II. Таємниця
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A Cossack girl’s legend retold for A2
Marusia Маруся
Marko Vovchok
This is MovaReader’s retelling of Marusia in simple standard Ukrainian, not an original text: the legend of a Ukrainian girl in the wars of the 17th century, best known as Maroussia, the French book P.-J. Stahl made from a story by Marko Vovchok. Marko Vovchok is the pen name of Mariia Vilinska, a classic of 19th-century Ukrainian prose. In the catalogue it is A2, for readers who know the basics and want a real story told in the past tense: about 4,500 words in 10 short titled chapters.
- A2
- 4 487 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
A1
Earlier
At A1 it is a stretch: the whole story is in the past tense, sentences of about 10 words often join two clauses with бо, але, коли or щоб, and reported speech (сказав, що…, спитав, чи…) is everywhere.
A1A2
This text
At A2 it fits: everyday words, past-tense narration and plenty of short dialogue; words like копиця (haystack) or жебрачка (beggar girl) translate with a tap.
Check this passageB1
With room to spare
At B1 it reads almost without translation: a quick way into the Cossack world of the 17th century, with no archaic or dialect forms to slow you down.
Start readingThe average sentence has 10 words, the narration is in the past tense, and short dialogue lines carry much of the story. About one word in 19 has 9 letters or more (5.3%); the most frequent is посланець (messenger, 15 times), and most of the rest are past-tense verbs such as відповіла (answered) or поцілувала (kissed). Among the other A2 adaptations, Захар Беркут has the same 10 words per sentence with slightly fewer long words (4.9%), Тіні забутих предків has shorter sentences (9 words) and slightly more long words (5.4%), and Лис Микита has far fewer long words (3.3%). The difficulty is even: the 10 chapters range from 9.6 to 10.9 words per sentence. Hence A2. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 4 487
- words
- 10
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
MovaReader. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Ukraine in the 17th century. Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s alliance with Moscow has gone wrong, the country is split between two hetmans, and Russian troops burn its villages. One night a tall stranger knocks at the house of the Cossack Danylo Chaban. He is a messenger from the Zaporozhian Sich who must reach Hetman Petro Doroshenko in Chyhyryn, and every road is closed. When soldiers surround the house, Danylo’s little daughter Marusia slips into the garden with a plan she took from a robber tale: she will drive a cart of hay across the steppe with the messenger hidden inside. Later, as an old wandering musician and his beggar granddaughter, the two cross the land of their enemies, from a Russian army camp to Chyhyryn and on to Hadiach. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Маруся
IV. Віз із сіном
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Choose an underlined word.
Past tense: -ла for Marusia
Almost every verb here ends in -ла, because the subject is a girl: пройшла (walked through), стояла (stood), стала (knelt), поцілувала (kissed), побачила (saw), побігла (ran), схопила (grabbed). The guest is a man, so his verb is ішов (was walking). The ending alone tells you who acts, even when the sentence does not repeat Маруся or вона.
Having: у тебе є
Ukrainian usually says “at you there is” where English says “you have”: У тебе є батько й мати? (Do you have a father and mother?), А у вас є діти? (And do you have children?). The owner follows у in the genitive (мене, тебе, вас), and є means “there is”. Notice that the soldier says тебе to the child, while Marusia asks him with the polite вас.
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
Reader translates whole sentences where the grammar is new rather than the words, as in Його очі сказали, що для цього чоловіка треба все покинути, навіть нас, “his eyes said that for this man we must give up everything, even us”.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
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Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
An adaptation, not an original text. It is MovaReader’s own retelling in simple standard Ukrainian of Maroussia, the story P.-J. Stahl wrote in French “after a legend by Marko Vovchok”. By Stahl’s own note it first appeared in the Paris newspaper Le Temps in December 1875; Hetzel published it as an illustrated book in 1878, with drawings by Théophile Schuler. Our source is the Hetzel edition of 1880 on Project Gutenberg. What changed: a French book of more than 40,000 words became about 4,500 words of modern standard Ukrainian (2019 spelling), in 10 titled chapters instead of 22, with sentences of about 10 words. The plot, the main characters and the order of events are kept; the narrator’s long reflections, the robber tale Marusia tells on the way, and the songs and arguments in the Russian camp are much shorter, and the French spellings of names became Ukrainian ones (Tchetchevik is Чечевик, Knich is Книш, Tchiguirine is Чигирин).
Is there an audiobook?
No, there is no audio version on MovaReader: the text is read on screen. Tap an unfamiliar word and its translation appears; at this level that will often be words like копиця (haystack) or торбан (torban, a Ukrainian lute).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes: whole-sentence translation comes with the Reader plan. Sentences here average 10 words, so you will need it mostly where two clauses hang together, as in Мати довго не могла відчинити замок і так дала гостеві трохи часу (“Mother could not open the lock for a long time, and so she gave the guest a little time”). Without the plan you can translate single words up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
About an hour for the whole story at a learner’s pace, with new words translated as you go. There are 10 chapters of about 360 to 590 words each, so a chapter takes a few minutes and the story fits into one or two evenings.
Where does the text get easier?
No part is much easier, because the difficulty is even: the 10 chapters average between 9.6 and 10.9 words per sentence. Chapters II and III, full of short dialogue, have about 9.7, and chapter I, “Гість уночі” (A guest at night), which sets out the history of the war, has the longest sentences (10.9).
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 10 chapters directly, for example chapter III, “Казка про розбійника” (The robber tale), the story Marusia tells the messenger on their night walk across the fields.