гнули спини, то на Україні царські воєводи зігнули б нашу родину в три погибелі, “if we did not bow our backs here, the tsar’s governors in Ukraine would crush our family”.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this level
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
An adaptation, not the original text. It is MovaReader’s own prose retelling, in simple modern Ukrainian, of Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic poem Бояриня, written in April 1910 and first printed in 1914, after her death, in the Kyiv journal Рідний край; the plot follows the 1918 Katerynoslav edition on Wikisource. The form has changed: the original is a play in verse in five acts, with stage directions, folk songs and the spelling of 1918 (се, теє, ій for їй); here it is a story in prose of about 5,100 words in 10 chapters. The characters and scenes stay in their order, long political speeches are shortened, and a few short lines are kept as dialogue, such as «Де твій брат?» and «Москва сльозам не вірить». Insulting words that Muscovites and Ukrainians use for each other in the play are left out. The original play is not in the catalogue.
Is there an audiobook?
No, there is no audio version of this book on MovaReader; the text is read on screen. Tap an unfamiliar word and its translation appears: here that will mostly be words of 17th-century Muscovy and Cossack Ukraine, such as вотчина (a noble’s hereditary estate with its serfs) or супліка (a petition to the ruler).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes: whole-sentence translation comes with the Reader plan. Most sentences here can be read word by word, so you will need it mainly for images and sayings, such as Я не татарський хан, щоб тримати людей на присязі, як на шнурку, “I am no Tatar khan, to keep people on an oath as on a string”. Without the plan you can still tap single words.
How many hours does it take?
About an hour for the whole book, at a learner’s pace with translation of new words, not a native speaker’s. The 10 chapters run from about 340 words (chapter VI) to about 620 (chapters III and X), so each one fits into a short sitting.
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty is even from start to finish: every chapter averages 10-12 words per sentence. Chapter III, the love scene in the garden with many short replies, is the lightest at 10.3; chapter VI, where Stepan explains the Moscow custom, is the densest at 12.1. Chapter I has the most long words (5.6%), because it sets out the history; the rest stay between 3.4% and 5.4%.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. After you sign in, the reader remembers where you stopped and which words you opened. The contents on this page also open any of the 10 chapters directly, for example chapter IV, «Терем» (The Terem, the women’s rooms upstairs).