Taras Bulba: Is this a fictional character, or based on a real person? The historical basis of the story "Taras Bulba". Real historical events underlying the story Taras Bulba fictional or real hero

Taras Bulba became a symbol of courage and love for the motherland. The character, born from the pen of Nikolai Gogol, has successfully taken root in cinema and even in music - opera performances based on Gogol's story have been staged in theaters around the world since the end of the 19th century.

History of creation

The story "Taras Bulba" gave 10 years of his life. The idea of ​​an epic work was born in the 1830s and already in the middle of the decade adorned the Mirgorod collection. However, the literary creation did not satisfy the author. As a result, it survived eight edits, and cardinal ones.

Nikolai Vasilievich rewrote the original version right up to the change storylines and the introduction of new characters. Over the years, the story grew fat by three chapters, the battle scenes filled with colors, and the Zaporizhzhya Sich acquired small details from the life of the Cossacks. They say that the writer verified every word so that it more accurately conveyed the atmosphere and characters of the characters, while striving to preserve the flavor of the Ukrainian mentality. In 1842, the work was published in a new edition, but it was still corrected until 1851.

Gathering material for work, Gogol went to extreme measures - from the pages of the newspaper he asked readers to help put together a mosaic of the historical facts of Ukraine. Everything was valuable, from information from personal archives and unpublished information to the memoirs of contemporaries from the outback. The classic relied on the Ukrainian chronicles, the book of Levasseur de Beauplan "Description d" Ukraine "and the work of Semyon Myshetsky" The History of the Zaporizhian Cossacks.

But the historical facts that intertwined in the new work of the classic lacked sincerity and emotions. Gogol solved this problem brilliantly, diluting the dry details of the past folk art native country. From it the writer drew vivid epithets. Folklore even served as the basis for creating images and characters: for example, the son of Bulba Andriy resembles the heroes of the songs Teterenka and Savva Chaly.

From fairy tales to the pages of the book, the method of trinity migrated, when the characters go through tests three times before getting what they want. The rhetorical questions characteristic of fairy tales were woven into the monologues:

“Am I not worthy of eternal regrets? ... Didn’t the bitter share fall on me?

So the language of the narrative acquired melodiousness and lyricism. A contradictory and complex story should not be taken as a reliable confirmation of history, because even exact time events is not clear. The literary brainchild of Gogol has more artistic value.

Biography and short story

The scene takes place in Ukraine between 1569 and 1654, when Kyiv was part of the Commonwealth. Graduates of the Kyiv Bursa Ostap and Andriy returned to their home. Taras Bulba, an old Cossack who rose to the rank of colonel, having met his sons, could not restrain his irony. The subject of his ridicule was the seminary outfits of the offspring, which caused a fight between the head of the family and the eldest son Ostap. However, Taras was pleased with the sports form of the heir.

On the same day, at a meeting with his comrades-in-arms, Bulba announced the decision to send his sons to the Zaporizhzhya Sich in order to teach young people military science. But he himself, bursting with pride for the offspring, went with them to personally introduce them to the regimental comrades. On the road, the aged father is nostalgic for a young turbulent life, Ostap’s heart bleeds because of his mother (the woman said goodbye to her children hard, not wanting to let her go to the Sich), and Andriy is absorbed in thoughts about the beautiful Polish woman whom he met in Kyiv.

In the Sich, the Cossacks led a wild life - they drank, fooled around, did everything except improve their combat skills. This was preferred to do in real battles. The young newcomers happily plunged into the general fun, but such a turn did not suit Taras Bulba, and he encouraged his comrades to go to war with Poland in order to avenge the oppression of the Ukrainian people.

In battles, the heirs of the protagonist matured, the father admires the article and the exploits of his sons, who made it to the front ranks of the Cossack army. Having besieged the city of Dubno, the warriors plundered defenseless settlements and mocked the local population. One night, Andriy received the news that his beloved Polish woman was also in the city and was dying of hunger. The young man, taking bags of bread, went to the meeting.

Andriy's love turned out to be so comprehensive that it forced the young man to renounce his homeland and family. At this time, in the camp of his former comrades, reinforced by fresh forces, the enemies killed some of the drunken Cossacks and marched to Dubno, and the terrible news of the betrayal of his son fell upon Taras. The Sich is also defeated - the Tatars attacked the Cossacks left without a "head".

The inhabitants of the besieged city became bolder and went to battle with the Cossacks, and Andriy was in the ranks of the Poles. Bulba punished his son for treason by luring him into the forest. Andria Gogol described the terrible episode of death in detail, putting into the mouth of the protagonist a phrase that later became a catch phrase:

The Cossacks failed in the battle, in which Taras Bulba also lost his second son - Ostap was captured. The young man was executed in the town square. Taras was present at the torture of the heir and even answered his call:

"Father! Where are you? Do you hear?

120 thousand Cossacks went on a campaign against the Poles. In battle, Taras, driven by revenge for his lost son, surprised his comrades-in-arms with unprecedented cruelty and anger. The opponents were defeated, promising the Cossack army to forget the grievances, but Bulba did not believe the oath of the Hetman "Polyakhs" Nikolai Pototsky. And he turned out to be right - the Poles reinforced their forces and defeated the Cossacks left by Taras.

But the Poles overtook the main character. In a four-day battle, the army of Taras Bulba fell, the old chieftain was chained to a century-old oak and burned at the stake. Before his death, the brave Cossack prophesied the unification of the lands of Russia and the victory of the Orthodox faith.

Image and main idea

Nikolai Gogol created a collective image of the Zaporozhye Cossacks, making Taras Bulba a defender of freedom and national independence. Courage, love for the Motherland and the Christian faith, freedom-lovingness - the author melted such qualities in the character of the protagonist, and the result was an ideal textbook Cossack.

In the context of the struggle for the autonomy of Ukraine, Gogol raised questions of the boundaries between courage and cowardice, loyalty and betrayal.

Screen adaptations

The first adaptations of "Taras Bulba" started in the era of silent films. In 1909, Alexander Drankov, the pioneer of Russian cinema, tried to transfer the character of the Cossack to the screens. Anisim Suslov starred in the short film.

In the future, the Germans, French, British and even Americans took up the imperishable work of the Ukrainian writer. The list of films includes:

• "Taras Bulba" (1924)
• "Taras Bulba" (1936)
• "Taras Bulba" (1962)
• "Taras Bulba, il cosacco" (1963)
• "Taras Bulba" (1987)
• "Thought of Taras Bulba" (2009)
• "Taras Bulba" (2009)

Most interesting performances critics and viewers call the picture of 1962, staged in America, where the image of the chieftain embodied. "Taras Bulba" in 1936 is curious in that, although the tape was created in France, the Russian Alexei Granovsky acted as its director. Reincarnated as a Cossack Harry Bor.

But the most iconic film based on Gogol's book was presented. In the spring of 2009, crowds of lovers of classical literature rushed to the cinemas and were not disappointed - in the role of Bulba he turned out to be irresistible. Emotions were added by realistic battle scenes - the authors included five fights in the script. The geography of filming sites covered Russia, Ukraine and Poland.

Together with Bogdan Stupka, movie stars (Andriy), (Ostap), (Mosiy Shilo), (Stepan Guska), Les Serdyuk (caesaul Dmytro Tovkach) shine in the frames. Women's images in the tape were embodied (pannochka, Andria's beloved) and (Taras's wife). Hollywood producer Nick Powell was involved in the creation of the picture, in whose piggy bank the work on the film " brave heart". He supervised the staging of battle scenes.

Stupka admitted to reporters in an interview that he survived the worst film of his career:

“Seven months of filming, and everything is very hard. For a long time there was a 40-degree heat, artists in costumes, in chain mail, armor, with weapons. We must run and fight. And so many times. Even young people got sick. A fur hat saved me - at least my head didn’t get warm under it. ”

As a result, Bortko's production collected nine prizes and awards.

• In 1941, the Ukrainian nationalist Vasily Borovets, who formed the armed department of the UPA, took the pseudonym Taras Bulba. The members of the organization were called so - "bulbovtsy".
• Vladimir Bortko planned to land a "movie landing" near the ancient castle of the city of Dubno, but it turned out that the building was rebuilt in the 18th century, depriving it of its medieval flavor. Then the film crew moved to the Khotyn Castle, built in the 15th century.

• Combat suits are as close as possible to the original uniforms of the times described in the story: real leather belts, velvet trim, and forged metal rivets.
• A thousand people, including local residents, were involved in the extras of the picture. The tricks were performed by 100 stuntmen, and the Cossacks and Poles were carried by 150 horses.

• The director of "Taras Bulba" said at one of the film festivals that during the filming he lost 20 kg - the work turned out to be so exhausting. Each take had to be shot 10-15 times.
• Bortko's film cost $15.7 million. Nick Powell made his calculations and stated that if the film was shot according to Hollywood standards, the authors would have spent at least $100 million.

Quotes

"Turn around, son!"

"I gave birth to you, I will kill you!"

"There is life in the old dog yet?!"

“Be patient, Cossack, you will be an ataman!”

"There is no bond more holy than fellowship!"

“What, son, did your Poles help you?”

“Even though you are my father, but if you laugh, then, by God, I will beat you!”

“No, brothers, love like the Russian soul - not only to love with the mind or anything else, but with everything that God has given, whatever is in you, but ... No, no one can love like that!”

“The future is unknown, and it stands before man like an autumn mist that has risen from the marshes.”

“If a person falls in love, then he is like a sole, which, if you soak it in water, bend it, and it will bend.”

"Great is the power of a weak woman, that she destroyed many strong ones."

“Only one person can be related to kinship by soul, and not by blood.”

“Not that good warrior who has not lost his spirit in an important matter, but that good warrior who does not get bored even in idleness, who will endure everything, and even if you want him, he will still put his own way.”

Despite the author's indication that Taras Bulba was born in the 15th century, the well-known fact of Bulba's heavy smoking speaks in favor of the 17th century: the discovery of tobacco by Europeans occurred at the very end of the 15th century (thanks to Columbus) and only to XVII century spread widely.

Indicating the 15th century, Gogol emphasized that the story is fantastic, and the image is collective, but one of the prototypes of Taras Bulba is the ancestor of the famous traveler ataman of the Zaporozhian Army Okhrim Makukh, an associate of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, who was born in Starodub at the beginning of the 17th century, who had three the sons of Nazar, Khoma (Foma) and Omelka (Emelyan), of whom Nazar betrayed his fellow Cossacks and went over to the side of the army of the Commonwealth because of his love for the Polish lady (the prototype of Gogol's Andriy), Khoma (the prototype of Gogol's Ostap) died trying to to deliver Nazar to his father, and Emelyan became the ancestor of Nikolai Miklukho-Maclay and his uncle Grigory Ilyich Miklukha, who studied with Nikolai Gogol and told him a family tradition. The prototype is also Ivan Gonta, who was erroneously attributed to the murder of two sons from a Polish wife, although his wife is Russian, and the story is fictitious.

Plot

Postage stamp of Romania dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the death of N.V. Gogol ("Taras Bulba", 1952)

Postage stamp of the USSR, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the death of N. V. Gogol, 1952

Postage stamp of Russia dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the birth of N.V. Gogol, 2009

After graduating from the Kyiv Academy, two of his sons, Ostap and Andriy, come to the old Cossack colonel Taras Bulba. Two burly fellows, healthy and strong, whose faces have not yet been touched by a razor, are embarrassed by the meeting with their father, who makes fun of their clothes of recent seminarians. The eldest, Ostap, cannot stand the ridicule of his father: “Even though you are my father, but if you laugh, then, by God, I will beat you!” And father and son, instead of greeting after a long absence, quite seriously beat each other with cuffs. A pale, thin and kind mother tries to reason with her violent husband, who is already stopping himself, pleased that he has tested his son. Bulba wants to “greet” the younger one in the same way, but his mother is already hugging him, protecting him from his father.

On the occasion of the arrival of the sons, Taras Bulba convenes all the centurions and the entire regimental rank and announces his decision to send Ostap and Andriy to the Sich, because there is no better science for a young Cossack than the Zaporozhian Sich. At the sight of the young strength of his sons, the military spirit of Taras himself flares up, and he decides to go with them to introduce them to all his old comrades. The poor mother sits all night over the sleeping children, not closing her eyes, wishing that the night would last as long as possible. Her dear sons are taken from her; they take it so that she will never see them! In the morning, after the blessing, the mother, despairing of grief, is barely torn off from the children and taken to the hut.

The three riders ride in silence. Old Taras recalls his wild life, a tear freezes in his eyes, his graying head droops. Ostap, who has a stern and firm character, although hardened during the years of training in the bursa, retained his natural kindness and was touched by the tears of his poor mother. This alone confuses him and makes him lower his head thoughtfully. Andriy is also having a hard time saying goodbye to his mother and home, but his thoughts are occupied with memories of a beautiful Polish girl whom he met just before leaving Kyiv. Then Andriy managed to get into the beauty's bedroom through the fireplace chimney, a knock on the door forced the Polish woman to hide the young Cossack under the bed. As soon as the worry had passed, the Tatar woman, the lady's maid, took Andrii out into the garden, where he barely escaped from the woke servants. He once again saw the beautiful Polish woman in the church, soon she left - and now, lowering his eyes into the mane of his horse, Andriy thinks about her.

After a long journey, the Sich meets Taras with his sons with his wild life - a sign of the Zaporizhian will. Cossacks do not like to waste time on military exercises, collecting abusive experience only in the heat of battle. Ostap and Andriy rush with all the ardor of youths into this rampant sea. But old Taras does not like an idle life - he does not want to prepare his sons for such an activity. Having met with all his associates, he thinks out how to raise the Cossacks on a campaign so as not to waste the Cossack prowess on an uninterrupted feast and drunken fun. He persuades the Cossacks to re-elect the Koschevoi, who keeps peace with the enemies of the Cossacks. The new koshevoi, under pressure from the most militant Cossacks, and above all Taras, is trying to find a justification for a profitable campaign against Turkey, but under the influence of the Cossacks who arrived from Ukraine, who told about the oppression of the Polish pans and tenant Jews over the people of Ukraine, the army unanimously decides to go to Poland, to avenge all the evil and shame of the Orthodox faith. Thus, the war acquires a people's liberation character.

And soon the entire Polish south-west becomes the prey of fear, the rumor running ahead: “Cossacks! The Cossacks showed up! In one month, young Cossacks matured in battles, and old Taras is pleased to see that both of his sons are among the first. The Cossack army is trying to take the city of Dubno, where there is a lot of treasury and rich inhabitants, but they meet desperate resistance from the garrison and residents. The Cossacks besiege the city and wait for the famine to begin in it. Having nothing to do, the Cossacks devastate the surroundings, burn out defenseless villages and unharvested grain. The young, especially the sons of Taras, do not like this kind of life. Old Bulba reassures them, promising hot fights soon. In one of dark nights Andria is awakened from her sleep by a strange creature that looks like a ghost. This is a Tatar, a servant of the very Polish woman with whom Andriy is in love. The Tatar woman tells in a whisper that the lady is in the city, she saw Andriy from the city rampart and asks him to come to her or at least give a piece of bread for her dying mother. Andriy loads sacks of bread as much as he can carry, and a Tatar woman leads him through an underground passage to the city. Having met with his beloved, he renounces his father and brother, comrades and homeland: “The homeland is what our soul is looking for, which is dearest to her. My fatherland is you." Andriy stays with the lady to protect her to the last breath from her former comrades.

Polish troops, sent to reinforce the besieged, pass into the city past drunken Cossacks, killing many while sleeping, and capturing many. This event hardens the Cossacks, who decide to continue the siege to the end. Taras, looking for his missing son, receives a terrible confirmation of Andriy's betrayal.

The Poles arrange sorties, but the Cossacks are still successfully repelling them. News comes from the Sich that, in the absence of the main force, the Tatars attacked the remaining Cossacks and captured them, seizing the treasury. The Cossack army near Dubna is divided in two - half goes to the rescue of the treasury and comrades, the other half remains to continue the siege. Taras, leading the siege army, delivers an impassioned speech to the glory of camaraderie.

The Poles learn about the weakening of the enemy and come out of the city for a decisive battle. Among them is Andriy. Taras Bulba orders the Cossacks to lure him to the forest and there, meeting with Andriy face to face, he kills his son, who even before his death utters one word - the name of the beautiful lady. Reinforcements arrive at the Poles, and they defeat the Cossacks. Ostap is captured, the wounded Taras, saving from the chase, is brought to the Sich.

Having recovered from his wounds, Taras persuades Yankel to smuggle him to Warsaw in order to try to ransom Ostap there. Taras is present at the terrible execution of his son in the town square. Not a single groan escapes under torture from Ostap's chest, only before his death he cries out: “Father! where are you! Do you hear? - "I hear!" - Taras answers over the crowd. They rush to catch him, but Taras is already gone.

One hundred and twenty thousand Cossacks, among whom is the regiment of Taras Bulba, go on a campaign against the Poles. Even the Cossacks themselves notice the excessive ferocity and cruelty of Taras towards the enemy. This is how he avenges the death of his son. The defeated Polish hetman Nikolai Pototsky swears an oath not to inflict any further offense on the Cossack army. Only Colonel Bulba does not agree to such a peace, assuring his comrades that the forgiven Poles will not keep their word. And he leads his regiment. His prediction comes true - having gathered strength, the Poles treacherously attack the Cossacks and defeat them.

And Taras walks all over Poland with his regiment, continuing to avenge the death of Ostap and his comrades, ruthlessly destroying all life.

Five regiments under the leadership of the same Potocki finally overtake the regiment of Taras, who has come to rest in an old ruined fortress on the banks of the Dniester. The battle lasts for four days. The surviving Cossacks make their way, but the old ataman stops to look for his cradle in the grass, and the haiduks overtake him. They tie Taras to an oak tree with iron chains, nail his hands and lay a fire under him. Before his death, Taras manages to shout to his comrades to go down to the canoes, which he sees from above, and leave the chase along the river. And at the last terrible moment, the old ataman predicts the unification of the Russian lands, the death of their enemies and the victory of the Orthodox faith.

The Cossacks leave the chase, row together with oars and talk about their chieftain.

Gogol's work on "Taras Bulba"

Gogol's work on "Taras Bulba" was preceded by a thorough, in-depth study of historical sources. Among them are Beauplan's "Description of Ukraine", Myshetsky's "History of the Zaporizhian Cossacks", handwritten lists of Ukrainian chronicles - Samovydets, Velichko, Grabyanka, etc.

But these sources did not fully satisfy Gogol. He lacked a lot in them: first of all, characteristic everyday details, living signs of the time, a true understanding of the past era. Special historical studies and chronicles seemed to the writer too dry, sluggish and, in fact, did little to help the artist to comprehend the spirit folk life, characters, psychology of people. Among the sources that helped Gogol in his work on Taras Bulba was another, the most important one: Ukrainian folk songs, especially historical songs and thoughts. "Taras Bulba" has a long and complex creative history. It was first published in 1835 in the Mirgorod collection. In 1842, in the second volume of his "Works," Gogol placed "Taras Bulba" in a new, radically altered edition. Work on this work continued intermittently for nine years: from to. Between the first and second editions of Taras Bulba, a number of intermediate editions of some chapters were written.

Differences between the first and second editions

In the first edition, the Cossacks are not called "Russians", the dying phrases of the Cossacks, such as "let the holy Orthodox Russian land be glorified forever and ever" are absent.

Below are comparisons of the differences between both editions.

Revision 1835. Part I

Revision 1842. Part I

Idioms

• “What, son, did your Poles help you?”
• "I gave birth to you, I will kill you!"
• “Turn around, son! How funny you are!”
• “The fatherland is what our soul is looking for, which is sweeter for it than anything.”
• "There is life in the old dog yet?!"
• "There is no bond more holy than fellowship!"
• “Be patient, Cossack, you will be chieftain!”
• "Good, son, good!"
• "Damn you, steppes, how good you are!"
• “Do not listen, son, mother! She's a woman, she doesn't know anything!"
• “Do you see this sword? Here is your mother!"

Criticism of the story

Along with the general acclaim with which Gogol's story was received by critics, some aspects of the work were found to be unsuccessful. So, Gogol was repeatedly blamed for the unhistorical nature of the story, the excessive glorification of the Cossacks, the lack of a historical context, which was noted by Mikhail Grabovsky, Vasily Gippius, Maxim Gorky and others. This can be explained by the fact that the writer did not have enough reliable information about the history of Little Russia. Gogol studied the history of his native land with great attention, but he drew information not only from rather meager annals, but also from folk traditions, legends, as well as frankly mythological sources, like "History of the Rus", from which he drew descriptions of the atrocities of the gentry, the atrocities of the Jews and valor of the Cossacks. The story aroused particular dissatisfaction among the Polish intelligentsia. The Poles were outraged that in Taras Bulba the Polish nation was presented as aggressive, bloodthirsty and cruel. Mikhail Grabovsky, who had a good attitude towards Gogol himself, spoke negatively about Taras Bulba, as well as many other Polish critics and writers, such as Andrzej Kempinski, Michal Barmuth, Julian Krzyzanowski. In Poland, there was a strong opinion about the story as anti-Polish, and in part such judgments were transferred to Gogol himself.

The story was also criticized for anti-Semitism by some politicians, religious thinkers, literary critics. The leader of right-wing Zionism, Vladimir Zhabotinsky, in his article “Russian Weasel”, assessed the scene of the Jewish pogrom in the story “Taras Bulba” as follows: “ None of the great literatures knows anything of the kind in terms of cruelty. It cannot even be called hatred, or sympathy for the Cossack massacre of the Jews: it is worse, it is some kind of carefree, clear fun, not clouded even by a half-thought that the funny legs jerking in the air are the legs of living people, some amazingly whole, indecomposable contempt for an inferior race, not condescending to enmity» . As the literary critic Arkady Gornfeld noted, Jews are depicted by Gogol as petty thieves, traitors and ruthless extortionists, devoid of any human traits. In his opinion, the images of Gogol " captured by the ordinary Judeophobia of the era»; Gogol's anti-Semitism does not come from life's realities, but from well-established and traditional theological ideas " about the unknown world of Jewry»; images of Jews are stereotyped and are pure caricature. According to the opinion of the religious thinker and historian Georgy Fedotov, " Gogol gave a jubilant description of the Jewish pogrom in Taras Bulba", which testifies" about the well-known failures of his moral sense, but also about the strength of the national or chauvinistic tradition that stood behind him» .

A slightly different point of view was held by the critic and literary critic D. I. Zaslavsky. In the article "Jews in Russian Literature", he also supports Zhabotinsky's rebuke of the anti-Semitism of Russian literature, including Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Turgenev, Nekrasov, Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Leskov, Chekhov in the list of anti-Semitic writers. But at the same time, he finds justification for Gogol's anti-Semitism as follows: “However, there is no doubt that in the dramatic struggle of the Ukrainian people in the 17th century for their homeland, the Jews showed neither understanding of this struggle, nor sympathy for it. It was not their fault, it was their misfortune. “The Jews of Taras Bulba are caricatures. But the cartoon is not a lie. ... The talent of Jewish adaptability is vividly and aptly described in Gogol's poem. And this, of course, does not flatter our pride, but we must admit that some of our historical features are evil and aptly captured by the Russian writer. .

Philologist Elena Ivanitskaya sees "the poetry of blood and death" and even "ideological terrorism" in the actions of Taras Bulba. Teacher Grigory Yakovlev, arguing that Gogol's story sings of "violence, inciting wars, exorbitant cruelty, medieval sadism, aggressive nationalism, xenophobia, religious fanaticism that requires the extermination of non-believers, deep drunkenness elevated to a cult, unjustified rudeness even in relations with loved ones" , raises the question of whether it is necessary to study this work in high school.

Critic Mikhail Edelstein differentiates the personal sympathies of the author and the laws of the heroic epic: “The heroic epic requires a black and white palette - emphasizing the superhuman virtues of one side and the complete insignificance of the other. Therefore, both the Poles and the Jews - yes, in fact, everyone except the Cossacks - in Gogol's story are not people, but rather, some humanoid dummies that exist to demonstrate the heroism of the protagonist and his warriors (like the Tatars in the epics about Ilya of Muromets or the Moors in "Songs about Roland"). The epic and ethical principles do not really conflict - the first one completely excludes the very possibility of the manifestation of the second.

Screen adaptations

In chronological order:

Musical adaptations

The pseudonym "Taras Bulba" was chosen by Vasily (Taras) Borovets, a leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, who created an armed formation of the UPA in 1941, called "Bulbovtsy".

Notes

1. The text says that Bulba's regiment is taking part in the campaign of Hetman Opage. Opage - a real historical character, was elected hetman in 1638 and was defeated by the Poles in the same year.
2. N. V. Gogol. Collection of works of art in five volumes. Volume two. M., Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1951
3. Library: N. V. Gogol, “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”, part I (Russian)
4. N. V. Gogol. Mirgorod. The text of the work. Taras Bulba | Komarov Library
5. NIKOLAI GOGOL BLESSED ANOTHER "TARAS BULBA" ("Mirror of the Week" No. 22 of June 15-21, 2009)
6. Janusz Tazbir. "Taras Bulba" - finally in Polish.
7. Comments on "Mirgorod".
8. V. Zhabotinsky. Russian weasel
9. A. Gornfeld. Gogol Nikolay Vasilievich. // Jewish Encyclopedia (ed. Brockhaus-Efron, 1907-1913, 16 vols.).
10. G. Fedotov New on an old topic
11. D. I. Zaslavsky Jews in Russian literature
12. Weiskopf M. Gogol's Plot: Morphology. Ideology. Context. M., 1993.
13. Elena Ivanitskaya. Monster
14. Grigory Yakovlev. Should I study "Taras Bulba" at school?
15. How a Jew turned into a woman. History of a stereotype.
16. Taras Bulba (1909) - information about the film - films of the Russian Empire - Cinema-Theater. RU
17. Taras Bulba (1924)
18. Tarass Boulba (1936)
19. The Barbarian and the Lady (1938)
20. Taras Bulba (1962)
21. Taras Bulba (1962) RU
22. Taras Bulba, il cosacco (1963)
23. Taras Bulba (1987) (TV)
24. Thought about Taras Bulba - Slobidsky region
25. Taras Bulba (2009)
26. Taras Bulba (2009) - information about the film - Russian films and series - Kino-Teatr.RU
27. Classical music.ru, TARAS BULBA - opera by N. Lysenko // author A. Gozenpud

Sources

Taras Bulba really existed? and got the best answer

Answer from Eva Love[guru]
Yes, actually. The events that formed the basis of the novel are the peasant-Cossack uprisings of 1637-38. , led by Gunya and Ostryanin. Apparently, the writer used the diaries of a Polish eyewitness to these events - military chaplain Simon Okolsky.

Answer from Uncle Misha![guru]
existed for sure!

Answer from Nataly[guru]
Almost every literary character has its own prototype - a real person. Sometimes it is the author himself (Ostrovsky and Pavka Korchagin, Bulgakov and the Master), sometimes it is a historical figure, sometimes it is an acquaintance or relative of the author.
In the story "Taras Bulba" Gogol poeticized the spiritual indissolubility of the individual and the people, thirsting for national and social freedom. In it, Gogol, according to Belinsky, "exhausted the entire life of historical Little Russia and in a wondrous, artistic creation forever captured its spiritual image." Oddly enough, Gogol managed to create an image of Ukraine and its people without reproducing either real events or specific prototypes. However, Taras Bulba is conceived so organically and vividly that the reader is not left feeling his reality.
Indeed, Taras Bulba could have had a prototype. At least there was a man whose fate is similar to the fate of the hero Gogol. And this man also bore the surname Gogol.
Ostap Gogol was born at the beginning of the 17th century, possibly in the Podolsk village of Gogol, founded by an Orthodox gentry from Volhynia, Nikita Gogol. On the eve of 1648, he was a captain of the "panzer" Cossacks in the Polish army stationed in Uman under the command of S. Kalinovsky. With the outbreak of the uprising, Gogol, along with his heavy cavalry, went over to the side of the Cossacks.
Colonel Gogol was engaged in the formation of border military-administrative units, detachments from Podolsk peasants and petty bourgeois in the region of Transnistria.
The victory of Bohdan Khmelnytsky over the Poles near Batag caused an uprising of Ukrainians in Podolia. Ostap received an order to liberate the area from the Polish gentry. At the beginning of 1654, he began to command the Podolsky regiment.
After the death of the hetman, the Cossack generals began to quarrel with each other. In October 1657, Hetman Vyhovsky, with a general foreman, of which Ostap Gogol was a member, concluded the Treaty of Korsun between Ukraine and Sweden, which proclaimed "The Zaporizhzhya Host for a free people and subject to no one." However, the split continued. In July 1659, Gogol's regiment took part in the defeat of the Muscovites near Konotop. Hetman Potocki at the head of the Polish-Turkish intervention surrounded Mogilev. Ostap Gogol led the Mogilev garrison, which was defending itself from the Poles. In the summer of 1960, Ostap's regiment took part in the Chudnivsky campaign, after which the Slobodischensky treaty was signed. Gogol took the side of autonomy within the Commonwealth, he was made a gentry.
In 1664, an uprising broke out in Right-Bank Ukraine against the Poles and Hetman Teteri. Gogol at first supported the rebels. However, he again went over to the side of the enemy. The reason for this was his sons, whom Hetman Potocki held hostage in Lvov. When Doroshenko became hetman, Gogol came under his mace and helped him a lot. When he fought with the Turks near Ochakov, Doroshenko was on the Rada near the river. Rosava proposed to recognize the supremacy of the Turkish Sultan, and it was accepted.
At the end of 1971, the Crown Hetman Sobieski took Mogilev, Gogol's residence. During the defense of the fortress, one of the sons of Ostap died. The colonel himself fled to Moldavia and from there sent Sobieski a letter of his desire to obey. As a reward for this, Ostap received the village of Vilkhovets. The letter of salary of the estate served the grandfather of the writer Nikolai Gogol as evidence of his nobility.
Colonel Gogol became Hetman of the Right-Bank Ukraine on behalf of King Jan III Sobieski. He died in 1979 at his residence in Dymer, and was buried in the Kiev-Mezhigorsky monastery near Kyiv.
As you can see, the analogy with the story is obvious: both heroes are Zaporozhye colonels, both had sons, one of whom died at the hands of the Poles, the other went over to the side of the enemy. Thus, the distant ancestor of the writer was the prototype of Taras Bulba.

The story "Taras Bulba" by N.V. Gogol was included in the compulsory program in Russian literature for everything Soviet Union, is included for schoolchildren in Russia and now. I just re-read this story, and in both versions.

So, Taras Bulba, together with his sons Ostap and Andriy, goes to the Sich. In the Sich they yearn for "work", but there is no "work". Koshevoy says that it is impossible to go on a campaign to Turkey, since the Cossacks have made peace with the Sultan. Taras is convinced that there can be no peace with the Busurmans, because "God and the Holy Scripture commands to beat the Busurmen." He gives water and persuades part of the foreman and the Cossacks, they convene a council and throw off the old kosher and choose Taras as a friend (and in the first version they simply force the old kosher to announce a campaign in Turkey at the council). There is no apparent reason to go. The new-old Koschevoi makes a speech and gives reasons, the first of which is that many Cossacks drank everything they could and owed money to the Jews and their comrades. And the second: there are many young people in the Sich who have not smelled gunpowder, and “a young man cannot be without a war.” And the third is that the icons in the church in the Sich are still standing without salaries. And on the basis of these three reasons, the Koschevoi considers it possible to break the peace with the Sultan, which the Cossacks swore to keep on the Bible. And the Cossacks, at the mention of icons without salaries, are immediately seized by a “religious impulse”: we, they say, for the sake of our Christ, will smash half of Turkey. their robbery deeds.

But the Cossacks did not go to Turkey. At the last moment, the Cossacks arrive on the island and announce what is being done in the Hetmanate. What is being done there that the Cossack army immediately decides to go on a campaign against Poland, "to defend the Christian faith"? 1. The "Jews" have rented churches and they have to be paid in order, among other things, to celebrate masses and celebrate Easter. 2. Priests harness Orthodox Christians to their tarantai instead of horses and ride like that. 3. "Jews" sew themselves skirts from priestly vestments. 4. And, finally, to the question, how did the hetman and the colonels allow such lawlessness, they answer that the colonels were cut down, and the hetman was fried in a copper bull. All this seems unconvincing to me. Points 2 and 3 are generally some kind of tales. And what does it mean "the Jews rented the church"? As I understand it, this means that some churches were on private land, or may have been built by the owners of the land. And these landowners had the opportunity to rent out their land, together with the church, and maybe one church without land, to the Jews. And the Jews could take an additional payment from the peasants for "requisitions". Surely there have been such cases. But, for sure, it was a process stretched out in space and time. But according to Gogol, it turns out that within a maximum of several months, in a large part of Ukraine, Jews received churches for rent and began to take payment from Christians. After all, the Cossacks who arrived do not say that in such and such a village or in such and such a district, Christians from now on must pay the Jews and something must be done. No, it happened in general "in the Hetmanate." Also, “in the Hetmanate” a significant part of the priests suddenly began to harness Orthodox Christians to tarantayki, and most of the “Jewish women” began to sew skirts from priestly robes. By the way, the question of how they get these vestments is not clarified: do Jews take everything they want in rented churches? That is, these vestments did not belong to priests, but to the owners of churches? In any case, I see the situation in such a way that Gogol had to somehow psychologically justify the campaign in Poland, present it as a response to the oppression of the Orthodox faith. And, "please do not shoot," he did his best. In reality, in XVI - XVII For centuries, both registered Cossacks (under the hetman, the official military of the Polish army), and non-registered (Zaporizhzhya) went on an endless number of campaigns with the "oppressors" Poles against the Turks, and against the Tatars, and against Russia. And also with the Busurman-Tatars against the Poles.

The Cossacks begin to defend the Christian faith by organizing a Jewish pogrom on the outskirts of the Sich, where the Jews serving them live and there are obviously no tenants. Then the Cossacks go to Poland, and in modern terms, to western Ukraine (the city of Dubno is located between Lvov and Rivne) and "the tenant-Jews were hanged in heaps along with the Catholic clergy" - this is in the old version of the story. And in the new “fires engulfed the villages; cattle and horses that did not follow the army were beaten right there, on the spot ... Beaten babies, circumcised women's breasts, torn skin from the legs to the knee of those who were released, in a word, the Cossacks repaid their former debts in large coins. Gogol in this place, as it were, apologizes for the Cossacks, they say, all these were "signs of the ferocity of the semi-savage age." And when he writes about Jewish pogroms, he does not even apologize, but almost admires. Then the Zaporizhzhya army goes to take the city of Dubno, but not at all because the Orthodox faith was somehow especially oppressed there. No, they go there because there, "there were rumors, there was a lot of treasury and rich inhabitants."

So why did the Cossacks go on a campaign against Poland (Western Ukraine) when they heard about the oppression of Orthodoxy in the Hetmanate (Eastern Ukraine)? I think Gogol represents the following situation: there were harassment by Jews and priests in the Hetmanate - Polish autonomy; the hetman and the colonels stood up, and the Poles punished them. And from that moment on, all of Poland and all the "Jews" become a legitimate military target for the Cossacks. And it does not matter that the people killed by the Cossacks had nothing to do with oppression.

When Taras, at the end of the story, went to Poland to celebrate the wake of Ostap, the description of his “exploits” takes up half a page, the most memorable is how the girls tried to escape at the altars, but Taras lit them along with the churches, and “cruel Cossacks raised them with spears from the streets of their babies and threw them into the flames. With all this, Gogol considers Taras a hero of his people, and the Cossacks are true Christians, defenders of the "Russian land forever beloved by Christ." In one place, Gogol directly draws the posthumous fate of one of the Cossacks: “Sit down, Kukubenko, at my right hand! - Christ will tell him, - you did not betray the fellowship, you did not do a dishonorable deed, you did not betray a person in trouble, you kept and saved my church. The killing of babies and defenseless women, or at least the presence at the same time and “not obstructing”, apparently, is not a “dishonorable deed” for the Cossack and Gogol Christ. The time, they say, was like that and the natures were wide. Yes, the Poles also broke their joints and mocked the captured Cossacks in a different way, but Gogol does not say anything about them turning to women and children in their revenge. They probably didn't have a broad enough soul. Well, the burning of churches and the murder of Catholic priests - it seems that for Gogol, in general, a charitable deed.

The first thing that Christ credits the Cossack with is: "You did not betray the partnership." Before the fight, Taras Bulba delivers a heartfelt and chaotic speech about partnership, which we were forced to learn by heart at school. True, there is almost nothing about partnership, in fact, in speech. Taras says that 1) the Urussian land had a wonderful past and 2) a sad present, because 3) “Busurmans took everything”, that 4) Russians differ from other peoples for the better in their soul: “to love like a Russian soul , no one can”, but 5) today many Russians think only about money, adopt “the devil knows what Busurman customs”, “shine their own language”, etc. At the end, Taras expresses the hope that 6) even “the last bastard” will wake up “a grain of Russian feeling”, and he will go to expiate the “shameful deed” with torment and will be ready for such a death that no one else “has enough of their mouse nature” . In general, it repeats all the myths and hopes of Russian Slavophilism-pochvennichestvo-nationalism-Nazism. And not only Russian, but any other, one has only to replace the adjective "Russian" with "Ukrainian", "Polish", "Turkish", etc. But as regards camaraderie proper, loyalty to friends, this feeling can be admired not in itself, but only as a means to achieve righteous goals. A partnership is always for some kind of joint business. Friendship is carried out at the moment of joint work, overcoming obstacles, knowledge, the rest of the time it, at best, smolders (this is another topic). In the case of the Cossacks, 90% of the cases in which their partnership was manifested were joint robberies, robberies, murders and battles with those who tried to prevent such robberies, robberies and murders.

It is necessary, by the way, to understand who were those babies whom the Cossacks raised on spears, those girls whom they burned in churches. Now those events are presented as a national liberation war of Ukrainians against the Poles. But the concept of "Ukrainian" was not used at all then, and "Pole", as far as I know, meant "a nobleman, a subject of the Polish king." To become a full-fledged Polish nobleman, one had to convert to Catholicism. Any “Ukrainian”, having moved from the east to Lvov or Warsaw and converted to Catholicism, automatically became indistinguishable from the surrounding “Poles”. Among the peasants and other "non-nobles" no one distinguished and could not distinguish between Poles and Ukrainians. All were subjects of the Polish state and spoke dozens of dialects. They differed only in faith. To the east of the Dnieper (on the territory of modern Poltava, Cherkasy, parts of the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions) was the Hetmanate, Polish autonomy with special privileges for Orthodoxy and the Orthodox. Taras Bulba was Orthodox and a colonel, in modern terms, the head of the district administration. Therefore, the Cossacks did not go on campaigns to the hetmanate, they themselves exercised some powers there. And everything to the west of the Dnieper was Poland, a legitimate place for robberies. Most of the peasants up to the Carpathians were Orthodox, and most of the landowners, nobles and members of other classes were Catholics, often crossing themselves from the Orthodox for security, career, business, and so on. That is, I want to say that the babies and women killed by the Cossacks, not to mention men, were the Catholics of Western Ukraine, the ancestors of modern Ukrainians, and, today, the most “Ukrainian” among Ukrainians. The inhabitants of the burned villages, the owners of the cattle killed for the sake of fun, were, I think, almost only Orthodox. And from starvation in the besieged Dubno, first of all, the Orthodox died, as poorer ones, and the garrison consisted not only of Catholics, but also women who threw stones, sandbags, etc. from the walls at the Cossacks. were not entirely Catholic. And if the Cossacks broke into the city, then they would probably rob and kill everyone in a row, without asking about religion.

The following fact is interesting. In the first version of the story, there is no speech by Taras about partnership (Slavophile program), and no mention of the "Russian Land". There is a mention of "Ukraine" as a synonym for the Hetmashshchina. But the Cossacks are fighting not for "Ukraine" and not even for the Hetmanate (this is still a political and administrative term, like a military district), but for the Christian faith and for the Sich. The “Russian land” about which Taras speaks and which every dying Cossack wishes to be in good health for all time appears only in the second version! I think that the historical Cossacks did not say anything about the "Russian land", and all this is Gogol's Slavophile distortions.

The portrait of Taras the hero is completed by his attitude towards his own wife: “She endured insults, even beatings; out of mercy, she saw only caresses rendered, etc. ” “Do not listen to your son, mother: she is a woman. She doesn't know anything."

So, the conclusion: the story "Taras Bulba" is a poetization of robberies, robberies, vandalism, unmotivated violence (barbarism), sexism, and, most importantly, the destruction of people on national and religious grounds. But the worst thing is that several generations of children have been and are being forced to see in Taras Bulba a national hero, a defender of the Russian land, an exponent of the Russian (or Ukrainian) national character, shattering their moral sense. Since this story to a certain extent reflects historical realities, I have a question for modern Ukrainian (and not only) singers of ancient Cossack traditions: “What, in fact, do you admire? What, in fact, are you trying to revive? Maybe you can find something positive there, but, “you can’t wash a black dog white”!

super film.

do your homework, don't be embarrassed)

Linen! As I understand it, the previous respondents did not advance further than the school curriculum on this issue (((As far as I understood correctly, everything was mixed up with Gogol himself ...

Here are a few interesting facts on this issue:

1) When did the events described in the story take place? Gogol, it seems, was confused about this himself, since he begins his narrative as follows (I quote from the 1842 edition):
“Bulba was stubbornly terrifying. It was one of those characters that could have arisen only in the difficult 15th century on the semi-nomadic corner of Europe, when all of southern primitive Russia, abandoned by its princes, was devastated, burned to the ground by the indomitable raids of Mongol predators ... "
So, Gogol relates the events to the 15th century - when Muscovy really was still an ulus of the Horde, and the lands of Ukraine were not at all “abandoned by their princes” and “devastated”, as he invents, but flourished as part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (about which Gogol is nowhere does not mention a word). Until 1569, Kiev region, Zaporozhye (then "Field"), Podolia, Volhynia were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

2) And then there is a contradiction: "The kings of Poland, who found themselves, instead of the specific princes, the rulers of these vast lands, although remote and weak, understood the significance of the Cossacks and the benefits of such a warlike sentry life."

The Poles became the rulers of Ukraine only at the conclusion of the Union of 1569 (the creation of the Commonwealth), when in exchange for help in the liberation of Polotsk, occupied by Ivan the Terrible, we gave the Poles the lands of Ukraine. Then there was the Church Union of 1596 - after Boris Godunov negotiated from the Greeks in 1589 the right of a single Muscovite-Horde religion to be called for the first time "Russian Orthodox Church"- instead of the ROC of Kyiv. As follows from the text, the events of the story take place in the middle of the 17th century, and not at all in the 15th century and not even in the 16th.

3) Gogol: “There was no craft that the Cossack did not know: to smoke wine, equip a cart, grind gunpowder, do blacksmith, locksmith work and, in addition to that, walk recklessly, drink and gossip, as only a Russian can, “It was all up to him.”

At that time, there was no ethnos "Russians", but there was an ethnos "Rusyns", which meant only and precisely only Ukrainians. As for the Russians (who were called Muscovites), in the 15th century there was a “prohibition” in Muscovy, so Gogol’s phrase “walking recklessly, drinking and drinking as only a Russian can” is an invention.

But this whole legend about Taras Bulba hides at the same time a monstrous genocide over Belarus and Belarusians - the genocide of the war of 1654-1667, in which EVERY SECOND BELARUS died at the hands of Moscow and Ukrainian invaders.

There is no doubt that Gogol writes about this war in the last chapter, where he refers the atrocities of Colonel Bulba to the “Polish lands”, but in fact the Cossacks then engaged in genocide only and precisely in BELARUS, and not in Poland, where they did not reach:

“And Taras walked all over Poland with his regiment, burned eighteen towns, near forty churches, and already reached Krakow.”

“All Poland” Gogol here calls our Belarus, because not in Poland, namely, and only here, the Cossacks Khmelnitsky and Zolotarenko were engaged in robbery and genocide. And the words “already reached Krakow” should, apparently, be attributed to the occupation of Brest by the troops of the Cossacks and Muscovites - who massacred the entire local population there, including every baby.

“He beat every gentry a lot, plundered the richest lands and the best castles; the Cossacks unsealed and poured over the earth centuries-old meads and wines that had been safely stored in the lord's cellars; chopped and burned expensive cloth, clothes and utensils found in storerooms. "Don't regret anything!" – only Taras repeated. The Cossacks did not respect black-browed panyankas, white-breasted, fair-faced girls; they could not save themselves at the very altars: Taras burned them together with the altars. Not only snow-white hands rose from the fiery flame to the heavens, accompanied by miserable cries, from which the dampest earth would move and the steppe grass would droop from the pity of the valley. But the cruel Cossacks did not heed anything and, lifting their babies from the streets with spears, threw them into the flames.

It was not in Poland, but on our territory of Belarus. In the war of 1654-67. the Cossack troops of Khmelnitsky and Zolotarenko never reached the territory of Poland. Together with the allied troops of the Muscovites of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, they exterminated 80% of the population of Eastern Belarus (Vitebsk, Mogilev, Gomel regions), 50% of the population of Central Belarus (Minsk region), about 30% of the population of Western Belarus (Brest and Grodno regions). The occupiers did not reach Poland and Zhemoitia.

Just read the review. After that, I didn't want to watch.

300 Spartans?

A great film with a capital letter.. Not to say that the dog is a masterpiece, but a really worthwhile film.. the shooting is also worth noting, the shots are indescribable.. at the end it’s generally tough at all.. bones are broken, executions..
overall 5

Do your own homework

The real character is based on Taras Fedorovich, who raised an uprising in Ukraine in 1630.

Fedorovich (also Taras Tryasilo, Hassan Tarassa, Gassan Trassa) (d. ca. 1637) - Hetman of Zaporozhye non-registered Cossacks (since 1629), an active participant in the struggle for the liberation of Ukraine from the rule of Poland.

By origin - a baptized Crimean Tatar. Member of the Thirty Years' War of 1618-1648 as a mercenary on the side of the Habsburg Empire (fought in Silesia and Hungary), where he distinguished himself by significant cruelty towards the Protestant population.

In 1625-1629 - Colonel of Korsun.

Since 1629 - hetman of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks; in the same year he led the Cossack campaign in the Crimea. In March 1630, he became the head of the peasant-Cossack uprising against Poland, caused by an attempt by the Polish military command to quarter Polish units in the Cossack territories. In the battles near Korsun and Pereyaslav (the battle of May 20, 1630, known as "Taras Night"), the rebels defeated the Polish army under the command of S. Konetspolsky and S. Lasch and in June 1630 forced Hetman Stanislav Konetspolsky to sign an agreement in Pereyaslav.

Dissatisfied with the agreement, Tryasilo was deposed from the post of hetman and withdrew with the disgruntled Cossacks to the Zaporozhian Sich, where he tried to raise a new uprising.

Participated in the Russian-Polish war of 1632-1634, which was fought for the Chernigov-Seversk and Smolensk lands. At the Cossack Rada in Kanev in the winter of 1634-1635. Shaking called for an uprising against gentry Poland; later, with part of the Cossacks, he left for the Don.

In 1635, he negotiated with the Moscow government on the resettlement of 700 Cossacks to Sloboda Ukraine. In the spring of 1636, after returning from the Don, Tryasilo went to Moscow with a request to transfer part of the Ukrainian Cossacks to the service of the Muscovite state. However, his proposal was rejected, because the Moscow government did not want to aggravate relations with the Commonwealth after the unsuccessful Muscovite-Polish war of 1632-1634.

Further fate The shaker is unknown; according to the Cossack annals, he “was with glory for nine years and died peacefully” in 1639. According to family legends, the Cossack elder clan Tarasevich (XVII-XVIII centuries) considered himself the descendants of Tryasil.

The leader of the Cossack uprising of 1638, Yakov Ostryanytsia, had previously participated in the uprising led by Taras Tryasilo.