II. Пан возний
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— , — , — — , — . .
A Poltava love story retold for A2
Natalka Poltavka Наталка Полтавка
Ivan Kotliarevsky
This is MovaReader’s retelling of Natalka Poltavka in simple standard Ukrainian prose, not the original play: Ivan Kotliarevsky’s comedy with songs from 1819, the first classic of the modern Ukrainian stage, about a poor village girl, her lost sweetheart and a pompous official who wants to marry her. It is for A2 readers who know the basics and want a real story told in the past tense: about 4,500 words in 10 short titled chapters. The complete play is in the catalogue at B2.
- A2
- 4 470 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
A1
Earlier
At A1 it is a stretch: the whole story is in the past tense, many sentences join two clauses with що, бо or щоб, and the official’s bookish phrases need several taps.
A1A2
This text
At A2 it fits: everyday words, past-tense narration and lots of short dialogue; words like коромисло (a yoke for water buckets) or рушник (an embroidered towel) translate with a tap.
Check this passageB1
With room to spare
At B1 it reads almost without translation: a quick way to know the story before Kotliarevsky’s complete play at B2, with its songs and the official’s Church Slavonic tirades.
Start readingSentences average 9 words, the narration is in the past tense, and about three paragraphs in five are short lines of dialogue. About one word in 20 has 9 letters or more (5.1%); many are past-tense verbs such as засватали (they betrothed her) or злякалася (she got scared), and some are names like Тетерваковський. Among the other A2 adaptations, Тіні забутих предків has the same 9 words per sentence and slightly more long words (5.4%), while Лис Микита has longer sentences (10 words) but far fewer long words (3.3%). Kotliarevsky’s Енеїда, retold for B1, has about the same share of long words but 11 words per sentence. The first chapter, which tells the family’s past, has the longest sentences (11.9 words); the dialogue chapters stay between 7.5 and 8.5. Hence A2. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 4 470
- words
- 9
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
MovaReader. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
A village on the Vorskla, not far from Poltava. Natalka lives in a small house with her widowed mother, Horpyna Terpylykha. They were once well off in Poltava, but her father drank his money away and drove out Petro, the orphan the family had raised and the boy Natalka loved; for four years there has been no word from him. One morning by the river the court official Tetervakovsky, a возний who can hardly finish a sentence without “теє то, як його”, asks Natalka to marry him. She says no, so he sends the sly village head Makohonenko to work on her mother, and the mother’s tears do the rest: Natalka hands the matchmakers the embroidered towels that mean yes. That same day a young traveller with a little money in his pocket walks down the village street and learns from Mykola, a distant relative of the family, whom the official has just betrothed. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Наталка Полтавка
VII. Запізно на один день
« , , — . — . . . , , . . !»
, : , . , , .
Choose an underlined word.
Ви for respect, ти for closeness
Natalka speaks to the official with the polite ви: Шукайте собі, добродію… and Хіба я вам рівня? He answers with the familiar ти (Ти одна в моєму серці), as an older man of rank might speak to a village girl. Watch the pronouns: they show the distance she wants to keep.
Thinking in the past tense
Petro’s thoughts are a chain of past-tense verbs ending in -в, because the speaker is a man: був, любив, працював, заробив, поспішав, думав, знайшов. The only infinitive, запізнитися (to be late), follows треба ж було, “it just had to happen that…”, a set phrase for bad luck.
Chapters
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
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Reader translates whole sentences where the official’s legal mind shows through, as in Він питав, чи може він отримати Наталку «у вічне володіння», як отримують землю чи хату, “he asked whether he could get Natalka ‘into eternal possession’, the way one gets land or a house”.
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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 prose, of Natalka Poltavka, the play with songs Ivan Kotliarevsky wrote for the Poltava theatre, where it was first staged in 1819; it was first printed in 1838 in Kharkiv. We followed the text of the 1937 edition on Wikisource, the same one as the complete play at B2 in our catalogue. What changed: a play of about 9,400 words in two acts became about 4,500 words of past-tense prose in modern standard Ukrainian (2019 spelling), in 10 titled chapters. The plot, the six characters and the order of the scenes are kept. Most songs are told in a sentence or two, with a few short lines quoted, among them «Віють вітри, віють буйні» and «Ой я дівчина Полтавка»; the official’s mix of Church Slavonic and chancery words became plain Ukrainian, with only his catchphrase теє то, як його kept; the talk about the theatre in Kharkiv is much shorter; and songs that name other peoples in the words of the time were left out.
Is there an audiobook?
No, there is no audio version on MovaReader: the text is read on screen. Tap a word you don’t know and its translation appears; here that will often be village words like коромисло (a yoke for carrying water buckets) or реп’ях (a burdock burr), or titles such as возний (a court official) and виборний (the elected village head).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes: whole-sentence translation comes with the Reader plan. Sentences here average 9 words, so you will need it mostly where one clause sits inside another, as in Женихи, яким я відмовила, удруге не прийдуть (“The suitors I turned down will not come a second time”). Without the plan you can translate single words up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
About an hour for the whole story at a learner’s pace, with new words translated as you go. There are 10 chapters of about 330 to 530 words each, so a chapter takes a few minutes and the story fits into one or two evenings.
Where does the text get easier?
It gets easier after the first chapter. Chapter I, “Наталка біля річки” (Natalka by the river), tells the family’s past and has the longest sentences (11.9 words on average); chapters III to IX, mostly dialogue, stay between 7.5 and 8.5, and chapter VIII, “Зустріч над Ворсклою” (Meeting by the Vorskla), has the shortest (7.5).
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 10 chapters directly, for example chapter VI, “Двоє сиріт” (Two orphans), where two homeless young men meet on the village street.