Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
citizens of the towns. The women, in particular, the Bárynya and báryshnya—wives and daughters of the gentry—were compelled to marry these scoundrels. All these things, naturally, inspired such terror in the landed gentry of the Ukraina that they deserted their estates and fled to Moscow.
It Is this last phase of the story which "Bárynya-Sudárynya" depicts—the situation of the "Lady-Madam-Lady" (to give it another version)—in the refrain of the songs. Thus, evidently, it sets forth one side of the story, while the "Kamarynskaya" depicts the other, or the morals and manners of that particular Ukraina as a whole, the actors in both songs being identical. Probably the author of these ballads, with their free, untrammelled form and ancient "Kamarynskaya nakedness"—was, like their hero, a composite—the entire population of the Kamarynskaya Ukraina.
The tradition did not die out. The gentry did not all flee before the representatives of perfect freedom—and did not escape contamination. To that sad fact a decidedly racy historical incident bears witness. I cannot forbear citing it, to complete the picture, although this leaf from the chronicles of a noble family refers to a later date.—About ten miles from Konotop, in the Government of Kursk, is a spot noted in history, called Kosáchya Slobodá (slobodá meaning a large village on the high road with the adjective of kazák added), because there, in 1672, took place the election of Ivan Samoilovich to the office of Hetman of Little Russia. Our concern, however, is not with the Hetman, but with the exploits of a lady who lived near the village—whose alternative name, by the way, was Kosáchya Dubróva, or The Kazáks' Oak-forest. This strip of the Ukraina of Moscow, adjoining the Hétmanshschina (the Hetman's Domain), was, for a long time, the arena of insubordination and high-handed deeds which the landed proprietors permitted themselves to indulge in, taking advantage of their remoteness from the long arm of justice and the possibility of effecting a speedy escape, in case of need, to the Hétmanshschina. The names of noble families which still exist are mentioned in the complaints to the Crown of their victims. Among the noble families was that of Durov. Tradition has preserved the memory of Marfa Durov (or Durova) as a famous brigand. Few men can have rivalled—or even equalled—her. She flourished in the reign of the Empress Anna Ivannovna (1730–1740). The family was influential; Marfa was wealthy and extraordinarily cantankerous. On being left a widow, she recruited her lovers from her own peasants and neighbouring residents; and she occupied her abundant leisure with highway robbery. Recruiting her band from her peasants, she made raids upon her neighbours. Mounted cross-saddle, man-fashion, with a gun slung across her shoulder, a pistol in her pocket, and a sword girt at her side, she galloped at the head of her horde, and behind followed with carts, to transport the booty, more peasants. She ordered them not to sow or reap, telling them it was not worth while to sweat and bake in the hot sun: they could obtain all they needed gratis, provided by the labours of other people. Marfa was in the habit of making her raids in July and August, chiefly, and her slaves, at her bidding, carried home ricks of freshly-reaped grain, stacks of hay, and droves of horned cattle, sheep and pigs—whatever they encountered, in short. She went shares with them when the plunder reached her estate. The shepherds dared offer no resistance. Sometimes, by way of variety, Marfa would make a raid on a settlement, or the manor of a land-owner—and if resistance was difficult, the victims submitted. Then Marfa would order them to give her minions food and drink and would content herself with tribute. She frequently broke into the chests and store-houses of the nobility, and selected for her own use whatever she required; after which she compelled the sufferers to take a solemn oath (and confirm it by kissing a holy picture), that they would not proceed against her for robbery. If they refused, she threatened to call again and ruin them completely, or "let loose the red cock"— that is to say, set fire to their buildings. A good many were wise enough to keep their oath, and them Marfa, as a rule, troubled no further. But those who violated their oath and complained of her suffered for it. The authorities were greedy for bribes, and Marfa Durov was lavish when occasion demanded. All the rural police of the county gave her a free hand, as they did to other insubordinate persons of noble rank, because they grew rich thereby. When complaints were lodged against Marfa, they were generally reported "not proved," because of the impossibility of discovering that the robbery had been perpetrated by none other than Marfa in person. She, like several others in the county, paid regular graft to the police. So the petitioner gained nothing by his complaint, and Marfa felt secure in meting out to him the punishment which she had promised.
Sometimes these noble bandits disagreed among themselves, and civil war broke out. Once such a nobly-born robber attacked Marfa's home with some of his horde, and a bloody combat ensued, which ended in the defeat of Marfa, and the reduction of her buildings and her whole village to ashes. She and her sons (who were still minors) made their escape by hiding in a swamp. But Marfa assembled her horde again (several of her capable assistants had been slain in that fray), and, before proceeding to rebuild her village, she raided her rival's estate, burned his manor to ashes, and slew him with her own hand, her men following her example with his men who had accompanied him in his call upon her.
But Marfa made handsome amends, according to her lights—she had his name and the names of all the people who were slain in this affair, inscribed in a Book of Remembrance, with the commentary, "slain." This was, also, the practice of Ivan the Terrible in regard to his victims; and in keeping with it was the ardent piety of both Tzar Ivan and Marfa. The souls of their murdered victims are prayed for to the present day, and will be, forever.
Marfa was noted for her external devoutness, for she observed all the fasts appointed by the Church (and they are onerously numerous in the Orthodox Russian Church!), never missed a church service on Sundays and Holy Days, and was very zealous in the matter of money donations and of gifts to the Church. When she was about to set out on a piratical expedition, she was accustomed to go first to the priest at Kosáchya Dubróva, and order him to hold a Prayer-Service, and entreat God to grant success to her undertaking. "Hearken, bátko!" she would say to the priest, "if we are successful, we'll bring you a present, because that will mean that you have obtained success for us from God by your prayers. But if we are not successful, then you must excuse me, but we'll warm your hide for you!" So when the priest heard that Marfa Durov had been unsuccessful he apprehended disaster for himself; and she would ride up and administer a sound horsewhipping, because he had not understood how to pray luck for her from God!—Probably she made him hold a Te Deum service in case of success. Assuredly, the unhappy priest of Kosáchya Dubróva had on his hands one of the most complicated cases of conscience and faith upon record!
When Marfa's sons grew up they participated in their mother's crimes—and she instigated them to forms of crime which she could not perpetrate herself. Things went on in this fashion—the priest, unless already reduced to a moral jelly by previous experiences, must have been quite shocked by his power with God—for six or seven years. Then one of the sons proposed something which bettered his mother's teaching—a crime against which Marfa herself revolted; and he also fell out with his brothers. So far, the authorities had never been able to catch Marfa and her gang in the very act of crime, as would be necessary if they were to deal with her effectively. Now, this son secretly gave information in proper quarters as to the time when Marfa and his brothers, with their minions, were intending to "go a-hunting" (as Marfa was wont, pleasantly, to express it), and she was captured, tried, condemned and exiled to Siberia. This third son, who had refrained from taking part in her final "hunt," after betraying her and his brothers, remained the sole heir of the ancestral estate. But he did not reign over it long. His mother, at her departure into exile, had cursed him. Burdened with this curse, he fell into melancholy, and committed suicide. Evidently he, like the priest of Kosáchya Dubróva, was afflicted with a complicated case of conscience.
In the famous Epic Songs of Russia, composed, probably, in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, the greatest of the Bogatýri (Heroes), Ilya of Murom, is always referred to as "the old Kazák." But in ancient times, as any peasant of the far-away localities in the North where these Epics still are sung, will explain, heroic deeds were performed indifferently by men and women, the men being called "bogatýri" and the women "polyánitzi." So perhaps Marfa Durov ranks— by courtesy, at least—as a Polyánitza. At any rate, she was more or less distantly related to Taras Bulba!
The Kazakdom of Little Russia—which is, in general, the region