Taras Bulba [Large Print] [Paperback]

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 2007

Introduction by John Cournos

Product Details

• Paperback: 322 pages
• Publisher: BiblioBazaar (May 14, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1434615545
• ISBN-13: 978-1434615541
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 9.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,274,945 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To be read with a swift gallop, December 7, 2008

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Dr. Lee D. Carlson (Baltimore, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Taras Bulba (Paperback)

The characters in Russian literature have never been known for being truth-seekers, but they are never passive and are always self-aware. They seem to always want to prove a point, and if they wrestle with circumstances it is only because they enjoy the challenges that such circumstances offer. Gogol's Taras Bulba is no exception to this generalization, and if he were judged by modern terminology he might be classified as a terrorist. But as John Cournos, who wrote the introduction to this collection of stories reminds the reader, it was geography, it was the absence of mountain ranges to guard the steppe that made its inhabitants war-like. Debates on morality were to be trumped by personal and collective survival.

So yes the Cossacks, as represented by Taras Bulba were Dionysians, as proven by their revelries, womanizing, and their predilection for the drunken stupor. Nietzsche would have loved them, in spite of the traces of Greek Orthodoxy that polluted their minds. One can't help but admire them, and reading Taras Bulba is in itself an act of rebellion: a way of relishing the Cossack freedom. And the gray Polish cities full of petty, ineffectual, cowardly bureaucrats reminds one of the governments, corporate leaders and managers of today. The social and political hierarchies in both times are exceedingly fragile however, and it does not really take a Cossack sword to cut them down. One does not need to "live dangerously" to do so: being "true to life" will.

Gogol writes that Taras Bulba was headstrong, which he says could only happen in the "fierce" fifteenth century. This may be the case, but certainly his story has relevance for today's reader, namely that one should not submit to authority and regimentation. As Andrii did, one needs to take off the gabardines of the Royal Seminary of Kiev, and not deprive oneself of the experiences of rowing swiftly and stoutly through life.