Taras Bulba

"But the future is unknown and lies before man like an autumn fog rising from the swamps, a fog in which birds fly high and low, fluttering their wings and not recognizing one another, the dove not seeing the hawk, the hawk not seeing the dove, neither knowing how near or far it might be from its destruction."

"If words could only describe what is in a young woman's glance! But neither chisel, nor brush, nor the mightiest of words can capture what at times will fill a woman's look, or the tender feelings that such a glance can unleash in its recipient."

Dubbed by Ernest Hemingway as "one of the ten greatest books of all time," Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol definitely stands up to its reputation. This short novel touches on topics of war, courage, belief, religion, love, betrayal, racism, and many others. It is written in an epic undertone, that only readers familiar with Homer's Illiad would understand or not find peculiar. Also, if you come from Eastern Europe like myself and had to memorize epic war poems in grade school for assignments, you would understand the passion and pride of Ukranian's Zaporozhian Cossack men. They were not perfect. In fact, all they knew was fighting for their rights and beliefs, even if it meant destroying innocence in their paths and even if it meant fighting out of boredom. Fighting the enemy was the only honorable way to live and the most noble way to die. But the one admirable trait in Cossacks was staying true to their faith and culture even in desperate times.

After returning home from school, Taras takes his two sons, Andri and Ostap, under his wing in the Zaporozhian army, where he instills in them the passion for fighting and defending the Cossack faith. However, when Andri meets a beautiful Polish woman and sees the way her people suffer under the Cossack rule, he immediately falls in love and vows to fight on the Polish side instead. Needless to say, Taras is enraged that his own son betrayed his roots, and Andri is killed by his own father without a slightest hint of remorse. Meanwhile, the other son Ostap is taken hostage by the Polish army and Taras is put out of conscience. When he finally wakes up in another town, saved by his comrades, he makes every attempt to find Ostap but only to learn he is to be beheaded. As Ostap goes through public torture, he asks aloud if his father is in the crowd and Taras yells, "I am here!" and then disappears. The death of Ostap deeply wounds him and he returns to fighting the Polish army with renewed vigor. However, outnumbered by the Poles, Taras is eventually brought to his knees and burned on a stake. In his last attempt to save his men, he yells from the stake and advises them to head to the hills and jump in the river, which they obey and manage to escape safely. This makes Taras feel joy in his last moments.

While the Cossack way of fighting is no doubt ruthless, to say the least, no one can blame them because they were oppressed from all sides - by the Polish, the Turks, and the Tatars - all forcing the Cossack people to give up their religion and way of life. When someone is forced to change their beliefs, they are forced to strip off and bury their history, their culture, and their uniqueness. No matter how inhuman this act seems, sadly even centuries later it is still a current event in many parts of the world where multiple religions co-exist.