The heroic struggle of the enslaved Ukrainian people delights even today. We learn about it from numerous Cossack thoughts, songs, historical studies and literary works. One of the best prose works praising patriotism and devotion to one's work is Taras Bulba by N. V. Gogol. Comparative characteristics of Ostap and Andria, the main characters of the book, we will submit in our article.
Story plot
“Taras Bulba” is a fantastic story, and its heroes are fictional. Although the plot was borrowed by Gogol from life. Ostap and Andriy are brothers who were divided by the war, but they had their own prototypes. Grigory Ilyich Mikluha, a relative of a certain Emelyan, studied with the writer. He had two more brothers, one of whom betrayed his homeland, falling in love with a polka, and the other died trying to lead the traitor to his father. Also, the prototype of Ataman Taras can be considered Ivan Gont, who, according to legend, killed two sons from a Polish wife. But this story is fictitious, since Ivan was married to a Russian.
In the story, Taras Bulba becomes a father who loves his children equally, but his duty to his homeland is above all for him. You can only sympathize with a parent who sees his descendant betray everything for which he fought, for which he then burned down at the stake. Having survived his children, he also dies, but without fear and without regret.
Junior Andriy
Before giving comparative characteristics of Ostap and Andria, you should talk about each character separately. Andriy was the youngest son of Taras, he is over twenty years old, he is tall and strong. However, the old Cossack sees that his son is embarrassed, like a child, calls him a "mazunik". He longs for a battle with the Tatars, quick-tempered, emotional, sensitive. He studied willingly, was dodgy and inventive. He also had a gentle, beautiful face and longed for love.
It is not worth asserting that he, without a shadow of doubt, crossed over to the side of the Commonwealth. He was tormented, pondering what to choose: a beloved woman who reciprocated, but demanded to abandon her past, or her homeland, Zaporizhzhya Sich, brother and father. In the end, youth and passion took their toll, Andriy gave vent to feelings.
Senior Ostap
Ostap was the cardinal opposite of his brother already in bursa. He also had a powerful body, outstanding physical strength and a healthy face. But he had a firm character, he was straightforward, attentive, observant, intelligent, cold-blooded, stubborn, honest. He did not want to study, he tried several times to escape from the bursa, and only the threat of his father not to let Sich forced him to finish school. Purposeful and consistent, Ostap above all appreciated the feeling of camaraderie and could not imagine his life without a Cossack freemen, a war with the invaders.
The Cossacks immediately appreciated Ostap's character and prophesied a good fate for him. The writer compares the eldest son of Taras with a lion who is able to be a smoking ataman. In the future, we see that Ostap justified the trust of both comrades and his father.
Comparative characteristics of Ostap and Andria
The inhabitants of Sich fell in love with the sons of Bulba almost immediately. They were young and hot, eager for battle and did not hide from danger. However, their characters were fully revealed only during the tests. One of them stood them with honor, and the other did what no one expected of him. How did the brothers behave after the event that changed their whole life? Ostap’s attitude towards Andriy sharply worsened, and Taras himself gave the order to lure him into a trap and fired a bullet into his son’s forehead.
He tried to save Ostap, was going to redeem, but saw only the cruel execution of his eldest son, who courageously kept under torture. Barely restraining the pain of loss, old Taras gathers the Cossacks on a campaign and brutally takes revenge on the Poles. When dying, he does not think about himself, but tells his comrades how to be saved. Thus, we see that the eldest son lived, and died like a father, in the struggle against the invaders. And the younger threw everything away, choosing a beauty from the enemy camp.
Instead of an afterword
The comparative characteristics of Ostap and Andria help to look at history from a different perspective. After all, the feelings and experiences of the heroes of the story took place in life. Love and betrayal, friendship and devotion, rejection and cowardice go side by side. Ostap and Andriy are not enemies of their own free will, but at the behest of fate, although they themselves were the blacksmiths of their lives.
And although critics reproached Gogol for overly admiring the Cossacks, exaggerating his merits, departing from real facts, painted the image of a brutal Polish gentry and greedy Jews, he really genuinely admired the strength of mind and body of Zaporizhzhya Cossacks.
The story is really complicated, full of contradictions and philosophy, joy and tragedy. And she is literally filled with successful phrases, witty expressions, folk wisdom. It is written in a melodic language, and through the lines the love of the native land is read. And with all his work, the author is trying to convey to readers his belief in a happy tomorrow, which is bound to come.