I. Талант
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6 stories of teachers, prison and war, for C1
Talent and Other Stories Талант та інші оповідання
Stepan Vasylchenko, 1927
The complete original in Ukrainian, not an adaptation: six stories by Stepan Vasylchenko, a village schoolteacher who became one of the finest Ukrainian short-story writers of the early 20th century, gathered here by MovaReader from volume II of his 1927 collected works. The title story, a short novel in fifteen sections, follows a gifted village girl whose voice could carry her far beyond her village; the others take you into a prison cell, a teachers’ seminary at Christmas, the trenches of the First World War, a shy teacher’s first evening among the local gentry and a regiment marching out on Easter morning. It is for advanced learners: about 30,200 words in 6 stories, from about 1,900 to 12,000 words each.
- C1
- 30 238 words
- 5-8 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 the title story is within reach, since talk and village scenes carry it, but the lyrical war pages of Чорні маки and Отруйна квітка will be slow going.
B2C1
This text
At C1 you can read the collection straight through: start with Талант, where dialogue keeps the pace, and leave the dense war pieces for last.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 the stories read freely; only the 1927 spellings, the Church Slavonic lines and a few village words will make you pause.
Start readingThe average sentence has 11 words, and 10.4% of the words have 9 letters or more, above the line of about one word in ten where this catalogue puts a complete original at C1. That is where Khvylovy’s Сентиментальна історія stands (11 words, 11.0%, C1), and above Vasylchenko’s own Мужицька арихметика та інші оповідання (12 words, 9.4%, B2) and Олив’яний перстень (10 words, 9.3%, B2), which are mostly short village sketches. These pages are more lyrical and descriptive: only 575 of the 1,799 paragraphs are spoken lines. The 1927 spelling adds to the load: particles joined with a hyphen (що-ж, коли-б, 138 times), од- where today’s spelling has від- (одчинене, одповів, about 170), очи and ночи for очі and ночі (115), инший for інший (19), and a few lines of Church Slavonic in the church scenes. The title story on its own would sit at B2 (9.6 words a sentence, 9.6% long words, a third of it dialogue); the other five are denser, up to 15.8 words a sentence in Отруйна квітка and 11.3% long words in Чорні маки. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 30 238
- words
- 11
- words in an average sentence
- 5-8
- hours of reading
- 1927
- Державне видавництво України
Державне видавництво України, 1927. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
In Талант (Talent), a young teacher who is secretly preparing for university arrives at a tumbledown village school, where his company is his colleague Andrii Markovych and Zaporozhets, the restless village cantor. Tetiana Hnativna, a village teacher with a remarkable voice, acts in shows staged in a barn, until guests from the capital at the landowner’s estate tell her she has a real talent, and the two young men start to dream with her. In Петруня (Petrunia), prisoners in a cell on a spring evening go over the story of a young man nicknamed after the handsome farmhand of folk songs, and of his love for the foster daughter of the princess on whose estate he worked. In Оксана (Oksana), a student of a teachers’ seminary on the Teteriv river goes out among the carol singers at Christmas and loses his head over a girl nobody can place. In Чорні маки (Black Poppies), a soldier writes in his field notebook about a spring night at the front when the men of both trenches stepped out to make peace. In Вова (Vova), a timid young teacher finally goes to the first public reading in the village tea room to meet the local educated people, and in Отруйна квітка (The Poisonous Flower), a regiment is marched out of a city on Easter night instead of getting the rest it was promised. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Талант та інші оповідання
III. Оксана
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Choose an underlined word.
1927 forms in a teasing scene
Одчепіться is today’s відчепіться (leave me alone): the 1927 edition writes од- where modern spelling has від-, and you will meet it on almost every page (одмінилась, одводив). Клуня is a village barn for sheaves, and уголь is an older word for вугілля (coal). In що-ж the particle is joined with a hyphen; today it is що ж.
Seminary words and a one-syllable glance
Зирк is a verb cut down to its root, a glance in one syllable: Shchur looks round. Либонь (probably, it seems) is a word of everyday central Ukrainian speech. Семинар is a student of a teachers’ seminary (today семінарист), and санчята is an older form of санчата (a little sledge). The director’s „народ“ is in quotes because young teachers were sent “to the people”, to village schools.
Where the text gets harder
IV-VIlong lyrical sentences
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
Early in Талант the narrator burns his old papers and writes “Летіть вітрам на забавки вечорі змарновані, а ночи недоспані” (fly off for the winds to play with, you wasted evenings and nights without sleep): whole-sentence translation in Reader helps, because the subject comes last and вечорі and ночи are the 1927 forms of вечори and ночі.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
Ukrainian books B2 Earlier Peasant Arithmetic and Other Stories Мужицька арихметика та інші оповідання Another book by the same author B2
All books at this level
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
Yes, every story is complete and unabridged. The selection and the title are MovaReader’s: six stories from volume II of Vasylchenko’s Повна збірка творів (Complete Works, Kharkiv: State Publishing House of Ukraine, 1927), via Wikisource. Талант, drafted by 1912 and first printed in 1924, is the latest of the six; the others draw on his years as a village teacher, a political prisoner and a soldier in the First World War (Чорні маки and Отруйна квітка). The spelling is that edition’s, so forms like що-ж, очи, одповів or инший stay as printed. Петруня uses a harsh period word for a child born out of wedlock, and an ethnic slur for Russians appears once in the book.
Is there an audiobook?
There is no audiobook on MovaReader: the stories are read on screen, and tapping a word shows its translation. You will want it for words such as позрікся (refused, in the newspaper note that opens Талант) and обмари (phantoms, night visions) in Оксана.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most in the lyrical passages, for example “Вже чую: встає, іде, гуде на мене з тих днів, що минули, хмара спогаданка…” (I can hear it already: a cloud of memories rises and comes humming at me out of the days that are gone) near the start of Талант, where the subject comes last and спогаданка is the author’s own word for a memory. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole collection takes about 5-8 hours at the pace of someone reading with translation of new words. Талант alone is about 12,000 words in fifteen short numbered sections, so it suits several sittings; Петруня (about 5,200 words) and Оксана (about 5,500) take about an hour each, and Вова (about 3,000), Чорні маки (about 2,600) and Отруйна квітка (about 1,900) each fit into one short sitting.
Where does the text get easier?
It gets harder, not easier, after the first story. I. Талант is the easiest (9.6 words per sentence, 9.6% long words, a third of it dialogue). II. Петруня (11.9 words, 10.5%) and III. Оксана (11.1 words, 11.2%) are a step up, and the last three are the densest: V. Вова (14.1 words), IV. Чорні маки (14.6 words, 11.3%) and VI. Отруйна квітка (15.8 words), where the war pages run in long lyrical sentences. For an easy start, read Талант first.
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 story by story. Each of the six stories also opens from the contents on this page, for example III. Оксана, where a seminary student falls for a mysterious carol singer at Christmas.