II. Писар і хворостина
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A witch hunt in a Cossack town, for B1
The Witch of Konotop Конотопська відьма
Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko
This is a retelling of Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko’s comic novella in simple modern Ukrainian, not the original: a MovaReader adaptation for readers who handle everyday Ukrainian and want a funny classic with a dark edge. In the catalogue it is B1: about 4,900 words in 9 chapters, with 12 words per sentence on average and about 30% of the text in dialogue. A Cossack captain who can count only to thirty, a scheming scribe who talks like a prayer book and an old woman who will not sink carry one of the first works of modern Ukrainian prose, written when prose in Ukraine was almost always written in Russian.
- B1
- 4 895 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
A2
Earlier
At A2 you will be stopped often: the story is told in the past tense, many sentences join two or three clauses, and the jokes rest on idioms such as дати гарбуза (to turn down a suitor) that a word-by-word translation does not explain.
A2B1
This text
You can read it at B1 if you know the past tense and everyday words for home, food and the village: each chapter is one clear episode, a third of the text is short dialogue, and the scribe’s few old phrases are clear from the context.
Check this passageB2
With room to spare
At B2 it reads almost without translation, a light warm-up before the complete Ukrainian classics in the catalogue, such as Nechuy-Levytsky’s Mykola Dzheria.
Start readingThe average sentence has 12 words, one more than the catalogue’s other B1 adaptations (Kaidash’s Family, Eneida and The Forest Song, 11 each) and two more than the A2 Lys Mykyta (10). A word of 9 letters or more makes up 5.7% of the text, close to Kaidash’s Family (5.8%) and below a complete original such as Kotsiubynsky’s Intermezzo (6.3%); the most frequent are names (Халявський, Чернігова) and plain verbs such as закричала or відчинилися. The original’s 19th-century spelling, its regional forms and the scribe’s long speeches in Church Slavonic are replaced by standard modern Ukrainian; only a few of his set phrases stay as a joke (Се, І паки реку, Да будет вам відомо), along with the captain’s mangled word лепорт for “report” (6 times). Words of old village life need a tap: дулівка, носатка, очіпок, жлукто. About 30% of the words are the characters’ lines. The difficulty is even: the 9 chapters run between 11 and 12.5 words per sentence. Hence B1. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 4 895
- words
- 12
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
MovaReader. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
In the Cossack town of Konotop, captain Mykyta Zabrioha has just ridden home with a baked pumpkin, the old sign that the rich and lively Olena has turned down his proposal. Then a stick with notches, the only list of his hundred Cossacks, loses a man, and an order arrives to march to Chernihiv. His scribe Prokip Pistriak, who wants the captain’s post for himself, has a better idea: there has been no rain for weeks, so the witches must be hiding it, and instead of marching the town will test its old women in the pond. The one who floats is a witch. Old Yavdokha Zubykha floats with a string of stones around her neck and laughs at the scribe. Soon Pistriak is secretly bargaining with her, the captain begs her for a love charm, and Olena’s own sweetheart, Demian Khaliavsky, is riding home from Chernihiv. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Конотопська відьма
IV. Відьом купають у ставку
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Choose an underlined word.
The scribe speaks “from scripture”
Pistriak mixes in Church Slavonic to sound learned: Се is the old form of це (“this”), and І паки реку means “And again I say”. Modern speakers use only це and знову. The vocatives Григоровичу and Уласовичу are the two men addressing each other by patronymic, a friendly but respectful form.
Diminutives as mockery
Yavdokha teases her tormentors with affectionate diminutives: Купочки-купоньки (“bathie-bath”, from купатися, “to bathe”) and Прокіпочку, the vocative of a pet form of the name Прокіп. In Ukrainian such suffixes (-очк-, -оньк-) can sound tender or, as here, openly mocking.
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 proverb carries the meaning, as in Чує кіт, де сало лежить!, “The cat can smell where the lard is!”, said of the captain hurrying to a rich bride.
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
An adaptation, not the original text. It is MovaReader’s own retelling in simple modern Ukrainian of Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko’s comic novella Конотопська відьма, written in 1833 and first printed in 1837, at a time when prose in Ukraine was almost always written in Russian; Kvitka wrote it in Ukrainian to show that the language could carry literary prose. The plot follows the text in volume one of his Works published by Prosvita in Lviv in 1911, on Wikisource. What changed: some 26,000 words shrink to about 4,900 in 9 chapters instead of the original 14; the 19th-century spelling, the regional forms and most of the scribe’s Church Slavonic speeches become standard modern Ukrainian, and the narrator’s digressions are cut. The main episodes stay in order, from the baked pumpkin to the witch test and what follows it. The original 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 often be things of old village life such as носатка (a long-necked bottle) or жлукто (a wooden tub for washing linen), which Yavdokha climbs into to turn young.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes: whole-sentence translation comes with the Reader plan. Most sentences can be read word by word, so you will need it mostly for idioms and threats, such as Подавишся ти, пане сотнику, моєю галушкою, literally “You will choke on my dumpling, captain”, the scribe’s promise of revenge. Without the plan you can translate single words until the daily limit runs out.
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 9 chapters run from about 410 words (chapter II) to about 710 (chapter IV, the witch test), 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 11-12.5 words per sentence. Chapter I, the captain’s courtship, runs slightly longer at about 12.5; chapters III, IV and VIII, with more short dialogue, are the lightest at about 11.
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 9 chapters directly, for example chapter IV, “Відьом купають у ставку” (The witches get a bath in the pond).