The Eyewitness Chronicle Літопис Самовидця

It is the original, not a learner’s version: the complete Eyewitness Chronicle (Літопис Самовидця) for 1648-1702, followed by the short Khmilnyk Chronicle (Хмільницький літопис) for 1636-1650. The anonymous author wrote around 1700, and the chronicle was first printed in 1846 by Osyp Bodiansky in Moscow. The text comes from Wikisource, which reproduces the edition prepared by Orest Levytsky from newly found manuscripts (Kyiv, 1878, printing house of K. N. Milevsky), in its old spelling with ѣ, ъ and ы. We left out the editor’s footnotes with variant readings and his Russian-language headings and closing note, wrote ґ where the edition prints a Latin g, removed a combining mark the digital copy used for the scribes’ abbreviation sign, and corrected three year headings misread in the digital copy (1663, 1673, 1682) against the scan. Words in brackets are the editor’s additions and stay as printed. The chronicle describes massacres, executions and famine plainly, and it uses the period’s words for Jews, Poles and other peoples, some of them offensive today.

There is no audiobook of the Eyewitness Chronicle on MovaReader: it is read on screen. Tap a word and its translation appears, though some old spellings may not be found; you will need it for words like барзо (very, from Polish bardzo) or фортеліовъ (tricks, from Polish fortel).

Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most with the chronicler’s long chains of clauses and with lines like “Не душечка загинула, не душечка тежъ и въ орду пошла!” in the Khmilnyk Chronicle (“Many a soul perished, and many a soul was carried off to the Horde!”). Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.

The whole chronicle takes about 7-11 hours at the pace of someone reading with translation of new words. Its 12 chapters of years run from about 2,300 words (chapters II and IV) to 3,900 (chapter I, the rising of 1648-1649), and the Khmilnyk Chronicle at the end has about 1,200, so a chapter fits into one or two sittings.

The chronicle itself is even: in every chapter the average sentence runs between about 30 and 43 words, shortest in chapter II (1650-1653) and longest in chapters IV (1658-1661) and IX (1676-1679). The later chapters have slightly fewer long words, about 14% in chapters IX-XI against 16-19% in chapters I-VIII. The easiest part is the Khmilnyk Chronicle at the end: short entries of about 14 words per sentence on harvests, prices, weather and raids.

Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so you can return to the chronicle where you stopped. Any of the 13 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example V. 1662-1663: Чорна рада, the election at Nizhyn that set Cossack against Cossack.