Taras Bulba (Russian Edition) - Softcover

Gogol, Nikolai

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1784350567 ISBN 13: 9781784350567

Publisher: Jiahu Books, 2014

Synopsis

Taras Bulba is a romanticized historical novella by Nikolai Gogol. It tells the story of an old Zaporozhian Cossack. Taras Bulba, and his two sons. Andriy and Ostap. Taras' sons studied at the Kiev Academy and return home. The three men set out on a journey to Zaporizftian Sich located in Southern Ukraine, where they join other Cossacks and go to war against Poland. The work is non-fictional in nature, in that the main character is based on several historical personalities, and other characters are not as exaggerated or grotesque as was common in Gogol's later fiction. This story can be understood in the context of the Romantic nationalism movement in literature, which developed around a historical ethnic culture which meets the Romantic ideal.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

The First New Translation in Forty Years
Set sometime between the mid-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century, Gogol's epic tale recounts both a bloody Cossack revolt against the Poles (led by the bold Taras Bulba of Ukrainian folk mythology) and the trials of Taras Bulba's two sons.
As Robert Kaplan writes in his Introduction, "["Taras Bulba] has a Kiplingesque gusto . . . that makes it a pleasure to read, but central to its theme is an unredemptive, darkly evil violence that is far beyond anything that Kipling ever touched on. We need more works like "Taras Bulba to better understand the emotional wellsprings of the threat we face today in places like the Middle East and Central Asia." And the critic John Cournos has noted, "A clue to all Russian realism may be found in a Russian critic's observation about Gogol: 'Seldom has nature created a man so romantic in bent, yet so masterly in portraying all that is unromantic in life.' But this statement does not cover the whole ground, for it is easy to see in almost all of Gogol's work his 'free Cossack soul' trying to break through the shell of sordid today like some ancient demon, essentially Dionysian. So that his works, true though they are to our life, are at once a reproach, a protest, and a challenge, ever calling for joy, ancient joy, that is no more with us. And they have all the joy and sadness of the Ukrainian songs he loved so much."

"From the Hardcover edition.

From the Back Cover:

“One of the ten greatest books of all time.” —Ernest Hemingway

About this edition

• Publisher: Jiahu Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1784350567
• ISBN 13: 9781784350567
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 120