About this ebook
This is a new translation from the original Russian manuscript of Gogol's classic "Taras Bulba". This edition contains an Afterword by the Translator, a timeline of Gogol's life and works and an Index of Gogol's individual works. An epic tale of a Cossack warrior, this narrative delves deep into themes of honor, warfare, family, and the struggle for independence. The story is set among the Zaporozhe Cossacks in the first half of the 17th century. N.V. Gogol's story is based on the history of the Cossack uprising of 1637-1638, which was crushed by Hetman Nikolai Pototsky. One of the prototypes of Taras Bulba is the alleged ancestor of the famous traveller N.N. Miklouho-Maclay, born in Starodub at the beginning of the 17th century, the Kurennaya ataman of the Zaporozhian army Okhrim Makukha, an associate of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, who had three sons: Nazar, Khoma (Foma) and Omelka (Emelyan). Nazar betrayed his fellow Cossacks and went over to the Polish side because of his love for the Polish lady, his brother Khoma died trying to deliver Nazar to his father, and Emelyan became the ancestor of Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay and his uncle Grigory Ilyich Mikloukha, who studied with Nikolai Gogol and said he had a family legend. The prototype is also one of the leaders of the "Koliivshchyna", Ivan Gonta (d. 1768), who was falsely accused of murdering two sons of his Polish wife, although his wife was Russian and the story was fictitious.
About the author
A Russian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer, Gogol was a personal friedn of Dostoevsky, Turgenev and Tolstoy. He is considered the father of modern Russian realism. His works, including "Dead Souls" and "The Overcoat," are renowned for their satirical depiction of Russian society and bureaucracy. Gogol's blend of realism, grotesque, and absurdism had a profound influence on Russian and world literature.
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