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Аbstract:

The article is devoted to the study of readers’ receptions of N.V. Gogol “Taras Bulba” in Russia. This work, imbued with a deep religious and patriotic intention, occupies such a significant place in Russian culture that the reviews of readers and critics, the assessments and interpretations of its researchers, dramatizations in the theater, opera and ballet, etc. allows to analyze not only history of the story’s existence, but also to trace the key moments of Russian life in the second half of the 19th–20th centuries. The interaction of the patriotic story’s spiritual lyricism with the contradictory socio-political processes of the era identifies the most significant features of the poetics of Gogol’s work. Enthusiastically received by contemporaries, including A.S. Pushkin, “Taras Bulba” was subsequently met with hostility from domestic liberalradical and Polish nationalist criticism. Continuing to be one of the favorite works of the domestic and foreign readers, the story after 1917 was removed from the Soviet school curriculum and again restored in rights only during the Great Patriotic War. The article presents a detailed analysis of the assessments and interpretations of “Taras Bulba” for more than a century and a half.