I. Дія перша
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Songs and matchmaking by the Vorskla (B2)
Natalka Poltavka Наталка-Полтавка
Ivan Kotliarevsky, 1937
Ivan Kotliarevsky’s complete play in Ukrainian, not an adaptation: a comic opera in two acts, written in 1819 and printed in 1838, that every Ukrainian knows and that stands at the start of the Ukrainian popular theatre. A poor village girl near Poltava, a pompous court clerk who wants to marry her, and folk songs between the lines of dialogue. It is for B2 learners who enjoy dialogue and want a true classic. About 9,400 words in two acts, 8 words per sentence on average.
- B2
- 9 428 words
- 2-3 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the clerk’s speeches will be a wall: Church Slavonic and Russian chancery words such as предложеніє, ничтожні and рци inside Ukrainian sentences, plus old forms like од and єсть and songs in verse.
B1B2
This text
At B2 you can read it: four paragraphs in five are lines of dialogue, the sentences are short, and the clerk’s tirades give way to word-by-word translation.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the play reads in an evening or two; only the clerk’s jargon and the words of 1819 village life (рушники, виборний, позов) make you stop.
Start readingThe average sentence has 8 words, and 7.4% of words have 9 letters or more, about one in fourteen. That is close to Fata Morgana (8.1 words, 6.4%, B2) and well below the one-in-ten line of C1 books such as Boa constrictor (10.0%). The short sentences are speech: 348 of the 440 paragraphs are lines of dialogue, and 39 passages, about 310 lines, are sung verse. What slows you down is the clerk, the возний: his 61 speeches, about 1,770 words or nearly a fifth of the play, mix Ukrainian with Church Slavonic and Russian chancery language (предложеніє for a marriage proposal, ничтожні “worthless”, рци “say”, verbs with a Russian-style ending like взираєть), and he repeats his filler теє то, як його (“that, what’s-it-called”) 49 times. The others speak the village Ukrainian of 1819 with older forms: од appears 27 times against 5 for від, and єсть (“is”) 19 times. A complete original is never below B2 here, and nothing pushes this one to C1. Hence B2. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 9 428
- words
- 8
- words in an average sentence
- 2-3
- hours of reading
- 1937
- Дитвидав ЦК ЛКСМУ
Дитвидав ЦК ЛКСМУ, 1937. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
A village on the Vorskla river, near Poltava. Natalka, a poor girl, lives with her widowed mother, Horpyna Terpylykha. Years ago her father took in an orphan, Petro; the two children grew up together and fell in love, but when the father, ruined by drink and grand company, turned against the boy, Petro was driven out, and nobody has heard of him since. Now the court clerk Tetervakovsky, the возний of the village, wants to marry Natalka and courts her in a comic jumble of legal and Church Slavonic phrases. The sly village head Makohonenko offers to be his matchmaker, and the mother, tired of poverty, presses her daughter to say yes. In Act II a stranger walks down the village street singing a love song, and Mykola, a homeless young relative of Terpylykha, tells him what has just happened in Natalka’s house. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Наталка-Полтавка
II. Дія друга
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Choose an underlined word.
The clerk’s borrowed grandeur
Here the возний proposes in a mix of Ukrainian, Church Slavonic and Russian chancery language. Рци is Church Slavonic for скажи (“say”), аз for я (“I”), оная for та (“that”), состояніє for стан (“station, status”), and the verbs взираєть and рівняєть carry a Russian-style ending in place of Ukrainian -є. Теє то, як його (“that, what’s-it-called”) is his filler: skip it as you read. Natalka answers in plain village Ukrainian with a proverb: знайся кінь з конем, а віл з волом, “let a horse keep company with a horse and an ox with an ox”.
Old forms in plain speech
Petro and Mykola speak ordinary village Ukrainian of 1819, with a few older forms: од is від (“from”), єсть is є (“there is”), знакомі is знайомі (“acquaintances”), ввесь is весь (“all of me”). Ні кола, ні двора, literally “neither stake nor yard”, is an idiom for having nothing at all. Благодареніє богу is a Church Slavonic “thank God” that even a young villager would use.
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
When the clerk gets carried away, translating the whole sentence in Reader untangles his grammar, as in Моїх діл околичності, возникающії із неудобних обстоятельств, удержували соділати признаніє пред тобою (“The circumstances of my affairs, arising from awkward conditions, held me back from making my confession to you”).
ReaderIf this book is not the one
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Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not an adaptation: Ivan Kotliarevsky’s complete play, both acts with all their songs and the list of characters. He wrote it in 1819 for the theatre in Poltava; it was first printed in 1838 in Kharkiv, in Izmail Sreznevsky’s Український збірник. The text comes from Wikisource, which reproduces the 1937 edition (Одеса, Дитвидав ЦК ЛКСМУ) and keeps that edition’s spelling, along with Kotliarevsky’s own old forms such as єсть and од. That edition prints the title with a hyphen, Наталка-Полтавка; today it is usually written Наталка Полтавка. The 1937 editor’s footnotes are not included.
Is there an audiobook?
Natalka Poltavka has no audiobook on MovaReader: the play is read on screen, and a tap on a word shows its translation. You will need it for the clerk’s words like предложеніє (“marriage proposal”, in standard Ukrainian пропозиція) and for village customs like рушники, embroidered towels that a bride hands to the matchmakers to accept a proposal.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most with the clerk’s mock-learned tirades, as in стільки язиків, скільки артикулів в статуті илі скільки зап’ятих в Магдебургськім праві, то і сих не довліло б на восхваленіє ліпоти твоєй (“as many tongues as there are articles in the Statute or commas in Magdeburg law, and even those would not be enough to praise your beauty”). Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
About 2-3 hours, at the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker. The two acts are close in size: Act I has about 5,100 words and Act II about 4,300, so each act fits one sitting.
Where does the text get easier?
It gets easier. Act I, where the clerk courts Natalka and talks with the village head, is the denser one: 8.5 words per sentence, 7.7% long words and 37 of his 49 теє то, як його fillers. Act II runs at 6.8 words per sentence and 6.9% long words, with quicker exchanges between the young people and only 12 of the fillers.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so you can come back where you left off, even in the middle of an act. Both acts also open from the contents on this page, for example II. Дія друга, which begins with Mykola alone in the street, singing the Cossack song Гомін, гомін по діброві.