--- Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
>
> You might also add to that thought (if not to that
> paragraph, which is fine
> as is): as well through the eyes of their greatest
> universally acknoweldged
> greatest proponent and celebrator, Gogol, in Taras
> Bulbas. He's probably
> branded their image as much as anyone, on the basis
> of, if this is what
> their friends say they're like when they're praising
> them, god only knows
> the depths of their savagery.
>
Gogol was a mad reactionary writing 200 years after the fact in an attempt to create a Ukrainian national myth like the Iliad (PS the Cossack-Polish War Gogol describes is viewed by most Ukrainians as a war of national liberation). Sholokov and Tolstoy, who were actually there, present a completely different picture. Of course Gogol's Cossacks were 17th-century professional warriors in Ukraine who lived in gender-segregated communities, whereas Tolstoy and Sholokov's Cossacks are living in the 19th and early 20th century and are mainly farmers with attitude (FWA) living in non-gender-segregated communities along the Don and in Chechnya. Sholokov was himself a Cossack, I believe.
Which is not to say they never did anything bad. ;)
Anyway thanks for the feedback, guys!
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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