At school, we were told about him as a hero who put the common cause above the personal, family one. But today’s view of Taras Bulba is different. So who is he — a freedom fighter or a psychopath, a rapist and an abuser?
The murder of a son is a plot repeated in many myths, and even in history. Some fathers did this out of fear that the son would surpass the father and overthrow him from the throne (any father will have to give up his place to his son, but this is not easy to come to terms with!), Others, like Ivan the Terrible, committed murder in a psychopathic fit or through negligence.
But the famous Cossack from Gogol’s epic kills his son deliberately — for crossing into the camp of the enemy. It is difficult for him to accept the fact that his son chose love, not war, and for the sake of love he renounced what is dear to his father: from the Sich, comrades, war, faith.
Like any hero of the epic, embodying a consistent, integral character, Taras does not ask questions. He lives in a black and white world without halftones and doubts. It is difficult for him to experience the loss of power, like all people with psychopathic tendencies.
As long as they are strong and able to subdue, bend and control, they have no equal in strength, confidence and pressure. They do not forgive disobedience to anyone, even their own sons, or especially to them. They have their own, often simple and very rigid cognitive constructs regarding justice and morality.
War is a place where psychopathy easily disguises itself as heroism and where unlimited power over human life is realized.
Killing his son, Taras rises above human law, proclaiming his own law: «I gave birth to you, I will kill you.» It sounds like: “You have always been only my property, and not an individual who has the right to choose. I am God, I gave you life, and I’m taking it back.»
For some, Taras is a hero, courageously fighting for the faith, upholding the right values. But in fact, heroism is not enough: for Taras, peaceful life in the Sich is unbearable, and therefore he specially organizes another campaign in which both his sons and himself die.
War is a place where psychopathy easily disguises itself as heroism and where unlimited power over human life is realized.
Nowadays
It would be a mistake to think that Taras Bulba is forever in the past. This character is still common today.
Of course, fathers cannot physically kill their children with impunity. But the suppression of the individual, the requirement of absolute loyalty to parental values, harsh punishment for trying to «escape» into one’s life, for the desire to choose one’s own path, values and faith is not uncommon.
They beat or humiliate their wives in the same way (like Taras), because everything feminine, feeling, seems to them weakness, and weakness is dangerous, therefore, what is feminine in itself and outside needs to be suppressed.
Since the absence of doubts and the demand for complete submission is the main feature of the Taras, we will most often meet them in the army, politics, and in leadership positions. They fight zealously for what they think is right, and firmly believe that everyone should have the same ideas.
And if you confess and preach otherwise, you, of course, are worthy of destruction, especially if you were part of the circle of those whom they considered their own.