I. Сорок років пустелі
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A prophet rejected by his people, at B1
Moses Мойсей
Ivan Franko
This is a retelling of Ivan Franko’s narrative poem in simple modern Ukrainian prose, not the original: a MovaReader adaptation for readers who handle everyday Ukrainian and want a short, intense story of faith, doubt and a people that has stopped believing. In the catalogue it is B1: about 5,500 words in 14 parts (a short prologue and 13 chapters), with 11 words per sentence on average and more than half of the text in direct speech, above all Moses’ speeches. Franko (1856-1916) wrote Moses in 1905, the year of revolution in the Russian Empire, and opened it with an address to the Ukrainian people; the complete poem is also in the catalogue as Moses, at C1.
- B1
- 5 543 words
- 1-2 hours
Will this text hold?
A2
Earlier
At A2 you will tap often: the story is simple, but Moses speaks in long figures of speech, and words such as пророк, шатро, терен and заповіт are not everyday Ukrainian.
A2B1
This text
At B1 it reads well if you know the past tense and the imperative: each chapter is one scene, more than half is direct speech, and the biblical words return often enough to learn on the way.
Check this passageB2
With room to spare
At B2 it is a quick read and a way into the complete poem in the catalogue (Moses, C1), where the same story is told in Franko’s rhymed verse and the Galician spelling of 1905.
Start readingThe average sentence has 11 words, the same as the catalogue’s B1 retelling of Lesya Ukrainka’s The Noblewoman, and one fewer than Franko’s Crossed Paths at B1 (12); the complete poem has 24. Long words are few: 4.6% have 9 letters or more, against 5.3% in the B1 prose retelling of The Forest Song and 5.6% in Crossed Paths. The poem’s rhyme, its Galician spelling of 1905 (се for це, нїби for ніби, житє for життя) and its biblical archaisms are replaced by standard modern prose. What makes it B1 rather than A2 is the register: Moses speaks in long figures of speech (a fable of trees choosing a king, an arrow on God’s bow, tinder that must be beaten soft), and a small biblical vocabulary returns throughout: пророк (prophet) 21 times, пустеля (desert) 19, шатро and намет (tent) 14 together, терен (blackthorn) 8. Sentences stay at 10-12 words in every chapter. Hence B1. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 5 543
- words
- 11
- words in an average sentence
- 1-2
- hours of reading
MovaReader. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
After forty years in the desert, Moses has brought the people of Israel to the border of Canaan. Beyond the red rocks of Moab the Jordan shines, but the new generation, born in the desert, no longer believes in any promised land: they want pasture for their goats, not war. Two leaders, Dathan and Abiram, rule the camp, and the assembly, after a sacrifice to Baal, decides that anyone who calls the people to rise and cross the mountains will be stoned. One evening the old prophet climbs the speaking stone in front of the whole camp. He tells a fable about trees looking for a king, mocks their love of comfort and warns them of God’s anger; Abiram answers with jokes, Dathan calls him a traitor in Pharaoh’s service, and the crowd drives him out. Alone in the night desert, Moses begs God for an answer, and a quiet voice begins to speak to him, a voice that knows all his doubts. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Мойсей
VIII. Діти в степу
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Choose an underlined word.
Verbs of a people on the move
Two verbs carry this scene: кочували (from кочувати, to roam with the herds like nomads) and манив (from манити, to lure). Both are imperfective past, so they describe a state that lasted for years, not one event; the comparison як міраж у пустелі, “like a mirage in the desert”, needs no dictionary.
Two kinds of command
Moses gives the children two imperatives of different aspect: вбивайте (imperfective: kill scorpions as a rule, whenever you meet one) and віднесіть (perfective: carry the hares back, once, now). Notice also the instrumental after бути: бути милосердними, “to be merciful”.
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 single words are not enough, as in the line of the poem that Moses quotes, Що як заглушите душу живу, заговорить каміння, “If you silence the living soul, the stones will speak”: що як here means “if”, not “what” and “how”.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this levelBefore you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
An adaptation, not the original text. It is MovaReader’s own retelling, in simple modern Ukrainian prose, of Ivan Franko’s narrative poem Мойсей (Moses), first published in Lviv in 1905 at the author’s expense. The plot follows the text on Wikisource, the same poem that is in this catalogue in full at C1. What changed: the prologue and 20 cantos of rhymed verse become a short prologue and 13 prose chapters (about 5,500 words); the Galician spelling of 1905 (се, нїби, житє) and archaic forms are replaced by standard modern Ukrainian; long speeches are shortened, and the vision of later Jewish history that Azazel shows Moses is told in a few lines, without its cruellest images and its sweeping lines about hatred. Three short lines of the poem are quoted in «…». The order of events and all the main characters stay.
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 biblical and pastoral words, such as шатро (a nomad’s tent, where the whole camp lives) or терен (blackthorn, the bush that agrees to be king in Moses’ fable), and images like кресало (a flint striker for making sparks).
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 want it mostly for Moses’ figures of speech, such as his answer to Abiram Що має колись повиснути, те і в морі не потоне, “What is to hang one day will not drown even in the sea”. Without the plan you can still tap single words.
How many hours does it take?
One to two hours for the whole book, at a learner’s pace with translation of new words, not a native speaker’s. The 14 parts run from about 240 words (the prologue) to about 570 (chapter V, “Казка про дерева”), so each fits into a short sitting.
Where does the text get easier?
It is even. Sentences stay at 10-12 words in every chapter. Long words vary a little: the prologue (6.4%), chapter VI with the quarrel (6.0%) and chapter XII with its vision of history (6.2%) have the most, while chapter XI, where Moses lies alone on the mountain, has the fewest (2.7%). The prologue is a little more abstract than the story that follows, because it speaks about a nation rather than about people; if it feels hard, start with chapter I and come back to it later.
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 14 parts directly, for example chapter VIII, “Діти в степу” (Children in the Steppe).