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Title: Taras Bulba
Series:
(The Russians)
Author: Nikolai Golgol
Translater:
CJ Hogarth
Rating:
3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages:
170
Words: 46K
From Wikipedia
Taras
Bulba's two sons, Ostap and Andriy, return home from an Orthodox
seminary in Kyiv. Ostap is the more adventurous, whereas Andriy has
deeply romantic feelings of an introvert. While in Kyiv, he fell in
love with a young Polish noble girl, the daughter of the Governor of
Kowno, but after a couple of meetings (edging into her house and in
church), he stopped seeing her when her family returned home. Taras
Bulba gives his sons the opportunity to go to war. They reach the
Cossack camp at the Zaporozhian Sich, where there is much
merrymaking. Taras attempts to rouse the Cossacks to go into battle.
He rallies them to replace the existing Hetman when the Hetman is
reluctant to break the peace treaty.
They
soon have the opportunity to fight the Poles, who rule all Ukraine
west of the Dnieper River. The Poles, led by their ultra-Catholic
king, are accused of atrocities against Orthodox Christians, in which
they are aided by Jews. After killing many of the Jewish merchants at
the Sich, the Cossacks set off on a campaign against the Poles. They
besiege Dubno Castle where, surrounded by the Cossacks and short of
supplies, the inhabitants begin to starve. One night a Tatar woman
comes to Andriy and rouses him. He finds her face familiar and then
recalls she is the servant of the Polish girl he was in love with.
She advises him that all are starving inside the walls. He
accompanies her through a secret passage starting in the marsh that
goes into the monastery inside the city walls. Andriy brings loaves
of bread with him for the starving girl and her mother. He is
horrified by what he sees and in a fury of love, forsakes his
heritage for the Polish girl.
Meanwhile,
several companies of Polish soldiers march into Dubno to relieve the
siege, and destroy a regiment of Cossacks. A number of battles ensue.
Taras learns of his son's betrayal from Yankel the Jew, whom he saved
earlier in the story. During one of the final battles, he sees Andriy
riding in Polish garb from the castle and has his men draw him to the
woods, where he takes him off his horse. Taras bitterly scolds his
son, telling him "I gave you life, I will take it", and
shoots him dead.
Taras
and Ostap continue fighting the Poles. Ostap is captured while his
father is knocked out. When Taras regains consciousness he learns
that his son was taken prisoner by the Poles. Yankel agrees to take
Taras to Warsaw, where Ostap is held captive, hiding Taras in a
cartload of bricks. Once in Warsaw, a group of Jews help Yankel dress
Taras as a German count. They go into the prison to see Ostap, but
Taras unwittingly reveals himself as a Cossack, and only escapes by
use of a great bribe. Instead, they attend the execution the
following day. During the execution, Ostap does not make a single
sound, even while being broken on the wheel, but, disheartened as he
nears death, he calls aloud on his father, unaware of his presence.
Taras answers him from the crowd, thus giving himself away, but
manages to escape.
Taras
returns home to find all of his old Cossack friends dead and younger
Cossacks in their place. He goes to war again. The new Hetman wishes
to make peace with the Poles, which Taras is strongly against,
warning that the Poles are treacherous and will not honour their
words. Failing to convince the Hetman, Taras takes his regiment away
to continue the assault independently. As Taras predicted, once the
new Hetman agrees to a truce, the Poles betray him and kill a number
of Cossacks. Taras and his men continue to fight and are finally
caught in a ruined fortress, where they battle until the last man is
defeated.
Taras
is nailed and tied to a tree and set aflame. Even in this state, he
calls out to his men to continue the fight, claiming that a new Tsar
is coming who will rule the earth. The story ends with Cossacks on
the Dniester River recalling the great feats of Taras and his
unwavering Cossack spirit.
I had a couple of thoughts about this story and so you get to be the
spectator today as I lay them out, like pearls of great price. So
don't be a swine! ;-)
First, this was pure propaganda of the highest order. There is
Nationalism and pride of country, but Gogol takes us beyond that and
into propaganda territory. The Cossacks are the best, the brightest,
the bravest, the most devout, the most fervent, the loyalest, the
fiercest, the most honest and just, just THE BEST EVAH! and don't
you forget it. At first it grated but then it just became so
ridiculous as the cossacks own behavior put lie to what Gogol was
claiming that I simply had to grin.
Second, it was hard to tell if it was Hogarth's translating, but I
really didn't care for Gogol's style. I do think it was Gogol
himself, or at least this specific story, because I've enjoyed most
of the other Russian literature I've read and I believe a lot of it
was translated by Hogarth as well. This was the first book I've read
by Gogol and I'm not really impressed. I've got a Complete Works of
Gogol so I'll be giving him a couple more chances to impress me, but
I've got that DNF axe ready and it won't take much for me to let it
fall and for heads to roll.
Overall, this was a story of a man who grew up fighting, raised his
sons to fight and died fighting. I can't say it is a good
advertisement for the Warrior Lifestyle though. While the Cossacks
were presented as The Best Evah, it was only to their own kind. Bulba
considers it as a mark of how good Christians the cossacks are that
they don't steal from each other or cheat other cossacks. But when it
comes to someone who isn't a cossack, well, there simply aren't any
rules. It made me wonder how much of what Bulba thought of as
“Christian” was from culture and what he'd heard in church
instead of actually reading from the Bible. That is why even our
pastor says “Don't take my word for it, go look it up in the
Bible”.
With only one more full novel, Dead Souls, then a large body
of short stories collected in various editions, I should be able to
make my mind up about Gogol relatively easily. It looks like Garnett
did the translating for the majority of the short stories so once I
get to those it should be easier to tell if it is the translator or
the author I don't care for :-D
Gogol is the last of the Russians that I have on tap, so now I begin
the cycle anew. I'm pretty pleased overall with how this is going and
while it is a bit more spread out than say my Dickens read, I just
can't read the Russians as intensely as I can Dickens.
★★★☆☆
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