I. Розділ 1
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A Hutsul love story in the Carpathians
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors Тіні забутих предків
Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, 1955
Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky’s complete novella in the original Ukrainian, first printed in 1912, not an adaptation. It is for learners at C1, or strong B2 readers ready to meet the Hutsul dialect of the Carpathian mountains. About 16,200 words in 13 untitled parts, from under 100 words to about 3,500.
- C1
- 16 200 words
- 3-5 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 the story itself is clear and the sentences are short, but Hutsul words (полонина, маржина, ґазда) and dialect forms such as си and тота stop you in nearly every paragraph.
B2C1
This text
At C1 it reads with word taps: the dialect words keep coming back, so after the first part полонина, смерека and ватаг feel familiar, and the long descriptions of nature are the slowest pages.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 only the rarest dialect and ritual words, such as арідник or the shepherds’ terms, still need a tap; the rest reads for its music.
Start readingOn the plain numbers this would be B2: sentences average 12 words, and 7.4% of the words have 9 letters or more, fewer than in Kotsiubynsky’s own Дорогою ціною (8.8%, B2) and well below Franko’s Boa constrictor (10%, C1). What lifts it to C1 is the Hutsul dialect. The text uses полонина (high mountain pasture) 54 times, смерека (spruce) 43, трембіта (the long shepherd’s horn) 19, маржина (livestock) 17, мольфар (sorcerer) 15, ґазда (householder) 13 and царинка (hay meadow) 12, and names forest spirits such as нявка and Чугайстир 37 times. The characters speak dialect too: the reflexive си stands apart from the verb (я си обую), тота and тото stand for та and те, му and меш for буду and будеш. None of this is in a textbook, so even a strong B2 reader will stop often. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 16 200
- words
- 12
- words in an average sentence
- 3-5
- hours of reading
- 1955
- Книгоспілка
Книгоспілка, 1955. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
Ivan, the nineteenth of twenty children in the Paliychuk family, grows up a strange, dreamy boy in a Hutsul village above the Cheremosh river, where people still live alongside forest spirits, sorcerers and pagan rites under a thin layer of Christianity. His family is feuding with the Hutenyuks, and the feud turns bloody; yet Ivan makes friends with Marichka, a girl from the enemy clan, and over the years the two fall in love. To earn money before they can marry, Ivan goes up to spend a summer with the shepherds on the high pastures. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Тіні забутих предків
VII. Розділ 7
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Choose an underlined word.
The particle си
In Hutsul speech the reflexive particle stands apart from the verb: я си обую is standard я взуюся (I’ll put my shoes on), and б’єш си is б’єшся (you fight). Also нічьо is нічого (never mind) and май ліпші is кращі (better ones).
Тото, него, сього
The shepherd Mykola speaks Hutsul: тото means те or той (that), в него is в нього (from him) and сього is цього (this). Таке то… is a filler, roughly “that’s how it is”.
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
The children’s dialogue is short but full of dialect: in “Я си обую файно та й буду дівка…” (“I’ll put on fine shoes and be a grown-up girl”), translating the whole sentence in Reader shows how си and файно fit together.
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
Yes, it is the complete original: Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky’s novella, written in 1911 and first printed in 1912 in the journal “Літературно-науковий вісник” (Literary and Scientific Herald). The text comes from volume II of his Works (Книгоспілка, New York, 1955) on Wikisource and keeps that edition’s spelling, for example смерти and радости where today’s Ukrainian writes смерті and радості. The Hutsul words are the author’s own.
Is there an audiobook?
No, there is no audiobook on MovaReader: the novella is read on screen. Tap a word to see its translation; you will need it most for Hutsul words such as маржина (livestock) or царинка (a fenced hay meadow).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most with dialect lines such as “Ти меш, сарако, вівчарити, я му сіно робити” (“You’ll tend the sheep, poor thing, and I’ll make hay”). Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
About 3-5 hours at the pace of someone reading with word translation, slower than a native speaker. The 13 parts are very uneven: the first runs to about 3,500 words, several are under 600, and part VIII has fewer than 100.
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty is fairly even, with no easy stretch: in the longer parts sentences average 10-15 words (part IV, full of songs, about 8), and long words stay between 6% and 9%, a little higher in the last two parts. The shepherds’ vocabulary is concentrated in parts II-VIII and keeps repeating, so it gets easier as you go.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your place and the words you opened. Any of the 13 parts opens from the contents on this page, for example II. Розділ 2, where Ivan goes up to the high pasture.