Taras Bulba

by Nikolaĭ Vasilʹevich Gogolʹ

This is a short historical novel of a Cossack and his two sons during the patriotic war against Poland. Having retuned home from their studies at Kiev University, Taras Bulba’s sons join their father in the war against Poland, then rulers of Ukraine. Russian literature, so full of enigmas, contains no greater creative mystery than Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol (1809-1852), who has done for the Russian novel and Russian prose what Pushkin has done for Russian poetry. Before these two men came Russian literature can hardly have been said to exist. It was pompous and effete with pseudo-classicism; foreign influences were strong; in the speech of the upper circles there was an over-fondness for German, French, and English words.