Read books in Ukrainian.
Open Shevchenko, Lesya Ukrainka, Andrukhovych, Zhadan. A literary tradition that's still being recovered, still being added to.
Why read Ukrainian books in the original
Ukrainian is having its moment internationally. Modern writers like Andrukhovych, Zhadan and Kurkov are translated across Europe; the classic poets - Shevchenko, Lesya Ukrainka, Franko - sit at the foundation of the language.
For Russian speakers, Ukrainian is recognisable but different. Different vowels, different vocabulary in everyday life, different rhythm. For everyone else, it's a Slavic language with a Cyrillic alphabet that takes a few hours to learn and gives you access to one of Europe's most underread literatures.
A lot of important Ukrainian literature was suppressed for most of the 20th century. Reading it in the original is participating in the recovery.
What it looks like
Реве та стогне Дніпр широкий, сердитий вітер завива.
РЕВЕ → ROARSThird-person singular present of ревти (“to roar”). The opening of one of the most quoted Ukrainian poems. Reading the original gives you the rhythm; translation just gives you the meaning.
Six Ukrainian books worth your time
Кобзар
Foundational. Most of what modern Ukrainian sounds like comes through Shevchenko. Poetry, but accessible poetry.
Лісова пісня
A play, but reads like a long poem. Folkloric, lyrical, distinctly Ukrainian. One of Lesya Ukrainka's most loved works.
Перверзія
Postmodern, full of jokes, set at a mock-academic conference in Venice. Andrukhovych writes a Ukrainian that's playful and modern.
Інтернат
Set during the war in eastern Ukraine. Zhadan writes prose like a poet (which he is). Direct, urgent, hard to put down.
Польові дослідження з українського сексу
A landmark of post-Soviet Ukrainian writing. Dense, literary, and one of the books people in Kyiv still argue about.
Чорний ворон
Historical novel about the Ukrainian insurgency in the 1920s. The Ukrainian here has a lot of regional vocabulary, which is half the pleasure.
How LinguaRead works with Ukrainian
Drop in any Ukrainian EPUB. Tap a word for the meaning, the case (всі сім), the aspect, the regional context if there is one. Tap again to see why this form, what tense, how the word is being used.
Ukrainian has seven cases (one more than Russian) and rich verb morphology. Reading is the way you start to feel them as part of the language rather than memorise them as a table.
Pick a Ukrainian book. Start reading.
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