Heavy matte coated paper. Blind embossing + foil stamping on the cover. Liasse
The heroes of N. Gogol’s novella “Taras Bulba” are valiant Zaporozhian Cossacks. Together they form the Zaporozhian brotherhood—a strong, united community of men for whom “there is no bond holier than comradeship” and no “more glorious end” than dying in war “for a holy and Christian cause.” This theme was highlighted as the central one and brilliantly realized in drawings by the People’s Artist of the USSR Alexander Gerasimov (1881–1963). In the history of illustrating Gogol’s novella, this was the first principled attempt to present the novella as a national epic whose hero is the people. A. Gerasimov worked on the illustrations for “Taras Bulba” for a total of forty years. During this time, he created hundreds of sheets in various techniques and color palettes, expressing the wild, impetuous Cossack soul, including sketches for the set designs of an opera production at the Bolshoi Theatre that, unfortunately, was never staged... In 1953, the artist selected works for publication in the book as illustrations. This series of illustrations is reproduced in the present edition; it is supplemented by works published for the first time.
The text is printed according to the following edition: Gogol N. V. Collected Works in 6 vols. — Vol. 2. — Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1952.
The book uses images of works from the collections of the Donetsk Republican Art Museum, the A. M. Gerasimov Estate Museum—a branch of the Tambov Regional Art Gallery, the artist’s family collection, and private collections.
CONTENTS
Igor Vinogradov. The Bonds of Heavenly Brotherhood Taras Bulba. Novella Igor Vinogradov. Commentary
