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Audiobook editionPaperback · 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 enjoy battle tales, ghost stories, office comedy and portraits of artists will find all of them here, told with a storyteller's wit.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A father trusts swords over books
- Love draws Andrii across enemy lines
- Taras places brotherhood above blood
- Peter accepts a dangerous bargain
- A coat gives Akakiy new hope
- Pride turns friendship into a feud
- Easy wealth puts talent at risk
- Each narrator guides laughter and fear
- Laughter opens onto something dark
Who’s who
- Taras BulbaAn old Cossack colonel who despises Polish ways, guards his faith and drags his sons off to war so they can learn to be men.
- OstapTaras's steady elder son, loyal and tough, born for command and ready to follow his father into any fight.
- AndriiTaras's younger son, quick and imaginative, who has never forgotten a Polish beauty he once glimpsed in Kief.
- YankelA Jewish tavern keeper saved by Taras, who survives by cunning and later helps him in secret.
- Akakiy AkakievitchA poor Petersburg copying clerk who loves his work and dreams of owning a warm new cloak.
- Ivan IvanovitchA tall, pious, sweet-spoken landowner of Mirgorod who covets his neighbor's old gun.
- Ivan NikiforovitchHis stout, silent neighbor and old friend, who will not trade his gun for a sow.
- TchartkoffA poor young painter who buys a strange portrait and wants fame and money without waiting for either.
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Taras Bulba, and Other Tales
Taras Bulba rides with his two sons to the Cossack Setch, where war and a woman test every loyalty.
Medium level5–10 hours to read20 languages
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“But what painter’s palette has colors sufficiently powerful to express as Gogol has done the profound, ineffable poetry of the sounds and gleams of the night?”
In short
What kind of father greets his sons, home from years at school, by rolling up his sleeves and picking a fight? Taras Bulba does.
Taras Bulba, and Other Tales at a glance
- Reading time
- About 6 h 50 min5 h 25 min fast, 8 h 10 min slow
- Length
- 98,000 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A father tests his sons before the road
Two young men ride home from the seminary at Kief. Their father, Taras Bulba, laughs at their long gowns, then makes the older one, Ostap, prove his temper in a fistfight in the yard. Books are rubbish, he says, and the true school is Zaporozhe, the Cossack stronghold on the Dnieper.
Their mother watches from the doorway, unable even to embrace them. When Taras decides they will leave at dawn, she sits beside their pillows all night, wetting their hair with tears.
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Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 8 h 0 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Gogol, Nikolai. Taras Bulba, and Other Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/taras-bulba-and-other-tales.
Gogol, N. (2026). Taras Bulba, and other tales. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/taras-bulba-and-other-tales
Gogol, Nikolai. Taras Bulba, and Other Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/taras-bulba-and-other-tales.
@book{gogol2026taras,
author = {Gogol, Nikolai},
title = {Taras Bulba, and Other Tales},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/taras-bulba-and-other-tales}
}
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What is Taras Bulba about?
It follows an old Cossack colonel who takes his two sons, fresh from school, to the Zaporozhian camp and then into a war against Poland. The story is about loyalty, faith, brotherhood and what a man will give up for them.
What other stories are in Taras Bulba, and Other Tales?
The collection includes St. John's Eve, The Cloak, Ivan Ivanovitch and Ivan Nikiforovitch, The Portrait and The Carriage. They range from a ghost story to a comedy of neighbors, a tale of a poor clerk and a story of an artist.
Is Taras Bulba a true story?
No, it is a work of fiction, although it is set among real Cossacks in a time of conflict with Poland. Gogol uses real peoples and places, such as the Dnieper and the Setch, but invents the characters and events.
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).
“Who knows? We’re scattered all over the steppes; wherever there’s a hillock, there’s a Cossack.”
More by Nikolai Gogol
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