IV. Панщина
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A runaway serf’s life, retold for A2
Mykola Dzheria Микола Джеря
Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky
This is MovaReader’s retelling of Mykola Dzheria in simple standard Ukrainian, not the original novella: Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky’s 1878 story of a serf who runs away from a cruel landlord and spends half his life in sugar factories and on the Black Sea fisheries. It is for A2 readers who know the basics and want a real story told in the past tense: about 4,300 words in 12 short titled chapters. The complete novella is in the catalogue at B2.
- A2
- 4 343 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
A1
Earlier
At A1 it is a stretch: everything is told in the past tense, sentences often join two clauses with бо, коли or що, and words of serf life such as панщина or осавула need a tap.
A1A2
This text
At A2 it fits: plain modern Ukrainian, past-tense narration and plenty of short dialogue; words like кріпак (a serf) or лиман (an estuary) translate with a tap.
Check this passageB1
With room to spare
At B1 it reads almost without translation: a quick way into the story before the complete novella at B2, with its long descriptions and the older spelling of the 1926 edition.
Start readingSentences average 9 words, the narration is in the past tense, and about two paragraphs in five are short lines of dialogue. About one word in 20 has 9 letters or more (5.1%); many are past-tense or plural forms such as заговорили (they started talking) or чоловіків (of the men), and some are names like Скрипчинців or Бжозовський. That puts it squarely among the other A2 adaptations: Тіні забутих предків also has 9 words per sentence and slightly more long words (5.4%), while Захар Беркут has 10 words per sentence and slightly fewer (4.9%). Nechuy-Levytsky’s own Кайдашева сім’я, retold for B1, has longer sentences (11 words) and more long words (5.8%). Every chapter stays between 8.5 and 10.1 words per sentence, so there is no hard stretch. Hence A2. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 4 343
- words
- 9
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
MovaReader. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
Verbivka, a village of willows on the Rastavytsia river, in the years of serfdom. Mykola Dzheria, a young serf who reads in church and plays the fiddle, falls for Nymydora, an orphan working as a hired girl, and marries her against his mother’s wishes. Their happiness lasts only until the harvest: the landlord Bzhozovsky and his overseer squeeze ever more unpaid work out of the village, Mykola’s old father dies worn out, and when Mykola speaks up for the villagers he is flogged and threatened with the army. One autumn night he leaves his wife and baby daughter and runs away with five other men. Sugar factories, the open steppe, false papers in Bessarabia and a fishing crew on the Black Sea follow, and so does Mokryna, the crew leader’s daughter, who falls in love with him, while Nymydora waits at home year after year. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Микола Джеря
VI. Чужі заводи
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Choose an underlined word.
Whose field is it?
The whole quarrel turns on two words: панське поле, the lord’s field, and своє, our own. Under serfdom villagers owed the landlord unpaid work, панщина, and згінні дні were extra days he could demand on top of it, here right in the harvest. Watch the prefixes too: прискакав means “came galloping up”, поскакав “galloped off”; only при- (arriving) and по- (setting off) differ.
A chain of quick verbs
The landlord’s escape is one sentence of perfective past verbs: вирвався (broke free), утік (ran off), стрибнув (jumped), сховався (hid). Each is a finished action, so the scene moves step by step. The ending -ся turns the action back on the subject: he freed himself, he hid himself. And Це наша кров, “This is our blood”, means the gold watch was bought with the serfs’ labour.
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 a short line carries a lot of history, as in Ми не крали, ми своє брали, бо це наша праця, “We did not steal, we took what is ours, because it is our labour”.
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Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
An adaptation, not the original text. It is MovaReader’s own retelling, in simple standard Ukrainian, of Mykola Dzheria (Микола Джеря), the novella Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky wrote in 1876 and first published in 1878. We followed the text of the 1926 Knyhospilka edition on Wikisource, the same one as the complete novella at B2 in our catalogue. What changed: about 36,600 words in eight chapters became about 4,300 words of past-tense prose in modern standard Ukrainian (2019 spelling), in 12 titled chapters. The plot, the main characters and the order of events are kept; the long descriptions of landscapes, fires and dreams are cut to a sentence or two; older words were replaced with today’s, so the sugar factories are цукроварні, not сахарні. The source’s fourth chapter and a few other passages use ethnic slurs of the period about Jewish people; they were left out, and the factory leaseholder is simply called the owner.
Is there an audiobook?
No, there is no audio version on MovaReader: the text is read on screen. Tap a word and its translation appears; here you will often tap words of serf life such as панщина (unpaid labour owed to the landlord) and осавула (the landlord’s overseer), or of the fisheries, such as лиман (an estuary) and ватага (a fishing crew).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes: whole-sentence translation comes with the Reader plan. Sentences here average 9 words, so you will want it mainly where one clause leans on another, as in Коли хтось помирав, на його місце записували нового втікача з тим самим іменем (“When someone died, a new runaway was entered in his place under the same name”). Without the plan, single words translate up to a daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
About an hour for the whole book at a learner’s pace, with new words translated as you go. The 12 chapters run from about 280 to 440 words, so each takes a few minutes and the story fits into one or two evenings.
Where does the text get easier?
It is even from start to finish: every chapter averages between 8.5 and 10.1 words per sentence. The quickest is chapter IV, “Панщина” (Serf labour), at 8.5, a chapter of sharp exchanges with the overseer; the slowest are chapter II, “Наймичка Нимидора” (Nymydora the hired girl), at 10.0, and chapter VIII, “Рибалки” (The fishermen), at 10.1, which narrate more and quote less.
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 open any of the 12 chapters directly, for example chapter VIII, “Рибалки” (The fishermen), where the runaways join a fishing crew on the Black Sea coast.