Who is Nikolai Gogol to you?
Bohdan STUPKA, actor, artistic director of Ivan Franko Ukrainian Drama Theater, who plays the title role in the motion picture Taras Bulba:
“One ought to read Nikolai Gogol until it is too late, because our life is short. Gogol will remain alive forever. He is a writer who belongs to the Universe, rather than Ukraine and Russia. I am looking forward to the premiere of the motion picture Taras Bulba produced by Vladimir Bartko. I have put a lot of energy and time in this production. I don’t know the end result; I will watch this movie in Moscow for the first time, along with the audience. Some journalists ask me: “Could you kill your son the way Taras Bulba did?” My answer is no, never. Even if my son turned traitor like Andrii. My Taras is an altogether different character. He killed one of his sons and lost the other one, and then died a martyr’s death. The historical period described by Gogol is a horrible one, packed with violence and death. Bulba was a man who served a cause. He wanted to show his children what war was all about, so they would become real men after baptism by fire. Taras was a man of valor, he thought that his sons would enjoy some adventures in the Zaporozhian Sich, but these adventures turned into a tragedy. As a man, I am totally different compared to Taras Bulba, but impersonating him made me justify rather than condemn this character. I always try to find positive aspects to a negative persona — and vice versa. By the way, in Gogol’s first version of Taras Bulba he is not burned at the stake but flagellated, and he survives.
“To commemorate the author’s jubilee, our drama company’s stage director Valentyn Kozmenko-Delinde has prepared the comedy Marriage starring our leading actors Iryna Doroshenko, Oleksii Bohdanovych, Bohdan Beniuk, Liubov Kubiuk, Vasyl Mazur, Les Serdiuk, et al. The premiere took place on April 4.
“Gogol’s works are marked by versatility. Reading his books we discover something new in ourselves, we find inspiration, we learn to analyze events and people’s actions; also, we are encouraged to learn more about our history, our ancestors.”
Andrii KURKOV, writer:
“Gogol is perhaps the first and only Ukrainian writer who showed us how far one can distance oneself from realism while remaining a realist with a keen sense of humor. I have always loved his mystic stories rooted in Ukrainian folk stories. I believe that this writer built a bridge between Ukraine and the world. Nikolai Gogol demonstrated the universality of the Ukrainian spirit and Ukrainian fiction.”
Sashko POLOZHYNSKY, musician, soloist with the Tartak Rock Group:
“I have read Gogol, of course. At one time I was captivated by his series of stories about Ukraine. I re-read some of them — A Terrible Vengeance and Viy — several times, yet when I had to study his Dead Souls in school I felt ill at ease and the same was true of his St. Petersburg Stories.
Gogol certainly deserves acclaim on the part of readers and our government. However, I still think that he was a Russian rather than Ukrainian writer who was born in Ukraine. Well, everyone interprets Ukrainian in one’s own way. My personal opinion is that Ukrainian books or songs must originate from Ukraine and be in the Ukrainian language.”
