Taras Bulba

The pearl of Gogol?s Little Russian novels, is a historical novel, Taras Bulba, which recalls to life one of the most interesting periods in the history of Little Russia--the fifteen century. Constantinople had fallen into the hands of the Turks; and although a mighty Polish-Lithuanian state had grown in the West, the Turks, nevertheless, menaced both Eastern and Middle Europe. Then it was the Little Russians rose for the defense of Russia and Europe.The hero of the novel is an old Cossack, Taras Bulba, who has himself spent many years in the Secha, but is now peacefully settled inland on his farm. His two sons have been educated in the Academy of Kiev and return home after several years of absence. On the very next day after their arrival, without letting the mother enjoy the sight of her sons, Taras takes them to the Secha, which--as often happened in those times--was going to begin war, in consequence of the exactions which the Polish landlords made upon the Little Russians. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809-1852) wrote his epic Taras Bulba over a period, broken by intervals, of more than nine years: from 1833 to 1842. The profound ideological message of the tale, its thrilling and truthful characters, Gogol?s colorful portrayal of the people?s life, have immortalized Gogol?s epic. "Taras Bulba is an excerpt, an episode from the epic life of the whole people of the Ukraine in the 16th century . . . Do we not see here Cossackdom in its entirely, with its strange civilization, its gallant and riotous life, its insouciance and indolence, its indefatigability and activeness? Tell me what is missing in this picture, what is needed to make it complete! Is it not all snatched up from the very bottom of life? Does not that life throb and pulsate here? And what a brush --- broad and sweeping, quick and vivid! What bright, what dazzling colors! And what poetry --- vigorous, powerful as the Zaporzhian Setch itself, where ?was the lair of men proud and strong as Lions! Hence poured freedom and Cossackdom over all the Ukraine!' "V.G. Belinsky