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64-495: The story was initially published in 1835 as part of the Mirgorod collection of short stories, but a much expanded version appeared in 1842 with some differences in the storyline. The 1842 text has been described by Victor Erlich  [ ru ] as a "paragon of civic virtue and a force of patriotic edification", contrasting the rhetoric of the 1835 version with its "distinctly Cossack jingoism ". The character of Taras Bulba,

128-464: A " mirror punishment " for highwaymen and street thieves , and was set out in the Sachsenspiegel for murder , and arson that resulted in fatalities. Those convicted as murderers , rapists , traitors or robbers to be executed by the wheel, sometimes termed to be "wheeled" or "broken on the wheel", would be taken to a public stage scaffold site and tied to the floor. The execution wheel

192-544: A Cossack, and only escapes by use of a great bribe. Instead, they attend the execution the following day. During the execution, Ostap does not make a single sound, even while being broken on the wheel , but, disheartened as he nears death, he calls aloud on his father, unaware of his presence. Taras answers him from the crowd, thus giving himself away, but manages to escape. Taras returns home to find all of his old Cossack friends dead and younger Cossacks in their place. He goes to war again. The new Hetman wishes to make peace with

256-456: A Jewish man named Bona Dies underwent the punishment. The authorities stated he remained conscious for four days and nights afterwards. In 1581, the German serial killer Christman Genipperteinga remained conscious for nine days on the breaking wheel before expiring, having been deliberately kept alive with "strong drink". Alternatively, the condemned were spreadeagled and broken on a saltire ,

320-414: A Traveler respectively. Gogol conceived of the stories as circular like a Mirgorod bread ring, and endeavored to exhaustively display in them the panorama of traditional Ukrainian provincial life. “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich” met with disapproval from censors , leading Gogol to pen a preface to the story with thinly veiled contempt for censorship. The preface, however,

384-407: A board, and thus dragged by a horse to the place of execution. The wheel is then slammed twice onto each arm, one blow above the elbow, the other below. Then, each leg gets the same treatment, above and below the knees. The final ninth blow is given at the middle of the spine, so that it breaks. Then, the broken body is woven onto the wheel (i.e., between the spokes), and the wheel is then hammered onto

448-400: A cross consisting of two wooden beams nailed in an "X" shape, after which the victim's mangled body might be displayed on the wheel. Historian Pieter Spierenburg mentions a reference in sixth-century author Gregory of Tours as a possible origin for the punishment of breaking someone on the wheel. In Gregory's time, a criminal could be placed in a deep track, and then a heavily laden wagon

512-543: A display of gross incompetence as a deliberate act of cruelty because just prior to his execution Dolle had converted from Catholicism to the Reformed Church. (Essmeyer was a devout Catholic.) The court did not find sufficient evidence for deliberate malice on Essmeyer's part but sentenced him to two years' hard labour and banned him from ever working again as an executioner. His young son was, on grounds of mercy, acquitted of any culpable wrongdoings. A long struggle between

576-441: A family member). Less severe offenders would be cudgelled "top down", with a lethal first blow to the neck. More heinous criminals were punished "bottom up", starting with the legs, and sometimes being beaten for hours. The number and sequence of blows was specified in the court's sentence (for example, in 1581, the serial killer Peter Niers , found guilty of 544 murders was, after two days of extended torture, given 42 strikes with

640-583: A horse, but on my own things and not on my lectures.” The two epigraphs that Gogol attaches to Mirgorod reveal his intention to present the stories as a cycle : “Mirgorod is an extremely small town near the Khorol river. It has one rope factory, one brick works , four water mills and forty five windmills” and “Although in Mirgorod bread rings are baked from black dough, they are very tasty,” ostensibly taken from works entitled Zyablovsky’s Geography and Notes of

704-458: A man morally worse than a "gallows-bird", a criminal who only deserved hanging for common crimes. He was also a leader in wickedness, since the chief of a gang of brigands (for instance) would be broken on the wheel, while his obscure followers were merely hanged. Philip, Duke of Orléans , who was regent of France from 1715 to 1723, gave the term the sense of impious and callous debauchee, which it has borne since his time, by habitually applying it to

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768-404: A mast or pole, like a crucifixion . After this, the executioner was permitted to decapitate or garrotte the convicted if need be. Alternatively, fire was kindled under the wheel, or the "wheeled" convict was simply thrown into a fire. Occasionally, a small gallows was set up on the wheel, for example, if there were a guilty verdict for theft in addition to murder. Since the body remained on

832-527: A necessity to stay in line with the official tsarist ideology, as well as the author's changing political and aesthetic views (later manifested in Dead Souls and Selected Passages from Correspondence with his Friends ). The changes included three new chapters and a new ending (in the 1835 edition, the protagonist is not burned at the stake by the Poles). Felix Dreizin and David Guaspari in their The Russian Soul and

896-451: A pole, which is then fastened upright with its other end in the ground. The criminal is then to be left dying "afloat" on the wheel and be left to rot. On 1 October 1786 in the County of Tecklenburg , Heinrich Dolle was to be executed by being broken on the wheel, on account of the aggravated murder of a Jew. The court had decided that Dolle should be broken von oben herab : the first stroke of

960-531: A regiment of Cossacks. A number of battles ensue. Taras learns of his son's betrayal from Yankel the Jew, whom he saved earlier in the story. During one of the final battles, he sees Andriy riding in Polish garb from the castle and has his men draw him to the woods, where he takes him off his horse. Taras bitterly scolds his son, telling him "I gave you life, I will take it", and shoots him dead. Taras and Ostap continue fighting

1024-572: Is a scene in Taras Bulba where Jews are thrown into a river, a scene where Taras Bulba visits the Jews and seeks their aid, and reference by the narrator of the story that Jews are treated inhumanely. Following the 1830–1831 November Uprising against the Russian imperial rule in the heartland of Poland – partitioned since 1795 – the Polish people became the subject of an official campaign of discrimination by

1088-648: Is also mentioned in the Chilean expression morir en la rueda , "to die on the wheel", meaning to keep silent about something. The Dutch expression ik ben geradbraakt , literally "I have been broken on the wheel", is used to describe physical exhaustion and pain, like the German expression sich gerädert fühlen , "to feel wheeled", and the Danish expression radbrækket refers almost exclusively to physical exhaustion and great discomfort. In Finnish teilata , "to execute by

1152-548: Is the Russian pronunciation of the name of the Ukrainian city Myrhorod and means "city of peace" in both languages. It is also the setting for the final story in the collection, “ The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich ”. The title reflects the stories’ portrayal of provincial Ukrainian life, similar to Gogol’s successful previous collection, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka . To solidify this connection between

1216-549: Is the more adventurous, whereas Andriy has deeply romantic feelings of an introvert. While in Kiev, he fell in love with a young Polish noble girl, the daughter of the Voivode of Kowno , but after a couple of meetings (edging into her house and in church), he stopped seeing her when her family returned home. Taras Bulba gives his sons the opportunity to go to war. They reach the Cossack camp at

1280-499: The Legenda sanctorum , record that St. Catherine of Alexandria was sentenced to be executed on one of these devices for refusing to renounce her Christian belief, which thereafter became known as the Catherine wheel , also used as her iconographic attribute . It is said the wheel miraculously broke when she touched it; she was then beheaded . As an attribute it is usually shown broken in

1344-574: The German-speaking areas , only a few archaeological discoveries of breaking wheel victims have been documented. In autumn 2013, the skeleton of a man was found in Groß Pankow , Germany, during the laying of Federal Highway 189 ( Bundesstraße 189 ) between Perleberg and Pritzwalk in Brandenburg , whose position and signs of injury indicate death by the "breaking wheel". Based on an iron belt buckle,

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1408-489: The Sikh community and Islamic rulers resulted in execution of Sikhs . In 1746, Bhai Subeg Singh and Bhai Shahbaz Singh were executed on rotating wheels. In Scotland , a servant named Robert Weir was broken on the wheel at Edinburgh in 1603 or 1604 (sources disagree). This punishment had been used infrequently there. The crime had been the murder of John Kincaid , Lord of Warriston , on behalf of his wife, Jean Kincaid . Weir

1472-739: The Zaporozhian Sich , where there is much merrymaking. Taras attempts to rouse the Cossacks to go into battle. He rallies them to replace the existing Hetman when the Hetman is reluctant to break the peace treaty. They soon have the opportunity to fight the Poles , who rule all Ukraine west of the Dnieper River . The Poles, led by their ultra-Catholic king , are accused of atrocities against Orthodox Christians, in which they are aided by Jews. After killing many of

1536-440: The executioner dropped the execution wheel on the shinbones of the convicted person and then worked his way up to the arms. Here, rhythm and number of beatings were prescribed in each case, sometimes also the number of spokes on the wheel. To increase its effect, often sharp-edged timbers were placed under the convict's joints . Later, there were devices in which the convicted person could be "harnessed". Although not commonplace,

1600-562: The Jew: Essays in Literary Ethnocentrism discuss anti-Semitism , pointing out Gogol's attachment to "anti-Jewish prejudices prevalent in Russian and Ukrainian culture". In Léon Poliakov 's The History of Antisemitism , the author states that "The 'Yankel' from Taras Bulba indeed became the archetypal Jew in Russian literature. Gogol painted him as supremely exploitative, cowardly, and repulsive, albeit capable of gratitude". There

1664-555: The Jewish merchants at the Sich, the Cossacks set off on a campaign against the Poles. They besiege Dubno Castle where, surrounded by the Cossacks and short of supplies, the inhabitants begin to starve. One night a Tatar woman comes to Andriy and rouses him. He finds her face familiar and then recalls she is the servant of the Polish girl he was in love with. She advises him that all are starving inside

1728-541: The Poles in accordance with the state policy, especially after the emergence of the Panslavist ideology , accusing them of betraying the "Slavic family". According to sociologist and historian Prof. Vilho Harle , Taras Bulba , published only four years after the rebellion, was a part of this anti-Polish propaganda effort. Inadvertently, Gogol's accomplishment became "an anti-Polish novel of high literary merit, to say nothing about lesser writers." As in other Russian novels of

1792-432: The Poles, which Taras is strongly against, warning that the Poles are treacherous and will not honour their words. Failing to convince the Hetman, Taras takes his regiment away to continue the assault independently. As Taras predicted, once the new Hetman agrees to a truce, the Poles betray him and kill a number of Cossacks. Taras and his men continue to fight and are finally caught in a ruined fortress, where they battle until

1856-461: The Poles. Ostap is captured while his father is knocked out. When Taras regains consciousness he learns that his son was taken prisoner by the Poles. Yankel agrees to take Taras to Warsaw , where Ostap is held captive, hiding Taras in a cartload of bricks. Once in Warsaw, a group of Jews help Yankel dress Taras as a German count. They go into the prison to see Ostap, but Taras unwittingly reveals himself as

1920-455: The Tsarist authorities. "Practically all of the Russian government, bureaucracy, and society were united in one outburst against the Poles. The phobia that gripped society gave a new powerful push to the Russian national solidarity movement" – wrote historian Liudmila Gatagova . It was in this particular context that many of Russia's literary works and popular media of the time became hostile toward

1984-703: The breaking wheel. On 7 June 1757, the French colonist Jean Baptiste Baudreau dit Graveline II was executed on a breaking wheel in front of the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans , Louisiana by the French colonial authorities. At the end of the Revolt of Horea, Cloșca and Crișan , in 1785 (in the Hungarian Principality of Transylvania (1711–1867) ), two of the revolt leaders, Horea and Cloșca, were sentenced to be executed by

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2048-471: The breaking wheel. Crișan hanged himself in prison before that sentence could be carried out. According to a book published the same year by Adam F. Geisler, the two leaders were broken "von unten auf", from bottom up, meaning the lower limbs were broken before the upper limbs, prolonging the torture. The breaking wheel was frequently used in the Great Northern War in the early 1700s. Johann Patkul

2112-451: The collection. In the year of its publication he hailed Gogol as the new “head of Russian literature.” Leo Tolstoy read “Viy” as a young man and counted it among the works of literature that left a “tremendous” impression him. In his book-length study, Nikolai Gogol , 20th-century novelist Vladimir Nabokov was far harsher. Seeing Mirgorod as a rough precursor to Gogol’s later stories like “ The Overcoat ” and calling it “ juvenilia of

2176-509: The era, Turks are treated as barbaric and uncivilized compared to Europeans because of their nomadic nature. Music Film With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz Mirgorod (short story collection) Mirgorod ( Russian : «Миргород» ) is a collection of short stories written by Nikolai Gogol , composed between 1832 and 1834 and first published in 1835. It was significantly revised and expanded by Gogol for an 1842 edition of his complete works. The title Mirgorod

2240-406: The executioner could be instructed to execute the convicted person at the end of the first act, by aiming for the neck or heart in a " coup de grâce ". Even less often, this occurred immediately from the start (from the head down). In the second act, the body was braided into another wooden spoked wheel, which was possible through the broken limbs, or tied to the wheel. The wheel was then erected on

2304-580: The false humorist Gogol,” Nabokov declared: “when I want a good nightmare I imagine Gogol penning in Little Russian dialect volume after volume of Dikanka and Mirgorod stuff about ghosts haunting the banks of the Dnieper , burlesque Jews and dashing Cossacks ." Breaking wheel The breaking wheel , also known as the execution wheel , the Wheel of Catherine or the ( Saint ) Catherine ( 's ) Wheel ,

2368-550: The family legend to Gogol. Another possible inspiration was the hero of the folk song "The deeds of Sava Chaly", published by Mykhailo Maksymovych , about Cossack captain Sava Chaly (executed in 1741 after serving as a colonel in the private army of a Polish noble), whose killing was ordered by his own father for betraying the Ukrainian cause. Taras Bulba's two sons, Ostap and Andriy, return home from an Orthodox seminary in Kiev . Ostap

2432-411: The gap between the beams, breaking the bones. This process was inhumanely repeated several times per limb. Sometimes it was "mercifully" ordered that the executioner should strike the condemned on the chest and abdomen, blows known as coups de grâce ( French : "blows of mercy"), which caused fatal injuries. Without those, the broken man could last hours and even days, during which birds could peck at

2496-481: The helpless victim. Eventually, shock and dehydration caused death. In France, a special grace, the retentum , could be granted, by which the condemned was strangled after the second or third blow, or in special cases, even before the breaking began. In the Holy Roman Empire , the wheel was punishment reserved primarily for men convicted of aggravated murder (murder committed during another crime, or against

2560-544: The last man is defeated. Taras is nailed and tied to a tree and set aflame. Even in this state, he calls out to his men to continue the fight, claiming that a new Tsar is coming who will rule the earth. The story ends with Cossacks on the Dniester River recalling the great feats of Taras and his unwavering Cossack spirit. For reasons that are currently disputed, the 1842 edition was expanded by three chapters and included Russian nationalist themes. Potential reasons include

2624-672: The main hero of this novel, is a composite of several historical personalities. It might be based on the real family history of an ancestor of Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay , Cossack Ataman Okhrim Makukha from Starodub , who killed his son Nazar for switching to the Polish side during the Khmelnytsky Uprising . Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay's uncle, Grigory Illich Miklouho-Maclay, studied together with Gogol in Nizhyn Gymnasium (officially Prince Bezborodko's Gymnasium of Higher Learning, today Nizhyn Gogol State University ) and probably told

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2688-549: The punishment of death was inflicted by decapitation with a large sword, by burning, and by breaking on the wheel. At the time, the Prussian penal code required a criminal to be broken upon the wheel when a particularly heinous crime had been committed. The king always issued an order to the executioner to strangle the criminal (which was done by a small cord not easily seen) before his limbs were broken. The last execution by this stronger form of capital punishment, of Rudolf Kühnapfel,

2752-502: The same sense as the English idiom " rack one's brain " or, as in German, to mangle language. The word roué , meaning a debauched or lecherous person, is French, and its original meaning was "broken on the wheel". As execution by breaking on the wheel in France and some other countries was reserved for crimes of particular atrocity, roué came by a natural process to be understood to mean

2816-595: The scaffold: in a word, after four strokes with a hatchet, the head was separated from the body, and the body quartered. Such was the end of the renowned Patkul: and may God have mercy on his soul! The breaking wheel was used as a form of execution in Germany as recently as the early 19th century. Its use as a method of execution was not fully abolished in Bavaria until 1813, and still in use until 1836 in Hesse-Kassel . In Prussia ,

2880-520: The skeleton was dated to the 15th to 17th centuries. The identity of the man is unknown. A similar archaeological find has since also been discovered in 2014, in Pöls-Oberkurzheim , Styria , Austria. The breaking wheel was also known as a great dishonor, and appeared in several expressions as such. In Dutch , there is the expression opgroeien voor galg en rad , "to grow up for the gallows and wheel", meaning to be destined to come to no good. It

2944-589: The two works, he attached the subtitle: “Stories which are a continuation of the Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka .” The collection is a cycle of four stories, divided into two volumes: Part One Part Two The stories in Mirgorod were composed at different times. “Old World Landowners” was begun in 1832 when Gogol revisited his birthplace of Sorochyntsi after living in Saint Petersburg for five years, “Viy”

3008-437: The use of a wheel that was not heavy enough. The inadequate weight meant that the chest had not been crushed. Furthermore, one of Dolle's arms and one of his legs had not broken according to proper penal procedure. And finally the nail that was customarily hammered through the convict's brain in order to fasten him upon the wheel had been hammered in far too low. Many believed that Essmeyer's act of malpractice had been not so much

3072-450: The utmost horror; for as the headsman had no skill in his business, the wretch under his hands received upwards of fifteen blows, with each of which were intermixed the most piteous groans, and invocations of the name of God. At length, after two strokes given on the breast, his strength and voice failed him. In a faltering dying tone, he was just heard to say, "Cut off my head!" and the executioner still lingering, he himself placed his head on

3136-577: The very bad male company who amused his privacy and his leisure. The locus classicus for the origin of this use of the epithet is in the Memoirs of Saint-Simon . Another French expression is rouer de coups , which means giving a severe beating to someone. In English, the quotation " Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? " from Alexander Pope 's " Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot " is occasionally seen, referring to putting great effort into achieving something minor or unimportant. Medieval hagiographies , such as

3200-404: The walls. He accompanies her through a secret passage starting in the marsh that goes into the monastery inside the city walls. Andriy brings loaves of bread with him for the starving girl and her mother. He is horrified by what he sees and in a fury of love, forsakes his heritage for the Polish girl. Meanwhile, several companies of Polish soldiers march into Dubno to relieve the siege, and destroy

3264-423: The wheel after execution, left to scavenging animals, birds and decay, this form of punishment, like the ancient crucifixion , had a sacral function beyond death: according to the belief at that time, this would hinder transition from death to resurrection . If the convict fell from the wheel still alive or the execution failed in some other way, such as the wheel itself breaking or falling from its placement, it

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3328-456: The wheel and raised it on a pole. The town physician climbed up on a ladder (the Essmeyers had gone by then) and ascertained that Dolle was indeed alive; he died six hours later. The Essmeyers were taken to court for severe malpractice. It was established that the string around Dolle's neck had not been drawn tightly enough, and that Essmeyer had, contrary to his duties as an executioner, accepted

3392-430: The wheel should crush his chest (traditionally thought to kill him instantly). The court instructed the executioner, Essmeyer, that Dolle should be clandestinely strangled (by garrotte ) prior to the first stroke. The bystanders were shocked by what they thought was a severely botched execution by Essmeyer and his son and thought Dolle had been alive during the entire proceeding and also after Essmeyer had secured Dolle onto

3456-577: The wheel", refers to forceful and violent critique or rejection of performance, ideas or innovations. The German verb radebrechen ("to break on the wheel") can refer to speaking incorrectly, for example with a strong foreign accent or with a great deal of foreign vocabulary. Similarly, the Norwegian radbrekke can be applied to art and language, and refers to use which is seen as despoiling tradition and courtesy, with connotations of willful ignorance or malice. In Swedish , rådbråka can be used in

3520-517: The wheel, and was, at last, quartered alive ). Corpses were left for carrion -eaters, and the criminals' heads often placed on a spike. The "Zürcher Blutgerichtsordnung" (Procedures for the Blood Court in Zürich ) dates from the 15th century and contains a detailed description of how the breaking on the wheel shall occur: Firstly, the delinquent is placed belly down, bound hands and feet outstretched to

3584-422: Was a Livonian gentleman who was condemned on charges of treason by Swedish king Charles XII in 1707. The priest Lorentz Hagen was a friend of Patkul's and described the horrors his friend had to endure when Patkul was condemned to be broken on the wheel: Here the executioner gave him the first stroke. His cries were terrible. "O Jesus! Jesus, have mercy upon me!" This cruel scene was much lengthened out, and of

3648-653: Was a torture method used for public execution primarily in Europe from antiquity through the Middle Ages up to the 19th century by breaking the bones of a criminal or bludgeoning them to death. The practice was abolished in Bavaria in 1813 and in the Electorate of Hesse in 1836: the last known execution by the "Wheel" took place in Prussia in 1841. In the Holy Roman Empire it was

3712-561: Was also rejected during printing. As a result, Gogol was forced to hastily add two superfluous pages to “Viy” so that the finished bindings of the first edition would still fit. Though Mirgorod was not an immediate financial success – to Gogol’s dismay – its contemporary critical reception was very positive. Alexander Pushkin singled out “Old World Landowners” in particular as a “comic touching idyll, which forces us to laugh through tears of sadness and tenderness.” The influential 19th-century Russian critic Vissarion Belinsky highly praised

3776-602: Was begun in 1833, and “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich” had previously appeared in the almanac Housewarming (Новоселье) in 1834. The collection came to completion during Gogol’s ill-fated term as Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Petersburg in 1834. This period was very productive for Gogol, as he also worked on The Government Inspector and Dead Souls . Neglecting his duties as professor, Gogol wrote to his friend Mikhail Maximovich of his writing, confiding, “I am working like

3840-405: Was driven over him. Thus, the latter practice could be seen as a symbolic re-enactment of the previous penalty in which people were literally driven over by a wagon. In France, the condemned were placed on a cartwheel with their limbs stretched out along the spokes over two sturdy wooden beams. The wheel was made to revolve slowly, and a large hammer or an iron bar was then applied to the limb over

3904-463: Was interpreted as God 's intervention. There exist votive images of saved victims of the wheel, and there is literature on how best to treat such sustained injuries. The survival time after being "wheeled" or "broken" could be extensive. Accounts exist of a 14th-century murderer who remained conscious for three days after undergoing the breaking wheel. In 1348, during the time of the Black Death ,

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3968-408: Was on 13 August 1841. Since victims' bodies of the breaking wheel were often left exposed to environmental influences over a long period of time, hardly any archaeological features for the "breaking wheel" exist; as a deterrence, the bodies were often left on public display over many years, exposed to wind and weather, birds and other scavenging animals could also take away the remains and bones. In

4032-462: Was secured to a cart wheel and was struck and broken with the coulter of a plough . Lady Warriston was later beheaded. In New York , at least one slave was executed on the breaking wheel following their involvement in a failed slave rebellion in 1712. Between 1730 and 1754, eleven slaves in French Louisiana , who had either killed, assaulted or escaped from their masters, were killed via

4096-425: Was typically a large wooden spoked wheel, the same as was used on wooden transport carts and carriages (often with iron rim ), sometimes purposely modified with a rectangular iron thrust attached and extending blade-like from part of the rim. The primary goal of the first act was the agonizing mutilation of the body, not death. Therefore, the most common form would start with breaking the leg bones . To this end,

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