Read Gogol's work Taras Bulba. Nikolai Gogoltaras Bulba. Citizen of the Russian land

- Turn around, son! How funny you are! What kind of priestly cassock are you wearing? And that’s how everyone goes to academies? - With these words old Bulba greeted his two sons, who studied at the Kyiv Bursa and came home to their father.

His sons had just dismounted from their horses. These were two strapping young men, still looking from under their brows, like recently graduated seminarians. Their strong, healthy faces were covered with the first fluff of hair that had not yet been touched by a razor. They were very embarrassed by their father’s reception and stood motionless, their eyes cast down to the ground.

- Stop, stop! Let me take a good look at you,” he continued, turning them, “what long scrolls you have on!” What scrolls! There have never been such scrolls in the world. Let one of you run away! I'll see if he flops to the ground, getting tangled in the floors.

- Don't laugh, don't laugh, dad! - the eldest of them finally said.

- Look how lush you are! Why not laugh?

- Yes, even though you’re my father, if you laugh, then, by God, I’ll beat you up!

- Oh, you such-and-such a son! How, dad?.. - said Taras Bulba, stepping back in surprise a few steps.

- Yes, even dad. I will not look at anyone for offense and will not respect anyone.

- How do you want to fight me? maybe with fists?

- Yes, on whatever it is.

- Well, let's fist fight! - said Taras Bulba, rolling up his sleeves, - I’ll see what kind of person you are in your fist!

And father and son, instead of greeting after a long absence, began to punch each other in the sides, and in the lower back, and in the chest, then retreating and looking back, then advancing again.

- Look, good people: the old man has gone crazy! completely crazy! - said their pale, thin and kind mother, who stood at the threshold and had not yet had time to hug her beloved children. “The children came home, they hadn’t been seen for more than a year, and he thought of God knows what: to fight with his fists!”

- Yes, he fights nicely! - Bulba said, stopping. - By God, it’s good! - he continued, recovering a little, - so, at least not even try. He will be a good Cossack! Well, great, son! let's break each other! - And father and son began to kiss. - Good, son! Beat everyone like that, like you beat me; don't let anyone down! But still, you’re wearing a funny outfit: what kind of rope is that hanging? And you, babybass, why are you standing there and giving up your hands? - he said, turning to the younger one, - why don’t you, son of a dog, beat me?

- That's another thing I came up with! - said the mother, who was hugging the youngest. “And it will come to your mind that your own child will beat your father.” Yes, as if before now: the child is young, has traveled so much distance, is tired (this child was more than twenty years old and exactly a fathom tall), he now needs to rest and eat something, but he makes him beat!

- Eh, you’re a little bastard, as I see! - said Bulba. “Don’t listen to your mother, son: she’s a woman, she doesn’t know anything.” What kind of tenderness do you like? Your tenderness is an open field and a good horse: here is your tenderness! Do you see this saber? here is your mother! This is all the rubbish that you fill your heads with; and the academy, and all those books, primers, and philosophy - all this what do you know, I don't care about any of this! - Here Bulba brought into line a word that is not even used in print. - But it’s better, I’ll send you to Zaporozhye this same week. This is where science comes in! There's a school there for you; there you will only gain some sense.

– And only for one week will they be at home? - the thin old woman said pitifully, with tears in her eyes. “And they, the poor ones, won’t be able to go for a walk; I won’t even be able to recognize my own home, and I won’t be able to look at them enough!

- Stop, stop howling, old woman! Kozak is not in the mood to mess with women. You would hide them both under your skirt, and sit on them like chicken eggs. Go, go, and quickly put everything you have on the table for us. There is no need for donuts, honey cakes, makovniks and other pundits; bring us the whole ram, give us the goat, you forty-year-old honeys! Yes, a larger burner, not with fancy burners, not with raisins and all sorts of trash, but a clean, foamy burner, so that it plays and hisses like mad.

Bulba led his sons into the little room, from where two beautiful servant girls in red monasteries quickly ran out, cleaning the rooms. They, apparently, were frightened by the arrival of the panicks, who did not like to let anyone down, or they simply wanted to observe their feminine custom: to scream and rush headlong when they saw a man, and therefore for a long time covered themselves with their sleeves from intense shame. The room was decorated in the style of that time, of which living hints remained only in songs and in folk houses, no longer sung in the Ukraine by bearded blind elders, accompanied by the quiet strumming of a bandura, in view of the crowded people; in the taste of that abusive, difficult time when fights and battles for union began to break out in Ukraine. Everything was clean, smeared with colored clay. On the walls are sabers, whips, bird nets, nets and guns, a cleverly crafted horn for gunpowder, a golden bridle for a horse and fetters with silver plaques. The windows in the little room were small, with round, dull glass, the kind that is now found only in ancient churches, through which it was otherwise impossible to look through except by lifting a sliding glass. There were red taps around the windows and doors. On the shelves in the corners stood jugs, bottles and flasks of green and blue glass, carved silver goblets, gilded glasses of all kinds: Venetian, Turkish, Circassian, which came into Bulba’s room in all sorts of ways, through third and fourth hands, which was very common in those daring time. Birch bark benches around the entire room; a huge table under the icons in the front corner; a wide stove with ovens, ledges and ledges, covered with colored variegated tiles - all this was very familiar to our two fellows who came home every year for the holidays; who came because they did not yet have horses, and because it was not the custom to allow schoolchildren to ride. They only had long forelocks, which could be torn out by any Cossack who carried a weapon. Only when they were released, Bulba sent them a couple of young stallions from his herd.

On the occasion of the arrival of his sons, Bulba ordered to convene all the centurions and the entire regimental rank who were present; and when two of them and captain Dmitro Tovkach, his old comrade, arrived, he immediately introduced his sons to them, saying: “Look, what great fellows! I’ll send them to the Sich soon.” The guests congratulated Bulba and both young men and told them that they were doing a good deed and that there was no better science for a young man than the Zaporozhye Sich.

- Well, gentlemen-brothers, everyone sit down, wherever it is better for you, at the table. Well, sons! First of all, let's drink the burners! – that’s what Bulba said. - God bless! Be healthy, sons: both you, Ostap, and you, Andriy! God grant that you will always be lucky in war! So that the Busurmen would be beaten, and the Turks would be beaten, and the Tatars would be beaten; when the Poles begin to do something against our faith, then the Poles too would be beaten! Well, put your glass down; Is the burner good? What's the Latin word for burner? That’s why, son, the Latins were fools: they didn’t even know if there was a burner in the world. What, I mean, was the name of the guy who wrote Latin verses? I don’t know much about reading, and therefore I don’t know: Horace, or what?

I

- Turn around, son! How funny you are! What kind of priestly cassock are you wearing? And that’s how everyone goes to academies? - With these words old Bulba greeted his two sons, who studied at the Kyiv Bursa and came home to their father.

His sons had just dismounted from their horses. These were two strapping young men, still looking from under their brows, like recently graduated seminarians. Their strong, healthy faces were covered with the first fluff of hair that had not yet been touched by a razor. They were very embarrassed by their father’s reception and stood motionless, their eyes cast down to the ground.

- Stop, stop! Let me take a good look at you,” he continued, turning them, “what long scrolls you have on!” What scrolls! There have never been such scrolls in the world. Let one of you run away! I'll see if he flops to the ground, getting tangled in the floors.

- Don't laugh, don't laugh, dad! - the eldest of them finally said.

- Look how lush you are! Why not laugh?

- Yes, even though you’re my father, if you laugh, then, by God, I’ll beat you up!

- Oh, you such-and-such a son! How, dad?.. - said Taras Bulba, stepping back in surprise a few steps.

- Yes, even dad. I will not look at anyone for offense and will not respect anyone.

- How do you want to fight me? maybe with fists?

- Yes, on whatever it is.

- Well, let's fist fight! - said Taras Bulba, rolling up his sleeves, - I’ll see what kind of person you are in your fist!

And father and son, instead of greeting after a long absence, began to punch each other in the sides, and in the lower back, and in the chest, then retreating and looking back, then advancing again.

- Look, good people: the old man has gone crazy! completely crazy! - said their pale, thin and kind mother, who stood at the threshold and had not yet had time to hug her beloved children. “The children came home, they hadn’t been seen for more than a year, and he thought of God knows what: to fight with his fists!”

- Yes, he fights nicely! - Bulba said, stopping. - By God, it’s good! - he continued, recovering a little, - so, at least not even try. He will be a good Cossack! Well, great, son! let's break each other! - And father and son began to kiss. - Good, son! Beat everyone like that, like you beat me; don't let anyone down! But still, you’re wearing a funny outfit: what kind of rope is that hanging? And you, babybass, why are you standing there and giving up your hands? - he said, turning to the younger one, - why don’t you, son of a dog, beat me?

- That's another thing I came up with! - said the mother, who was hugging the youngest. “And it will come to your mind that your own child will beat your father.” Yes, as if before now: the child is young, has traveled so much distance, is tired (this child was more than twenty years old and exactly a fathom tall), he now needs to rest and eat something, but he makes him beat!

- Eh, you’re a little bastard, as I see! - said Bulba. “Don’t listen to your mother, son: she’s a woman, she doesn’t know anything.” What kind of tenderness do you like? Your tenderness is an open field and a good horse: here is your tenderness! Do you see this saber? here is your mother! This is all the rubbish that you fill your heads with; and the academy, and all those books, primers, and philosophy - all this what do you know, I don't care about any of this! - Here Bulba brought into line a word that is not even used in print. - But it’s better, I’ll send you to Zaporozhye this same week. This is where science comes in! There's a school there for you; there you will only gain some sense.

– And only for one week will they be at home? - the thin old woman said pitifully, with tears in her eyes. “And they, the poor ones, won’t be able to go for a walk; I won’t even be able to recognize my own home, and I won’t be able to look at them enough!

- Stop, stop howling, old woman! Kozak is not in the mood to mess with women. You would hide them both under your skirt, and sit on them like chicken eggs. Go, go, and quickly put everything you have on the table for us. There is no need for donuts, honey cakes, makovniks and other pundits; bring us the whole ram, give us the goat, you forty-year-old honeys! Yes, a larger burner, not with fancy burners, not with raisins and all sorts of trash, but a clean, foamy burner, so that it plays and hisses like mad.

Bulba led his sons into the little room, from where two beautiful servant girls in red monasteries quickly ran out, cleaning the rooms. They, apparently, were frightened by the arrival of the panicks, who did not like to let anyone down, or they simply wanted to observe their feminine custom: to scream and rush headlong when they saw a man, and therefore for a long time covered themselves with their sleeves from intense shame. The room was decorated in the style of that time, of which living hints remained only in songs and in folk houses, no longer sung in the Ukraine by bearded blind elders, accompanied by the quiet strumming of a bandura, in view of the crowded people; in the taste of that abusive, difficult time when fights and battles for union began to break out in Ukraine. Everything was clean, smeared with colored clay. On the walls are sabers, whips, bird nets, nets and guns, a cleverly crafted horn for gunpowder, a golden bridle for a horse and fetters with silver plaques. The windows in the little room were small, with round, dull glass, the kind that is now found only in ancient churches, through which it was otherwise impossible to look through except by lifting a sliding glass. There were red taps around the windows and doors. On the shelves in the corners stood jugs, bottles and flasks of green and blue glass, carved silver goblets, gilded glasses of all kinds: Venetian, Turkish, Circassian, which came into Bulba’s room in all sorts of ways, through third and fourth hands, which was very common in those daring time. Birch bark benches around the entire room; a huge table under the icons in the front corner; a wide stove with ovens, ledges and ledges, covered with colored variegated tiles - all this was very familiar to our two fellows who came home every year for the holidays; who came because they did not yet have horses, and because it was not the custom to allow schoolchildren to ride. They only had long forelocks, which could be torn out by any Cossack who carried a weapon. Only when they were released, Bulba sent them a couple of young stallions from his herd.

On the occasion of the arrival of his sons, Bulba ordered to convene all the centurions and the entire regimental rank who were present; and when two of them and captain Dmitro Tovkach, his old comrade, arrived, he immediately introduced his sons to them, saying: “Look, what great fellows! I’ll send them to the Sich soon.” The guests congratulated Bulba and both young men and told them that they were doing a good deed and that there was no better science for a young man than the Zaporozhye Sich.

- Well, gentlemen-brothers, everyone sit down, wherever it is better for you, at the table. Well, sons! First of all, let's drink the burners! – that’s what Bulba said. - God bless! Be healthy, sons: both you, Ostap, and you, Andriy! God grant that you will always be lucky in war! So that the Busurmen would be beaten, and the Turks would be beaten, and the Tatars would be beaten; when the Poles begin to do something against our faith, then the Poles too would be beaten! Well, put your glass down; Is the burner good? What's the Latin word for burner? That’s why, son, the Latins were fools: they didn’t even know if there was a burner in the world. What, I mean, was the name of the guy who wrote Latin verses? I don’t know much about reading, and therefore I don’t know: Horace, or what?

“Look, what a dad! - the eldest son, Ostap, thought to himself, “he’s an old dog, he knows everything, and he’s also pretending to be.”

“I think the archimandrite didn’t even let you smell the burners,” Taras continued. “And admit it, sons, they lashed you hard with birch trees and fresh cherry trees on your back and on everything that the Cossack had?” Or maybe, since you have already become too reasonable, maybe they flogged you with whips? Tea, not only on Saturdays, but also on Wednesdays and Thursdays?

“There’s no point in remembering what happened, dad,” Ostap answered coolly, “what happened is gone!”

- Let him try now! - said Andriy. “Just let someone catch on now.” Just let some Tatar woman turn up now and she will know what kind of thing a Cossack saber is!

- Good, son! By God, good! For that matter, I’m going with you too! By God, I'm going! What the hell am I waiting for here? So that I become a buckwheat sower, a housekeeper, look after the sheep and pigs and have sex with my wife? Damn her: I’m a Cossack, I don’t want to! So what if there is no war? So I’ll go with you to Zaporozhye for a walk. By God, I'll go! - And old Bulba little by little got hotter, hotter, and finally got completely angry, got up from the table and, putting on a dignified appearance, stamped his foot. - We're leaving tomorrow! Why put it off! What kind of enemy can we watch out for here? What do we need this house for? Why do we need all this? What are these pots for? - Having said this, he began to beat and throw pots and flasks.

The poor old woman, already accustomed to such actions of her husband, looked sadly, sitting on the bench. She didn't dare say anything; but hearing about such a terrible decision for her, she could not help but cry; she looked at her children, from whom she was threatened with such a quick separation - and no one could describe all the silent power of her grief, which seemed to tremble in her eyes and in her convulsively compressed lips.

Bulba was terribly stubborn. This was one of those characters that could only arise in the difficult 15th century in a semi-nomadic corner of Europe, when all of southern primitive Russia, abandoned by its princes, was devastated, burned to the ground by the indomitable raids of Mongol predators; when, having lost his home and roof, a man became brave here; when he settled in the fires, in view of the formidable neighbors and eternal danger, and got used to looking them straight in the eyes, having forgotten how to know whether there was any fear in the world; when the ancient peaceful Slavic spirit was engulfed in flames of war and the Cossacks were born - the wide, riotous habits of Russian nature - and when all the rivers, portages, coastal flat and convenient places were dotted with Cossacks, of whom no one knew the count, and their brave comrades had the right to answer the Sultan , who wanted to know about their number: “Who knows them! We have them scattered throughout the steppe: a bayrak, a Cossack” (a small hillock, there’s a Cossack). It was, indeed, an extraordinary manifestation of Russian strength: it was knocked out of the people's chest by the flint of troubles. Instead of the former fiefs, small towns filled with huntsmen and hunters, instead of petty princes warring and trading in cities, formidable villages, kurens and outskirts arose, connected by a common danger and hatred against non-Christian predators. Everyone already knows from history how their eternal struggle and restless life saved Europe from the indomitable raids that threatened to overturn it. The Polish kings, who found themselves, instead of appanage princes, rulers of these vast lands, albeit distant and weak, understood the importance of the Cossacks and the benefits of such a warlike guard life. They encouraged them and were flattered by this disposition. Under their distant authority, the hetmans, elected from among the Cossacks themselves, transformed the outskirts and kurens into regiments and regular districts. This was not a assembled army in combat, no one would have seen it; but in the event of a war and a general movement, in eight days, no more, everyone appeared on horseback, in all his armor, receiving only one ducats of payment from the king - and in two weeks such an army was recruited, which no conscription force would be able to recruit sets. The campaign ended - the warrior went to the meadows and arable lands, to the Dnieper transports, fished, traded, brewed beer and was a free Cossack. Modern foreigners then rightly marveled at his extraordinary abilities. There was no craft that a Cossack did not know: to smoke wine, equip a cart, grind gunpowder, do blacksmithing and plumbing work and, in addition to that, go wild, drink and revel as only a Russian can - all this was his thing. shoulder. In addition to the regiment Cossacks, who considered it their duty to appear during the war, it was possible at any time, in case of great need, to recruit whole crowds of eager people: the esauls had only to walk through the markets and squares of all the villages and towns and shout at the top of their voices, standing on the cart: “ Hey you beer makers! It’s enough for you to brew beer, lie around in ovens, and feed flies with your fat body! Go to achieve knightly glory and honor! You plowers, buckwheat growers, sheep herders, butter lovers! It’s enough for you to follow the plow, and get your yellow boots dirty in the ground, and get close to the women and destroy the knightly strength! It’s time to get Cossack glory!” And these words were like sparks falling on a dry tree. The plowman broke his plow, the brewers and brewers threw their casks and broke the barrels, the artisan and tradesman sent both his craft and his shop to hell, and broke the pots in the house. And whatever it was, sat on the horse. In a word, the Russian character here acquired a powerful, broad scope, a hefty appearance.

Taras was one of the indigenous, old colonels: he was all about scolding anxiety and was distinguished by the brutal directness of his character. Then the influence of Poland was already beginning to exert itself on the Russian nobility. Many had already adopted Polish customs, had luxury, magnificent servants, falcons, hunters, dinners, courtyards. Taras did not like this. He loved the simple life of the Cossacks and quarreled with those of his comrades who were inclined to the Warsaw side, calling them slaves of the Polish lords. Always restless, he considered himself the legitimate defender of Orthodoxy. He arbitrarily entered villages where they only complained about the harassment of tenants and the increase in new duties on smoke. He himself carried out reprisals against them with his Cossacks and made it a rule that in three cases one should always take up the saber, namely: when the commissars did not respect the elders in any way and stood before them in their caps, when they mocked Orthodoxy and did not respect the ancestral law and, finally, when the enemies were the Busurmans and the Turks, against whom he considered in any case permissible to raise arms for the glory of Christianity.

Now he consoled himself in advance with the thought of how he would appear with his two sons at the Sich and say: “Look, what fine fellows I have brought to you!”; how he will introduce them to all his old, battle-hardened comrades; how he looked at their first exploits in military science and drinking, which he also considered one of the main advantages of a knight. At first he wanted to send them alone. But at the sight of their freshness, height, powerful physical beauty, his military spirit flared up, and the next day he decided to go with them himself, although the necessity of this was only stubborn will. He was already busy and giving orders, choosing horses and harnesses for his young sons, visiting the stables and barns, selecting the servants who were to ride with them tomorrow. Yesaul Tovkach handed over his power along with a strong order to appear at once with the entire regiment, if only he gave any news from the Sich. Although he was tipsy and still drunk in his head, he did not forget anything. He even gave the order to water the horses and pour larger and better wheat into their mangers, and he came tired of his worries.

- Well, children, now we need to sleep, and tomorrow we will do what God gives. Don't make our bed! We don't need a bed. We will sleep in the yard.

The night had only just embraced the sky, but Bulba always went to bed early. He lounged on the carpet, covered himself with a sheepskin coat, because the night air was quite fresh and because Bulba liked to hide warmly when he was at home. He soon began to snore, and the whole yard followed him; everything that lay in its different corners snored and sang; First of all, the watchman fell asleep, because he was drunker than anyone else for the arrival of the panic.

One poor mother did not sleep. She leaned to the head of her dear sons, who were lying nearby; she combed their young, carelessly tousled curls with a comb and moistened them with her tears; She looked at them all, looked with all her senses, she turned into one vision and could not stop looking at them. She fed them with her own breasts, she grew them, nurtured them - and only for one moment sees them in front of her. “My sons, my dear sons! what will happen to you? what awaits you? - she said, and the tears stopped in the wrinkles that had changed her once beautiful face. In fact, she was pitiful, like every woman of that daring century. She only lived with love for a moment, only in the first fever of passion, in the first fever of youth - and already her stern seducer left her for the saber, for comrades, for drinking. She saw her husband for two or three days a year, and then for several years there was no news of him. And when she saw him, when they lived together, what kind of life was she like? She endured insults, even beatings; she saw from mercy only the caresses provided, she was some kind of strange creature in this gathering of wifeless knights, on whom the riotous Zaporozhye cast its harsh coloring. Youth flashed before her without pleasure, and her beautiful fresh cheeks and breasts faded without kisses and became covered with premature wrinkles. All love, all feelings, everything that is tender and passionate in a woman, everything turned into one maternal feeling in her. With fervor, with passion, with tears, like a steppe gull, she hovered over her children. Her sons, her dear sons, are taken from her, taken so that she will never see them again! Who knows, maybe during the first battle the Tatar will cut off their heads and she will not know where their abandoned bodies lie, which will be pecked by a bird of prey; and for every drop of their blood she would give herself all. Sobbing, she looked into their eyes, when the almighty sleep was already beginning to close them, and thought: “Perhaps Bulba, waking up, will delay her departure for two days; Maybe he decided to go so quickly because he drank a lot.”

The moon from the heights of the sky had long illuminated the entire courtyard, filled with sleeping people, a dense heap of willows and tall weeds, in which the paling that surrounded the courtyard was drowned. She kept sitting in the heads of her dear sons, not taking her eyes off them for a minute and not thinking about sleep. Already the horses, sensing the dawn, all lay down on the grass and stopped eating; The upper leaves of the willows began to babble, and little by little the babbling stream descended along them to the very bottom. She sat until daylight, was not at all tired and inwardly wished for the night to last as long as possible. From the steppe came the ringing neigh of a foal; red stripes sparkled clearly in the sky.

Bulba suddenly woke up and jumped up. He remembered very well everything he ordered yesterday.

- Well, guys, get some sleep! It's time, it's time! Water the horses! Where's the old one? (That’s what he usually called his wife.) Lively, old, prepare for us to eat; the path is great!

The poor old woman, deprived of her last hope, sadly trudged into the hut. While she, with tears, prepared everything needed for breakfast, Bulba gave out his orders, busied himself in the stable and himself chose the best decorations for his children. The students suddenly changed: instead of their previous dirty boots, they wore red morocco boots with silver horseshoes; trousers as wide as the Black Sea, with a thousand folds and ruffles, were covered with a golden spectacle; Long straps with tassels and other trinkets for the pipe were attached to the glasses. A scarlet-colored Cossack, cloth bright as fire, was girded with a patterned belt; hammered Turkish pistols were tucked into his belt; the saber clanged against his legs. Their faces, still slightly tanned, seemed to become prettier and whiter; the young black mustache now somehow set off its whiteness and the healthy, powerful color of youth more brightly; they looked good under black mutton caps with a gold top. The poor mother saw them and could not utter a word, and the tears stopped in her eyes.

- Well, sons, everything is ready! there's no need to hesitate! - Bulba finally said. - Now, according to Christian custom, everyone needs to sit down in front of the road.

Everyone sat down, not even including the boys who stood respectfully at the door.

- Now, mother, bless your children! - said Bulba. “Pray to God that they fight bravely, that they always defend the honor of a knight, that they always stand for the faith of Christ, otherwise it would be better if they disappeared, so that their spirit would not be in the world!” Come, children, to your mother: a mother’s prayer saves both on water and on land.

The mother, weak as a mother, hugged them, took out two small icons, and placed them around their necks, sobbing.

“May the Mother of God protect you... Don’t forget, sons, your mother... send at least some news about yourself...” She could not speak further.

- Well, let's go, children! - said Bulba.

Saddled horses stood at the porch. Bulba jumped on his Devil, who recoiled furiously, feeling a twenty-pound burden on himself, because Taras was extremely heavy and fat.

When the mother saw that her sons had already mounted horses, she rushed to the youngest, whose features expressed more than some kind of tenderness: she grabbed him by the stirrup, she stuck to his saddle and with despair in her eyes did not let him out of their hands. Two stalwart Cossacks took her carefully and carried her into the hut. But when they left the gate, she ran out of the gate with all the ease of a wild goat, inappropriate for her years, stopped the horse with incomprehensible strength and hugged one of her sons with some kind of crazy, insensitive ardor; she was taken away again.

The young Cossacks rode vaguely and held back their tears, afraid of their father, who, for his part, was also somewhat embarrassed, although he tried not to show it. The day was gray; the greenery sparkled brightly; the birds chirped somehow discordantly. Having passed, they looked back; their farm seemed to have sunk into the ground; only the two chimneys of their modest house and the tops of the trees, along whose branches they climbed like squirrels, were visible above the ground; only the distant meadow still lay before them - that meadow along which they could recall the entire history of their lives, from the years when they rolled on its dewy grass, to the years when they waited in it for a black-browed Cossack girl, timidly flying across it with the help of her fresh, fast legs. Now only one pole over the well with a cart wheel tied at the top stands alone in the sky; Already the plain they passed through seems from a distance to be a mountain and has covered everything with itself. - Goodbye to childhood, and games, and everything, and everything!

Knightly.

This work has entered the public domain. The work was written by an author who died more than seventy years ago, and was published during his lifetime or posthumously, but more than seventy years have also passed since publication. It may be freely used by anyone without anyone's consent or permission and without payment of royalties.

Current page: 1 (book has 19 pages in total)

Nikolay Gogol
Taras Bulba (collection)

© Book Club “Family Leisure Club”, 2007, 2012

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Preface

He is called a romantic, mystic, monk, religious scholar, expert on folklore and history, and they believe that he had the gift of prophecy and preaching.

The name of this great man, who perfectly mastered the art of literary expression, is Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol.

N.V. Gogol was born on March 20, 1809 in the town of Bolshie Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district, Poltava province. His childhood years were spent in Vasilyevka, the Gogol estate.

Father, Vasily Afanasyevich, was a creative person. He wrote poems and couplets, composed plays and himself participated in their production in the home theater of the landowner D. Troshchinsky. Subsequently, the writer Nikolai Gogol used phrases from these plays as epigraphs for “Sorochinskaya Fair” and “May Night” (they were signed: “From Little Russian Comedy”). His father largely influenced the development of his son’s literary abilities and his passion for theater. Nikolai Vasilyevich inherited from his father not only external resemblance, but also wit, talent as a storyteller, and the gift of artistic and imaginative perception of the world. It is no coincidence that little Nikosha wrote his first poems at the age of five.

Under the influence of his mother, Maria Ivanovna, Gogol’s religious, moral, ethical and moral beliefs were formed. In the Gogol house, daily prayers, observance of religious holidays and fasts were common. All this left its mark on the soul of the impressionable boy. In one of his letters to his mother, recalling an incident from his childhood, Gogol wrote: “I asked you to tell me about the Last Judgment, and you, a child, told me so well, so clearly, so touchingly about the benefits that await people for virtuous behavior. life, and they described the eternal torment of sinners so strikingly, so horribly, that it shocked and awakened all sensitivity in me. This sparked and subsequently produced in me the highest thoughts.” 1
Gogol N. V. Full composition of writings. In 14 volumes. – T.H. – M. – L.: Ed. USSR Academy of Sciences, 1940. – P. 282.

The pronounced religious spirit that reigned in the Gogol house was also supported by the writer’s paternal grandmother, Tatyana Semyonovna. If you believe biographical sources, then she was a fairly erudite, very strong, powerful and proud woman. Along with these qualities, Tatyana Semenovna also possessed extraordinary creative abilities. Without any special education, she drew beautifully. In addition, my grandmother was the keeper of ancient Ukrainian traditions, habits, and way of life. It was from his grandmother that the future writer picked up his passion for painting (while living in St. Petersburg, he attended the Academy of Arts), heard ancient Cossack songs, stories about his native land and its legendary personalities.

There is no doubt that it was precisely this childhood period of Gogol’s life that can be considered a prerequisite for the awakening of national self-awareness, patriotism, and interest in Ukrainian folklore and ethnography in the future writer.

After graduating from the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences, Nikolai Gogol, together with his gymnasium friend A. Danilevsky, came to St. Petersburg in December 1828. The city turned out to be not what Gogol expected to see, and in his letter to his mother on January 3, 1829, he wrote: “I will also say that Petersburg seemed to me not at all what I thought, I imagined it much more beautiful, more magnificent, and rumors that others spread about him are also false." 2
Gogol N. V. Full composition of writings. In 14 volumes. – T.H. – M. – L.: Ed. USSR Academy of Sciences, 1940. – P. 141.

Despite the everyday difficulties that Gogol had to face in St. Petersburg, his creative plans remain unchanged. Disillusioned with the public service, which he dreamed of so much back in high school, Gogol sees himself in literature and art as an opportunity to serve humanity. Gogol turned his literary interests to Ukrainian themes, conceiving a series of stories from Little Russian life. In a letter to his mother on April 30, 1829, Nikolai Gogol asks to send him a “detailed description” of a Ukrainian wedding, information about Ukrainian folk beliefs, customs, and superstitions: “A few more words about carols, about Ivan Kupala, about mermaids. If there are, in addition, any spirits or brownies, then more about them with their names and actions; There are many superstitions, terrible tales, traditions, various anecdotes, etc., floating among the common people. and so on. and so on. All this will be extremely interesting for me." 3
Ibid.. pp. 136–137.

Based on the material sent, Gogol writes a collection of stories “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” The first part of the collection was published in early September 1831. The stories evoked an enthusiastic review from A.S. Pushkin: “...They amazed me. This is real gaiety, sincere, relaxed, without affectation, without stiffness. And in places what poetry, what sensitivity!” 4
Pushkin A. S.. Full composition of writings. . In 15 volumes. – T. 11. – M. – L.: Publishing house. An. USSR, 1949. – P. 216.

, he wrote in a letter to A.F. Voeikov. The second part of the collection was published in March 1832. It was thanks to “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” that Gogol gained fame as a writer. It is interesting that much later the author himself will consider that there is “a lot of immature things” in this book. And in a letter to V.A. Zhukovsky on December 29, 1847, Gogol will talk about the motives for the appearance of “Evenings on a Farm...”: “... While I was still at school, I at times felt inclined to be cheerful and bored my comrades with inappropriate jokes. But these were temporary fits; in general, I was rather of a melancholic character and inclined to think. Subsequently, illness and blues joined this. And these same illness and melancholy were the reason for the gaiety that appeared in my first works: in order to entertain myself, I invented characters without further purpose or plan, putting them in funny positions - this is the origin of my stories! 5
Sokolov B. V. Gogol. Encyclopedia. – M.: Algorithm, 2003. – P. 95.

Simultaneously with the work on “Evenings on the Farm...”, work took place on the unfinished historical novel “Hetman”. The first chapter from this novel with the signature “OOOO” (denoting four letters “o” from the full name and surname of the writer - Nikolai Gogol-Yanovsky) was published in the almanac A. A. Delvig “Northern Flowers for 1831”. Later, with amendments, this chapter was published in Arabesques with the author’s note: “From the novel entitled “Hetman”.” The first part of it was written and burned because the author himself was not happy with it; two chapters, published in periodicals, are included in this collection.” The events described in the novel date back to the beginning of the 17th century. The main character of the novel is a historical figure - Nizhyn Colonel Stepan Ostranitsa, who led the fight of the Cossacks against the Polish gentry. The main theme and historical images outlined in the novel were later used by Gogol in Taras Bulba.

In January 1831, the chapter “Teacher” from his unfinished Little Russian story “The Scary Boar” was published in the Literary Gazette, and in March of the same year the chapter “The Success of the Embassy”. The plot of this work is based on the depiction of Ukrainian rural life, and the description of the area in which the story takes place is in many ways reminiscent of Gogol’s native Vasilyevka and its environs.

“The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich” was first published in the anthology “Housewarming” in 1834, and a year later it was published in the collection “Mirgorod”. The story may lead the reader to think that Gogol considered the inhabitants of the Mirgorod district to be somehow worse than the inhabitants of other areas. The characters seem completely empty and insignificant in their ambitions. However, Gogol himself asked that this work be considered “a complete invention” and not forget that “the best provincial leaders, moreover, those who held this rank more than others, were all from the Mirgorod district.”

In the description of boring provincial life, the meaning of which the main characters find in many years of litigation with each other after an absurd quarrel, one can find both humor and lyricism. We see the mastery of Gogol's simple-minded humor in the depiction of the two Ivans themselves, their habits, clothes (take, for example, the description of Ivan Ivanovich's bekeshi at the beginning of the story). Nature is also poetic and lyrical: “...the shadow of the trees falls blacker, the flowers and silent grass are more fragrant, and the crickets, restless knights of the night, start their crackling songs from all corners.”

By the end of 1834, Gogol wrote the first edition of the heroic epic Taras Bulba. Gogol did not come to the creation of this work right away. To collect the necessary material, he published an article “On the publication of the history of the Little Russian Cossacks,” in which he asked the public to send him various historical sources and documents (songs, legends, chronicles, notes, etc.). Those of them that related to the history of the Cossacks were used by Gogol in his work on the story. In addition to the history of Ukraine, Gogol is also interested in the medieval history of Western Europe and the East. Based on these studies, Gogol wrote a number of articles published in 1835 in the collection “Arabesques”. A huge number of historical works studied by Gogol contained a lot of contradictions and did not provide food for artistic imagination. The search for material for “Taras Bulba” forces him to turn to folk songs. Gogol is looking for in them not an accurate reflection of historical events with dates, but a description of the character and spirit of the past century, the joy and suffering of the people themselves. How great the role of folk songs was for Gogol in writing the story “Taras Bulba” can be judged by the following statement: “If our region did not have such a wealth of songs, I would never have written its history, because I would not have comprehended and would not have concepts of the past."

The first edition of “Taras Bulba” was published in “Mirgorod” in 1835. The second edition, with significant changes, was published in 1842. In the second edition, Gogol almost doubled the volume of the epic and the number of chapters (from nine to twelve). As for the ideological plan, it has not undergone any drastic changes. The second edition depicts on a larger scale the features that give the work the character of a folk heroic epic, and provides a detailed picture of the free life of the Zaporozhye Sich. “Taras Bulba” reveals and poetizes the enormous power of the patriotic feelings of the Ukrainian people, showing their uncontrollable desire to defend their independence. The author painted vivid images of strong and brave people, devoted to their homeland, ready to undergo terrible trials for its sake.

This collection opens with the first edition of Taras Bulba, less known to modern readers. In addition, the collection includes the unfinished historical story “Hetman,” as well as stories from “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” and two chapters from the Little Russian story “The Scary Boar.” On the one hand, these stories show a dramatic picture of military operations, on the other - the image of the Ukrainian people, whose national character is revealed in their everyday life, holidays, customs and superstitions; scenes of rural life, intertwining the fantastic and the real. The seemingly diverse works are united by a piercing feeling of love for Ukraine, for its heroic history and for the common people, which gave us the brilliant writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol.

Taras Bulba
(In original form)

I

- Turn around, son! wow you, how funny you are! What kind of priestly cassock are you wearing? And that’s how everyone goes to academies?

With these words old Bulba greeted his two sons, who were studying at the Kyiv Bursa. 6
Bursa is a seminary.

And those who have already arrived at their father’s house.

His sons had just dismounted from their horses. These were two strapping young men, still looking sullenly, like recently graduated seminarians. Their strong, healthy faces were covered with the first fluff of hair that had not yet been touched by a razor. They were very embarrassed by their father’s reception and stood motionless, their eyes cast down to the ground.

“Wait, wait, children,” he continued, turning them, “what long scrolls you have on?” 7
Scroll is the name given to outer clothing among Little Russians. ( Note N. V. Gogol.)

These are the scrolls! Well well well! There have never been such scrolls in the world! Well, both of you run: I’ll see if you get caught?

- Don't laugh, don't laugh, dad! - the eldest of them finally said.

- Wow, how magnificent 8
Lush – here: proud, arrogant.

Why not laugh?

- Yes, yes. Even though you’re my father, if you laugh, then, by God, I’ll beat you up!

- Oh, you such-and-such a son! How, dad? - said Taras Bulba, stepping back a little in surprise.

- Yes, even dad. For an offense, I will not look at or respect anyone.

- How do you want to fight me? maybe with fists?

- Yes, on whatever it is.

- Well, let's fist fight! - said Bulba, rolling up his sleeves. And father and son, instead of greeting them after a long absence, began to beat each other excessively.

- What a fool, old man! - said their pale, thin and kind mother, who stood at the threshold and had not yet had time to hug her beloved children. - By God, he's crazy! The children arrived home, hadn’t seen them for more than a year, and he thought of God knows what: to fight with his fists.

- Yes, he fights nicely! - Bulba said, stopping. “By God, it’s good!.. well,” he continued, recovering a little, “even if I don’t try.” He will be a good Cossack! Well, hello, son! let's break each other! – And father and son began to kiss. - Good, son! Hit everyone like that, just like he hit me. Don't let anyone down! Still, you're wearing a funny outfit. What kind of rope is this hanging? And you, babybass 9
Beybas is a lazy person; dummy

Why are you standing there and giving up? - he said, turning to the younger one. - Why don’t you, son of a dog, beat me?

- Here’s something else I came up with! - said the mother, who was hugging the youngest. - And it will come to mind! How can a child beat his own father? Moreover, as if before now: a small child, he had traveled so much distance, he was tired (this child was more than twenty years old and exactly a fathom 10
Sazhen is an ancient Russian measure of length equal to 2.1336 m.

height), he now needs to rest and eat something, but he makes you beat!

- Eh, you're a little bastard 11
Little Mazunchik is a mama's boy, a sissy, a favorite.

As I can see! - said Bulba. - Don’t listen to your mother, son: she’s a woman. She doesn't know anything. What kind of tenderness do you like? Your tenderness is an open field and a good horse; here is your tenderness! And you see this saber - this is your mother! This is all the rubbish they stuff you with: the academy, and all those books, primers and philosophy, all this what do you know, I don't care about all this! - Bulba added one more word, which in print is somewhat expressive, and therefore it can be skipped. - I will send you to Zaporozhye this same week. That's where your school is! That's where you'll gain some sense!

– And only for one week to be at home for them? - the thin old woman said pitifully, with tears in her eyes. “And they, the poor ones, won’t be able to go for a walk, and they won’t have time to recognize their native home, and I won’t be able to look at them enough!”

- Come on, come on, old woman! Kozak is not in the mood to mess with women. Go quickly and bring us whatever you have to the table. Dumplings, makoviks, honey cakes and other donuts 12
Pundiki - sweets.

No need, just bring us a whole lamb on the table. Yes, burners, so there are more burners! Not this different one, what with inventions: with raisins, rodzinki and other trash 13
Trash - quirks, inventions, whims; something that has no practical value and is only decoration.

And a clean burner, a real one, one that hisses like a demon!

Bulba led his sons into the little room, from which two healthy girls in red monasteries timidly ran out when they saw the arrival of the panicks, who did not like to let anyone down.

Everything in the little room was decorated in the taste of that time; and this time concerned the 16th century, when the idea of ​​union was just beginning to emerge 14
Union is the unification of the Orthodox Church with the Catholic Church under the rule of the Pope in 1595.

Everything was clean, smeared with clay. The entire wall was covered with sabers and guns. The windows in the little room were small, with round frosted glass, such as are now found only in ancient churches. On the shelves that occupied the corners of the room and were made with squares, there were clay jugs, blue and green flasks, silver cups, gilded glasses of Venetian, Turkish and Circassian work, which came into Bulba’s room in different ways, through third and fourth hands, which was very common in these days. daring times. Linden benches around the entire room and a huge table in the middle of it, a stove that spread across half the room, like a fat Russian merchant’s wife, with some kind of roosters painted on the tiles - all these objects were quite familiar to our two fellows, who came home almost every year for the holidays , - who came because they did not yet have horses, and because it was not the custom to allow schoolchildren to ride. They only had long forelocks, which could be torn out by any Cossack who carried a weapon. Only when they were released, Bulba sent them a couple of young stallions from his herd.

- Well, sons, first of all, let's drink burners! God bless! Be healthy, sons: both you, Ostap, and you, Andriy! God grant that you will always be successful in war! To busurmen 15
Busurman, busurman - non-Christian, pagan, any non-religious person in a hostile sense.

They would beat, and they would beat the Turks, and they would beat the Tatars; when the Poles 16
Lyakhi ( outdated.) – Poles.

If they started to do something against our faith, they would beat the Poles too! Well, put your glass down. Is the burner good? What's the Latin word for burner? That’s why, son, the Latins were fools: they didn’t even know if there was a burner in the world. What, I mean, was the name of the guy who wrote Latin verses? I don’t understand reading very well, so I don’t even remember; Horace, I think?

“Look, what a dad! - the eldest son, Ostap, thought to himself, “the dog knows everything, and he’s also pretending.”

- I think, Archimandrite 17
Archimandrite is the abbot of the monastery.

“, Bulba continued, “he didn’t even let you smell the burners.” And what, sons, admit it, they whipped you quite a lot with birch and cherry trees on your back and all over? or maybe, since you are already too reasonable, then use whips? I think, in addition to Saturdays, they beat you on Wednesdays and Thursdays?

“There’s no need to remember, dad,” said Ostap with his usual phlegmatic look, “what happened has already passed.”

“Now we can paint everyone,” Andriy said, “with sabers and copies.” 18
List ( dial.) - a fork (a fishing tool, similar to a pitchfork, for holding fish); a spear.

Just let him come across a Tatar.

- Good, son! By God, good! Yes, when that’s the case, then I’ll go with you! By God, I'm going! What the hell should I expect here? What, should I really look after the bread and the pigs? Or fool around with your wife? May she disappear! So that I stay at home for her? I'm a Cossack! I don't want! So what if there is no war? So I’ll go with you to Zaporozhye for a walk. By God, I'm on my way! - And old Bulba little by little got excited and finally became completely angry, got up from the table and, putting on a dignified appearance, stamped his foot. - We're leaving tomorrow! Why put it off? What kind of enemy can we watch out for here? What do we need this house for? Why do we need all this? what are these pots for? - At the same time, Bulba began to pound and throw pots and flasks.

The poor old wife, already accustomed to such actions of her husband, looked sadly, sitting on the bench. She didn't dare say anything; but, having heard about such a terrible decision for her, she could not help but cry; she looked at her children, from whom such a quick separation was threatening - and no one could describe all the silent power of her grief, which seemed to tremble in her eyes and in her convulsively compressed lips.

Bulba was terribly stubborn. This was one of those characters that could only have emerged in the rough 15th century, and moreover in the semi-nomadic East of Europe, during the time of right and wrong concepts of lands that had become some kind of controversial, unresolved possession, to which Ukraine then belonged. The eternal need for border protection against three different nations - all this gave a kind of free, broad dimension to the exploits of her sons and fostered stubbornness of spirit. This stubbornness of spirit was imprinted in full force on Taras Bulba. When Batory 19
Batory (Bathory) Stephen (1533–1586) – Polish king since 1576, commander.

He organized regiments in Little Russia and clothed it with that warlike armature, which at first designated only the inhabitants of the Thresholds; he was one of the first colonels. But on the first occasion, he quarreled with all the others because the booty acquired from the Tatars by the united Polish and Cossack troops was not divided equally between them and the Polish troops received more advantages. He, in the meeting of everyone, laid aside his dignity and said: “When you, gentlemen, colonels, do not know your rights, then let the devil lead you by the nose! And I will recruit my own regiment, and whoever snatches what is mine from me, I will know how to wipe his lips.”

Indeed, in a short time, from his own father’s estate, he formed a rather significant detachment, which consisted of farmers and warriors and completely submitted to his wishes. In general, he was a great hunter of raids and riots; he heard with his nose where and in what place the indignation flared up, and out of the blue he appeared on his horse. “Well, children! what and how? Who should be beaten and for what?” - he usually said and intervened in the matter. However, first of all, he strictly examined the circumstances and in this case only pestered when he saw that those who raised the weapon really had the right to raise it, although this right was, in his opinion, only in the following cases: if a neighboring nation stole cattle or cut off part of the land , or commissioners 20
Commissioners are Polish tax collectors.

They imposed a heavy duty, or did not respect the elders and spoke in front of them in their hats, or laughed at the Orthodox faith - in these cases it was certainly necessary to take up the saber; against the Busurmans, Tatars and Turks, he considered it fair at all times to raise arms for the glory of God, Christianity and the Cossacks. The situation in Little Russia at that time, not yet consolidated into any system, not even made known, contributed to the existence of many completely separate partisans. He led a very simple life, and he could not be distinguished at all from an ordinary Cossack if his face did not retain some kind of command and even greatness, especially when he decided to defend something.

Bulba consoled himself in advance with the thought of how he would now appear with his two sons and say: “Look, what fine fellows I have brought to you!” He thought about how he would take them to Zaporozhye - this military school of the then Ukraine, introduce them to his comrades and see how, before his eyes, they would strive in military science and wine drinking, which he also considered one of the first virtues of a knight. At first he wanted to send them alone, because he considered it necessary to take up the new formation of the regiment, which required his presence. But at the sight of his sons, tall and healthy, his whole military spirit suddenly flared up in him, and he decided to go with them the next day, although the need for this was only stubborn will.

Without wasting a minute, he already began to give orders to his osaul 21
Osaul (esaul, from the Turkic yasaul - chief) - a position in the Cossack troops.

Whom he called Tovkach, because he really looked like some kind of cold-blooded machine: during the battle, he indifferently walked through the enemy ranks, waving his saber, as if he were kneading dough, like a fist fighter clearing his way. The orders were to remain in the farmstead until he let him know to set out on a campaign. After that he went to the smokehouses himself 22
Kuren is a separate part of the Zaporozhye Cossack army; housing of the Cossacks who made up this part of the army.

To his own, giving orders to some to go with him, water the horses, feed them with wheat and give himself a horse, which he usually called the Devil.

- Well, children, now we need to sleep, and tomorrow we will do what God gives. Don't make our bed! We don't need a bed. We will sleep in the yard.

The night had only just embraced the sky, but Bulba always went to bed early. He lounged on the carpet, covered himself with a sheepskin coat, because the night air was quite fresh and because Bulba liked to hide warmly when he was at home. He soon began to snore, and the whole yard followed him. Everything that lay in its different corners snored and sang; First of all, the watchman fell asleep, because he was drunker than anyone else for the arrival of the panic.

One poor mother did not sleep. She clung to the head of her dear sons, who were lying nearby. She combed their young, carelessly tousled curls with a comb and moistened them with her tears. She looked at them all, looked with all her senses, she turned into one vision and could not stop looking at them. She fed them with her own breasts, she grew them up, she nurtured them, and only for one moment does she see them before her. “My sons, my dear sons! what will happen to you? what awaits you? If only I could look at you for a week!” - she said, and the tears stopped in the wrinkles that had changed her once beautiful face.

In fact, she was pitiful, like every woman of that daring century. She only lived with love for a moment, only in the first fever of passion, in the first fever of youth, and already her stern seducer left her for the saber, for comrades, for drinking. She saw her husband for two or three days a year, and then for several years there was no news of him. And when she saw him, when they lived together, what kind of life was she like? She endured insults, even beatings; she saw only the caresses provided as mercy; she was some kind of strange creature in this gathering of wifeless knights, on whom the riotous Zaporozhye cast its harsh coloring. Youth flashed before her without pleasure, and her beautiful fresh cheeks and chest 23
Percy - chest.

Without kisses they faded and became covered with premature wrinkles. All love, all feelings, everything that is tender and passionate in a woman - everything turned into one maternal feeling in her. With fervor, with passion, with tears, like a steppe gull, she hovered over her children. Her sons, her dear sons, are taken from her, taken so that she will never see them again. Who knows, maybe during the first battle the Tatar will cut off their heads, and she will not know where their abandoned bodies lie, which will be pecked by a bird of prey and for every piece of which, for every drop of blood, she would give everything. Sobbing, she looked into their eyes, which almighty sleep was already beginning to close, and thought: “Perhaps Bulba, waking up, will delay her departure for two days! Maybe he decided to go so quickly because he drank a lot.”

The moon from the heights of the sky had long illuminated the entire courtyard, filled with sleeping people, a dense heap of willows and tall weeds, in which the paling that surrounded the courtyard was drowned. She still sat in the heads of her dear sons, did not take her eyes off them for a minute and did not think about sleep. Already the horses, sensing the dawn, all lay down on the grass and stopped eating; The upper leaves of the willows began to babble, and little by little the babbling stream descended along them to the very bottom. She sat until daylight, was not at all tired and inwardly wished for the night to last as long as possible. From the steppe came the ringing neigh of a foal. Red stripes sparkled clearly in the sky.

Bulba suddenly woke up and jumped up. He remembered very well everything he ordered yesterday.

- Well, guys, get some sleep! It's time! it's time! Water the horses! Where is the old one? (That’s what he usually called his wife.) Come on, old one, prepare food for us, because a great path lies ahead!

The poor old woman, deprived of her last hope, sadly trudged into the hut. While she, with tears, prepared everything needed for breakfast, Bulba gave out his orders, busied himself in the stable and himself chose the best decorations for his children. The students suddenly changed: instead of their previous dirty boots, they wore red morocco boots with silver horseshoes; trousers as wide as the Black Sea, with a thousand pleats and ruffles, covered with a golden spectacle 24
Ochkur - a belt or lace for tightening trousers.

Attached to the glasses were long straps with tassels and other trinkets for the pipe. Kozakin 25
Kazakin is a semi-caftan with a straight collar, without buttons, and with hooks.

Scarlet-colored cloth bright as fire, girded with a patterned belt; hammered Turkish pistols were tucked into his belt; the saber clattered at their feet. Their faces, still slightly tanned, seemed to become prettier and whiter: young black mustaches now somehow brighter set off their whiteness and the healthy, powerful color of youth; they looked good under black mutton caps with a gold top. Poor mother! As soon as she saw them, she could not utter a word, and the tears stopped in her eyes.

- Well, sons, everything is ready! there's no need to hesitate! - Bulba finally said. - Now, according to Christian custom, everyone needs to sit down in front of the road.

Everyone sat down, not even including the boys who stood respectfully at the door.

- Now, mother, bless your children! - said Bulba. - Pray to God that they will fight bravely and always defend the knight’s honor 26
Knightly. ( Note N. V. Gogol.)

To always stand for the faith of Christ; Otherwise, it’s better for them to disappear, so that their spirit is no longer in the world! Come, children, to your mother. Maternal prayer saves both on water and on land.

The mother, weak as a mother, hugged them, took out two small icons, and put them on their necks, sobbing.

“May the Mother of God protect you... don’t forget, sons, your mother... send at least some news about yourself...” she could not continue further.

- Well, let's go, children! - said Bulba.

Saddled horses stood at the porch. Bulba jumped on his Devil, who recoiled furiously, feeling a twenty-pound burden on himself, because Bulba was extremely heavy and fat.

When the mother saw that her sons had already mounted horses, she rushed to the smaller one, whose facial features expressed more than some kind of tenderness; she grabbed him by the stirrup, she stuck to his saddle and, with despair in all her features, did not let him out of her hands. Two stalwart Cossacks took her carefully and carried her into the hut. But when they drove out of the gate, she, with all the ease of a wild goat, inappropriate for her years, ran out of the gate, with incomprehensible strength stopped the horse and hugged one of them with some kind of crazy, insensitive ardor. She was taken away again.

The young Cossacks rode vaguely and held back their tears, afraid of their father, who, however, for his part was also somewhat embarrassed, although he did not try to show it. The day was gray; the greenery sparkled brightly; the birds chirped somehow discordantly. Having passed, they looked back: their farm seemed to have sunk into the ground, only two chimneys from their modest house stood on the ground; only the tops of trees, trees whose branches they climbed like squirrels; only the distant meadow still lay before them - that meadow along which they could recall the entire history of life, from the years when they swayed on its dewy grass, to the years when they waited in it for a black-browed Cossack girl, fearfully flying through it with the help of her fresh , fast legs. Now only one pole over the well, with a cart wheel tied at the top, sticks out alone in the sky; Already the plain they passed through seems from a distance to be a mountain and has covered everything with itself. Goodbye to childhood, and games, and everything, and everything!

II

All three riders rode silently. Old Taras thought about the past: his youth passed before him, his years, his past years, about which the Cossack always almost cries, wishing that his whole life was youth. He thought about who he would meet at the Sich from his former comrades. He calculated which ones had already died and which ones were still alive. A tear quietly circled on his eye 27
Zenica ( outdated.) – eye, pupil.

And his gray head drooped sadly.

His sons were busy with other thoughts. Now, by the way, let me say something about his sons. They were sent in their twelfth year to the Kyiv Academy, because all honorary dignitaries 28
A dignitary is a person of high stature, of noble birth, a nobleman.

At that time, they considered it necessary to educate their children, although this was done in order to completely forget it later. They were then, like everyone else who entered the bursa, wild, raised in freedom, and there they usually polished up a little and received something in common that made them similar to each other. The eldest, Ostap, began his career by running in the first year. They returned him, flogged him terribly and put him in front of a book. Four times he buried his primer in the ground, and four times, having torn it inhumanely, they bought him a new one. But, without a doubt, he would have repeated the fifth if his father had not given him a solemn promise to keep him as a monastery servant for twenty years and that he would not see Zaporozhye forever if he did not learn all the sciences at the academy. It is curious that this was said by the same Taras Bulba who scolded all learning and advised, as we have already seen, that children should not study it at all. From that time on, Ostap began to sit with extraordinary diligence at a boring book and soon became alongside the best. The type of teaching of that time was terribly at odds with the way of life. These scholastic 29
Scholasticism is a direction in philosophy characterized by abstract, pointless reasoning; formal knowledge, divorced from life.

Grammatical, rhetorical and logical subtleties were absolutely not touched by time, were never applied or repeated in life. They could not tie their knowledge, even less scholastic, to anything. The very scientists of that time were more ignorant than others, because they were completely removed from experience. Moreover, this republican structure of the bursa, this terrible multitude of young, strong, healthy people - all this should have inspired them to engage in activities completely outside of their academic pursuits. Sometimes poor maintenance, sometimes frequent punishment by hunger, sometimes many needs awakening in a fresh, healthy, strong young man - all this, combined, gave birth to that enterprise that later developed in Zaporozhye. A hungry Bursa prowled the streets of Kyiv and forced everyone to be careful. The traders sitting at the bazaar always covered pies, bagels, and pumpkin seeds with their hands, like eagles with their children, if they only saw a student passing by. Consul 30
The consul is a senior elected among the students who monitors their behavior.

Who, by his duty, had to supervise the comrades under his charge, had such terrible pockets in his trousers that he could fit the entire shop of a gaping merchant there. This bursa constituted a completely separate world: they were not allowed into the upper circle, consisting of Polish and Russian nobles. The voivode himself 31
Voivode ( outdated.) - leader of the army, commander in chief.

Adam Kisel, despite the patronage of the academy, did not introduce them into society and ordered them to be kept strictly. However, this instruction was completely unnecessary, because the rector and professor-monks did not spare vines and whips, and often the lictors 32
Lictors are assistants to the consul.

On their orders, they flogged their consuls so severely that they scratched their trousers for several weeks. To many of them it was nothing at all and seemed a little stronger than good vodka with pepper; others finally became very tired of such incessant poultices, and they fled to Zaporozhye if they knew how to find a way and if they themselves were not intercepted on the way. Ostap Bulba, despite the fact that he began to study logic and even theology with great diligence, did not get rid of the inexorable rods. Naturally, all this was supposed to somehow harden his character and give him the firmness that has always distinguished the Cossacks. Ostap was always considered one of the best comrades. He rarely led others in daring enterprises - to plunder someone else's garden or vegetable garden, but he was always one of the first to come under the banner of an enterprising student, and never, under any circumstances, betrayed his comrades. No amount of whips or rods could force him to do this. He was harsh towards motives other than war and riotous revelry; at least I never thought about anything else. He was straightforward with his peers. He had kindness in a form in which it could only exist with such a character and at that time. He was spiritually touched by the tears of the poor mother, and this alone embarrassed him and made him lower his head thoughtfully.

Current page: 1 (book has 10 pages in total)

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol
Taras Bulba

© Voropaev V. A., introductory article, 2001

© Vinogradov I. A., comments, 2001

© Kibrik E. A., heirs, illustrations, 1946

© Design of the series. Publishing house "Children's Literature", 2001

* * *

Citizen of the Russian land

Writer Boris Zaitsev begins his essay “Life with Gogol” with an excerpt from the first book of the autobiographical tetralogy “Gleb’s Travels”: “After evening tea - with cream, hot bread, ice butter, in the interval before dinner, under the lamp hanging above the table, my father read Gogol. Mother sewed. The girls were knitting. Gleb sat next to his father and looked reverently into his mouth. The Cossacks rushed across the unprecedented field in front of the fantastic Dubno and fought like the heroes of the Iliad. They were all magnificent, thunderous and incredible. But the high ringing sound of Gogol’s speech shook the soul, worried the child, controlled him as he wanted. And the father, although not a child, read with excitement. When it came to execution and Ostap, in torment on the scaffold, could not stand it and shouted: “Father! Where are you? Do you hear all this?”, and Taras replied: “I hear!” – the father stopped, took out a handkerchief, and applied it to his right and left eyes in turn. Gleb stood up, came up behind him, hugged him and kissed him - with this he wanted to express all his admiration for both Gogol and his father. It seemed to him that he too could withstand this torment, and his father would be Taras.” This is how Zaitsev describes the child’s first meeting with Gogol.

Talking in the “Author's Confession” about how he became a writer, Gogol says: “... when I began to think about my future (and I began to think about the future early, at a time when all my peers were still thinking about games), the thought I never thought about a writer, although it always seemed to me that I would become a famous person, that a wide range of actions awaited me and that I would even do something for the common good.<…>But as soon as I felt that in the field of a writer I could also perform public service, I abandoned everything: my previous positions, and St. Petersburg, and the societies of people close to my soul, and Russia itself, so that, far away and in solitude from everyone, I could discuss how to do this, how to produce my creation in such a way that it would prove that I was also a citizen of my land and wanted to serve it.”

Love for the Fatherland, understood as the service of a “citizen of one’s land,” permeates all of Gogol’s work—it is already visible in the writer’s first prose book, “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” The hero of the story “Terrible Revenge” Danilo Burulbash acts as a selfless defender of his native borders. Military brotherhood is more valuable to him than all earthly attachments. His beloved wife Katerina released her sorcerer father from prison, in whom Danilo recognized his worst enemy - a traitor to the Motherland. Not knowing who released the prisoner, he sternly says to his wife: “If only one of my Cossacks had thought about this in his head and I had found out... I wouldn’t have found an execution for him!” “What if I?..” – Katerina asks with fear. “If you had your way, then you wouldn’t be my wife. I would then sew you into a sack and drown you in the very middle of the Dnieper!..”

One of Gogol’s best works, the historical story “Taras Bulba,” is dedicated to the heroic struggle of the Little Russians against foreigners. With a truly epic scope, the author creates bright, powerful characters of the Cossacks. Colonel Taras, an experienced leader of the Cossack army, is stern and adamant. He gives himself completely to serving the Motherland and “comradeship”. The words of Taras sound like a hymn to the Russian military brotherhood: “There are no bonds holier than comradeship! A father loves his child, a mother loves her child, a child loves his father and mother; but that’s not it, brothers, even an animal loves its child! but only one person can become related by kinship by soul, and not by blood. There were comrades in other lands, but there were no such comrades as in the Russian land.”

Taras rightly speaks about the Russian land, since in the time of Gogol the Russian Empire united three regions - Russia, Little Russia and Belarus. The entire population of these regions was considered Russian.

The battle scenes under the walls of Dubno are central to the story. The Zaporozhye Cossacks fight valiantly, earning admiration even from their enemies. “Far away, a loud clapping sound echoed across all the surrounding fields and fields, merging into a continuous roar; the whole field was covered in smoke; and the Cossacks kept firing without taking a breath: those in the rear only loaded and passed them on to those in front, causing amazement to the enemy, who could not understand how the Cossacks were shooting without loading their guns.<…>The foreign engineer himself marveled at such tactics, which he had never seen before, immediately saying in front of everyone: “These are brave fellows, the Cossacks! This is how others in other lands need to fight!”

The actions of the Cossacks are presented as if in close-up, with bright strokes, often containing pathetic hyperbole, characteristic of the heroic epic. We see the entire course of the battle, and the actions of individual fighters with their military techniques, their appearance, weapons, clothing. Already the first readers of Taras Bulba saw in the story an example of the epic style.

While working on the book, Gogol reviewed many chronicles and historical sources. He knew very well the era to which his work is dedicated. But the most important material that helped the writer describe the Cossacks so vividly were folk songs and thoughts. Gogol was a deep expert and collector of oral folk art. “My joy, my life! songs! how I love you! - he wrote in 1833 to his friend, the famous folklorist Mikhail Maksimovich. “What are all the callous chronicles in which I am now rummaging, compared to these ringing, living chronicles!”

It was in songs that Gogol found a reflection of real folk life. “This is a people’s history, living, bright, full of colors, truth, revealing the entire life of the people,” he wrote in the article “On Little Russian Songs.” The author of “Taras Bulba” consciously uses the poetics of folklore, drawing images, colors, and techniques from heroic folk songs. So, for example, he widely uses the epic song technique of common comparisons: “Like a hawk floating in the sky, having made many circles with its strong wings, suddenly stops spread out in the air in one place and shoots from there with an arrow at a male quail shouting near the road, - so Taras’s son, Ostap, suddenly ran into the cornet and immediately threw a rope around his neck.”

One of the most characteristic techniques of folk poetry is triple repetition. In Gogol’s story, at the height of the battle, Taras calls out to the Cossacks three times: “What, gentlemen? there is life in the old dog yet? Has the Cossack strength weakened? Aren’t the Cossacks bending?” And three times he heard the answer: “There is still gunpowder in the flasks, dad; The Cossack strength has not yet weakened, the Cossacks have not yet given way!”

The heroes of the Sich have one common feature - their selfless devotion to the Motherland. The Cossacks killed in battle, dying, glorify the Russian land. Taras’s words come true: “Let them all know what partnership means in the Russian land. If it comes to that, in order to die, none of them will have to die like that!..” Then the mortally wounded, daring ataman Mosiy Shilo staggered, laid his hand on his wound and said: “Farewell, gentlemen-brothers, comrades! May the Orthodox Russian land stand forever and be eternally honored!” The good Cossack Stepan Guska, raised on four spears, only had time to exclaim: “Let all enemies disappear and the Russian land rejoice forever!” Old Kasyan Bovdyug fell, struck by a bullet to the very heart, but, gathering his last strength, he said: “It’s not a pity to part with the light! May God grant everyone such a death! Let the Russian land be glorified until the end of the century!”

It is important for Gogol to show that the Cossacks fight and die for the Orthodox faith. “And Bovdyugov’s soul rushed to the heights to tell the long-departed elders how they know how to fight on Russian soil and, even better than that, how they know how to die in it for the holy faith.” Here the Kuren chieftain Kukubenko, the best flower of the Cossack army, fell, pierced by a spear. He looked around him and said: “I thank God that I had the opportunity to die in front of your eyes, comrades! May those better than us live after us, and may the Russian land forever loved by Christ shine!” The author admires his hero: “And the young soul flew out. The angels lifted her by the arms and carried her to heaven; it will be good for him there. “Sit down, Kukubenko, at My right hand! - Christ will tell him. “You did not betray your partnership, you did not do a dishonorable deed, you did not betray a person in trouble, you kept and preserved My Church.”

Reading “Taras Bulba”, you understand that there is no crime in the world more terrible and shameful than treason. The youngest son of Taras, neglecting his sacred duty, became infatuated with a beautiful Pole and went over to the side of the enemies of the Sich. Andriy perceives his last meeting with his father as a terrible retribution. To Taras’s question: “What, son! Did your Poles help you? – Andriy “was unrequited.” “So sell it? sell faith? sell yours? Taras does not feel pity for his traitorous son. Without hesitation, he administers his judgment: “I gave birth to you, I will kill you!” Andriy humbly accepts his father’s verdict, realizing that he does not and cannot have an excuse. He is not only a traitor, but also a fighter against God, since, renouncing his Motherland (“Who said that my homeland is Ukraine? Who gave it to me as a homeland?”), he renounces God’s institution: only He shows everyone the place of his birth, and a person must love the Motherland given to him by God.

And after this, Taras’s eldest son Ostap is captured. At the risk of his life, the father makes his way into the camp of his enemies to support him in the moment of painful execution. Soon Taras himself courageously dies in fire, crucified on a tree. In the last minutes of his life, he thinks not about himself, but about his comrades, about his Motherland. “...The Cossacks were already on canoes and rowing with oars; bullets rained down on them from above, but did not reach them. And the joyful eyes of the old chieftain flashed. “Farewell, comrades! - he shouted to them from above. “Remember me and come here again next spring and have a nice walk!” What did they take, the damn Poles? Do you think there is anything in the world that a Cossack would be afraid of? Wait, the time will come, the time will come, you will learn what the Orthodox Russian faith is!”

Gogol was occupied with the thought: is it not a sin for a Christian to kill people on the battlefield? Among his extracts from the works of the holy fathers and teachers of the Church there is this: “... it is impermissible to kill, but killing enemies in battle is both lawful and worthy of praise” (from St. Athanasius of Alexandria). And here is an extract from a contemporary author of Gogol - Bishop Gideon of Poltava: “Whether anyone puts on militant courage, it is sublime when it breathes faith; for then it is not despair, not fear, not apprehension, not bitterness that lives in the warrior’s chest, but generosity that strikes the enemy without contempt for him; then not vengeance, not malice, but a noble consciousness of his merits fills his heart.”

Without a doubt, Gogol also knew the answer of Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril to Muslim scholars about the use of weapons by Christians. We read this answer in the life of the enlightener of the Slavs. One day the Arabs asked him: “If Christ is your God, then why don’t you do what He tells you? After all, it is written in the Gospel: pray for your enemies, do good to those who hate and oppress you, and turn your cheek to those who beat you. You are doing the wrong thing: you are sharpening your weapons against your opponents.” Saint Cyril answered: “If in any law two commandments are written and given to people to fulfill, then which of the people will be the true executor of the law: the one who fulfills one commandment, or the one who fulfills two?” “Of course, the best performer will be the one,” answered the Arabs, “who fulfills the two commandments.” “Christ our God,” said the saint, “commanded us to pray for those who offend us and do good to them, but He also said this: “ No one has greater sowing love, but whoever lays down his soul for his friends» 1
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (Gospel of John, chapter 15, v. 13).

We endure insults if they are directed only against someone individually, but we intercede and even lay down our souls if they are directed at society, so that our brothers do not fall into captivity, where they could be seduced into ungodly and evil deeds.”

In the book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” Gogol sums up his thoughts about whether it is legitimate to defend the shrine of faith by force of arms: “The Chernets Oslyabya and Peresvet, with the blessing of the abbot himself, took into their hands a sword that was disgusting to a Christian...” This was before Kulikovskaya battle, when the Monk Sergius of Radonezh, abbot of the Russian land, blessed the holy Prince Dmitry Donskoy to fight the Tatars.

And yet, without replacing the material weapon, Gogol considered prayer to be the main weapon. In 1847 he wrote: “Russia did not pray in vain. When she prayed, she was saved. She prayed in 1612, and was saved from the Poles; she prayed in 1812 and escaped from the French.”

Why did the Cossacks, brave warriors who were ready to lay down their lives for the Orthodox faith, nevertheless suffer defeat? As Gogol writes, “the entire Sich prayed in one church and was ready to defend it to the last drop of blood,” but at the same time, it “didn’t even want to hear about fasting and abstinence.” That is, voluntarily or unwittingly, the Cossacks exposed themselves to great dangers in connection with this. They had enough strength, enough courage, their souls rushed into battle, but at the first lull, widespread drunkenness began. During the siege of Dubno, the Cossacks got drunk and were beaten by the Poles: they were destroyed by intemperance. Taras himself fell into the hands of the Poles because of a lost “cradle” - a tobacco pipe. Intemperance also leads to unchristian behavior in war. So, after the execution of Ostap, Taras, as it were, celebrates a terrible pagan funeral for his son, destroying the entire population of every captured Polish village, without regard to gender and age.

The story “Taras Bulba” is popular not only in Russia, but throughout the world. It was equated with such classic epic works as Homer’s Iliad (which Gogol was guided by). The book was remade many times for the theater and opera stage, and was also filmed. The story "Taras Bulba" has always been a favorite children's reading. It is known that the holy martyr Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, the son of the martyr Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich, read Gogol’s story more than once and liked it very much. And many works of Russian writers, including the works of Gogol, were re-read by members of the royal family even in captivity - in Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg. I would like to hope that Gogol’s brilliant story “Taras Bulba” will affirm good feelings, including courage and patriotism, in the hearts of young generations of Russian readers.

Vladimir Voropaev

Taras Bulba 2
Gogol's story "Taras Bulba" was first published in the collection "Mirgorod" (1835). In the second volume of his Works in 1842, Gogol gave the story in a new, radically revised edition. In addition to the careful stylistic finishing of the work, completely new episodes and characters appeared in it. As a result of the alteration, the volume of the story almost doubled (instead of nine chapters in the first edition, there were twelve chapters in the second), and its entire ideological and artistic concept was significantly enriched.
With all this, it should be emphasized that it was not chronicles and historical works that determined the development of the genre of Gogol’s historical prose. Back in the early 1830s, Gogol, along with requests to send handwritten materials “about the times of the hetmanate,” constantly encouraged his relatives to collect Ukrainian songs for him.
Sent at the beginning of November 1833 by sister Maria Vasilievna, “an old notebook with songs” (“...among them... many are very wonderful,” Gogol wrote to his mother on November 22, 1833) served as a direct impetus for the writer to resume the work he had begun earlier on the history of Little Russia.
In addition to the collection sent by his sister, in the first half of the 1830s Gogol also used the collections “The Experience of Collection of Old Little Russian Songs” by Prince N. A. Tsertelev (St. Petersburg, 1819), “Little Russian Songs Published by M. Maksimovich”
(M., 1827), “Zaporozhian antiquity” by I. I. Sreznevsky (Kharkov, 1833), “Ukrainian folk songs published by M. Maksimovich” (M., 1834. Part 1), “Piesni polskie i ruskie ludu galicyjskiego . Z muzyka instrumentowana przez Karola Lipinskiego. Zebral i widal Waclaw z Oleska” (We Lwowie, 1833) and a handwritten collection of folk songs by Z. Dolenga-Chodakowski.
In 1834, with the assumption of the post of head of the Ministry of Public Education by S. S. Uvarov, who proclaimed in his activities following the principles of Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality, four articles by Gogol were published in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education: in the February issue - “Teaching Plan” General History", in the April edition - "An excerpt from the history of Little Russia" and an article "On Little Russian songs", in the September edition - an article-lecture "On the Middle Ages" written in May - June. The unity of the themes discussed in these articles determines the plan of Taras Bulba, begun in mid-1834. The writer examines the history of Ukraine against the background of world history. He calls the Little Russian Cossacks, glorified in folk songs and thoughts, “one of the most remarkable phenomena of European history,” “a stronghold for Europe against the Mohammedan conquests,” putting them on a par with medieval knighthood. This view serves as a direct prologue to his understanding of modernity. The thought of the final spiritual enslavement of Europe at the end of the Middle Ages by Arab-Muslim culture reveals to Gogol a vision of the world-historical destiny of Russia - the only free Christian power in the world professing Orthodoxy.
The background to the creation of the second edition of Taras Bulba reveals basically the same stages and nature of the preparatory work that preceded the writing of the first edition. With the publication of Mirgorod in 1835, Gogol did not abandon his search for a new genre form for the artistic reproduction of the past. Having successfully grafted a folk song into a historical story in Taras Bulba, the writer subsequently made an attempt to transform another genre - drama (or tragedy), which he discovered interest in back in 1831 with the release of Pushkin's Boris Godunov.
The first experience of creating a historical drama, which immediately followed the appearance of the first edition of “Taras Bulba”, was the unfinished tragedy from English history “Alfred”, on which the writer worked in the spring - autumn of 1835 and in the creation of which he used, among other historical sources, folk songs ( the hero of the drama is the English king Alfred the Great (849–899), canonized in the Western Church for his exceptional services in the religious and political unification of England before the threat of the Norman conquest). Gogol worked on his second attempt at historical drama - a tragedy from the history of Zaporozhye (from the era of Bogdan Khmelnitsky) from August 1839 to September 1841, after which he burned the finished drama, dissatisfied with its small effect on V. A. Zhukovsky. In working on the drama, Gogol again turned to the “History of the Russian State” by N. M. Karamzin, used the previously known “History of the Rus”, “Description of Ukraine” by G. de Beauplan, “The History of the Zaporozhye Cossacks” by Prince S. I. Myshetsky, “The History of Little Russia” by D. N. Bantysh-Kamensky. New sources also appeared - B. Scherer’s book “Annales de la Retite-Russie, ou I’Histoire des Casaques Saparogues et les Casaques de I’Ukraine” (Paris, 1788) and some Polish book, from which Gogol made an extract “ Streets of ancient Warsaw." However, this time the main source turned out to be folk songs. With Gogol's address to them, the creation of a drama from the history of Zaporozhye begins.
After the burning of the drama in early September (the second half of August of the Old Style) 1841, Gogol began to create the second edition of Taras Bulba, for which he extensively used materials previously prepared for the drama. Here new reminiscences appear from folk songs collected by I. I. Sreznevsky and M. A. Maksimovich; a new collection is also being attracted - “Little Russian and Chervono-Russian Dumas and Songs, Published by P. Lukashevich” (St. Petersburg, 1836). Gogol is helped in his work by his sister, Elizaveta Vasilievna, who, having completed the rewriting of the first volume of “Dead Souls” for censorship, begins to prepare a copy of the new edition of “Taras Bulba”. By the end of 1841, the work was largely completed, and before Gogol left abroad in early June 1842, the story was submitted to the St. Petersburg censor for consideration.

I

- Turn around, son! How funny you are! What kind of priestly cassock are you wearing? 3
What kind of priestly cassock are you wearing?<…>Let one of you run away!..– From the first lines of the story, Gogol emphasizes the idea of ​​​​the special position of the warrior-defender, “the champion of chastity and piety,” in church unity.

And so everyone goes to academies 4
Academy– here: Kiev Theological Academy, the first higher religious educational institution in Southern Russia; renamed the academy in 1689 from the collegium founded in 1632 by the Kyiv Metropolitan Peter Mohyla. The course of study lasted 12 years and provided theological and general education training and knowledge of languages. The Kiev Theological Academy was not only a spiritual educational institution itself, preparing future shepherds, but also a general educational institution in which simple “knights” of the faith, such as the sons of Taras Bulba, were “trained.”

? - With these words old Bulba greeted 5
Bulba- potato (Ukrainian).

His two sons, who studied at the Kyiv Bursa and came home to their father.

His sons had just dismounted from their horses. These were two strapping young men, still looking from under their brows, like recently graduated seminarians. Their strong, healthy faces were covered with the first fluff of hair that had not yet been touched by a razor. They were very embarrassed by their father’s reception and stood motionless, their eyes cast down to the ground.

- Stop, stop! “let me take a good look at you,” he continued, turning them, “what long scrolls you have on!” what scrolls! There have never been such scrolls in the world. Let one of you run away! I'll see if he flops to the ground, getting tangled in the floors.

- Don't laugh, don't laugh, dad! - the eldest of them finally said.

- Look how lush you are! why not laugh?

- Yes, yes; Even though you’re my dad, if you laugh, then, by God, I’ll beat you up!

- Oh, you such-and-such a son! how, dad? - said Taras Bulba, stepping back in surprise a few steps.

- Yes, even my dad. I will not look at anyone for offense and will not respect anyone.

- How do you want to fight with me, maybe with your fists?

- Yes, on whatever it is.

- Well, let's fist fight! - said Taras Bulba, rolling up his sleeves, - I’ll see what kind of person you are in your fist!

And father and son, instead of greeting after a long absence, began to punch each other in the sides, and in the lower back, and in the chest, then retreating and looking back, then advancing again.

- Look, good people: the old man has gone crazy! completely crazy! - said their pale, thin and kind mother, who stood at the threshold and had not yet had time to hug her beloved children. “The children came home, they hadn’t been seen for more than a year, and he thought of God knows what: to fight with his fists!”

- Yes, he fights nicely! - Bulba said, stopping, - by God, it’s good! - he continued, recovering a little, - so, at least not even try. He will be a good Cossack! Well, great, son! let's break each other! - And father and son began to kiss. - Good, son! Beat everyone like you beat me: don’t let anyone down! But still, you’re wearing a funny outfit: what kind of rope is that hanging? And you, babybass 6
Baybas(belbas) - dunce, oaf.

Why are you standing there and giving up? - he said, turning to the younger one, - why don’t you, son of a dog, beat me?

- That's another thing I came up with! - said the mother, who meanwhile was hugging the youngest, - and it would come to mind that his own child would beat his father. Yes, it’s as if it was before now: the child is young, has traveled so much distance, is tired... (this child was more than twenty years old and exactly a fathom tall), he now needs to rest and eat something, but he makes him beat!

- Eh, you're a little bastard 7
Mazunchik- sissy, mama's boy, darling (from Ukrainian. “smear” – pamper, caress).

As I can see! - said Bulba. “Don’t listen to your mother, son: she’s a woman, she doesn’t know anything.” What kind of tenderness do you like? Your tenderness is an open field and a good horse: here is your tenderness! And you see this saber - this is your mother! This is all the rubbish that you fill your heads with: the academies, and all those books, primers, and philosophy, and all this what do you know8
How do you know?- who knows what, rubbish, nonsense.

, – I don’t care about all this! - Here Bulba brought into line a word that is not even used in print. - But it’s better, I’ll send you to Zaporozhye the same week 9
Zaporozhye- here: Zaporozhye Sich - a socio-political and military organization of Ukrainian Cossacks in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, in the 16th–18th centuries called the Sich after its main fortification (sich or sich - forest clearing, blockage of trees).

That's where the science is! There's a school there for you; there you will only gain some sense.

– And only for one week will they be at home? - the thin old woman said pitifully, with tears in her eyes. “And they, the poor things, won’t be able to go for a walk, they won’t be able to recognize their native home, and I won’t be able to look at them enough!”

- Stop, stop howling, old woman! A Cossack is not one to mess with women. You would hide them both under your skirt, and sit on them like chicken eggs. Go, go, and quickly put everything you have on the table for us. No need for donuts 10
Dumplings(diminutive of “pampukha”) - donuts, “boiled food made from dough” (dictionary of “Little Russian words found in the first and second volumes” of Gogol’s Collected Works, 1842 edition).

Honey cakes 11
Honey cake- honey gingerbread.

Makovnikov 12
Makovnik– cake made from honey and poppy seeds.

And other pundits 13
Pundiki- “a kind of crumpets fried in oil” (Virgil’s Aeneid, translated into the Little Russian language by I. Kotlyarevsky. St. Petersburg, 1809. Part 4. Dictionary of Little Russian words. P. 17).

; bring us the whole ram, give us the goat, you forty-year-old honeys! Yes, bigger burners, not with fancy burners, not with raisins and all sorts of junk 14
Vytrebenki- whims, pampering, inventions.

And a clean foam burner, so that it plays and hisses like crazy.

Bulba led his sons into the little room, from where two beautiful servant girls in red monasteries quickly ran out, cleaning the rooms. They, apparently, were frightened by the arrival of the panicks, who did not like to let anyone down, or they simply wanted to observe their women's custom: to scream and rush headlong when they saw a man, and then cover their sleeves for a long time out of extreme shame. The room was decorated in the taste of that time, of which living hints remained only in songs and in folk thoughts, which are no longer sung in the Ukraine by bearded blind elders, accompanied by the quiet strumming of a bandura. 15
Bandura- an instrument, a type of guitar.

In view of the surrounded people - in the taste of that abusive, difficult time when fights and battles began to break out in Ukraine for union 16
...for union- that is, because of the union. Union (lat. unio - union, unification) - here: an agreement of part of the Western Russian hierarchs on the unification of the Orthodox Church with Rome with recognition of the leading role of the pope and a number of Catholic dogmas while preserving their rituals and worship. With the adoption of the union at the Council in Brest in 1596, the Uniate bishops were excommunicated from the Church; the forced spread of the union in Ukraine led to increased enslavement of the Ukrainian population by Polish landowners and the Catholic clergy. Part of the Ukrainian nobility supported the union, while the common people and the Cossacks continued to adhere to Orthodoxy.

Everything was clean, smeared with colored clay. There are sabers on the walls 17
On the walls there are sabers... guns<…>On the shelves... cups...<…>All this was very familiar to our two fellows...– The Svetlitsa of Taras is, as it were, a kind of “home museum”, the main purpose of which here is raising sons. Its image is reminiscent of the description of Pan Danilo’s room in “Terrible Revenge”: “Around the walls... there are shelves... on them... cups... Below hang expensive muskets, sabers, squeaks... Looking at them, Pan Danilo seemed to remember his battles from the icons.”

Whips, nets for birds, nets and guns, a cleverly crafted horn for gunpowder, a golden bridle for a horse and fetters with silver plaques. The windows in the little room were small, with round, dull glass, the kind that is now found only in ancient churches, through which it was otherwise impossible to look through except by lifting a sliding glass. There were red taps around the windows and doors 18
Red taps- decorative ornament on the windows and doors of the house.

On the shelves in the corners were jugs, bottles and flasks of green and blue glass, carved silver goblets, gilded cups of all kinds: Venetian 19
Venetian– Venetian.

Turkish, Circassian, who entered Bulba’s room in all sorts of ways through third and fourth hands, which was very common in those daring times. Birch bark benches 20
Birch bark benches– benches made of birch bark (Ukrainian name for elm).

Around the whole room; a huge table under the icons in the front corner; a wide oven with ovens, ledges and ledges, covered with colored variegated tiles. All this was very familiar to our two fellows, who came home every year during the holidays, coming because they did not yet have horses, and because it was not the custom to allow schoolchildren to ride. They only had long forelocks, which could be torn out by any Cossack who carried a weapon. Only when they were released, Bulba sent them a couple of young stallions from his herd.

On the occasion of the arrival of his sons, Bulba ordered to convene all the centurions 21
Sotnik- here: the head of a hundred, a territorial military unit of the Cossacks in the 17th–18th centuries, located in its own town or town.

And all the regimental ranks who were present; and when two of them and Yesaul came 22
Esaul(from Turkic“yasaul” - chief) - an administrative military position and rank in the Cossack army since 1576.

Dmitro Tovkach 23
Tovkach(towka) – pestle. In the draft version of the story in 1834, the hero was called Dovbeshka (from Ukrainian“I’m hammering” – I’m hammering).

His old comrade, he immediately introduced his sons to them, saying: “Look, what great fellows! I’ll send them to the Sich soon.” The guests congratulated Bulba and both young men and told them that they were doing a good deed and that there was no better science for a young man than the Zaporozhye Sich.

- Well, gentlemen-brothers, everyone sit down, wherever it is better for you, at the table. Well, sons! First of all, let's drink the burners! – that’s what Bulba said. - God bless! Be healthy, sons: both you, Ostap, and you, Andriy! God grant that you will always be lucky in war! so that the Busurmans 24
Busurmans- Gentiles, non-Christians, mostly Mohammedans.

They beat, and they would beat the Turks, and they would beat the Tatars, when the Poles 25
Lyakhi- an ancient name for the Poles.

If they started to do something against our faith, they would beat the Poles too. Well, put your glass down; Is the burner good? What's the Latin word for burner? That’s why, son, the Latins were fools: they didn’t even know if there was a burner in the world. What, I mean, was the name of the guy who wrote Latin verses? I don’t know much about reading, and therefore I don’t know: Horace, or what?

“Look, what a dad! – the eldest son, Ostap, thought to himself. “The old dog knows everything, and he’s also pretending to be.”

- I think, Archimandrite 26
Archimandrite- ecclesiastical rank given to abbots of monasteries and other monastics holding important administrative positions; here: head (rector) of the Kyiv Academy.

“I didn’t even let you smell the burners,” Taras continued. “And admit it, sons, they lashed you hard with birch and fresh cherry trees on your back and on everything that the Cossack has?” Or maybe, since you have already become too reasonable, maybe they flogged you with whips; tea, not only on Saturdays 27
…on Saturdays…– Saturday is the traditional day of flogging in old educational institutions. Corporal punishment was also used at the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences, where Gogol studied. Probably, the depiction of the life of the heroes in the second chapter was partly influenced by the youthful impressions of the writer himself, who jokingly called the Nizhyn gymnasium “bursa.”

Did you get it on Wednesday and Thursday?

“There’s no point in remembering what happened, dad,” answered Ostap, “what happened has passed!”

- Let him try now! - said Andriy, - now let someone just catch on; Now let some Tatar woman turn up now, she will know what kind of thing a Cossack saber is!

- Good, son! By God, good! For that matter, I’m going with you too! By God, I'm going. What the hell am I waiting for here? so that I become a buckwheat sower 28
Buckwheat.- “... this word means a lazy and careless person, probably because in Little Russia they often sow buckwheat in the same field on which there was rye, without plowing it again, but only by harrowing it” (Prince Tsertelev. Experience of a collection of ancient Little Russian songs St. Petersburg, 1819, p. 60).

A housekeeper, looking after the sheep and pigs and having sex with his wife? Damn them: I’m a Cossack, I don’t want to! So what if there is no war? I’ll go with you to Zaporozhye for a walk; By God, I'll go! - And old Bulba little by little got angry, got angry, and finally got completely angry, got up from the table and, putting on a dignified appearance, stamped his foot. - We're leaving tomorrow! why put it off? What kind of enemy can we wait out here? What do we need this house for? Why do we need all this? what are these pots for? - Having said this, he began to beat and throw pots and flasks.

The poor old woman, already accustomed to such actions of her husband, looked sadly, sitting on the bench. She didn't dare say anything; but, hearing about such a terrible decision for her, she could not help but cry; she looked at her children, from whom she was threatened with such a quick separation - and no one could describe all the silent power of her grief, which seemed to tremble in her eyes and in her convulsively compressed lips.

Bulba was terribly stubborn. This was one of those characters that could only arise in the difficult 15th century in a semi-nomadic corner of Europe, when all of southern primitive Russia, abandoned by its princes, was devastated, burned to the ground by the indomitable raids of Mongol predators; when, having lost his home and roof, a man became brave here; when he settled in the fires, in view of the formidable neighbors and eternal danger, and got used to looking them straight in the eyes, having forgotten how to know whether there was any fear in the world; when the ancient peaceful Slavic spirit was engulfed in flames of war and the Cossacks were born - the wide, riotous habits of Russian nature, and when all the rivers, portages, coastal flat and convenient places were dotted with Cossacks, of whom no one knew the count, and their brave comrades had the right to answer to the Sultan , who wanted to know about their number: “Who knows them! We have them scattered throughout the steppe: a bayrak is a Cossack” (where there is a small hillock, there is a Cossack). It was, indeed, an extraordinary manifestation of Russian strength: it was knocked out of the people's chest by the flint of troubles 29
It was, indeed, an extraordinary manifestation of Russian strength: it was knocked out of the people's chest by the flint of troubles. – Gogol, in particular, knew the speech of one of the Ukrainian representatives at the Polish Sejm of 1620, L. Dervinsky, regarding the oppression of the Orthodox by the Uniates: “...If, I say, those who came from us had not rebelled against us, then such sciences, Such schools, only worthy and learned people, would never have opened among the Russian people. The teaching in our churches would still be the dust of negligence, covered up” (Bantysh-Kamensky D.N. Historical news about the union that arose in Poland. M., 1805. P. 69). Later, Gogol repeated the idea of ​​a “flint of troubles” awakening the dormant forces of the people in “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” speaking about the “European enlightenment” that “burst” into Russia in the era of Peter I: “...European enlightenment was the flint that followed strike at our entire mass, which was beginning to doze off... In the era of Catherine... Russian talents began to show themselves in all fields... generals... statesmen... scientists..." This is Gogol’s rapprochement of two eras of Russian history, equally marked by Western influence, the reigns of Peter I and Catherine II, and the era heroic deeds of the Ukrainian Cossacks - makes it possible to talk about one of the probable prototypes of the main character of the story - Gogol's fellow countryman, Catherine's nobleman Dmitry Prokofievich Troshchinsky (1754–1829). A descendant of an old Cossack family, a graduate of the Kyiv Theological Academy, the Gogols’ neighbor on the estate and their distant relative, D. P. Troshchinsky, with his extraordinary personality and dizzying career (from an army clerk to a minister), captured Gogol’s imagination in early childhood. Close communication with the Troshchinsky family, talented representatives of the ancient Cossack family, undoubtedly could not help but be reflected in the images of Gogol’s epic.

Instead of the former fiefs, small towns filled with huntsmen and hunters, instead of petty princes warring and trading in cities, formidable villages and kurens arose 30
Kuren– “a branch of the military camp of the Cossacks” (dictionary of “Little Russian words ..."), fraternity; territorial military unit of the Cossacks (with settlements, villages and hamlets), part of a hundred.

And the outskirts 31
Outskirts- unification of several surrounding villages, districts.

Bound by common danger and hatred against non-Christian predators. Everyone already knows from history how their eternal struggle and restless life saved Europe from the indomitable raids that threatened to overturn it. The Polish kings, who found themselves, instead of appanage princes, rulers of these vast lands, albeit distant and weak, understood the significance of the Cossacks and the benefits of such an abusive, obstinate life. They encouraged them and flattered them about this arrangement. Under their distant authority, the hetmans, elected from among the Cossacks themselves, transformed the outskirts and kurens into regiments and regular districts 32
... the hetmans, elected from among the Cossacks themselves, transformed the outskirts and kurens into regiments and regular districts. – In the first edition of “Taras Bulba”, Gogol connected the military reform of Little Russia with the activities of the Polish king (since 1576) Stefan Batory: “...Batory organized regiments in Little Russia...” As V. P. Kazarin noted, this corresponds to the narrative of D. N. Bantysh -Kamensky in “History of Little Russia”. The final edition is based on the evidence of the “History of the Rus” by the pseudo-Konissky, who connected the military reform of Little Russia with the transformations of Hetman Ruzhinsky, elected from the Cossack environment long before the reign of Batory. Hetman- in Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, commander-in-chief and minister of war (from the beginning of the 16th century). The leaders of the Cossack army began to be called hetmans in the 1570s. However, this title was officially given by the Polish government only in 1648 to Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Regiment- in Ukraine in the 16th–18th centuries, a territorial military unit consisting of several hundred (from 7 to 20).

This was not a assembled army in combat, no one would have seen it; but in the event of war and a general movement, in eight days, no more, everyone appeared on horseback in all his armor, receiving only one ducats of payment from the king, and in two weeks such an army was recruited, which no recruiting kits could recruit . The campaign ended - the warrior went to the meadows and arable lands, to the Dnieper transports, fished, traded, brewed beer and became a free Cossack. Modern foreigners rightly marveled 33
...foreigners... marveled...– This refers primarily to the French traveler G. de Beauplan, depicted by Gogol in the sixth chapter of the first edition of the story and in the seventh and tenth chapters of the second edition in the image of a “French artilleryman and engineer” who served in the Polish troops (from 1631 to 1648 Beauplan served in the Polish Royal Army with the rank of senior artillery captain and military engineer). In his notes while reading “Description of Ukraine” by Boplan (in Russian translation, St. Petersburg, 1832), Gogol especially emphasized the universality of the Cossacks’ craft skills.

Then his extraordinary abilities. There was no craft that a Cossack did not know: to smoke wine, equip a cart, grind gunpowder, do blacksmithing and plumbing work and, in addition to that, go wild, drink and revel as only a Russian can - all this was his on the shoulder. In addition to registry 34
Registered(registry) Cossacks- part of the Ukrainian Cossacks, accepted into the service of the Polish government in the 16th - first half of the 17th centuries and included in a special list - register. “A registered Cossack is a Cossack registered for service” (dictionary of “Little Russian words...”).

Cossacks, who considered it their duty to appear during the war, could at any time, in case of great need, recruit whole crowds of willing 35
Ochochekomonnye- otherwise: companions (companionship - partnership) - equestrian volunteers who appeared on their horses.

: the esauls had only to walk through the markets and squares of all the villages and towns and shout at the top of their voices, standing on the cart: “Hey you, beer makers, brewers 36
Brevarniki(from him. Brauer) - brewers, distillers. "Brewery (German)- brewery" ("Little Russian Lexicon" in the "Book of All Things...").

You've had enough of brewing beer, lying around in ovens, and feeding flies with your fat body! Go to achieve knightly glory and honor! You, plowers, buckwheat farmers, sheep farmers, butterflies, you are full of walking behind the plow and getting your yellow boots dirty in the ground, and getting close to the women and destroying the knightly strength! it’s time to get Cossack glory!” And these words were like sparks falling on a dry tree. The plowman broke his plow, the brewers and brewers threw their tubs and broke the barrels, the craftsman and tradesman sent both his craft and his shop to hell, he broke the pots in the house - and whatever was mounted on a horse. In a word, the Russian character here acquired a powerful, broad scope and strong appearance.

Taras was one of the indigenous, old colonels: he was all about scolding anxiety and was distinguished by the brutal directness of his character. Then the influence of Poland was already beginning to exert itself on the Russian nobility. Many had already adopted Polish customs, had luxury, magnificent servants, falcons, hunters, dinners, courtyards. Taras did not like this. He loved the simple life of the Cossacks and quarreled with those of his comrades who were inclined to the Warsaw side, calling them slaves of the Polish lords. Always restless, he considered himself the legitimate defender of Orthodoxy. Arbitrarily entered villages where they only complained about the harassment of tenants and the increase in new duties on smoke 37
Smoke duty– tax on individual housing, houses (from each chimney).

He himself carried out reprisals against his Cossacks and made it a rule that in three cases one should always take up the saber, namely: when the commissars 38
Commissioners- Polish tax collectors.

They didn’t respect the elders in any way 39
Petty Officers– elected officials in the Ukrainian Cossacks in the 16th – 18th centuries: atamans, esauls, clerks, judges, etc.

And they stood in front of them wearing hats when they mocked Orthodoxy and did not honor the customs of their ancestors and, finally, when the enemies were Busurmans and Turks, against whom he considered it in any case permissible to raise arms for the glory of Christianity. Now he consoled himself with the thought of how he would appear with his two sons in the Sich and say: “Look, what fine fellows I have brought to you!”; how he will introduce them to all his old, battle-hardened comrades; how he looks at their first exploits in military science and drinking, which was also considered one of the main virtues of a knight. At first he wanted to send them alone; but at the sight of their freshness, height, and powerful physical beauty, his military spirit flared up, and the next day he decided to go with them himself, although the necessity of this was sheer stubborn will. He was already busy and giving orders, choosing horses and harnesses for his young sons, visiting the stables and barns, selecting the servants who were to ride with them tomorrow. Yesaul Tovkach handed over his power along with a strong order to appear at once with the entire regiment, if only he gave any news from the Sich. Although he was tipsy and still drunk in his head, he did not forget anything; He even gave the order to water the horses and pour larger and better wheat into their mangers, and he came tired of his worries.

- Well, children, now we need to sleep, and tomorrow we will do what God gives. Don't make our bed! we don't need a bed: we'll sleep in the yard.

The night had only just embraced the sky, but Bulba always went to bed early. He lounged on the carpet, covered himself with a sheepskin coat, because the night air was quite fresh and because Bulba liked to hide warmly when he was at home. He soon began to snore, and the whole yard followed him; everything that lay in its different corners snored and sang; First of all, the watchman fell asleep, because he was drunker than anyone else for the arrival of the panic.

One poor mother did not sleep; she leaned to the head of her dear sons, who were lying nearby; she combed their young, carelessly disheveled curls with a comb and moistened them with her tears; She looked at them all, looked with all her senses, she turned into one vision and could not stop looking at them. She fed them with her own breasts; she has grown, nurtured them - and only for one moment sees them in front of her! “My sons, my dear sons! what will happen to you? what awaits you? - she said, and the tears stopped in the wrinkles that had changed her once beautiful face. In fact, she was pitiful, like every woman of that daring century. She only lived with love for a moment, only in the first fever of passion, in the first fever of youth, and already her stern seducer left her for the saber, for comrades, for drinking. She saw her husband for two or three days a year, and then for several years there was no news of him. And when she saw him, when they lived together, what kind of life was she like? She endured insults, even beatings; she saw caresses given only out of mercy; she was some kind of strange creature in this gathering of wifeless knights, on whom the riotous Zaporozhye cast its harsh coloring. Youth flashed before her without pleasure, and her beautiful fresh cheeks and breasts faded without kisses and became covered with premature wrinkles. All love, all feelings, everything that is tender and passionate in a woman, everything turned into one maternal feeling. With fervor, with passion, with tears, like a steppe gull, she hovered over her children. Her sons, her dear sons, are taken from her; they take it in order to never see them again! Who knows, maybe during the first battle the Tatar will cut off their heads and she will not know where their abandoned bodies lie, which will be pecked by a bird of prey, and for every drop of their blood she would give herself all. Sobbing, she looked into their eyes, when the almighty sleep was already beginning to close them, and thought: “Perhaps Bulba, waking up, will delay her departure for two days; Maybe he decided to go so quickly because he drank a lot.”