I. Як Юра Шикманюк брів Черемош: частина 1
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A Hutsul tale and a Kraków drama by Franko
How Yura Shykmaniuk Forded the Cheremosh and At the Top Як Юра Шикманюк брів Черемош та інші оповідання
Ivan Franko, 1959
The complete original in Ukrainian, not an adaptation: two stories by Ivan Franko, the Hutsul tale of old Yura Shykmaniuk, written in 1903, and На вершку (At the Top), an early story of 1880 about spendthrift students in a Kraków hotel, gathered here by MovaReader. It is for upper-intermediate learners who want the speech of a Carpathian village next to the banter of a city drawing room: about 29,200 words in 11 chapters, the Hutsul story in three long parts (about 5,000 to 6,600 words each) and На вершку in eight short ones (about 1,200 to 2,200 words).
- B2
- 29 231 words
- 5-8 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the dialogue of На вершку is within reach, but old Yura’s long inner monologues and his Hutsul speech (дєдю, мой, сардак) make most pages slow going.
B1B2
This text
At B2 you can read it part by part: the short chapters of На вершку suit a quick sitting, and the three long parts of Yura’s story go well once you let tap translation handle the Hutsul words.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 both stories read freely; only the Hutsul words and the German and Latin scraps of the Kraków students will stop you now and then.
Start readingThe average sentence has 13 words, and 8.3% of words have 9 letters or more. That is close to Franko’s Малий Мирон та інші оповідання (13 words, 9.6%, B2) and well below Іван Іванович та інші оповідання, which is C1 with 12.8% long words. The Hutsul story is the part to watch: its speech has дєдю and дєдику for “dad” (12 times), the exclamations мой and ади (18), Госпідку for “Lord”, and mountain words such as сардак, постоли, оборіг and головатиця, the huchen Yura finds in the river (53 times). Leaving головатиця aside, we counted about 7 such words per 1,000, less than half the 16 per 1,000 we found with the same list in Тіні забутих предків, which is C1 because dialect fills its narration too; here the narrator writes the standard Galician Ukrainian of his day. The edition also keeps forms such as свойого and мойого (24 times), звільна for “slowly” (19), відки for звідки (14) and genitives like смерти and слабости. На вершку has almost no dialect but longer sentences (14 words against 12.6 in the Hutsul story). So the book is B2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 29 231
- words
- 13
- words in an average sentence
- 5-8
- hours of reading
- 1959
- Книгоспілка
Книгоспілка, 1959. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
Old Yura Shykmaniuk, a Hutsul widower from a village on the Cheremosh, moves in with his son Vasyl after his wife’s death, but his daughter-in-law wants his land signed over at once, and he walks out in anger. At the inn across the river the Jewish innkeeper Moshko listens to his grief, and to spite his son Yura signs his land over to Moshko in return for keep until his death. Then village gossip, a visit to the doctor and a lost case at the court in Kosiv turn him against Moshko, and one night Yura sets out with his axe to ford the Cheremosh to the inn. Between the parts, a Black demon and a White spirit argue over what people like Yura are capable of. На вершку takes place in a Kraków hotel, where the student Ezhen has spent three weeks and a small fortune with his friends Jean and Simon and two young women, until a newspaper brings news from the Lviv criminal court. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Як Юра Шикманюк брів Черемош та інші оповідання
II. Як Юра Шикманюк брів Черемош: частина 2
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Choose an underlined word.
Ви for the old man
Moshko speaks to Yura with ви and вам (переберіться, вам нагадує), the respect an innkeeper shows an older customer, while Yura simply calls him Мошку, the vocative. Хто in «якби мені хто» and «якби хто мене різав» means “someone”, an older use of хтось. Та же at the start of Yura’s line works like адже: “but surely”.
Pictures built with мов
The cold of the river is drawn in three comparisons with мов and немов би, “as if”: ice boots, sharp razors, iron shackles. Read each one as a whole picture rather than word by word. Обі ноги is the edition’s form of обидві ноги, “both legs”, and звільна means “slowly”.
Chapters
- IЯк Юра Шикманюк брів Черемош: частина 1
- IIЯк Юра Шикманюк брів Черемош: частина 2
- IIIЯк Юра Шикманюк брів Черемош: частина 3
- IVНа вершку: частина 1
- VНа вершку: частина 2
- VIНа вершку: частина 3
- VIIНа вершку: частина 4
- VIIIНа вершку: частина 5
- IXНа вершку: частина 6
- XНа вершку: частина 7
- XIНа вершку: частина 8
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
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When Yura tries to explain his grief, he says «Так якби мені хто перед очима світ на ґудз зав’язав» (as if someone had tied the world into a button before my eyes); whole-sentence translation in Reader shows that he means everything has gone dark for him.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
Yes, both stories are complete and unabridged. The selection and the title are MovaReader’s: two stories from volume VI of Franko’s Works in 20 volumes (Knyhospilka, New York, 1959), via Wikisource. Як Юра Шикманюк брів Черемош was written in 1903 and first printed in Lviv’s Літературно-науковий вістник in 1906. На вершку is dated August 1880, from the village of Bereziv, but it was not printed in Franko’s lifetime: Mykhailo Vozniak first published it from his papers in 1928. The spelling is that edition’s, so forms like свойого, відки or смерти stay as printed. The Hutsul story uses a period word for Jews that is offensive today.
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 Hutsul words such as головатиця (the huchen, a big river fish Yura finds in the ford) and дєдику (dad), which Vasyl uses when he coaxes his father home.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps with Hutsul turns of phrase, for example «Моя біда в дуди грає» (literally “my misery plays the bagpipes”), Yura’s way of saying that misery has taken over his life. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole book takes about 5-8 hours at the pace of someone reading with translation of new words. Як Юра Шикманюк брів Черемош (about 17,600 words) comes in three long parts of about 5,000 to 6,600 words, an evening or two each; На вершку (about 11,600 words) comes in eight short parts of about 1,200 to 2,200 words, good for shorter sittings.
Where does the text get easier?
The two stories differ in kind. Yura’s story has shorter sentences (12.6 words) and fewer long words (7.9%), but most of the Hutsul vocabulary. На вершку has longer sentences (14.1 words) and more long words (9.0%), with peaks of 11% in its parts 1, 5 and 8, yet two thirds of its paragraphs are dialogue (199 of 301). The gentlest chapter is X. На вершку: частина 7 (5.8% long words, 12.6 words per sentence); the hardest is IV. На вершку: частина 1, where sentences average almost 17 words.
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 part by part. Each of the 11 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example IV. На вершку: частина 1, if you want to start with the Kraków story.