I. Частина 1
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A cynical Kyiv lawyer’s diary (C1)
Notes of a Snub-Nosed Mephistopheles Записки Кирпатого Мефістофеля
Volodymyr Vynnychenko
Notes of a Snub-Nosed Mephistopheles (Записки Кирпатого Мефістофеля) is Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s complete novel of 1917 in the original Ukrainian, not an adaptation: the diary of Yakiv Mykhailiuk, a prosperous Kyiv lawyer whom his friends call Mephistopheles, and for his broad nose the snub-nosed one. It suits C1 learners who enjoy psychological prose, sharp dialogue and the city life of Kyiv before the First World War. About 73,000 words in 20 parts (the edition has no chapters; the division is the catalogue’s, for navigation), 9 words per sentence on average.
- C1
- 73 042 words
- 12-20 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 you can follow the dialogue and the plot, but the urban, abstract vocabulary and the old spellings (иншим, ріжні, циґарка) will stop you on almost every line of the narrator’s reflections. A retelling in simple modern Ukrainian is in the catalog at B1.
B2C1
This text
At C1 it reads well: the present-tense diary keeps sentences short, and the long words, the old spellings and the Russian inserts are handled by tapping single words.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 it reads freely; only the 1920s spelling, the Russian quotations and a few legal and medical terms of the time still make you pause.
Start readingSentences are short, 9 words on average, because the diary is written in the present tense and about half of its paragraphs (1,386 of 2,836) are dialogue lines. The vocabulary sets the level: 10.7% of words have 9 letters or more, above Vynnychenko’s own The Poor (9.3%, B2) and past the 10% line where the catalogue’s originals become C1, close to Mykola Khvylovy’s A Sentimental Story (11.0%, C1) and below Valerian Pidmohylny’s The City (13.8%), the other big Kyiv novel in the catalogue. The long words are the language of an educated townsman: lawyers, lecturers, doctors and their arguments about morality, marriage and fatherhood. The edition of the early 1920s adds its own spelling: инший and иноді (103 times) for today’s інший and іноді, ріжні for різні, ґ in 177 words (циґарка, ґімназія, арґумент), genitives such as радости and безтурботности (135), сей and сю for цей and цю, лямпа and телєфон. Russian enters too: an aria from The Queen of Spades in pre-1918 Russian spelling, a Kyiv yard porter’s half-Russian speech and a line of Church Slavonic. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 73 042
- words
- 9
- words in an average sentence
- 12-20
- hours of reading
Українська накладня. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
Kyiv, early spring, the Lenten bells of St Sophia’s Cathedral. Yakiv Vasylevych Mykhailiuk, a successful lawyer and a confirmed bachelor, spends his evenings at cards and enjoys sizing up his partners, the greedy, the timid and the reckless. His calm breaks when Sonia, the wife of his old friend Dmytro Sosnytsky, tells him that her son Andriiko, now a schoolboy, is his child from a single night years ago. He cannot know whether it is true, and soon he is waiting near the boy’s school every day. Around him other lives come apart: Nechyporenko, his comrade from the revolutionary underground, is back from Siberian exile and living in poverty, and Panas Pavlovych Kryvulia, a gentle lecturer in philosophy, bursts in to ask for an instant divorce. On a boulevard Yakiv snatches a small boy, Kostia, out of danger, and so meets his mother, Klavdia Petrivna, who has left her husband. A love affair begins; a trip to Crimea follows, and with it news that Yakiv did not want. Back in Kyiv in summer he sees again the young woman in a white hat whom he once followed through the snowy streets of early spring, and this time he does not let her go. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Записки Кирпатого Мефістофеля
X. Частина 10
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Choose an underlined word.
A diary in the present tense
Yakiv writes as things happen, so the verbs stay in the present: потягає, чути, дзвонять, тріскотять. The work is in the noun phrases: розталою корою дерева й кислим вохким духом are instrumentals naming what the air smells of (потягає чим, “there is a whiff of”), and клублячись is an adverbial participle (“curling”). й is the same word as і, used after a vowel. Великопосний дзвін is the slow bell of Great Lent, rung from St Sophia’s Cathedral in central Kyiv.
Old spelling, old Kyiv
The 1920s edition writes таксамо as one word (today так само), Київа for today’s Києва and ґуми with ґ (today гуми). The university is Kyiv’s St Volodymyr University, whose red building still faces the boulevard where Yakiv sits down next. Look at how the paragraph is built from short verbless sentences, Початок серпня. Чудово!: the diary notes impressions rather than telling a story.
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
Whole-sentence translation helps with Yakiv’s verdicts on himself, such as «Навіть у злому я не то стомлююсь, не то лякаюсь і зупиняюсь на півдорозі» (“Even in evil I either tire or take fright and stop halfway”).
ReaderIf this book is not the one
Ukrainian books B2 Earlier The Moment and Other Stories Момент 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?
It is the original, not an adaptation: the complete novel Записки Кирпатого Мефістофеля by Volodymyr Vynnychenko, written in 1916 and first published in 1917. The text comes from Wikisource, from the undated Kyiv-Leipzig edition of Ukrainska Nakladnia (about 1922), and keeps that edition’s spelling: инший for інший, ріжні for різні, циґарка with ґ, радости for радості, Київа for Києва. Three printer’s typos were corrected (хочсться to хочеться, мисцем to мистцем, a stray dash in Н-ні) and a leftover markup tag of the digital transcription was removed. The edition has no chapters: the novel runs as one continuous diary, and the 20 parts are the catalogue’s division, made at scene breaks for navigation. The novel speaks frankly about adultery and an unwanted pregnancy.
Is there an audiobook?
There is no audiobook on MovaReader: the novel is read on screen. Tap a word to see its translation; you will need it for words like вохкий (damp, today вогкий) in the first paragraph and шпалєри (wallpaper, today шпалери) in Klavdia’s rented rooms.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps where Yakiv sums himself up with a Bible line in Church Slavonic: «а кінець-кінцем виходить по Писанію: «Аще доброє хощу, злоє содіваю»» (“and in the end it turns out as Scripture says: “The good that I would, I do not; the evil I do””, Romans 7:19). Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
About 12-20 hours, at the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker. The 20 parts are of different size: XX is the shortest (about 1,900 words), most hold 2,500-4,900 words, and I, the opening card game and the sleepless night that follows, is the longest (about 7,200).
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty is fairly even, with no easy or hard stretch. Part III (Yakiv meets Klavdia and her son) has the longest sentences (12.7 words) and 12.5% long words; part X, a conversation about motherhood and duty, has the most long words (14.4%). The lightest are IX and XII, full of quick dialogue (7.4 and 7.5 words per sentence, 9.2% and 9.9% long words). The other parts stay at 8-11 words per sentence and 9-12% long 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. Any part also opens from the contents on this page, for example VII. Частина 7, which begins with Yakiv walking through green summer Kyiv.