The Institute Girl Інститутка

An adaptation, not the original text. It is MovaReader’s own retelling in simple modern Ukrainian of Marko Vovchok’s novella Інститутка, first published in 1862; the plot follows the 1929 Lviv edition of the Prosvita society as it appears on Wikisource. The language has changed: the old spelling of that edition, the dialect forms and the many folk diminutives are gone, and sentences have 12 words on average, so the 11 chapters, about 5,500 words, come to a little under half the length of the novella. The main episodes stay in their original order and Ustyna still tells the story in the first person: the young lady’s homecoming, the attack in the garden, the army doctor, the wedding, the move to the farmstead, the supper with Nazar’s family and the apples in the orchard. Some side scenes are shortened or left out, such as the children’s rain song and the life story of an old soldier in town. A passing ethnic slur in the town scene is left out, and the 19th-century word the original uses for a soldier, which today reads as an ethnic insult, is replaced by солдат. The complete novella is not in the catalogue.

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 serf life such as панщина (the unpaid work serfs owed their landowner) or посаг (a bride’s dowry).

Yes: whole-sentence translation comes with the Reader plan. Most sentences are plain enough to read word by word, so you will need it mostly for sayings, such as Журбою поля не перейдеш, а від долі не втечеш, “you won’t cross a field by grieving, and you won’t run away from your fate”. Without the plan you can translate single words until the daily limit runs out.

One to two hours for the whole book, at a learner’s pace with translation of new words, not a native speaker’s. The 11 chapters run from about 350 words (chapter V) to about 650 (chapter VII), so each one fits into a short sitting.

The difficulty is fairly even: every chapter averages 10-13.5 words per sentence. The first chapter is the hardest, at about 13 words per sentence, because Ustyna describes her childhood without dialogue; chapter VIII, a summary of a hard year, is close behind. Chapters VI and X, full of short quarrels, are the lightest at about 10.5, so if chapter I goes well, the rest will feel easier.

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 11 chapters directly, for example chapter VII, “Вечеря в хаті” (Supper in the Cottage).