I. Харитя
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Village children and the old Fear (B2)
Kharytia and Other Stories Харитя та інші оповідання
Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, 1955
Seven complete early stories by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky in Ukrainian, not an adaptation, written between 1886 and 1902. The selection is MovaReader’s own: four stories of children and old people in hard years, in a village and in a small town, a short étude about a writer beside his gravely ill daughter, a sketch of a summer visit to an uncle and aunt, and Хо, a literary fairy tale about Fear walking among people. It is for B2 learners who want short, finished stories close to Ukrainian village life of the 1890s. About 25,000 words in 7 chapters, one story per chapter, 11 words per sentence on average.
- B2
- 25 029 words
- 4-7 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the long descriptive paragraphs, such as the harvest field in Харитя, and the older forms of the 1955 edition (межи, котрий, од, заблудивсь) will stop you on almost every line, and Хо even more.
B1B2
This text
At B2 you can read it: the six shorter stories run from about 2,000 to 3,400 words, children and old people speak plainly, and Хо is the step up at the end.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the stories read freely; only the village words of the 1890s (карнавка, десятник, пуд) and the old spelling make you stop.
Start readingThe average sentence has 11 words, and 9.2% of words have 9 letters or more, a little under one in ten. That puts the book next to Дорогою ціною, another Kotsiubynsky title rated B2 (11.7 words, 8.8%), and to Ivan Franko’s Малий Мирон та інші оповідання (12.9 words, 9.6%, B2), below the one-in-ten line of C1 books such as Boa constrictor (10.0%). The difficulty is not even, though. The first six stories stay between 6.7% and 8.9% long words, while Хо, the last and longest (about 9,400 words, more than a third of the book), reaches 11.2%, as much as the C1 Повість про санаторійну зону, with abstract words like свідомість (“awareness”) and перевага (“superiority”). The 1955 edition also keeps older forms: межи for між 19 times, forms of котрий where today one writes який 29 times, од beside від (25 against 63), and past tenses like заблудивсь and зупинивсь 19 times. Several stories use жид and its derivatives (19 times), the period’s word for a Jew, which is offensive in modern Ukrainian. Nor is there a regional dialect to decode, unlike the Hutsul speech that makes Тіні забутих предків C1. Hence B2. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 25 029
- words
- 11
- words in an average sentence
- 4-7
- hours of reading
- 1955
- Книгоспілка
Книгоспілка, 1955. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
Seven stories, each complete in itself. In Харитя (“Kharytia”) a little girl’s mother falls ill just at harvest time, and Kharytia takes the sickle and goes out alone to reap the family’s rye. In Ялинка (“The Fir Tree”) Yakym sells the fir tree his son Vasylko loves, and on Christmas Eve sends the boy through the forest to deliver it, just as the snow begins to fall. In Маленький грішник (“The Little Sinner”) eight-year-old Dmytryk, whose sick mother carries water for a living, falls in with Havrylko, a street boy who teaches him to beg. In П’ятизлотник (“The Five-Zloty Coin”) the old couple Khoma and Khyma face a hungry winter, and Khyma will not part with the silver coin she has kept since her wedding for a granddaughter not yet born. Цвіт яблуні (“Apple Blossom”) is the inner monologue of a writer pacing his study while his little daughter lies gravely ill in the next room; Дядько та тітка (“Uncle and Aunt”) is a warm sketch of summer days on a relatives’ small estate, with talk of the peasants, poetry and plants that lasts until dawn. Хо (“Kho”), a literary fairy tale, follows Kho, the ancient spirit of Fear, out of the forest into a nursery, a manor house, the home of a timid official and a small attic room full of young people. What happens next in each story is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Харитя та інші оповідання
IV. П'ятизлотник
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Choose an underlined word.
Diminutives on every line
The narrator softens almost everything around the girl: личенько (from лице, “face”), пальчика (from палець, “finger”), спідничкою (from спідниця, “skirt”), швиденько (from швидко, “quickly”). They express tenderness, not baby talk: read them as the plain noun or adverb. Note also путається, the older form of плутається (“gets tangled”).
Old spelling: од- for від-
Оддавалася is віддавалася in modern spelling: the 1955 edition often writes the preposition and prefix від as од (the word од alone appears 25 times in the book). Віддаватися (за когось) means “to get married”, said of a woman. The same passage writes завязану without the apostrophe, today’s зав’язану (“tied”).
Where the text gets harder
I-VIlighter vocabulary
VIIdenser vocabulary
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
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In the father’s monologue of Цвіт яблуні, translating the whole sentence in Reader helps with an image like А моя пам’ять, той нерозлучний секретар мій, вже записує (“And my memory, that inseparable secretary of mine, is already taking notes”).
ReaderIf this book is not the one
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not an adaptation: seven complete early stories by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, gathered here by MovaReader; the author never published a book with this title or this selection. Харитя and Ялинка first appeared in the Lviv children’s magazine Dzvinok in 1891, Маленький грішник in Dzvinok and П’ятизлотник in the journal Zoria in 1893, and Хо in Zoria in 1894. Цвіт яблуні, written in 1902, was printed in 1904 in the Kyiv anthology Na vichnu pamiat Kotliarevskomu. Дядько та тітка, the earliest piece (written in 1886), was printed only in 1925, after the author’s death, in volume V of his Works. The text comes from Wikisource, which reproduces volume I of Kotsiubynsky’s Works (Твори) published by Knyhospilka in New York in 1955, and it keeps that edition’s spelling: межи for між, од beside від, осени for осені.
Is there an audiobook?
There is no audiobook on MovaReader: the stories are read on screen, and a tap on a word shows its translation. You will need it for village words such as челюсті (“the mouth of a stove”), in the very first sentence, and карнавка (“a church collection box”) in П’ятизлотник.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps with the quick, broken speech of the old couple, as in Ховай, бабо, ховай! заховаєш лихий знає кому! (“Hide it, old woman, hide it! You’ll be hiding it for the devil knows whom!”). Without the plan, tapping single words still works, within a daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
About 4-7 hours at a learner’s pace, reading with translation of new words. The first six stories run from about 2,000 words (Харитя) to about 3,400 (Дядько та тітка), and each fits one sitting; Хо, about 9,400 words in five parts, takes two or three.
Where does the text get easier?
No, it gets harder at the end. The first six stories stay between 8.9 and 12.6 words per sentence and between 6.7% and 8.9% long words: Ялинка has the shortest sentences (8.9 words) and П’ятизлотник the longest (12.6). Цвіт яблуні has the lightest vocabulary (6.7%) but no dialogue at all. Хо, the last story and more than a third of the book, rises to 11.2% long words with 11.6 words per sentence, so it is best kept for the end, where the contents place it.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so you can come back where you left off, even in the middle of a story. Each story also opens from the contents on this page, for example VII. Хо, which begins in a forest still dozing before dawn.