The Jew's scrawny physique, alien dress, and wild gesticulations were prime reasons why the Jew cannot be taken seriously, and why he cannot be presented problematically and existentially, even in death. Yankel, a Jewish merchant rescued by Taras from Cossack wrath against the Jews, is a stereotypical Jewish character of the period, by turns greedy, servile, and flattering. Taras Bulba and his compatriots must cut off the scalplocks that mark them as Cossacks and take up peaceful occupations like farming. The Poles take over eastern Ukraine and force the Cossacks into hiding. He and his fellow warriors assist their stronger Polish allies in defeating a band of Turkish invaders, only to have the Poles turn on the Cossacks and crush them. The Zaporizhian Sich that Taras Bulba belongs to was later destroyed by the Russian Empress, Catherine II. The focus here falls on the portrayal of the Cossack martial ethos, sacralized brotherhood, and Russian spiritual vitality. Gogol used the secondary or literary epic to portray the Russian national ideal embodied in the semi-historical mythic Cossack.

Eventually, that son is captured and shot by his own father. The novel tells the story of an ageing Cossack, Taras Bulba, and his two sons, the younger of which falls in love with a Polish woman. Tsarist Russian authorities condemned that version as being “too Ukrainian.” The later, official version was markedly more pro-Russian in nature. Taras Bulba, the short novel by Nikolai Gogol, has two versions. Taras Bulba (1835), the greatest chivalric story of the 19th century, is an epic tale chronicling the lives of Cossack warriors. The glorious novelist Nikolai Gogol (1809-52) was in fact Ukrainian by birth, but Russian by literary culture. A colorful and spectacular historical epic in the best of the then-dying old Hollywood tradition, the 1962 movie is probably the only exposure that the American public at large had to Ukrainian history, and in this alone it is a valuable work. Andrey betrays the Cossacks for the love of a beautiful Polish woman and Taras kills him.

Taras Bulba is the story of a Cossack, Taras Bulba, and his sons Ostap and Andrey.

Taras bulba novel