II. Розділ 2
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Kvitka’s 1834 village love story
Marusia Маруся
Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko, 1911
Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko’s complete 1834 novella Marusia in Ukrainian, not an adaptation and not Marko Vovchok’s later story of the same name, printed in the Zhelekhivka spelling of the 1911 Lviv edition. It is for C1 learners who are ready for long, songlike sentences and the speech of a Ukrainian village of the 1830s: about 29,400 words in 12 chapters, with 23 words per sentence on average. Often counted as the first Ukrainian novella, it showed its first readers that a serious and tender story, not only a comic one, could be told in the language of the village.
- C1
- 29 414 words
- 5-8 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 the 23-word sentences, the wedding rites and spellings like дїло or оглядиш ся will slow you to a crawl. For a gentler first meeting with Kvitka, try the B1 adaptation of his The Witch of Konotop; note that the A2 Marusia in the catalogue retells Marko Vovchok’s different story.
B2C1
This text
At C1 the story carries you: the plot is simple and heartfelt, the talk between Marusia and Vasyl is short and warm, and after a chapter or two ї and the detached ся read as easily as і and -ся.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 it reads freely; only the matchmakers’ ritual formulas, the wedding songs and a few words of the 1830s, like найомщик (a man hired to serve in the army in someone’s place) or свитник (a maker of homespun coats), still call for a tap.
Start readingThe average sentence has 23 words, one of the longest averages in the catalogue (Kvitka’s own The Witch of Konotop runs to 27, Franko’s Zakhar Berkut to 15), because the narrator moralises, paints a sunrise or a wedding dance in one breath and folds the characters’ speech into his own lines. Long words are only 6.2%, below the 8.1% of The Witch of Konotop and close to the 5.0% of Vasyl Stefanyk’s stories, which are C1 for their dialect, so here too the length of words is not the obstacle. The first obstacle is the 1911 spelling: 1,743 words have ї after a consonant (дїло, сїм, нїчого for today’s діло, сім, нічого), ся stands apart 368 times and after a hyphen 113 times (оглядиш ся, дрімаєть-ся), and spellings like сьвіт and зьвір occur 224 times. The second is the village speech of the 1830s: впять (again) 36 times, биля (near) 30, тогдї (then) 25, сеє (this) 18, мерщій (quickly) 13, along with a stream of tender diminutives such as слїзоньки, рученьки and тихесенько. The third is the ritual of matchmaking and betrothal, with its старости, бояре and дружки, and a chapter full of wedding songs. Hence C1. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 29 414
- words
- 23
- words in an average sentence
- 5-8
- hours of reading
- 1911
- Товариство «Просьвіта»
Товариство «Просьвіта», 1911. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
A village near a market town, in the days when an orphan without protectors was the first to be sent to the army. Marusia, the only daughter of the well-off farmer Naum Drot and his wife Nastia, is pretty, shy and tireless at work. At a friend’s wedding in Green Week she sits among the bridesmaids, and the best man, Vasyl, a young coat-maker from the town, cannot take his eyes off her, nor she hers off him. They meet again on the road to town, then in secret, and soon matchmakers knock at Naum’s door. Naum likes the young man but turns him down: Vasyl is an orphan counted in his uncles’ household, the likeliest recruit at the next levy, and Naum will not give his daughter the life of a soldier’s wife. Vasyl must go away and earn the money for a hired substitute, and the two say goodbye. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Маруся
VI. Розділ 6
: » . : , ; , . , .«
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Choose an underlined word.
Old spellings at the wedding table
Read ї after a consonant as і: третїх, сидїла and нїколи are today’s третіх, сиділа and ніколи. Зирк! is a sound-word for a quick glance, and the girls who were у дружках were the bride’s bridesmaids. Marusia’s own words open with » and close with «, the reversed guillemets of this edition.
The matchmakers’ formula
The chief matchmaker speaks in rhymed ritual phrases (теє … онеє, в лад … назад, науки … руки) that every village family knew by heart, so do not hunt for a literal sense in each line. The bread he hands over is the matchmakers’ customary gift: by kissing it and laying it on the table, Naum agrees to hear them out.
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
Kvitka’s narrator likes to turn a folk image into a whole sentence, and translating the sentence in Reader pays off there, as in “Не дай Боже чоловікові печали або якої напасти, то уремя іде-не-йде, мов рак повзе” (“God keep a man from grief or misfortune: then time barely moves, crawling like a crayfish”).
ReaderIf this book is not the one
Ukrainian books B2 Earlier The Witch of Konotop Конотопська відьма Another book by the same author C1
All books at this levelBefore you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s version: Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko’s complete novella, with his dedication to his wife, Anna Hryhorivna Kvitka. This is Kvitka’s Marusia, written in 1832 and first published in 1834 in the first book of his Little Russian Tales (Малороссийские повести), not Marko Vovchok’s later story of the same name. The text comes from Wikisource, which reproduces volume I of his Works (Prosvita, Lviv, 1911); the section numbers [I.] to [XII.] were added by the Wikisource editor, and our 12 chapters follow them. The spelling is that edition’s Zhelekhivka: дїло, сьвіт and оглядиш ся stand where today’s Ukrainian writes діло, світ and оглядишся.
Is there an audiobook?
Marusia has no audio on MovaReader; you read it on screen. A tap on any word shows its translation, which you will want for words like найомщик (a man hired to serve in the army in someone’s place) or чичирк (in нї чичирк, “not a peep”).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most with Naum’s long fatherly speeches, as in “а знаєш ти, голово, що батько лучше бачить твоє щастя, чим ти?” (“and do you know, silly head, that a father sees your happiness better than you do?”) in chapter VI. Single words are translated without the plan, within a daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
Reading with translation of new words, the whole novella takes about 5-8 hours. The 12 chapters run from about 1,500 words (chapter IX) to about 3,500 (chapter XII), so even the longest one fits into an evening.
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty is even, with no hard opening to push through. Most chapters average 19-24 words per sentence; chapter X, with more talk and short exclamations, drops to 16, while chapters IV, V and IX, with their long descriptions, rise to 26-28. Chapter XII has the most long words, 7.8% against 6.2% across the book.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. After you sign in, MovaReader remembers where you stopped, and the novella opens at that place next time. The contents on this page open any of the 12 chapters directly, for example chapter VIII (VIII. Розділ 8), the betrothal evening with its wedding songs.