I. Іван Іванович
— ! — ! 38, . , , — ( — „ “). ( , „“). , , ( ) … („ “, ).
Soviet satire and civil-war stories for C1
Ivan Ivanovych and Other Stories Іван Іванович та інші оповідання
Mykola Khvylovy, 1930
Five complete stories by Mykola Khvylovy in the original Ukrainian, not an adaptation, in the text of volume III of his Works (Kharkiv, 1930); the selection is the catalogue’s own. For advanced learners (C1) who want to see the 1920s from the inside: a model party official and his family, a provincial newspaper waiting for an inspector from the capital, and three stories of the civil war in small towns and villages. About 33,300 words in five chapters, one per story, about 6 to 9 hours of reading.
- C1
- 33 298 words
- 6-9 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 the village dialogue of «Бандити» is within reach, but the officialese of the title story (монументально-реалістичних, комосередок, харчсмак), the 1930 spelling (проґресивним, соціяльних, кватира) and a narrator whose praise means the opposite will stop you on almost every page.
B2C1
This text
At C1 it reads over one or two weeks, a story or one of its numbered parts per sitting. If you want a gentler start, open «Бандити» or «Наречений» first and come back to the title story once the tone is familiar.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 the language sets no obstacles; what remains is the satire itself: party slogans set in quotation marks, the chapter titles that sum up “and also what happened after that”, the echoes of Gogol and Taras Bulba, and a narrator who praises exactly what he mocks.
Start readingAbout one word in eight has 9 letters or more (12.8%), the highest share in the Ukrainian catalogue, ahead of Khvylovy’s own The Tale of the Sanatorium Zone (11.2%) and A Sentimental Story (11.0%) and far above Kotsiubynsky’s Laughter and Other Stories (7.3%). The satire is the reason: the narrator imitates the officialese of the new Soviet bureaucracy, with long compounds such as монументально-реалістичних, ідеологічно-витриманих and робітничо-селянською, and party words such as комосередок (the party cell), комхоз or непманка. In the title story the share reaches 15.0%, in «Ревізор» 13.8%. Sentences average 12 words, but 561 of the 1,184 paragraphs are dialogue lines, so the narration runs longer than the average. The 1930 edition keeps the spelling of its time: ґ in loanwords (80 times: проґресивним, колеґія), -ія- in foreign words (соціяльних, матеріяльний, Фіялка, more than 80 words), кватира for квартира (11 times; the modern form never appears), єсть for є (16) and мойого or свойого for мого and свого (25). The title story even opens with an epigraph from Gogol in Russian. Hence C1. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 33 298
- words
- 12
- words in an average sentence
- 6-9
- hours of reading
- 1930
- Державне видавництво України
Державне видавництво України, 1930. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
Five stories, from the civil war to the late 1920s. In «Іван Іванович» an ironic narrator presents his “likeable hero”: a model member of a trust board, party nickname “comrade Jean”, who lives in flat 38 on Thomas More Street with his wife Marfa Halaktionivna (“comrade Halakta”), their children May and Fialka (“Violet”), a French governess and a cook, and who is sure he is building the new communist way of life between party-cell meetings and evening talks on how communism differs from socialism. In «Мати» a small-town tailor dreams of raising his sons Ostap and Andrii as soldiers, like the sons of Gogol’s Taras Bulba, and the civil war puts them on opposite sides. In «Бандити» a village sexton and his frightened companion hide in a barn above the village of Hrushivka, while blind Kylyna fears for the cow she was given and the men gather at the council. In «Наречений» Katrusia, a quiet telephone operator, writes letters to her fiancé Mykhailyk, a clerk who has gone off to the partisans. In «Ревізор» a provincial reporter and his wife Lesia borrow money to give a dinner for an inspector “from the centre”, who keeps not coming. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Іван Іванович та інші оповідання
V. Ревізор
, . , : , , , — . .
, , . , , , . , , , . , , , .
Choose an underlined word.
Irony in official words
The narrator praises Ivan Ivanovych in the approved words of the day and means the opposite: симпатичний (“likeable”, 26 times in the book), зразковий (“model, exemplary”, 12 times), проґресивні прагнення (“progressive aspirations”) and так би мовити (“so to speak”, 26 times). Женщина is the Russian word for “woman” where Ukrainian says жінка: Khvylovy lets it slip in on purpose. When a sentence sounds like a party report, read it as a joke.
The spelling of 1930
Кватира is the old form of квартира (“flat”): 11 times in the book, never in its modern form. Являються means “show up”, where today’s Ukrainian says з’являються, and скажім (9 times) is скажімо (“let’s say”). The same edition writes ґ in loanwords (проґресивним, колеґія) and -ія- in foreign words (соціяльних, матеріяльний): read them as today’s г and -іа-.
Where the text gets harder
Idensest vocabulary
II-IVlighter stories
Vdenser again
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
The comedy often sits in a long sentence with a twist at the end, and that is where whole-sentence translation in Reader helps most, for example Marfa Halaktionivna’s confession, made while adjusting her neckline: “а я й досі не розумію, чим комунізм відрізняється від соціялізму” (“and I still don’t understand how communism differs from socialism”).
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this level
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s version: five complete stories by Mykola Khvylovy, «Іван Іванович», «Мати», «Бандити», «Наречений» and «Ревізор». The selection and the order are the catalogue’s own: all five appear in volume III of his Works, but together with other stories and in a different order. All were written and first published in the 1920s, the latest, «Іван Іванович», in 1929. The text follows volume III of Khvylovy’s Works (Державне видавництво України, Kharkiv, 1930) as transcribed on Wikisource, so the spelling is that edition’s: проґресивним for today’s прогресивним, соціяльних for соціальних, кватира for квартира, єсть for є. The Gogol epigraph in Russian that opens «Іван Іванович» is the author’s and stays.
Is there an audiobook?
Ivan Ivanovych and Other Stories has no audiobook on MovaReader: the stories are read on screen. Tap a word to see its translation; you will need it from the first pages for words such as комосередок (the party cell, the basic unit of the Communist Party) or непманка (the wife of a private trader of the NEP years, the 1920s market economy).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps where the irony hides in a long sentence, for example “Словом, на вулиці Томаса Мора панує зразковий порядок і, як говорить мій герой, порядок в, так би мовити, „новій революційній інтерпретації“” (“In a word, model order reigns on Thomas More Street and, as my hero says, order in, so to speak, a ‘new revolutionary interpretation’”). Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole book takes about 6 to 9 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. The stories differ a lot in size: «Іван Іванович» has about 13,600 words in seven numbered parts, «Ревізор» about 8,200 in four, «Бандити» about 5,600 in five, «Мати» about 3,800 and «Наречений» about 2,100. A numbered part or one of the short stories makes a sitting.
Where does the text get easier?
Yes, in the middle. The title story is the densest (15.0% long words, about 13 words per sentence) and «Ревізор» comes close (13.8%, about 13). «Мати», «Бандити» and «Наречений» are lighter, with 8.8% to 10.7% long words; «Бандити» is the easiest, with about 8 words per sentence and plenty of village dialogue. The stories are independent, so you can start with «Бандити» (chapter III).
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened. Any story also opens from the contents on this page, for example «Ревізор» (V. Ревізор).