Lebedyn

Lebedyn is situated in the southern part of Sumy region on the river Olshanka. It is a picturesque town. According to the history facts the town was founded in 1654. The first builders of the town were military people. But little by little the population of Lebedyn had been growing to migrates from the different places of Ukraine and Russia and in 1680 there were 2050 inhabitants there. After the reunification of Ukraine with Russia Lebedyn played an important part as a military administrative base in the struggle against Crimean khanate

At the beginning of the 18 th century the inhabitants of the town became participants of the struggle against Swedish invaders. Lebedyn was one of the centuries where the Russian army made it's preparations for the battle against enemies. Peter the First came there on the 20 th of November 1780. He lived in the centre of the town in the house of the local Sothic Tatarchuk. The people of Lebedyn took part in the battle near Poltava and fought heroically against Swedes.

In the 1780 Lebedyn was given the status of the town and white swan became it's emblem.

Nowadays Lebedyn is the district centre with the population of 33000 people. Our town has 8 schools, a medical school, a vocational school, a pedagogical school,

Lebedyn in the motherland of many outstanding statesmen and public figures, scientists and men of the culture and arts. One of them is a botanist M.V.Dolenko who was awarded the State Prize of the USSR. Kost Hordienko, the Ukrainian writer lived and worked in our town. Petro Tronko in the honorary citizen of Lebedyn.

He is a doctor of history, academician an initiator of the construction of school N° 6 and helped very much in it's building. Our land is rich in talented people.

Lesson 18 my favourite english writer

George Bernard Shaw is one of the famous English writers. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, on the 26th of July, 1856. His father was a drunkard, and the family was poor. Shaw's mother, a gifted musician, left her husband and went to London where she started to work as a music teacher.

As the family was very poor, Shaw had to leave school at the age of fifteen. He became a cashier in a Dublin land agency. He hated his job and after he had worked for five years he gave it up and left for London. There he joined his mother whom he had not seen for a long time.

Shaw tried to make a living by writing, he wrote four novels which were published in magazines but they were not a success. The best of them is "Cashel Byron's Profession". In 1885 Shaw became a music critic. From 1885 to 1898 he wrote a lot as critic of art, music, literature and drama and was very popular with the readers.

Meantime he became interested in the social movement. He studied the works of famous people of his time. After he had joined the Fabian Society, he took part in debates and wrote many pamphlets.

In the nineties Shaw began to write for the theatre. He was the creator of a new publicist drama. In 1892-93 three plays grouped under the title "Plays Unpleasant" were published. In these plays Shaw criticized British society. In "Widowers' Houses" he attacked slum landlords who robbed

The poor. During the period of 1894-97 he published three plays grouped under the title “Plaus Pleasant’

When World War I started Shaw published “ Commonsense about the war’ (1914), a dramatic criticism of the British government’s policy.

Shaw wrote over twenty plays. One of his most popular plays is "Saint Joan" (1923). The play is devoted to Joan Arc (the Maid of Orleans). The play had not been out a J months when some theatres staged it. Since it's first performance the play has always been a great success with public everywhere. Shaw himself liked the play very mu In 1931 he made a world tour visiting India, China, Aft and America.

In 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literal and in 1934 the medal of the Irish Academy of Letters.

Shaw died at the age of 94 in 1950.

Word List:

to be born - родиться

Dublin - Дублин

Ireland - Ирландия

dramatist - драматург

drunkard - пьяница

poor - бедный, неимущий

gifted - одаренный, талантливый, способный

at the age of - о возрасте

to give up - бросить

to make a living - зарабатывать на жизнь

to publish - издавать, опубликовывать,

to be a success - пользоваться успехом, иметь успех

critic - критик

meantime - тем временем, между тем

to be (to become) interested in something - интересоваться

(заинтересовываться) чем-либо

the Fabian Society - Фабианское обществo

pamphlet - памфлет

creator - творец, создатель

publicist - публицистический

title - название, заглавие

"Widower's Houses" -"Дома Вдовца"

to attack - нападать, атаковать

landlord - домовладелец, сдающий квартиры

slum landlord - владелец домов-трущоб, сдающий в них комнаты

и квартиры

to rob - грабить "Commonsense about the War" - "Здравый смысл войне"

criticism - критика

"Saint Joan" - "Святая Иоанна", пьеса, посвященная Жанне д'Арк

to devote - посвящать

to be out - выйти из печати

to stage - ставить пьесу на сцене

performance - спектакль, представление

the public - публика

to make a tour of - совершить, поездку по

China- Китай

Africa – Африка

to be awarded the Nobel Prize - быть награжденным Нобелевской премией

the medal of the Irish Academy of letters - медаль Ирландской

академии литературы

to die - умереть, скончаться