The composition of the work “Taras Bulba” is familiar to many generations of students. The famous story of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol in its genre goes beyond the scope of his other fairy-tale-folklore works, really related to the story. It essentially does not fit into the framework of both the Soviet and the modern school curriculum.
The hidden genre of chivalry
This writer’s creation is “hidden” between the stories, but his real genre is a chivalrous novel. Therefore, it would be logical if we offer our readers a more meaningful, more psychological and, finally, “adult” look at Gogol’s novel “Taras Bulba”. This composition is integral and having, in spite of its uncomplicated plot, a “second bottom,” which opens if we subject it to historical analysis ...
The reader, getting acquainted with the heroes of the book, understands that her line of heroism echoes, for example, the saga of the knight Roland, who became the national hero of France. Taras Bulba with his sons Ostap and Andriy are reliable, as collective images of the “Cossacks” of the Zaporizhzhya Sich. (It is “Cossacks”, not Cossacks — one letter matters! So wrote Catherine II in her decree of 1775, destroying their freemen).
Undoubtedly, the philosophical content of Gogol’s creation is an order of magnitude deeper than the essay on the novel “Taras Bulba” can reflect. Grade 7 according to the plan of the general education program assumes that the child renders his verdict on the ideas of the story. This is at least ridiculous. Obviously, the Ministry of Education is motivated by the simplicity of the plot. However, is this not like profanity? A straightforward plot (which is characteristic of a heroic epic) is not yet an indicator of simplicity.
Aesopian language of the author
The story was written during the most severe anti-Decembrist reaction of Nicholas I.
The mere fact of writing a book about "spooky knights" at that time was akin to a feat! After all, the writer deliberately went against not anyone, but Himself .... It was - impudent!
Recall a quote from Catherine II from her manifesto of 1775: “The Zaporizhzhya Sich was completely and permanently destroyed. And even the very name "Zaporozhye Cossacks" should never be used in the future. "
To which Gogol answered with his story: “She is alive in hearts! Her glory will not fade! ”
His decisiveness has a clear explanation: the fact is that he was driven by something very powerful - the voice of blood.
Conscious substitution of terminology
It is noteworthy that the author is forced to juggle, change the terminology of the work to a more loyal censor of the gendarme power of Nicholas I.
What did the author replace? Let's be brief - the word "Russian". Taras Bulba could not use it either historically or logically.
In our “facilitated” proof, we will consciously refer to a later historical fact, cited by the authoritative Great Russian historian S. Soloviev, professor of Moscow University in the 19th century:
Until the beginning of the XVII century, the Rurikovich dynasty ruled Russia (the last rulers were Fedor I Ioannovich 1557-1598 and Vasily Shuisky 1552-1612). Traditionally venerable historians of the past called the country ruled by this dynasty, Muscovy.
And only in the II half of the XVII century the unique last tsar of All Russia (which indicated, rather, intention rather than fact) was lucky enough, having joined the lands, to truly become the first All-Russian Emperor (i.e., all Russia). Therefore, Pushkin was correct in the description of the Battle of Poltava: “Swede, Russian, stabs, cuts, cuts ...”. However, the action described by Alexander Sergeyevich was at least a century and a half after the events set forth in Taras Bulba.
Could a classic with a deep and glorious Cossack pedigree not know the above? His substitution of vocabulary, rather, resembles the writer's maneuver for the publisher.
Gogol changed the author's style
What is the nature of the work conceived by Nikolai Vasilievich heroic story "Taras Bulba"? The composition for the author involves a fundamental change in his creative style. Gogol’s usual criteria for creativity “fascination + beauty” are noticeably inferior to the others - “valor and love of freedom”. Old, however powerful as an oak, Taras Bulba is an allegorical image of the Sich Cossacks. The final scene of the story is symbolic - the dying joy of the colonel, terrible for his enemies, the will of which can not be suppressed even by merciless flame.
This national knight deeply despises the conquerors, not wanting them to leave even his pipe for smoking (cradle). It is dramatic that his son Andriy, a Cossack, whose attachments are dictated by mercantile interest, perishes at his hands. The image of another son, Ostap, is also symbolic - the embodiment of a new force, replacing the old Cossack colonels.
Type of Taras Bulba
Taras Bulba is not a conqueror of Yermak, extracting foreign lands and bowing his brow to Ivan the Terrible. Rather, it is similar to Alexander Nevsky, the prince of the missus (the first and second tools are similar - hiking). Taras acts as the keeper of his native lands, asserting a similar principle, which states that an uninvited guest who draws a sword from the sword of the defender will die. The difference is that the brilliant commander Nevsky is the feudal lord himself, and, as a nobleman, rules his subjects. At the same time, Bulba relies on a more elevated power - on a brotherhood in arms.
The priority of Taras Bulba’s personality is freedom in its purest form, resolutely denying the imposed vertical of external power in principle (according to the story, the yoke of the Polish king). Moreover, for all that, Taras is not an anti-Polish hero (which intensifies every year every essay on the story “Taras Bulba”), but prokazatsky, because he is similar in essence to the ancient Greek Antei, who is not subject to external pressure in principle and is inextricably linked with ground.
The worldview of Taras does not come down to service (after all, they serve the master), but to actively participate in the formation of a counterweight to any external opponent trying to impose his dominance. He is both a creator and a component of a self-governing and self-sufficient people's army.
Revelation. Gogol's pen led the voice of blood
Open the curtain. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol actually wrote a chivalric novel, playing in the artistic form the image of his ancestor. Questions of his blood, his family tree are always crucial for every person.
Gogol’s clan had an impressive source - from the Cossack colonel Ostap Gogol, a contemporary, but not like-minded Bogdan Khmelnytsky, a skilled Cossack who grew up in Colonel Vinnitsa Kuren, and then into the hetman of the entire Right-Bank Ukraine. Dear readers, do you really doubt that a relative could not write about a relative? Put yourself in Gogol's place: if you had such an ancestor and if you were a classic, would you not have created a work about him?
What was this Right-Bank Ukraine in the 17th century during its reign by Ostap Gogol? For the answer we turn to world history:
As you can see, it’s no coincidence that the classic used the name Ostap in the work.
Gogol, as the last romantic of Zaporizhzhya Sich
Back to the school curriculum. We ask ourselves, why should we start an essay on the story "Taras Bulba", if we write in detail? The answer is simple when explaining the real, original Cossack mentality of the Zaporizhzhya Sich. Maybe this is also unusual for someone who is used to Gogol the lyricist, Gogol the storyteller, but Gogol felt by blood his last hero - the Zaporizhzhya Cossack.
The essay on the story "Taras Bulba" should ideally depart from school cliches and not even sound like a hymn to courage (it is secondary in this case.) After all, service Yermak also showed courage.
We are finally getting close to the main idea. Gogol's work is a hymn to the natural freedom of man in his own land. This is not the freedom that the feudal lord grants as a reward to his captive (freedom of the subject, freedom of a resident of the empire). The example of Russia begs one historically abstract comparison.
Freedom modeled on the Zaporizhzhya Sich is a freedom similar to that which could become the state system of medieval Muscovy if the armed people of Veliky Novgorod defeated the army of Ivan the Terrible.
Gogol planned to go further - to deepen the concept of “Taras Bulba”, writing in six volumes (the volume of future work he published) the history of the Zaporizhzhya Cossack freemen. What prevented these plans is that history is silent. We will cite only the classic article - “evidence of his intentions”:
Conclusion
Absurd and even funny, it would seem that the surname is Bulba. Six letters, one soft sign. Double repeating voiced consonant. The letter “l” is present in the surname. No less ridiculous than the surname Gogol, having the same configuration.
“Hidden” in the story is the image of Ostap Gogol, the hetman of Ukraine, the Right-Bank, Sich Cossack by blood, who lost his son in the battle, ready for anything to preserve Cossack liberties (we are talking about O. Gogol signing the Peace of Korsun with Sweden) ...
There is no doubt that this “work” is not a work - Gogol’s novel “Taras Bulba”. An essay on it should be written not by adolescents, but by adult literary scholars and historians.