Taras Bulba
Encyclopedia
Taras Bulba is a romanticized
historical novel by Nikolai Gogol
. It tells the story of an old Zaporozhian Cossack, Taras Bulba, and his two sons, Andriy and Ostap. Taras’ sons studied at the Kiev Academy and return home. The three men set out on an epic journey to Zaporizhian Sich
located in Ukraine
, where they join other Cossacks and go to war against Poland
.
Taras Bulba is Gogol’s longest short story. The work is non-fictional in nature with characters that are not exaggerated or grotesque as was common in Gogol's later work, though his characterizations of Cossacks are said by some scholars to be a bit exaggerated. This story can be understood in the context of the romantic nationalism
movement in literature, which developed around a historical ethnic culture which meets the romantic ideal.
seminary in Kiev
. Ostap is the more adventurous, whereas Andriy has deeply romantic feelings of an introvert. While in Kiev
, he fell in love with a young Polish
noble girl, the daughter of the Governor of Dubno
, but after a few meetings, he stopped seeing her when her family returned home. Taras Bulba gives his sons the opportunity to go to war. They reach the Cossack camp at the Zaporozhian Sich, where there is much merrymaking. Taras attempts to rouse the Cossacks to go into battle. He rallies them to replace the existing Hetman
when the Hetman is reluctant to break the peace treaty.
They soon have the opportunity to fight the Poles
, who rule all Ukraine west of the Dnieper River
. The Poles are accused of atrocities against Orthodox Christians, in which they are aided by Jews. After killing many of the Jewish merchants at the Sich, the Cossacks set off on a campaign against the Poles. They besiege Dubno Castle
. Surrounded by the Cossacks and short of supplies, the inhabitants begin to starve. One night a Tatar woman comes to Andriy and rouses him. He finds her face familiar and then recalls she is the servant of the Polish girl he was in love with. She advises him that all are starving inside the walls. He accompanies her through a secret passage starting in the marsh that goes into the monastery inside the city walls. Andriy brings loaves of bread with him for the starving girl and her mother. He is horrified by what he sees and in a fury of love, forsakes his heritage for the Polish girl.
Meanwhile, several companies of Polish soldiers march into Dubno to relieve the siege, and destroy a regiment of Cossacks. A number of battles ensue. Taras learns of his son’s forsaking his Cossack heritage from Yankel the Jew, whom he saved earlier in the story. During one of the final battles, he sees Andriy riding in Polish garb from the castle and has his men draw him to the woods, where he takes him off his horse. Taras then shoots his son from close range. Taras and Ostap continue fighting the Poles. Ostap is captured while his father is knocked out. When Taras regains his composure he learns that his son was taken away by the Poles. Yankel agrees to take him to Warsaw
where Ostap is held captive, hiding Taras in a cart of bricks. Once in Warsaw a group of Jews help Yankel dress Taras as a German count. They go into the prison to see his Ostap, but a guard recognizes Taras as a Cossack. He lets them in and out only after being paid 100 gold pieces, and suggests they go to the Cossacks' execution the following day.
During the execution, Ostap does not make a single sound, even while being broken on the wheel, and only near the end calls out to his father, asking if he "can hear this?" Taras calls out that he can. Yankel turns to him terrified, but he had vanished. Taras returns home to find all of his old Cossack friends dead and younger Cossacks in their place. He goes to war again. The new Hetman wishes to make peace with the Poles, which Taras is strongly against, warning that the Poles are treacherous and will not honor their words. Failing to convince the Hetman, Taras takes his regiment away to continue the assault independently. As Taras predicted, once the new Hetman agrees to a truce, the Poles betray him and kill a number of Cossacks. Taras and his men continue to fight and are finally caught in a ruined fortress, where they battle until the last man is defeated.
Taras is nailed and tied to a tree and set aflame. Even in this state, he calls out to his men to continue the fight, claiming that a new Russian Tsar is coming who will rule the earth. The story ends with Cossacks on the Dniester River
recalling the great feats of Taras and his unwavering Cossack spirit.
and Selected Passages from Correspondence with his Friends). The changes included three new chapters and a new ending (in the 1835 edition, the protagonist is not burned at the stake by the Poles). The little-known original edition was translated into Ukrainian and made available to the Ukrainian audience only in 2005.
in Gogol's novel "Taras Bulba," pointing out Gogol's attachment to anti-Jewish prejudices prevalent in Russian and Ukrainian culture." In Léon Poliakov
's The History of Antisemitism, the author states that "The 'Yankel' from Taras Bulba indeed became the archetypal
Jew in Russian literature. Gogol painted him as supremely exploitative, cowardly, and repulsive, albeit capable of gratitude. But it seems perfectly natural in the story that he and his cohorts be drowned in the Dnieper by the Cossack lords. Above all, Yankel is ridiculous, and the image of the plucked chicken that Gogol used has made the rounds of great Russian authors."
However, the famous brutality of the Cossack Khmelnytsky Uprising
preceded Gogol's lifetime by about two hundred years and in Taras Bulba as in Gogol's work generally, his treatment of the Jews is realistic and sometimes sympathetic, as in the closing lines of "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich
." In Yiddish, that character in "The Two Ivans" is referred to as a "balagoola: a well known character in Yiddish literature. In his story "Viy," there is a reference to the Jewish Inkeeper, a common occupation for Jews within the Pale
at that time and even a reference to the Talmud. There is no mass slaughter of Jews in Taras Bulba nor are they reviled by the narrator. There is a scene where Jews are thrown into a river, a scene where Taras Bulba visits the Jews and seeks their aid and reference by the narrator of the story that Jews are treated inhumanely Certainly Cossacks are portrayed as disparaging Jews in what is obviously serving as comic relief in the story.
Following the 1830–1831 November Uprising
against the Russian imperial rule in the heartland of Poland
– partitioned for 122 years
– the Polish people became the subject of an official campaign of discrimination by the Tsarist authorities. "Practically all of the Russian government, bureaucracy, and society were united in one outburst against the Poles. The phobia that gripped society gave a new powerful push to the Russian national solidarity movement" – wrote historian Liudmila Gatagova
. It was in this particular context, that in many of Russia's literary works and media of the time Hostility toward the Poles "associated with dark powers" became popular as part of the state policy, especially with the emergence of the Panslavist ideology
accusing them of betraying the "Slavic family".
According to sociologist and historian Prof. Vilho Harle
, Taras Bulba, published only four years after the rebellion, was a part of this anti-Polish propaganda effort. Inadvertently, Gogol's accomplishment became "an anti-Polish novel of high literary merit, to say nothing about lesser writers."
by Ukrainian
composer, Mykola Lysenko
.
Czech composer
Leoš Janáček
's Taras Bulba
, a symphonic rhapsody for orchestra, was written in the years 1915–1918, inspired in part by the mass slaughter of World War I
. The composition was first performed on 9 October 1921 by František Neumann, and in Prague on 9 November 1924 by Václav Talich
and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
.
The story has been made into several films, with varying degrees of success. The first silent adaptation was in 1909, directed by Aleksandr Drankov. The second, a 1935 German production, was directed by a Russian director Alexis Granovsky, with superb decor by Andrei Andreyev
. A third, in 1936, was produced in Britain under the title The Rebel Son
, starring Harry Baur with a supporting cast of significant British actors. Another adaptation was made in the US in 1962, starring Yul Brynner
and Tony Curtis
and directed by J. Lee Thompson
; this adaptation featured a significant musical score by Franz Waxman
, which received an Academy Award nomination. Bernard Herrmann
called it "the score of a lifetime". "The Ride to Dubno" has become a standard concert piece and has been recorded many times. "Sleighride" uses Schedryk, the Carol of the Bells, as a counterpoint to Waxman's own melody. The finale, an upbeat march as the Cossacks ride into Dubno, is based on a Ukrainian folk song.
A 2008 Russian movie directed by Vladimir Bortko
, was commissioned by the Russian state TV and paid for totally by the Russian Ministry of Culture. It includes Ukrainian, Russian and Polish actors such as Bohdan Stupka
(as Taras Bulba), Ada Rogovtseva (as Taras Bulba's wife), Igor Petrenko (as Andriy Bulba), Vladimir Vdovichenkov
(as Ostap Bulba) and Magdalena Mielcarz
(as a Polish noble girl) premiered in 2009. The movie was filmed at several locations in Ukraine such as Zaporizhia
, Khotyn
and Kamianets-Podilskyi
during 2007. The screenplay used the 1842 "pro Russian" edition of the novel.
The 2010 Hindi movie Veer
starring Salman Khan
is an adaptation of Taras Bulba.
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
historical novel by Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...
. It tells the story of an old Zaporozhian Cossack, Taras Bulba, and his two sons, Andriy and Ostap. Taras’ sons studied at the Kiev Academy and return home. The three men set out on an epic journey to Zaporizhian Sich
Zaporizhian Sich
Zaporizhian Sich was socio-political, grassroot, military organization of Ukrainian cossacks placed beyond Dnieper rapids. Sich existed between the 16th and 18th centuries in the region around the today's Kakhovka Reservoir...
located in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, where they join other Cossacks and go to war against Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
.
Taras Bulba is Gogol’s longest short story. The work is non-fictional in nature with characters that are not exaggerated or grotesque as was common in Gogol's later work, though his characterizations of Cossacks are said by some scholars to be a bit exaggerated. This story can be understood in the context of the romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...
movement in literature, which developed around a historical ethnic culture which meets the romantic ideal.
Plot (1842 revised edition)
Taras Bulba’s two sons, Ostap and Andriy, return home from an OrthodoxEastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
seminary in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
. Ostap is the more adventurous, whereas Andriy has deeply romantic feelings of an introvert. While in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, he fell in love with a young Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
noble girl, the daughter of the Governor of Dubno
Dubno
Dubno is a city located on the Ikva River in the Rivne Oblast of western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of Dubno Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast...
, but after a few meetings, he stopped seeing her when her family returned home. Taras Bulba gives his sons the opportunity to go to war. They reach the Cossack camp at the Zaporozhian Sich, where there is much merrymaking. Taras attempts to rouse the Cossacks to go into battle. He rallies them to replace the existing Hetman
Hetman
Hetman was the title of the second-highest military commander in 15th- to 18th-century Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which together, from 1569 to 1795, comprised the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, or Rzeczpospolita....
when the Hetman is reluctant to break the peace treaty.
They soon have the opportunity to fight the Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
, who rule all Ukraine west of the Dnieper River
Dnieper River
The Dnieper River is one of the major rivers of Europe that flows from Russia, through Belarus and Ukraine, to the Black Sea.The total length is and has a drainage basin of .The river is noted for its dams and hydroelectric stations...
. The Poles are accused of atrocities against Orthodox Christians, in which they are aided by Jews. After killing many of the Jewish merchants at the Sich, the Cossacks set off on a campaign against the Poles. They besiege Dubno Castle
Dubno Castle
The Dubno Castle was founded in 1492 by Prince Konstantin Ostrogski on a promontory overlooking the Ikva River not far from the ancient Ruthenian fort of Dubno, Volhynia....
. Surrounded by the Cossacks and short of supplies, the inhabitants begin to starve. One night a Tatar woman comes to Andriy and rouses him. He finds her face familiar and then recalls she is the servant of the Polish girl he was in love with. She advises him that all are starving inside the walls. He accompanies her through a secret passage starting in the marsh that goes into the monastery inside the city walls. Andriy brings loaves of bread with him for the starving girl and her mother. He is horrified by what he sees and in a fury of love, forsakes his heritage for the Polish girl.
Meanwhile, several companies of Polish soldiers march into Dubno to relieve the siege, and destroy a regiment of Cossacks. A number of battles ensue. Taras learns of his son’s forsaking his Cossack heritage from Yankel the Jew, whom he saved earlier in the story. During one of the final battles, he sees Andriy riding in Polish garb from the castle and has his men draw him to the woods, where he takes him off his horse. Taras then shoots his son from close range. Taras and Ostap continue fighting the Poles. Ostap is captured while his father is knocked out. When Taras regains his composure he learns that his son was taken away by the Poles. Yankel agrees to take him to Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
where Ostap is held captive, hiding Taras in a cart of bricks. Once in Warsaw a group of Jews help Yankel dress Taras as a German count. They go into the prison to see his Ostap, but a guard recognizes Taras as a Cossack. He lets them in and out only after being paid 100 gold pieces, and suggests they go to the Cossacks' execution the following day.
During the execution, Ostap does not make a single sound, even while being broken on the wheel, and only near the end calls out to his father, asking if he "can hear this?" Taras calls out that he can. Yankel turns to him terrified, but he had vanished. Taras returns home to find all of his old Cossack friends dead and younger Cossacks in their place. He goes to war again. The new Hetman wishes to make peace with the Poles, which Taras is strongly against, warning that the Poles are treacherous and will not honor their words. Failing to convince the Hetman, Taras takes his regiment away to continue the assault independently. As Taras predicted, once the new Hetman agrees to a truce, the Poles betray him and kill a number of Cossacks. Taras and his men continue to fight and are finally caught in a ruined fortress, where they battle until the last man is defeated.
Taras is nailed and tied to a tree and set aflame. Even in this state, he calls out to his men to continue the fight, claiming that a new Russian Tsar is coming who will rule the earth. The story ends with Cossacks on the Dniester River
Dniester
The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs through Ukraine and Moldova and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto state of Transnistria.-Names:...
recalling the great feats of Taras and his unwavering Cossack spirit.
Differences between editions
The original 1835 edition reflects the Ukrainian context of the story. In response to critics who called his The Government Inspector "anti-Russian", and under pressure from the Russian government that considered Taras Bulba too Ukrainian, Gogol was forced to revise the book. The 1842 edition was expanded and rewritten to include Russian nationalist themes in keeping with the official tsarist ideology at the time, as well as the author's changing political and aesthetic views (later manifested in Dead SoulsDead Souls
Dead Souls is a novel by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1842, and widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. Gogol himself saw it as an "epic poem in prose", and within the book as a "novel in verse". Despite supposedly completing the trilogy's second part, Gogol...
and Selected Passages from Correspondence with his Friends). The changes included three new chapters and a new ending (in the 1835 edition, the protagonist is not burned at the stake by the Poles). The little-known original edition was translated into Ukrainian and made available to the Ukrainian audience only in 2005.
Depiction of Jews and Poles
Felix Dreizin and David Guaspari in their The Russian Soul and the Jew: Essays in Literary Ethnocentrism discuss "the significance of the Jewish characters and the negative image of the Ukrainian Jewish communityHistory of the Jews in Ukraine
Jewish communities have existed in the territory of Ukraine from the time of Kievan Rus' and developed many of the most distinctive modern Jewish theological and cultural traditions. While at times they flourished, at other times they faced periods of persecution and antisemitic discriminatory...
in Gogol's novel "Taras Bulba," pointing out Gogol's attachment to anti-Jewish prejudices prevalent in Russian and Ukrainian culture." In Léon Poliakov
Leon Poliakov
Léon Poliakov was a French historian who wrote extensively on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.Born into a Russian Jewish family, Poliakov lived in Italy and Germany until he settled in France....
's The History of Antisemitism, the author states that "The 'Yankel' from Taras Bulba indeed became the archetypal
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
Jew in Russian literature. Gogol painted him as supremely exploitative, cowardly, and repulsive, albeit capable of gratitude. But it seems perfectly natural in the story that he and his cohorts be drowned in the Dnieper by the Cossack lords. Above all, Yankel is ridiculous, and the image of the plucked chicken that Gogol used has made the rounds of great Russian authors."
However, the famous brutality of the Cossack Khmelnytsky Uprising
Khmelnytsky Uprising
The Khmelnytsky Uprising, was a Cossack rebellion in the Ukraine between the years 1648–1657 which turned into a Ukrainian war of liberation from Poland...
preceded Gogol's lifetime by about two hundred years and in Taras Bulba as in Gogol's work generally, his treatment of the Jews is realistic and sometimes sympathetic, as in the closing lines of "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich
The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich
"The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich" "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich" "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich" (Russian: Повесть о том, как поссорился Иван Иванович с Иваном Никифоровичем, translit...
." In Yiddish, that character in "The Two Ivans" is referred to as a "balagoola: a well known character in Yiddish literature. In his story "Viy," there is a reference to the Jewish Inkeeper, a common occupation for Jews within the Pale
Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement was the term given to a region of Imperial Russia, in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed, and beyond which Jewish permanent residency was generally prohibited...
at that time and even a reference to the Talmud. There is no mass slaughter of Jews in Taras Bulba nor are they reviled by the narrator. There is a scene where Jews are thrown into a river, a scene where Taras Bulba visits the Jews and seeks their aid and reference by the narrator of the story that Jews are treated inhumanely Certainly Cossacks are portrayed as disparaging Jews in what is obviously serving as comic relief in the story.
Following the 1830–1831 November Uprising
November Uprising
The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...
against the Russian imperial rule in the heartland of Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
– partitioned for 122 years
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
– the Polish people became the subject of an official campaign of discrimination by the Tsarist authorities. "Practically all of the Russian government, bureaucracy, and society were united in one outburst against the Poles. The phobia that gripped society gave a new powerful push to the Russian national solidarity movement" – wrote historian Liudmila Gatagova
Liudmila Gatagova
Liudmila Sultanovna Gatagova is a Russian historian, essayst, and the Research Fellow at the Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, specializing in the international relations and history of the Russian Empire and the Caucasus until the Revolution of 1917, including the...
. It was in this particular context, that in many of Russia's literary works and media of the time Hostility toward the Poles "associated with dark powers" became popular as part of the state policy, especially with the emergence of the Panslavist ideology
Pan-Slavism
Pan-Slavism was a movement in the mid-19th century aimed at unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus was in the Balkans where the South Slavs had been ruled for centuries by other empires, Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Venice...
accusing them of betraying the "Slavic family".
According to sociologist and historian Prof. Vilho Harle
Vilho Harle
Vilho Harle is a Professor of International Relations at University of Lapland in Finland. Harle specializes in analysis of concepts of social order in different cultures, including their moral principles and political structures. In his books, Prof...
, Taras Bulba, published only four years after the rebellion, was a part of this anti-Polish propaganda effort. Inadvertently, Gogol's accomplishment became "an anti-Polish novel of high literary merit, to say nothing about lesser writers."
Adaptations in other media
The story was the basis of an operaTaras Bulba (opera)
Taras Bulba is an opera in four acts by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko. The libretto was written by Mykhailo Starytsky after the novel Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol. The opera, which was unrevised at the time of the composer's death in 1912, was first performed in 1924...
by Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
composer, Mykola Lysenko
Mykola Lysenko
Mykola Vitaliiovych Lysenko was a Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist.- Biography :Lysenko was born in Hrynky, Kremenchuk Povit, Poltava Governorate, the son of Vitaliy Romanovich Lysenko . From childhood he became very interested in the folksongs of Ukrainian peasants and...
.
Czech composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
's Taras Bulba
Taras Bulba (rhapsody)
Taras Bulba is a rhapsody for orchestra by the Czech composer Leoš Janáček. It was composed in 1918 and belongs to the most powerful of Janáček's scores. It is based on the novel by Gogol....
, a symphonic rhapsody for orchestra, was written in the years 1915–1918, inspired in part by the mass slaughter of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. The composition was first performed on 9 October 1921 by František Neumann, and in Prague on 9 November 1924 by Václav Talich
Václav Talich
Václav Talich was a Czech conductor, violinist and pedagogue.- Life :Born in Kroměříž, Moravia, he started his musical career in a student orchestra in Klatovy. From 1897 to 1903 he studied at the conservatory in Prague with Otakar Ševčík...
and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
The Česká filharmonie is a symphony orchestra based in Prague and is the best-known and most respected orchestra in the Czech Republic.- History :...
.
The story has been made into several films, with varying degrees of success. The first silent adaptation was in 1909, directed by Aleksandr Drankov. The second, a 1935 German production, was directed by a Russian director Alexis Granovsky, with superb decor by Andrei Andreyev
André Andrejew
André Andrejew was one of the most important art directors of the international cinema of the twentieth century. He had a distinctive, innovative style. His décors were both expressive and realistic...
. A third, in 1936, was produced in Britain under the title The Rebel Son
The Rebel Son
The Rebel Son, The Barbarian and the Lady or The Rebel Son of Taras Bulba was a 1938 British film, notable as the first film appearance of Patricia Roc. It is a re-working by Alexander Korda of Granowski's 1935 French film adaptation of the Russian novel Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol, set in the...
, starring Harry Baur with a supporting cast of significant British actors. Another adaptation was made in the US in 1962, starring Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on...
and Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...
and directed by J. Lee Thompson
J. Lee Thompson
John Lee Thompson , better known as J. Lee Thompson, was an English film director, active in England and Hollywood.- Early years :...
; this adaptation featured a significant musical score by Franz Waxman
Franz Waxman
Franz Waxman was a German-American composer, known for his bravura Carmen Fantasie for violin and orchestra, based on musical themes from the Bizet opera Carmen, and for his musical scores for films....
, which received an Academy Award nomination. Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
called it "the score of a lifetime". "The Ride to Dubno" has become a standard concert piece and has been recorded many times. "Sleighride" uses Schedryk, the Carol of the Bells, as a counterpoint to Waxman's own melody. The finale, an upbeat march as the Cossacks ride into Dubno, is based on a Ukrainian folk song.
A 2008 Russian movie directed by Vladimir Bortko
Vladimir Bortko
Vladimir Vladimirovich Bortko , born on May 7, 1946 in Moscow, is a Russian film director, screenwriter and producer.-Biography:...
, was commissioned by the Russian state TV and paid for totally by the Russian Ministry of Culture. It includes Ukrainian, Russian and Polish actors such as Bohdan Stupka
Bohdan Stupka
Bohdan Stupka is a popular Ukrainian actor. He was born in Kulykiv, which is in Lviv oblast , Ukraine.Stupka is recognized as the most famous living Ukrainian actor. He has played more than hundred roles in films and over fifty in theaters. Stupka has been awarded the title Artist of Ukraine and...
(as Taras Bulba), Ada Rogovtseva (as Taras Bulba's wife), Igor Petrenko (as Andriy Bulba), Vladimir Vdovichenkov
Vladimir Vdovichenkov
Vladimir Vdovichenkov is a Russian actor.-Early life and education:He was born Vladimir Vladimirovich Vdovichenkov in Gusev, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russian RSFSR, Soviet Union....
(as Ostap Bulba) and Magdalena Mielcarz
Magdalena Mielcarz
Magdalena Mielcarz is a Polish actress and model.In 1997 she graduated from Jaroslaw Dabrowski High School in Warsaw. She then studied at the Department of Journalism and Political Science at Warsaw University. She debuted as an actress in 1989 in a TV mini-series for children.- Filmography...
(as a Polish noble girl) premiered in 2009. The movie was filmed at several locations in Ukraine such as Zaporizhia
Zaporizhia
Zaporizhia or Zaporozhye [formerly Alexandrovsk ] is a city in southeastern Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper River. It is the administrative center of the Zaporizhia Oblast...
, Khotyn
Khotyn
Khotyn is a city in Chernivtsi Oblast of western Ukraine, and is the administrative center of Khotyn Raion within the oblast, and is located south-west of Kamianets-Podilskyi. According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, it has a population of 11,124...
and Kamianets-Podilskyi
Kamianets-Podilskyi
Kamyanets-Podilsky or Kamienets-Podolsky is a city located on the Smotrych River in western Ukraine, to the north-east of Chernivtsi...
during 2007. The screenplay used the 1842 "pro Russian" edition of the novel.
The 2010 Hindi movie Veer
Veer (film)
Veer is a 2010 Hindi film directed by Anil Sharma, and starring Salman Khan, Mithun Chakraborty, Sohail Khan, Jackie Shroff and Zarine Khan. The film, written by Salman Khan, set during the 1825 Pindari movement of Rajasthan, when India was ruled by the British.Veer was released on 22 January 2010...
starring Salman Khan
Salman Khan
Salman Khan is an Indian film actor. He has starred in more than 80 Hindi films.Khan, who made his acting debut with a minor role in the drama Biwi Ho To Aisi with Rekha in a lead role, had his first commercial success with the blockbuster Maine Pyar Kiya , for which he won a Filmfare Award for...
is an adaptation of Taras Bulba.
In popular culture
- Ernest HemingwayErnest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
called Taras Bulba "One of the 10 greatest books of all time." - In Jane SmileyJane SmileyJane Smiley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist.-Biography:Born in Los Angeles, California, Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from John Burroughs School. She obtained an A.B. at Vassar College, then earned an M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the...
's 2007 novel Ten Days In The Hills, the aging director, Max, is asked by a Russian oligarch to consider filming Taras Bulba. - Eugene HützEugene HützEugene Hütz , September 6, 1972) is a Ukrainian-born singer and composer, most notable as the frontman of the critically acclaimed New York Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello. Hütz is also a DJ and actor.-Early life:...
, the Ukrainian-born singer and lyricist of the critically acclaimed New York Gypsy punk rock band Gogol BordelloGogol BordelloGogol Bordello is a Gypsy punk band from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, formed in 1999 and known for theatrical stage shows and persistent touring.Much of the band's sound is inspired by Gypsy music...
, wrote the introduction for the Subculture Books Edition of Taras Bulba, released in December 2008. - The villain in the premiere episode of Disney's animated series Darkwing DuckDarkwing DuckDarkWing Duck is an American animated television series produced by The Walt Disney Company that ran from 1991–1992 on both the syndicated programming block The Disney Afternoon and Saturday mornings on ABC. It featured the eponymous anthropomorphic duck superhero whose alter ego is mild-mannered...
was named Taurus Bulba—a play on the book title and the fact that the character was an anthropomorphic bull. - Taras was an early nom de guerre of Albanian Communist Enver HoxhaEnver HoxhaEnver Halil Hoxha was a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary andthe leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania...
- Taras Boulba is the name of a Belgian IPA from the Belgian brewery Brasserie de la Senne. It is imported to the United States by Shelton Brothers.
- On Steve VaiSteve VaiSteven Siro "Steve" Vai is a three time Grammy Award-winning American guitarist, songwriter and producer who has sold over 15 million albums. Steve Vai is widely known as a flamboyant guitar virtuoso....
's album Fire GardenFire GardenFire Garden is a 1996 album from guitarist Steve Vai. This is his fourth solo album, as Alien Love Secrets is an EP.Fire Garden is divided into two "phases"...
, the last movement of The Fire Garden Suite is called "Taurus Bulba".