'Taras Bulba and Other Tales' Summary

The main character is based on several historical personalities, and other characters are not as exaggerated or grotesque as was common in Gogol's later fiction. The story can be understood in the context of the Romantic nationalism movement in literature, which developed around a historical ethnic culture which meets the Romantic ideal.

Initially published in 1835 as part of a collection of stories, it was much more abridged and evinced some differences in the storyline compared with the better known 1842 edition, the latter having been described by Victor Erlich as a "paragon of civic virtue and a force of patriotic edification" while the first being "distinctly Cossack jingoism".