CAUTION, HERO! LIFE WITH TARAS BULBA
Gogol’s works are multidimensional and filled with symbols. At first glance, Taras Bulba stands apart. It contains no mysticism or fairy-tale characters. Everything seems clear: struggle, devotion to duty, death, the greatness of the hero. The protagonist is a hero in the literal sense—a positive character.
Looking deeper, more emerges. Let’s set aside patriotism and war. We won’t be the first to do so, for besides the heroic line, there is a romantic one—"very tasty" for adaptations. There’s even a musical, Taras Bulba: A Musical of Love.
Let’s examine life, death, love, and responsibility. Let’s consider the life strategy of an individual. The results of applying such a strategy in building and maintaining relationships. How appropriate is the "heroic" strategy in a family? What role does our character play in raising his children? How do those around a person who follows the "life strategy of Taras Bulba" fare?
We often greet each other with the phrase that opens the work, jokingly. Not always remembering its origin. Usually, we only say the first part. In our mouths, it sounds friendly—familiar. Like this: "And turn around, son!" But if we continue, quoting the original, everything changes: "What a funny one you are! What sort of priestly cassocks are these? And that’s how everyone dresses at the academy?"[1]
These are the first words with which the father greets his sons upon their return home after more than a year’s absence. One might say he welcomes them in a "manly" way—"without sentimentality." The sons should understand their father! He finds it amusing, and they should too. Yet the sons’ reaction is: "They were deeply embarrassed by their father’s reception and stood motionless, their eyes fixed on the ground."[2]
The situation described by the classic feels familiar. If not from personal experience, then from someone close. Parents (especially fathers) often mock their children when they "cross" into adolescence. Some are "lucky" enough to endure this even into adulthood.
One might convince themselves that this hurtful part of the past (which one so wants to change) is normal. Yet memories of it somehow make even grown adults flinch and wish to forget. And then repeat the same with their own children.
The father and husband displays deafness to the feelings and emotions of those close to him. He devalues his children’s education, declaring their "dispatch to Zaporozhye." Because there, "education is education!"[3]. He rudely interrupts his wife as she embraces their son, sending her to set the table. A few pages later, such treatment of his wife comes as no surprise. The hero never shied away from domestic violence. The author recounts that "she endured insults, even beatings; she only received affection out of pity…"[4].
Perhaps behind this emotional deafness lies a fear of his own sensitivity. Perhaps it’s simply tyranny. In any case, those around the "hero" do not have it easy.
Ignoring the feelings of others coexists in our hero with great attention to his own desires. The plan to send his sons to the Sich was made in advance. Taras informs his friends of it and receives their approval. He no longer participates in campaigns himself. "But at the sight of their freshness, stature, and powerful physical beauty, the warrior’s spirit flared within him, and the next day he decided to ride out with them, though the only necessity driving him was stubborn will."[5] Taras already imagines arriving at the Sich with his two handsome sons. The sons are a means to satisfy his pride. Taras Bulba’s "wants" do not account for responsibility toward those left behind. Nor does he consider that in the Sich, he might become a destructive force. Life has changed. There is no war at the moment. A peace treaty exists with the sultan. The leadership positions (in modern terms) in the Sich are held by people who understand the necessity of honoring agreements.
Taras does not want to see these changes. Yet he cannot help but feel them. Perhaps this is another reason for his sudden decision to travel. Personalities of such a "heroic" mold find it difficult to live in peacetime. There are too many nuances to consider. Too many shades to see. To acknowledge that others might be right, thinking differently from the "hero."
He strives for the monochromatic world of the Sich. "Every man who came here forgot and cast aside everything that had occupied him before. He could be said to spit on his past and carelessly surrendered himself to the will and camaraderie of such revelers, who had neither kin, nor home, nor family, save the free sky and the eternal feast of their souls."[6] Yet while in the Sich, Bulba clings more to images of the past. He idealizes what once was, the heroic feats that did not take place here. Reality does not suit him.
Nor does he tolerate the otherness of people. Toward the Other, he shows extreme intolerance and rejection. Moreover, he rationalizes his actions. "Erasing" the unlike from the circle of people justifies morally questionable actions toward them (what is impermissible toward humans becomes permissible toward non-humans). This resembles the strategy of a jailer or a criminal toward a victim.
Bulba knows what is best for his sons (naturally, without asking them). Consider the first battle, where people die, and Andriy meets the Polish girl. Taras Bulba wants to "train" his sons. The words of the Cossack leader that, after the treaty, the Cossacks have no right to "strike the infidels," are empty to Bulba. He simply does not understand that they should be taken seriously. For the sake of his desire, the hero is willing to break an oath "by our faith," about which he speaks so pompously. Here, it’s hard to speak of respect or a mature stance toward his own convictions.
After the Cossack leader’s response: "But there will be no war… And there’s no point in thinking about it,"[7] Taras decides to take revenge.
Soon, the camp is in uproar. The Cossack leader is removed from his post. In his place, they appoint the man whose name Taras whispered. But Taras’s own name—as the initiator—nowhere appears.
Our hero is adept at pulling others into accepting and carrying out decisions that suit him. Moreover, he appears sincere when speaking of "our faith" and when asserting that an oath to an "infidel" means nothing. It recalls Orwell’s "doublethink" from 1984.
Taras Bulba wants to remain in a homogeneous, black-and-white world. The desire for homogeneity, the refusal to change, leads to the destruction of his own potential. Ostap and Andriy are symbols of the possibility of change in our hero’s personality.
Andriy is one side of Taras’s soul. His capacity to admire beauty, tenderness; his pull toward love. Not yet love, but a physical longing that grows into infatuation and could blossom into love. But: "I will kill you." Remember the phrase that became the basis for school jokes: "I gave you life, and I will take it away!"[8]? A typical attitude toward children—as property—characteristic of that time (and not only then). Andriy’s death in this context is inevitable. He is the revolutionary change in Taras. The fruits of revolution rarely survive in their original form.
The evolutionary path for Taras’s personality is Ostap. The younger, "improved" continuation of the father. When introducing the characters, the author writes that Ostap "possessed kindness in a form that could only exist with such a character and in that era."[9]
But killing part of one’s soul does not come without consequence. After killing Andriy, Taras soon loses Ostap too. His chance to evolve.
After this, Taras Bulba moves toward his own death.
1. Gogol, N.V. Selected Works in Two Volumes. Vol. 1. Moscow, "Khudozhestvennaya Literatura," 1978, p. 234.
2. Gogol, N.V. Selected Works in Two Volumes. Vol. 1. Moscow, "Khudozhestvennaya Literatura," 1978, p. 234.
3. Gogol, N.V. Selected Works in Two Volumes. Vol. 1. Moscow, "Khudozhestvennaya Literatura," 1978, p. 235.
4. Gogol, N.V. Selected Works in Two Volumes. Vol. 1. Moscow, "Khudozhestvennaya Literatura," 1978, p. 240.
5. Gogol, N.V. Selected Works in Two Volumes. Vol. 1. Moscow, "Khudozhestvennaya Literatura," 1978, p. 239.
6. Gogol, N.V. Selected Works in Two Volumes. Vol. 1. Moscow, "Khudozhestvennaya Literatura," 1978, p. 251.
7. Gogol, N.V. Selected Works in Two Volumes. Vol. 1. Moscow, "Khudozhestvennaya Literatura," 1978, p. 254.
8. Gogol, N.V. Selected Works in Two Volumes. Vol. 1. Moscow, "Khudozhestvennaya Literatura," 1978, p. 309.
9. Gogol, N.V. Selected Works in Two Volumes. Vol. 1. Moscow, "Khudozhestvennaya Literatura," 1978, p. 244.
