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Updated: June 2, 2025
The romance "Taras Bulba" has no successful follower in Russian literature, and brought forth no fruit anywhere for fifty years, until the appearance of the powerful fiction-chronicles by Sienkiewicz. It has all the fiery ardour of a young genius; its very exaggeration, its delight in bloody battle, show a certain immaturity; it breathes indeed the spirit of youth.
When Taras Bulba recovered from the blow, and glanced towards the Dniester, the Cossacks were already in the skiffs and rowing away. Balls were showered upon them from above but did not reach them. And the old hetman's eyes sparkled with joy. "Farewell, comrades!" he shouted to them from above; "remember me, and come hither again next spring and make merry in the same fashion!
Fearful is the vengeance that Taras Bulba takes on the enemy; fearful is his own death, lashed to a tree, and burned alive by his foes. He dies, merrily roaring defiant taunts at his tormentors. And Gogol himself closes his hero's eyes with the question, "Can any fire, flames, or power be found on earth, which are capable of overpowering Russian strength?"
And our brother: they have torn off his ear-locks, and they made wounds on his face that you cannot bear to look at, and yet no one will give him a hundred gold pieces. O heavens! Merciful God!" But this failure made a much deeper impression on Bulba, expressed by a devouring flame in his eyes. "Let us go," he said, suddenly, as if arousing himself; "let us go to the square.
Gold on his shoulders and his belt, gold everywhere about him; as the sun shines in spring, when every bird twitters and sings in the orchard, so he shines, all gold. And his horse, which the Waiwode himself gave him, is the very best; that horse alone is worth two hundred ducats." Bulba was petrified. "Why has he put on foreign garments?" "He put them on because they were finer.
The steppe is no longer an unbroken expanse of waving plume-grass and flowers, wherein riders and horses are lost to sight as, in Gogol's celebrated tale, were Taras Bulba and his sons, fresh from the famous Academy of Kieff, which lies at our feet, below the cliffs.
I want to see how they will torture him." "Oh, my lord! why go? That will do us no good now." "Let us go," said Bulba, obstinately; and the Jew followed him, sighing like a nurse. The square on which the execution was to take place was not hard to find: for the people were thronging thither from all quarters.
The Koschevoi, in accordance with his duty, will accompany one half in pursuit of the Tatars, and the other half can choose a hetman to lead them. But if you will heed the words of an old man, there is no man fitter to be the commanding hetman than Taras Bulba. Not one of us is his equal in heroism."
To become a buckwheat-reaper and housekeeper, to look after the sheep and swine, and loaf around with my wife? Away with such nonsense! I am a Cossack; I'll have none of it! What's left but war? I'll go with you to Zaporozhe to carouse; I'll go, by heavens!" And old Bulba, growing warm by degrees and finally quite angry, rose from the table, and, assuming a dignified attitude, stamped his foot.
They ate only cakes of bread and dripping; they drank but one cup apiece to strengthen them, for Taras Bulba never permitted intoxication upon the road, and then continued their journey until evening. In the evening the whole steppe changed its aspect.
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