12 h 17 minAudiobook16 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Fierce battles, heroic sacrifice, and Slavic folklore meet in tales where adventure carries a human cost.
In Taras Bulba, and Other Tales, Nikolai Gogol brings together short fiction shaped by battle, sacrifice, and folklore. The title tale anchors a collection that invites you into fierce conflict, where heroic action means more than victory and adventure has room for loss.
Slavic folklore adds another pull to these tales, alongside the force of battle and the weight of sacrifice. Read for the adventure, or linger over the contrast between fierce struggle and heroic purpose. Gogol’s collection offers both paths into its world.
What you’ll discover
- The title tale Begin with Taras Bulba, the work that gives this collection its name.
- Fierce battles Enter tales of conflict that place battle at the heart of adventure.
- Heroic sacrifice Explore heroism through sacrifice, where courage carries a cost beyond the struggle itself.
- Slavic folklore Discover the folklore that shares these pages with fierce battles and heroic deeds.
- Adventure in short fiction Follow Gogol into a collection that brings adventure to the short-story form.
Who will love it
Readers who love Cossack adventure, ghost stories told by the stove and comic tales of petty officials will find all three here, along with sharp satire and warm, vivid storytelling.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A father hurries his sons toward war
- Rage against Poland and a bread-carrying secret
- Brotherhood outweighs every other bond
- A wounded father risks everything in Warsaw
- A devil's gold buys a lover and costs a soul
- A poor copyist loses what little he has
- Two best friends sue over a gun and a goose
- A cursed portrait follows a painter's ambition
- A boastful host, a calash, and Gogol's voices
Who’s who
- Taras BulbaAn old, stubborn Cossack colonel who despises book learning, defends the Orthodox faith, and wants his sons to win glory in war.
- OstapTaras's elder son, steady and tough, who proves himself a natural commander in the siege of Dubno.
- AndriiThe younger son, imaginative and passionate, who longs for love and remembers a Polish girl he once saw in Kief.
- Akakiy AkakievitchA meek copyist in a St. Petersburg office who saves for months to replace his worn-out cloak.
- Ivan IvanovitchA tall, courteous, curious landowner in Mirgorod who covets his friend's gun and is furious when called a goose.
- Ivan NikiforovitchThe stout, lazy neighbor and friend who guards his old gun and answers an offer of a sow with an insult.
- TchartkoffA poor, gifted young painter who buys a strange portrait and is tempted by gold and fashionable fame.
- TchertokoutskiA boastful former cavalry officer who invites a general to see his marvelous carriage and then forgets he asked him.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 12 h 17 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 16 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Taras Bulba, and Other Tales
A Cossack father rides with his sons to war, and one son falls in love behind enemy walls.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Nikolai Gogol wrote the tales gathered here in the 1830s and early 1840s, and together they show his two worlds. Gogol was born in Ukraine and wrote in Russian, and he loved both the folk songs of his homeland and the gray offices of the capital.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A father hurries his sons toward war
Old Bulba greets his two sons, Ostap and Andrii, home from the seminary at Kief, by laughing at the long gowns they wear. When Ostap warns him not to laugh, the old man rolls up his sleeves and the two trade punches in the yard. Taras is delighted that his son can fight, and calls him a future Cossack.
Their pale, kind mother can only watch and weep. Taras tells the boys that books and philosophy are rubbish, that a sword is the only mother a Cossack needs, and that he will take them to Zaporozhe within the week. When she cries, he decides to leave the very next morning, and he knocks over the pots in the hut to show what a house means to him.
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What is Taras Bulba, and Other Tales about?
It collects Gogol's Cossack epic Taras Bulba with five shorter tales: St. John's Eve, The Cloak, the story of the two Ivans, The Portrait and The Carriage. Together they mix war, folklore, satire and ghostly mystery.
Is Taras Bulba a true story?
No. It is fiction set in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries among the Zaporozhian Cossacks of Ukraine. Gogol draws on real history, Cossack customs and folk songs, but Taras and his sons are invented.
Who are the Zaporozhian Cossacks and what is the Setch?
The Zaporozhtzi were free Cossack warriors living below the Dnieper rapids. The Setch was their fortified camp, where kurens, or troops, lived in turf-covered sheds and elected their chief, the Koschevoi.
The author
Nikolai Gogol
1809–1852 · Ukrainian-born Russian novelist
Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol (1809–1852) was a Russian writer born in what is now Ukraine. He lived in Saint Petersburg and Rome and died in Moscow. He wrote plays, stories, and novels. His works include The Inspector-General (1836), Taras Bulba (1835), The Overcoat (1842), and Dead Souls (1842).
More by Nikolai Gogol
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