III. Сон
—
...
.
,
— ,
;
.
...
.
,
. ?
,
:
„ “
.
:
,
,
.
Poems the Russian Empire would not print
The Dream, The Caucasus, The Epistle and Other Poems Сон. Кавказ. Посланіє та інші поеми
Taras Shevchenko, 1876
Sixteen of Taras Shevchenko’s political, prophetic and biblical poems in the original Ukrainian, not an adaptation, as printed in the second volume of the uncensored Kobzar published in Prague in 1876. It is for C2 learners who want the poems that made Shevchenko Ukraine’s national poet and are ready for 19th-century verse with Church Slavonic and some Russian woven in. About 16,000 words in 16 chapters, one per poem, from the 88 words of Testament to the 3,050 of Maria.
- C2
- 15 985 words
- 3-4 hours
Will this text hold?
C1
Earlier
At C1 the history and the Church Slavonic are what will stop you: read Kaidash’s Family in its 1879 spelling or the 1911 edition of The Witch of Konotop first, and the A2 retelling of Shevchenko’s Kateryna to get used to his voice.
C1C2
This text
At C2 you can read it poem by poem: start with Testament and The Caucasus, the most quoted, and keep the Psalms, Neophytes and Maria for when the Church Slavonic forms feel familiar.
Check this passageThe plain numbers would not put this book at C2: 7.7% of its words have 9 letters or more, about the same as Kaidash’s Family in its 1879 spelling (7.8%, C1), and sentences average 12 words, far from the 27 of Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko’s The Witch of Konotop. In verse that average says little anyway: a sentence can run over a whole stanza, and the dialogues of souls and crows in Velykyi lokh come out at 8 words while Maria reaches 15. C2 here means reading a historical stage of the language, as Shakespeare is for learners of English or Cervantes for learners of Spanish. The 1876 edition writes ё for йо and ьо 156 times (ёго, слёзи), puts ъ or ь where today there is an apostrophe 76 times (пьяний, кровъю, сімьї) and keeps a word-initial и 24 times (Ирод, Иван); ѣ, ы and ѳ appear in Russian and Church Slavonic passages and Greek names (здѣсь, бысть, Виѳлиєм). Four epigraphs are in Church Slavonic (Ащє кто рєчєть...), and so is much of the biblical diction (єси 7 times, вскую, возхвалимо); long adjective forms such as святая, святиї and тую occur more than 200 times, and a few characters in Dream speak Russian. On top of that nearly every page leans on history and scripture: Peter I and Catherine II behind the inscription “Первому Вторая”, Bohdan Khmelnytsky named 13 times, a Decembrist in Siberia, Herod and Nero 7 times each, the Colosseum, the Psalms and the prophet Hosea. A modern dictionary will often fail here, and tap translation may miss the old spellings. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 15 985
- words
- 12
- words in an average sentence
- 3-4
- hours of reading
- 1876
- Книгарня др. Грегра та Ф. Даттла
Книгарня др. Грегра та Ф. Даттла, 1876. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
The book opens with Ukraine as a mother weeping over a burial mound dug up by strangers, and with Chyhyryn, Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s old capital, fallen silent. In Dream a tipsy narrator falls asleep and flies over Ukraine, the mines and prisons of Siberia and imperial St Petersburg, where he watches ministers bow before the tsar and stops at the bronze statue of Peter I. The Heretic honours Jan Hus, Velykyi lokh lets three souls and three crows tell how Ukraine was betrayed, and The Caucasus turns the myth of Prometheus against the empire’s war in the mountains. The epistle to his countrymen scolds an educated gentry that forgets its own people, and Testament asks to be buried on a mound above the Dnipro. Ten Psalms of David, The Kings and Hosea, Chapter XIV recast the Bible as a judgement on tyrants; Neophytes follows a mother whose son becomes a Christian in Nero’s Rome, and Maria retells the Gospel through the life of Jesus’s mother. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Сон. Кавказ. Посланіє та інші поеми
IX. Заповіт
,
,
,
:
,
,
, ,
.
, —
—
;
— .
,
,
!
,
,
!
Choose an underlined word.
Who rides the bronze horse?
The rider is the Bronze Horseman, the statue of Peter I on the Neva in St Petersburg, and “Первому Вторая” shortens its inscription, “to the First from the Second”. Первий is Peter I, who sent Cossack regiments to dig canals and build his capital; Вторая is Catherine II, who abolished the Hetmanate and destroyed the Zaporozhian Sich. Роспинав is modern розпинав, “crucified”, and доканала means “finished off”: Ukraine is the widow and orphan. Охляп and у свиті, не свиті mock the emperor riding without a saddle in a cloak that is hardly a cloak.
Testament in its 1876 spelling
Кровъю and сімьї are кров’ю and сім’ї: this edition writes ъ or ь where modern Ukrainian has an apostrophe. Як понесе з України у синєє море кров ворожу has no subject of its own: it is the Dnipro of the lines before that will carry the enemy’s blood to the sea. Синєє is an old long form of синє, and the last line, не злим тихим словом, means “with a kind, quiet word”, literally “with a not-evil, quiet word”.
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, the whole sentence is translated where The Caucasus turns to God over five lines: Не нам на прю з Тобою стати, не нам діла Твої судить: нам тілько плакать, плакать, плакать, і хліб насушний замісить крівавим потом і слёзами! (“It is not for us to contend with You, not for us to judge Your deeds: ours is only to weep, weep, weep, and knead our daily bread with bloody sweat and tears!”).
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this level
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not an adaptation: sixteen poems by Taras Shevchenko written between 1843 and 1859, complete as the edition prints them (The Heretic only in the extracts it gives). Most could not be printed in the Russian Empire in his lifetime; several, The Caucasus among them, first appeared abroad in Leipzig in 1859. The text follows volume II of the Kobzar printed in Prague in 1876 for the bookshop of Dr Grégr and Ferdinand Dattel, an uncensored edition made outside the empire, as reproduced on Wikisource; a few slips of the online transcription were corrected against the scan of the book. The selection and the order are the catalogue’s own: the edition prints these poems in a different order among many others. Rows of dots come from the 1876 editors and mark lines missing in their sources or cut by censors. The spelling is the edition’s: ё for йо (ёго), ъ or ь for the apostrophe (кровъю, пьяний), и at the start of words (Ирод). The political poems use some period names for neighbouring peoples that sound harsh today.
Is there an audiobook?
There is no audiobook: the poems are read on screen, and a tap on a word shows its translation. You will need it for words such as охляп (“bareback”, in Dream) and вскую (Church Slavonic “why”, in Psalm XLIII). Old spellings are easier to look up in modern form: ёго as його, пьяний as п’яний, сімьї as сім’ї.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps where a sentence runs over several lines, as in the epistle to his countrymen: Учітеся, брати мої, думайте, читайте, і чужому научайтесь, й свого не цурайтесь (“Learn, my brothers, think and read, learn what others know, and do not shun your own”). Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
About 3-4 hours at the pace of someone reading with translation of new words. The poems differ a lot in size: Testament has 88 words, The Dug Grave about 180, The Caucasus about 780, Dream about 2,180, Neophytes about 2,500 and Maria, the longest, about 3,050; the others run from about 200 to 1,050 words. A short poem takes a few minutes, a long one an evening.
Where does the text get easier?
It depends on the poem, not on its place in the book. The plainest vocabulary is in Testament (4.7% long words), The Caucasus (5.0%), the short Во Іудеї, во дні они (5.1%) and the Psalms (5.8%); the densest is in Irzhavets (13.0%), Hosea, Chapter XIV (9.8%), The Dug Grave (9.6%), the extracts from The Heretic (9.3%) and the epistle (9.0%). Sentences are shortest in the dialogues of Velykyi lokh (8.4 words) and longest in Maria (14.9) and the epistle (14.4). Church Slavonic is heaviest in the epigraphs, the Psalms and the poems of 1857-1859 at the end.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your place and the words you opened, so you can come back where you left off. Any poem also opens from the contents on this page, for example VI. Кавказ or IX. Заповіт.