I. Камінь у чужій хаті
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An orphan claims her own life, at B1
The Princess Царівна
Olha Kobylianska
This is a retelling of Olha Kobylianska’s novel in simple modern Ukrainian, not the original: a MovaReader adaptation for readers who handle everyday Ukrainian and want a story of a young woman who refuses to live as a burden. In the catalogue it is B1: about 5,800 words in 12 chapters, with 11 words per sentence on average and about a third of the text in dialogue. Kobylianska, one of the first Ukrainian women novelists, came from Bukovyna, and The Princess (1896), written largely as the heroine’s diary, is counted among the first feminist novels in Ukrainian literature.
- B1
- 5 832 words
- 1-2 hours
Will this text hold?
A2
Earlier
At A2 you will tap often: the plot is simple, but Natalka’s thoughts bring abstract words such as милосердя, справедливість and обставини, and many sentences join two or three clauses.
A2B1
This text
You can read it at B1 if you are at home with the past tense and reported speech: each chapter is one clear episode, a third of the text is dialogue, and the diary passages are only a few lines long.
Check this passageB2
With room to spare
At B2 it reads almost without translation, a gentle way into the complete Ukrainian prose of the 1890s and 1900s in the catalogue, such as Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky’s Intermezzo.
Start readingThe average sentence has 11 words, the same as the catalogue’s B1 adaptations The Black Council, The Forest Song and Kaidash’s Family, and one fewer than The Witch of Konotop (12). Words of 9 letters or more make up 5.9% of the text, a little more than Kaidash’s Family (5.8%) and The Witch of Konotop (5.7%), and below a complete B2 original such as Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky’s Intermezzo (6.3%). Here the long words are not ranks or place names but the vocabulary of the inner life and of feelings shown in the body: милосердя (mercy), справедливість (justice), почервоніла (blushed), прошепотіла (whispered). About a third of the words (32%) are the characters’ lines, and a few short diary passages in Natalka’s own voice (Бути собі метою!, “To be my own goal!”) slow the pace. The old Galician spelling of 1896 and Kobylianska’s long, German-shaped sentences are replaced by standard modern Ukrainian; one regional word, вуйко (a mother’s brother in Bukovyna), is explained in the text. The first three chapters have the longest sentences (13-14 words); from chapter V on they run at 10-12. Hence B1. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 5 832
- words
- 11
- words in an average sentence
- 1-2
- hours of reading
MovaReader. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
A small mountain town in Bukovyna in the 1890s. Natalka Verkovychivna, an orphan with long red hair and large green eyes, lives with her uncle, a gymnasium teacher, and his cold, practical wife, who reminds her every day that she is a burden. Natalka reads at night, runs off to the forest and secretly writes an essay on the lives of women. Her cousin steals the notebook, and it reaches Vasyl Oriadyn, a proud, poor young man with a violin and big ideas about justice. They meet in the town garden, and on the night before he leaves he calls her his princess and promises to come back. No letters come. Instead come rumours of debts and cards, and a proposal from an old widowed teacher she cannot bear. Natalka has to choose between a safe marriage and the unknown life of a woman who earns her own bread, and later between two very different men. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Царівна
VI. Пальма, що росла до неба
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Choose an underlined word.
Secret walks and a participle
Потай means “secretly”, behind the family’s back. Гойдалася is the past tense of гойдатися, “to swing”: the ending -ся marks a reflexive verb, the action stays with the subject. Повернувшись, “having come back”, is an adverbial participle (дієприслівник): it lets one sentence carry two actions of the same person, first coming down, then keeping silent.
Faithful to a goal
Вірною своїй меті, “faithful to her goal”: вірний takes the dative, and мета becomes меті. Замовкли, “fell silent”, is perfective: the silence starts at that moment. Attalea princeps is the Latin title of Vsevolod Garshin’s tale about a palm that breaks through a greenhouse roof to reach the real sky; Natalka and Oriadyn are really talking about themselves.
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, MovaReader translates the whole sentence where the words alone do not carry the weight, as in Вона одна з тих, над ким добрі люди мусять мати милосердя і без любові, “She is one of those whom good people must pity even without love”, the uncle’s words that Natalka overhears and repeats to herself for years.
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
An adaptation, not the original text. It is MovaReader’s own retelling in simple modern Ukrainian of Olha Kobylianska’s novel Царівна (The Princess), which first ran in the Chernivtsi newspaper Буковина and came out as a book in Chernivtsi in 1896. The plot follows that 1896 book edition (Редакція «Буковини») on Wikisource, printed in the old Galician spelling of the time with a foreword by Osyp Makovei. What changed: close to 100,000 words in 19 chapters shrink to about 5,800 in 12; the old spelling, the German verses and the long reflections are replaced by standard modern Ukrainian or cut, and most of the diary is told in the third person, with a few short entries kept in Natalka’s voice. The characters and the main events stay in order. A few hostile remarks about other peoples, common in the period, are left out. The original is not in the catalogue.
Is there an audiobook?
No, there is no audio version of this book on MovaReader; the text is read on screen. Tap an unfamiliar word and its translation appears: here that will often be words of feeling and of 19th-century town life, such as милосердя (mercy, pity) or мантилька (a lady’s short cape, the one Natalka is ordered to carry away at the concert).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes: whole-sentence translation comes with the Reader plan. Most sentences can be read word by word, so you will need it mostly for sayings, such as Яблуко від яблуні недалеко котиться, literally “The apple rolls not far from the apple tree”, the aunt’s verdict on Oriadyn and his father. Without the plan you can translate single words until the daily limit runs out.
How many hours does it take?
One to two hours for the whole book, at a learner’s pace with translation of new words, not a native speaker’s. The 12 chapters run from about 370 words (chapter VIII, the farewell to home) to about 610 (chapter XII), so each one fits into a short sitting.
Where does the text get easier?
Sentences get shorter as the book goes on: chapters I-III, which set out Natalka’s home and her first meeting with Oriadyn, average 13-14 words per sentence; from chapter V on, with more dialogue, they run at 10-12, and chapter XI is the lightest at about 10. Long words follow another line: chapters VIII and XII have the most (about 7.6% and 8% against 5.9% overall), because they are full of verbs such as прошепотіла and засміявся.
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 12 chapters directly, for example chapter VI, “Пальма, що росла до неба” (The palm that grew towards the sky).