V. Частина перша: розділ 5
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A novel of 1920s Kyiv for C1
The City Місто
Valerian Pidmohylny, 1929
Valerian Pidmohylny’s complete novel in Ukrainian, first published in 1928, not an adaptation, in the text of the second edition (Книгоспілка, Kyiv, 1929). Pidmohylny was one of the leading prose writers of the 1920s generation later called the Executed Renaissance, and was shot in 1937. For advanced learners (C1) who want to see the Kyiv of the 1920s from the inside: a young man from the village comes to study in the city and sets out to conquer it. About 79,600 words in two parts of fourteen chapters each, 28 chapters in all, about 13 to 22 hours of reading.
- C1
- 79 571 words
- 13-22 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 the dialogues are within reach, but the essayistic narration (about one word in seven is long), the 1929 spelling (творчости, плян, ґанок) and the vocabulary of 1920s institutions (Житлоспілка, Комгосп, непмани) will slow you down on every page. A retelling in simple modern Ukrainian is in the catalog at B1.
B2C1
This text
At C1 it is a long read, a chapter per sitting over several weeks: the scenes in the institute, the editorial offices and the beer cellars move fast, while the chapters that reflect on the city, on life and on literature are worth taking slowly.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 the language sets no obstacles; what remains is the irony: the narrator’s cool distance from Stepan, the parody of literary talk, and the two epigraphs, from the Talmud and from Anatole France, that frame the novel’s question about body and spirit.
Start readingAbout one word in seven has 9 letters or more (13.8%), one of the highest shares in the catalogue: above Khvylovy’s Ivan Ivanovych and Other Stories (12.8%) and The Tale of the Sanatorium Zone (11.2%), and far above Franko’s Boryslav Laughs (9.8%). Sentences average 13 words, although 932 of the 2,101 paragraphs are dialogue lines; between them the narration turns into essays on the city, on love and on literature, with 17 to 21 words per sentence in chapters V, VII, IX and XIII of part one. The vocabulary is that of the city and of ideas: інститут (57 times), література and its forms (84), редакція, Житлоспілка (a housing cooperative), непмани (the private traders of the NEP), українізація, свідомість, творчість. The 1929 edition keeps the spelling of its time: genitives in -ости such as творчости and радости (208 times), плян, лямпа and плякат for план, лампа and плакат (82), ґ in ґанок and інтеліґент (97), мусів for мусив (45), єсть for є (22). Every chapter has between 9.8% and 16.9% long words. Hence C1. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 79 571
- words
- 13
- words in an average sentence
- 13-22
- hours of reading
- 1929
- Книгоспілка
Книгоспілка, 1929. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
Late summer in the early 1920s. Stepan Radchenko, a young man from the village of Теревені who has been through the war, arrives in Kyiv by steamer on the Dnipro to study at an institute and, he believes, to bring a new, cultured life back home. He sleeps on a workbench in a shed next to the cowshed of the fishmonger Luka Hnidyi, minds the family’s cows for his keep, fights his way through offices, queues and entrance exams, and feels his village shyness at every step. Nadiika, a blue-eyed girl from the steamer, and his friend Levko are his first company, but the city slowly draws him away from both. Hnidyi’s wife, Tamara Vasylivna, draws him into an affair; he starts teaching Ukrainian for the Ukrainization campaign and almost by chance discovers that he can write. In the second part he signs his stories with the more refined name Стефан, rents a room of his own, enters the beer cellars and editorial offices of the literary scene, meets the poet Vyhorsky and a capricious young woman named Zoska, and learns what success costs him and others. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Місто
XX. Частина друга: розділ 6
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Choose an underlined word.
The city as a character
Зокола is “from the outside” (today’s Ukrainian prefers ззовні), and щокроку, “at every step”, is що + крок written as one word. Pidmohylny describes Kyiv as if it were a person: outside it “gushes like a spring” (б’є джерелом), inside its offices it “drags along like an old cart” (тягнеться старим возом). The френч on Stepan’s chest is a military-style tunic, the dress of a young man back from the war.
The spelling of 1929
Наявности, творчости and вартости are today’s наявності, творчості and вартості: the 1929 edition writes the genitive of these feminine nouns in -ости, 208 times in the novel. Once you know the pattern, the words are easy to find in a dictionary. The tone is ironic: the narrator mocks the literary talk that Stepan is about to join, so read the long sentences as a parody of solemn speech.
Chapters
- IЧастина перша: розділ 1
- IIЧастина перша: розділ 2
- IIIЧастина перша: розділ 3
- IVЧастина перша: розділ 4
- VЧастина перша: розділ 5
- VIЧастина перша: розділ 6
- VIIЧастина перша: розділ 7
- VIIIЧастина перша: розділ 8
- IXЧастина перша: розділ 9
- XЧастина перша: розділ 10
- XIЧастина перша: розділ 11
- XIIЧастина перша: розділ 12
- XIIIЧастина перша: розділ 13
- XIVЧастина перша: розділ 14
- XVЧастина друга: розділ 1
- XVIЧастина друга: розділ 2
- XVIIЧастина друга: розділ 3
- XVIIIЧастина друга: розділ 4
- XIXЧастина друга: розділ 5
- XXЧастина друга: розділ 6
- XXIЧастина друга: розділ 7
- XXIIЧастина друга: розділ 8
- XXIIIЧастина друга: розділ 9
- XXIVЧастина друга: розділ 10
- XXVЧастина друга: розділ 11
- XXVIЧастина друга: розділ 12
- XXVIIЧастина друга: розділ 13
- XXVIIIЧастина друга: розділ 14
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
Pidmohylny describes the city with mock solemnity, and whole-sentence translation in Reader helps you catch the joke, for example “Весну в місті несуть не ластівки, а биндюжники, що з благословення Комгоспу починають довбати на вулицях злеглий сніг, вантажити його на санки й вивозити геть, де він може танути без шкоди для міського добробуту” (“In the city spring is brought not by swallows but by the carters, who with the blessing of the Komhosp, the municipal services, start hacking at the packed snow in the streets, loading it onto sledges and carting it away, where it can melt without harming the city’s welfare”).
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s version: Valerian Pidmohylny’s complete novel, first published in 1928, with its two epigraphs, both parts, all 28 chapters and the closing date line “1927. Київ.” The text follows the second edition (Книгоспілка, Kyiv, 1929) as transcribed on Wikisource, so the spelling is that edition’s: творчости for творчості, плян for план, лямпа for лампа, ґанок, мусів for мусив. We corrected two scanning slips of the transcription: a digit 3 in place of the letter З in Збірка, and a stray digit after the word що. The novel is frank about desire, and several scenes describe Stepan’s affairs plainly; it is a book for adult readers.
Is there an audiobook?
The City has no audiobook on MovaReader: the novel is read on screen. Tap a word to see its translation; you will need it from the first chapters for words such as варстат (a workbench, Stepan’s first bed in the city) or Житлоспілка (a 1920s housing cooperative, which plays a part in the second half).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most in the narrator’s reflections, for example “Життя страшне своєю невпинністю, нестримним поривом, що не схиляється перед найбільшим стражданням людини, показуючи спину її найгострішому болеві” (“Life is terrible in its relentlessness, in its unstoppable surge that does not bow before the greatest human suffering and turns its back on a person’s sharpest pain”). Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole novel takes about 13 to 22 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. Part one has about 33,400 words and part two about 46,100. Chapters run from about 1,500 words (chapter IV of part one) to about 4,100 (chapter X of part two), so one chapter makes a sitting.
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty changes from chapter to chapter rather than from part to part. The densest are chapter VII of part one (about 21 words per sentence, 15.4% long words), chapter XIII of part one (17 words, 16.9%) and chapters IV and IX of part one, which have no dialogue at all. The lightest are chapter XII of part one (10 words per sentence, 9.8% long words, two thirds of the paragraphs dialogue) and chapters V, VI and XIV of part two (10 to 11 words per sentence).
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened. Any chapter also opens from the contents on this page, for example the first chapter of part two (XV. Частина друга: розділ 1).