Gogol's terrible revenge read short. Nikolai Gogol - terrible revenge

Captain Gorobets once celebrated his son’s wedding in Kyiv, which was attended by many people, including the captain’s brother Danilo Burulbash with his young wife, the beautiful Katerina, and his one-year-old son. Only Katerina’s old father, who had recently returned after a twenty-year absence, did not come with them. Everything was dancing when Yesaul brought out two wonderful icons to bless the young people. Then the sorcerer appeared in the crowd and disappeared, frightened by the images.

Danilo and his household return to the farmstead at night across the Dnieper. Katerina is frightened, but her husband is not afraid of the sorcerer, but of the Poles, who are going to cut off the path to the Cossacks, and that’s what he thinks about, sailing past the old sorcerer’s castle and the cemetery with the bones of his grandfathers. However, crosses are staggering in the cemetery and, one more terrible than the other, the dead appear, dragging their bones towards the month itself. Consoling his awakened son, Pan Danilo reaches the hut. His house is small, not roomy for his family and ten selected young men. The next morning a quarrel broke out between Danilo and his gloomy, quarrelsome father-in-law. It came to sabers, and then to muskets. Danilo was wounded, but if it weren’t for the pleas and reproaches of Katerina, who by the way remembered her little son, he would have continued to fight. The Cossacks were reconciled. Katerina soon tells her husband a vague dream that her father is a terrible sorcerer, and Danilo scolds his father-in-law’s busurman habits, suspecting him of being an unchrist, but he is more worried about the Poles, about whom Gorobets again warned him.

After dinner, during which the father-in-law disdains dumplings, pork, and a burner, in the evening Danilo leaves to scout around the old sorcerer’s castle. Climbing onto an oak tree to look out the window, he sees a witch’s room, illuminated by who knows what, with wonderful weapons on the walls and flickering bats. The father-in-law who entered begins to cast a spell, and his whole appearance changes: he is already a sorcerer in filthy Turkish attire. He summons Katerina's soul, threatens her and demands that Katerina love him. The soul does not give in, and, shocked by what has been revealed, Danilo returns home, wakes up Katerina and tells her everything. Katerina renounces her apostate father. In Danila’s basement, a sorcerer sits in iron chains, his demonic castle is burning; not for witchcraft, but for conspiring with the Poles, he will be executed tomorrow. But, promising to start a righteous life, retire to the caves, and with fasting and prayer to appease God, the sorcerer Katerina asks to let him go and thereby save his soul. Fearing her actions, Katerina releases him, but hides the truth from her husband. Sensing his death, the saddened Danilo asks his wife to take care of his son.

As predicted, the Poles come running in like a countless cloud, setting fire to the huts and driving away the cattle. Pan Danilo fights bravely, but the bullet of the sorcerer who appears on the mountain overtakes him. And even though Gorobets jumps to the rescue, Katerina is inconsolable. The Poles are defeated, the wonderful Dnieper is raging, and, fearlessly steering the canoe, the sorcerer sails to his ruins. In the dugout he casts spells, but it is not Katerina’s soul that appears to him, but someone uninvited; Although he is not scary, he is terrifying. Katerina, living with Gorobets, sees the same dreams and trembles for her son. Waking up in a hut surrounded by watchful guards, she finds him dead and goes crazy. Meanwhile, a gigantic horseman with a baby, riding a black horse, gallops from the West. His eyes are closed. He entered the Carpathians and stopped here.

Mad Katerina is looking for her father everywhere to kill him. A certain guest arrives, asking for Danila, mourns him, wants to see Katerina, talks to her for a long time about her husband and, it seems, brings her to her senses. But when he starts talking about how Danilo asked him to take Katerina for himself in case of death, she recognizes her father and rushes to him with a knife. The sorcerer himself kills his daughter.

Beyond Kiev, “an unheard-of miracle appeared”: “suddenly it became visible far to all ends of the world” - the Crimea, and the marshy Sivash, and the land of Galich, and the Carpathian Mountains with a gigantic horseman on the peaks. The sorcerer, who was among the people, runs away in fear, for he recognized in the horseman an uninvited person who had appeared to him during a spell. Night terrors haunt the sorcerer, and he turns to Kyiv, to the holy places. There he kills the holy schema-monk, who did not undertake to pray for such an unheard-of sinner. Now, wherever he steers his horse, he moves towards the Carpathian Mountains. Then the motionless horseman opened his eyes and laughed. And the sorcerer died, and, dead, he saw the dead rising from Kyiv, from the Carpathians, from the land of Galich, and was thrown by a horseman into the abyss, and the dead sank their teeth into him. Another one, taller and scarier than all of them, wanted to rise from the ground and shook it mercilessly, but could not get up.

This story ends with the ancient and wonderful song of the old bandura player in the city of Glukhov. It sings about the war between King Stepan and Turchin and the brothers, the Cossacks Ivan and Peter. Ivan caught the Turkish Pasha and shared the royal reward with his brother. But the envious Peter pushed Ivan and his baby son into the abyss and took all the goods for himself. After Peter's death, God allowed Ivan to choose his brother's execution himself. And he cursed all his descendants and predicted that the last of his kind would be an unprecedented villain, and when his end came, Ivan would appear from the hole on horseback and throw him into the abyss, and all his grandfathers would come from different ends of the earth to gnaw at him, and Petro will not be able to rise and will gnaw at himself, wanting revenge and not knowing how to take revenge. God marveled at the cruelty of the execution, but decided that it would be according to this.

“Terrible Revenge” is a mystical story included in the collection “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” The work dates back to 1831. Initially it was called “Terrible revenge, an ancient tale,” but in subsequent editions part of the name was abolished.

The story colorfully describes Ukrainian life, customs, and Zaporozhye Cossacks. The story is replete with images from Ukrainian folklore. When reading, the influence of folk songs, parables and thoughts becomes obvious.

A Cossack, Danilo Burulbash, with his young wife Katerina and their one-year-old son come to the wedding of the son of Captain Gorobets. The celebration took place quite normally, but as soon as the father brought out the icons to bless the newlyweds, one of the guests suddenly turned into a monster and ran away, frightened by the images.

After this incident, Katerina’s father suddenly appears, having gone missing many years ago. Katerina begins to suffer from nightmares that the sorcerer who ran away from the wedding is her father. In his dreams, he asks his daughter to give up her husband and love him. With his strange behavior, the father only confirms her fears: he does not eat or drink anything, except for some liquid from a bottle that he carries with him. Because of this, the Cossacks also begin to suspect something is wrong.

At this time, ominous phenomena occur: at night, the dead began to rise from the graves in the old cemetery, whose howls spoke of terrible torment.

The exposure of the sorcerer, the death of Danila and the madness of Katerina

There was a quarrel between Danil and his father-in-law, which led to a fight, but Katerina managed to reconcile her husband and father. But Danilo still did not trust his strange father-in-law and decided to follow him. And for good reason. One night, a Cossack noticed that in the abandoned castle, which everyone was wary of, a light came on in one of the windows. He went to the castle and saw through the window how the sorcerer, turning into a monster, summoned the soul of Katerina and demanded that she love him. But the soul was adamant.

Danilo grabbed his father-in-law and imprisoned him behind bars, strengthened by the prayers of the priest so that all witchcraft in this prison would be powerless. However, the sorcerer, playing on his daughter’s feelings and promising that he would become a monk, persuaded her to let him out. Danilo has no idea who freed the prisoner, and Katerina experiences strong emotions because of her action.

Meanwhile, news came of the Poles attacking the farm. Danilo, overcome by a premonition of imminent death, went into battle, ordering his wife to take care of his son.

The Cossack's intuition did not deceive him. On the battlefield, Danilo suddenly noticed his father-in-law in the ranks of the enemy. Deciding to deal with the sorcerer, Danilo rushed towards him, but the sorcerer killed his son-in-law with an accurate shot.

Katerina, having received the news of her husband’s death, again began to have nightmares. In her dreams, her father appeared to her demanding to become his wife. If she refused, he threatened to kill her one-year-old son. Esaul Gorobets took the widow to his house, ordering his people to protect her and the child from the sorcerer. But one night Katerina jumped out of bed shouting: “He’s been stabbed!” Entering the room, she actually saw a dead baby in the crib.

Unable to cope with the grief of losing her husband and son, Katerina lost her mind: she let her hair down, sang and danced half naked in the street. Soon she secretly ran away from the captain and went home to the farm.

After some time, a man arrived at the farm. He said that he fought side by side with Danila and was his best friend. The man also stated that Danilo expressed his last will before his death: he asked a friend to take his widow as his wife.

Then Katerina realized that this Cossack was not at all a friend of her late husband. She recognized the hated sorcerer and rushed at him with a knife. But he snatched the weapon from his daughter’s hands and stabbed her to death, after which he ran away from the farm.

In our new article we have prepared for you. This great work is permeated with the spirit of heroism and respect for the great warriors of the Zaporozhye Sich.

We invite you to familiarize yourself with “The Inspector General,” where the author painted a picture of general fraud, bribery and arbitrariness in Russia, images of rogues and bribe-takers who became the heroes of his play.

After this, a strange phenomenon appeared near Kiev: the Carpathians suddenly became visible. Katerina’s father was racing along a mountain road on a horse, trying to get away from the rider with his eyes closed. The sorcerer discovered a cave in which a schemanik (recluse monk) lived. The killer turned to him with a request to forgive him his sins. However, the schema-monk refused, because the sins were too serious. Then the sorcerer killed the schema-monk and went on the run again, but no matter what road he traveled, any one led him to the Carpathian Mountains and a horseman with his eyes closed. Finally the horseman caught the sorcerer and killed him.

Then the sorcerer saw how dead men with faces similar to his own began to appear around him. And they began to gnaw his flesh.

Denouement: Bandura Player's Song

The reasons for everything that happened become clear from the song of the old bandura player. He tells the story of two brothers, Peter and Ivan, who lived long before the events described. From this story it becomes clear that the fate of Katerina, her father, husband and son was predetermined long ago.

One day, King Stepan promised a generous reward to anyone who could catch the pasha, who could cut down the entire regiment with only a dozen Janissaries. The brothers decided to take on this mission. Ivan was lucky and received the reward, but out of generosity he decided to give his brother half. However, Peter’s pride was still hurt, which is why he set out to take revenge on his brother. When they were traveling to the lands donated by Stepan, Petro threw Ivan off a cliff along with the child he was carrying. Ivan caught on a branch while falling and began to beg to spare at least his son, but his brother threw them into the abyss.

When Ivan appeared before God after his death, he asked for a terrible fate for Peter and his descendants: none of them would be happy, and the last of his brother’s line would become such a monster as the world had never seen. After death, his flesh will be gnawed by his ancestors for an eternity. Petro himself will lie in the ground, also eager to gnaw on his descendant, but will not be able to get up, as a result of which he will gnaw his own flesh and experience terrible torment.

Influence of the work
Gogol’s “Terrible Revenge” is rightfully considered one of the significant works of the author’s early period of creativity. It was she who prompted V. Rozanov to create “The Mystical Page in Gogol” and influenced A. Remizov’s work “Dreams and Pre-sleep”. A. Bely and Yu. Mann dedicated pages of some of their works to “Terrible Revenge.”

• The description of nature, which schoolchildren are asked to memorize as part of the study of the works of N.V. Gogol, is part of the story “Terrible Revenge”.
• The surname Gorobets is also borne by one of the supporting characters in Viya.
• King Stepan, whom the brothers Ivan and Peter serve, is a real person. This refers to the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Stefan Batory. He gave permission to the Cossacks to independently elect a hetman and distribute other high positions. Stefan also helped the Cossacks with organization. There is historical confirmation of the episode in the story in which the king grants land plots to the brothers Ivan and Peter. Stefan Batory really gave lands to the Cossacks who had curried favor. The story mentions the war with the Turks, which is also a historical fact.
• The period in which the main narrative takes place dates back to the reign of Hetman Sagaidachny (the first half of the 17th century). The story of Peter and Ivan took place around the middle of the 16th century.

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In 1831, Gogol wrote the story “Terrible Revenge”. A brief summary of the work is given in this article. This creation of the famous author is included in the collection of his stories “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”. Reading this work, one can note that it has a lot in common with the plot of Gogol’s mystical story “Viy”: the key figures in the stories are fairy-tale creatures from ancient folk legends.

N.V. Gogol. “Terrible revenge” (summary). Introduction

Esaul Gorobets celebrated his son’s wedding in Kyiv. There were many guests there. Among the visitors was his named brother Danila Burulbash with his beautiful wife Katerina, who was considered an orphan. Her mother died and her father disappeared. When the miraculous icons were taken out of the house to bless the newlyweds, it turned out that there was a sorcerer among the guests. He betrayed himself by being afraid of the holy images and disappearing.

N.V. Gogol. “Terrible revenge” (summary). Developments

After the wedding, Danila and his young wife returned home. People said that Katerina's father was an evil sorcerer who sold his soul to the devil. He recently showed up in their family. The young man did not like his father-in-law, and quarrels often broke out between them. There were rumors around the village that as soon as Katerina’s father showed up, strange things began to happen here: the crosses in the cemetery were swinging, the dead were rising from their graves, and their groans could be heard at midnight. Not far from the village stood the sorcerer’s ancestral castle, where he once lived. Curiosity took hold of Danila, and he decided to go to this devil’s lair to see with his own eyes what was going on there. In the evening, having climbed a tall oak tree, the young man sees that the light is burning, that his father-in-law enters there and begins to cast a spell. The sorcerer changes his appearance and summons the soul of Katerina’s daughter, persuading her to love him. Seeing all this, Danila returns home and tells Katerina about everything. She, in turn, renounces her father. In the morning, the son-in-law accuses his father-in-law of being friends with the Poles who attacked his homeland, but not of witchcraft. For this, Katerina's father is put in prison. He is waiting for him. He asks his daughter to forgive him and release him. Katerina. Taking pity on his father, he opens the bars and sets the sorcerer free. Meanwhile, Danila goes to war with the Poles and dies there. The sorcerer's bullet overtook him. Katerina is inconsolable when she learns of her husband’s death. She is terribly worried about the life of her little son. But he was also destroyed by an evil sorcerer, casting an evil spell. Waking up in the middle of the night, a woman finds her child dead in her bed.

From grief she From then on, the inhabitants of the farm began to see a vision, as if a gigantic rider on a black horse was galloping among the Carpathian Mountains. The hero's eyes are closed, he is holding a baby in his hands. And poor Katerina is looking for her father to kill him for all the misfortunes that he caused her. One day a wanderer appears to her and persuades her to become his wife. She recognizes him as a sorcerer and rushes at him with a knife. But the father manages to kill his daughter.

N.V. Gogol “Terrible Revenge” (summary). Ending

The sorcerer flees from these places where a vision with a horseman appeared. He clearly knows who and why he showed up here. The old man runs to the old schema-monk to atone for his sins. But he refuses to do this, and the sorcerer kills him. Now, wherever this son of the devil would go, the road leads him to the Carpathians, where a horseman with a baby is waiting for him. There is nowhere for him to hide from this giant. The rider opened his eyes and laughed. The sorcerer died at that hour and fell into the abyss, where the dead sunk their teeth into him so that he would suffer. This tale of antiquity ends with a song performed by an old bandura player in the city of Glukhov. It tells the story of two brothers Peter and Ivan. Ivan once distinguished himself in the war, for which he was generously rewarded. Despite what he shared with his brother, Peter became jealous of him and decided to kill him. He pushed Ivan and his little son into the abyss, and took his goods for himself.

When the good brother found himself in the Kingdom of Heaven, God allowed his soul to choose the punishment for his murderer. Ivan cursed all the descendants of his blood relative and predicted that the last of his kind would be a terrible villain. The soul of the deceased will appear from the other world and cast the terrible sinner into the abyss, where all his dead ancestors will gnaw at him. Peter will want to take revenge on his brother, but will not be able to rise from the ground. The Lord was surprised at such a terrible punishment, but commanded that it be so.

This is how Gogol twisted the plot. “Terrible Revenge” (a brief summary of the story is given in this article) is one of the master’s less popular works. It is not studied in literature classes at school. But for us this story is of folklore interest. It is based on real ancient folk legends. It is not for nothing that in the first edition the work was subtitled “An Ancient True Story.” This is exactly how N. V. Gogol described him. “Terrible Revenge” is a story written more than a century and a half ago. But even now we read it with trepidation and interest.

Terrible revenge

The end of Kyiv is making noise and thundering - it is Captain Gorobets celebrating the wedding of his son. The captain's named brother, Danilo Burulbash, also arrived with his wife Katerina and one-year-old son. But everyone was surprised that her old father came with her. He left his wife and daughter, and only returned twenty-one years later. The wife was no longer alive, the daughter was married. The father settled with the Burulbashs. He didn’t say anything about where he had been these years.

The guests at the wedding were having fun, drinking a lot, but when the captain raised the icons to bless the newlyweds, Katerina’s father’s whole face changed: “the nose grew and tilted to the side, instead of brown, green eyes jumped, lips turned blue, the chin trembled and became sharpened like a spear , a fang ran out of his mouth, a hump rose from behind his head, and an old Cossack stood...

It is he! “It’s him,” they shouted in the crowd, huddling closely together.

The sorcerer has appeared again! - mothers shouted, grabbing their children in their arms.

The esaul stepped forward majestically and dignifiedly and said in a loud voice, holding up the icons in front of him:

Get lost, image of Satan, there is no place for you here! - and, hissing and clicking his teeth like a wolf, the wonderful old man disappeared."

The young people asked “What kind of sorcerer?”, and the old ones said “There will be trouble!”

The wedding party feasted until late at night. And at night, on an oak (dugout canoe), the Bu-rulbashi went home across the Dnieper. Katerina was gloomy, she was upset by the stories about the sorcerer. And Danilo told her:

It’s not so scary that he’s a sorcerer, but it’s scary that he’s an unkind guest. What kind of whim did he have to drag himself here?

Danilo promised Katerina to burn the old sorcerer, and then showed her the cemetery, past which they sailed, and said that the unclean grandfathers of the sorcerer lie there and rot. When the oak tree turned and began to stick to the wooded shore, some call and screams were heard. The rowers pointed to the cemetery in horror:

“The cross on the grave staggered and a dried-up dead man quietly rose from it. A beard reached to the waist; on his fingers there were long claws, even longer than the fingers themselves. He quietly raised his hands up. His face trembled and became contorted. He apparently endured terrible torment.” It's stuffy for me! It's stuffy!" he groaned in a wild, inhuman voice. His voice, like a knife, scratched his heart, and the dead man suddenly went underground. Another cross staggered and a dead man came out... The third cross staggered... He terribly stretched his arms up, as if wanted to get a month, and screamed as if someone was sawing his yellow bones...

The child, sleeping in Katerina’s arms, screamed and woke up. The lady herself screamed. The rowers dropped their hats into the Dnieper. The gentleman himself shuddered.

Don't be afraid, Katerina! Look: there is nothing! - he said, pointing around. “This sorcerer wants to frighten people so that no one gets to his unclean nest... Listen, Katerina, it seems to me that your father does not want to live in harmony with us.”

So they got to Pan Danil’s grandfather’s mansion. And the farm stands between two mountains, in a narrow valley descending to the Dnieper itself.

The next morning, Katerina’s father appeared in the house and a quarrel began with Burulbash, and then a duel. They fought first with knives, and then with muskets. The sorcerer father wounded Danila.

Father! - Katerina cried, hugging and kissing him. - Don’t be unforgiving, forgive Danil: he won’t upset you anymore!

For you only, my daughter, I forgive! - he answered, kissed her and flashed his strange eyes. Katerina shuddered a little: both the kiss and the strange sparkle of the eyes seemed wonderful to her. She leaned her elbows on the table on which Mr. Danilo was bandaging his wounded hand, thinking about what he had done badly and not like a Cossack, asking for forgiveness without being guilty of anything.

The next day Katerina woke up and told Danil that she had a dream: that her father was the same freak they saw at Yesaul’s wedding, and he told her that he would be a glorious husband for her. Danilo also suspected that Katerina’s father did not believe in God. Father came to dinner and left.

In the evening Danilo sits and writes, and he looks out the window. There was an old castle on the cape of the Dnieper, and it seemed to Danil that a fire flashed in its windows, and then the boat sailing across the Dnieper turned black, and again the light sparkled in the castle. Danila decided to swim to the castle with his faithful Cossack Stetsk, and Katerina asked her and her child to be locked in the bedroom.

They got to the castle, hid it in a thorn bush, and then Danilo climbed a tall oak tree under the window and this is what he found out.

It was Katerina’s father who was in the castle, then he began to look like the sorcerer from the wedding, then the sorcerer began to look like a Turk in his clothes. And Katerina appeared next to him, but she was completely transparent, and her feet did not stand on the ground, but seemed to hang in the air. From his father’s conversation with Katerina, Danilo learned that the sorcerer had stabbed Katerina’s mother to death. Then the woman asked the sorcerer where his Katerina was. And Danilo realized that this was Katerina’s soul, which knows a lot that she herself does not know. And Katerina’s father wants to take her as his wife, that’s why he returned here. He is sure that Katerina will love him. But Katerina’s soul answered the sorcerer like this:

Oh, you are a monster, not my father! - she moaned. - No, it won’t be your way! True, you have taken with your unclean spells the power to summon a soul and torment it; but only God can make her do what he pleases. No, Katerina will never, as long as I remain in her body, decide to do something ungodly. Father, the Last Judgment is near! Even if you weren’t my father, you wouldn’t have forced me to cheat on my beloved, faithful husband.

Danilo understood everything. When he returned and woke up Katerina in the room, she began to tell him her dream. But Danilo told her everything he saw, and it turned out to be Katerina’s dream, only she didn’t remember everything in it.

The Antichrist has the power to summon the soul of every person... If I had known that you had such a father, I would not have married you, I would have abandoned you and would not have accepted the sin of becoming intermarried with the Antichrist tribe.

Danilo! - said Katerina, covering her face with her hands and sobbing, - am I guilty of anything before you?..

Don’t cry, Katerina, I know you now and I won’t leave you for anything. The sins all lie with your father.

No, don't call him my father! He is not my father. God knows, I renounce him, I renounce my father.

He put Danilo the sorcerer in a deep basement and put him in chains, but he is not imprisoned for witchcraft, but for secret betrayal, for conspiracies with the enemies of the Orthodox Russian land. He wanted to sell the Ukrainian people to Catholics and burn down Christian churches everywhere. He only has one day left to live. He persuaded Katerina, begged her, and swore that he would repent. Katerina opened the basement lock to save the future Christian soul and released her father.

On the border road, the Poles are feasting in an inn. They did not gather for a good cause. You can hear them talking about the Zadneprovsky farm of Pan Danil, about his beautiful wife...

Pan Danilo senses imminent death and asks Katerina not to leave her son. Soon there was fun in the mountains. The Poles and Cossacks fought for a long time. And Danilo noticed Katerina’s father among the Poles. He drove his horse straight towards him... They killed Danila, Katerina is killed over his body. And Esaul Gorobets is already making his way to help.

“The Dnieper is wonderful in calm weather, when its full waters freely and smoothly rush through forests and mountains. It neither rustles nor thunders. You look and don’t know whether its majestic width is flowing or not, and it seems as if it is all made of glass, and like a blue mirror road, without measure in width, without end in length, soars and winds through the green world. It is a pleasure then for the hot sun to look back from above and plunge its rays into the cold glassy waters and for the coastal forests to light up brightly in the waters. Green-haired ones! They crowd together with wildflowers to the waters and, bending down, look into them and cannot see enough, and cannot stop admiring their bright sign, and grin at it, and greet it, nodding their branches.

They do not dare to look into the middle of the Dnieper: no one looks into it except the sun and the blue sky. A rare bird will fly to the middle of the Dnieper. Lush! There is no equal river in the world.

The Dnieper is wonderful even on a warm summer night, when everything falls asleep - man, beast, and bird; and God alone majestically looks around the sky and earth and majestically shakes the robe. Stars are falling from the robe. The stars burn and shine over the world and all at once radiate into the Dnieper. The Dnieper holds them all in its dark bosom. Not one will escape from him; will it go out in the sky? The black forest, strewn with sleeping crows, and the anciently broken mountains, hanging down, try to cover it with their long shadow - in vain! There is nothing in the world that could cover the Dnieper.

Blue, blue, he walks in a smooth flow and in the middle of the night, as in the middle of the day; visible as far as the human eye can see. Basking and clinging to the shores from the night cold, it gives off a silver stream; and it flashes like the stripe of a Damascus saber; and he, blue, fell asleep again.

The Dnieper is wonderful even then, and there is no river equal to it in the world! When blue clouds roll across the sky like mountains, the black forest staggers to its roots, the oak trees crack and lightning, breaking between the clouds, illuminates the whole world at once - then the Dnieper is terrible!

Gogol, Nikolai Vasilyevich 69 Water hills thunder, hitting the mountains, and with a shine and a groan they run back, and cry, and flood in the distance."

The sorcerer returned to the dugout after Danil’s funeral and began to angrily cook some herbs. And then he became motionless, with his mouth open, not daring to move, and his hair rose like bristles on his head. And in front of him in the cloud shone someone’s wonderful face, uninvited, uninvited. He had never seen him in his entire life. And an irresistible fear attacked him. The cloud disappeared, and the sorcerer turned white as a sheet, screamed in a wild voice and knocked over the pot.

Katerina moved with the child to Yesaul in Kyiv. She had a dream that the sorcerer promised to kill her child. Katerina blames herself mercilessly for releasing the sorcerer and bringing such trouble upon everyone. Everyone went to bed, it became quiet. Suddenly Katerina screamed and jumped up in the middle of her sleep. The others woke up behind her. She rushed to the cradle and was petrified with fear: in the cradle lay a lifeless child. Everyone was gripped by horror from the unheard of crime.

Katerina has lost her mind, returned to her hut, doesn’t want to hear about Kyiv, and from morning until late evening wanders through the dark oak groves, running around with her knife and looking for her father.

In the morning, some stately guest arrived, introduced himself as a colleague of Burulbash, told how he fought with him, and began to ask Katerina. Katerina came and seemed to not understand his speeches, but finally she seemed to come to her senses and began to listen attentively, like a reasonable person. When the guest started talking about Danila, as if he were almost his own brother, and conveyed Danila’s behest to everyone: “Look, brother Kopyan: when by the will of God I am no longer in the world, take a wife to you, and let her be your wife...”

Katerina fixed her eyes on him terribly. “Ah!” she screamed, “it’s him! It’s the father!” - and rushed at him with a knife.

“Koprian fought with her for a long time, trying to snatch the knife from her. Finally he pulled it out, swung it - and a terrible thing happened: the father killed his insane daughter.” The Cossacks rushed at him, but he jumped on his horse and disappeared from sight.

And then on the Carpathian Mountains, at the very top, a man in a knight’s harness began to appear on a horse, with his eyes closed, and he was visible to everyone as if he was standing close. Among the people there was a sorcerer, when he saw that knight, he jumped on his horse and galloped straight to Kyiv to the holy places... He galloped to one very old schema-monk and began to ask him to pray for his lost soul. But the schema-monk called him “an unheard-of sinner” and refused to pray. Then the horseman killed the schema-monk, and he himself rushed to Kanev, from there through Cherkasy, thinking to get to the Tatars in the Crimea. But no matter how hard I tried to choose the road, for some reason I kept going in the wrong direction. And the road led him again to the Carpathian Mountains. The Horseman descended straight from the cloud, grabbed the sorcerer with one hand and lifted him straight into the air. The sorcerer died instantly. The knight laughed again and threw the sorcerer’s body into the abyss.

Yesaul Gorobets celebrates the wedding of his son in Kyiv. The guests of honor at the wedding are the brave Cossack chieftain Pan Danilo Burulbash and his wife Katerina. In the midst of noisy fun, Gorobets brings out and raises two ancient icons to bless the young. But screams of horror are heard from the festive crowd: at the sight of the icons, one of the Cossacks standing among the people suddenly turns into a terrible hunchbacked old man with a long fang in his mouth. Clicking his teeth, the old man disappears. Elderly people say that this old man is a long-known cursed sorcerer, whose appearance always portends misfortune.

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter II – summary

Danilo Burulbash with his Cossacks and his wife Katerina is sailing on a boat along the Dnieper home from Kyiv, wondering what kind of misfortune the sorcerer who appears at the wedding will bring. Not far from the Danila farm on the other side of the Dnieper there is a gloomy old castle, and near it there is a cemetery with dilapidated crosses. As the Cossacks sail past them, three dead men suddenly rise from their graves. They scream shrilly: “It’s stuffy for me!” - and disappear again. Heavy thoughts oppress Burulbash more and more. He really doesn’t like Katerina’s gloomy, stern father, who recently came to visit them from a foreign land, and whose habits do not at all resemble a Cossack.

Gogol. Terrible revenge. Audiobook

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter III – summary

The next day, at Pan Danila’s farm, Katerina’s gloomy, mysterious father begins rudely asking his daughter and son-in-law why they returned home so late yesterday. A quarrel begins to boil between him and Burulbash. Danilo is indignant: why does his father-in-law never go to church? Both Cossacks begin to fight with sabers, and then shoot at each other with muskets. The battle ends with insincere reconciliation only because of Katerina’s tearful persuasion.

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter IV – summary

Another day later, Katerina tells her husband that she had a dream that the sorcerer who appeared to people in Kyiv was her father, and that he was trying to persuade her to marry him. Katerina and Burulbash sit down to dinner, calling their father. At dinner, Danila is surprised: his father-in-law does not want to eat Christian dumplings, he disdains pork, like a Muslim or a Jew.

In the evening, Burulbash looks out the window and notices that a window has caught fire in a gloomy castle on the other side of the Dnieper. Taking the Cossack Stetsko with him, he goes to the river. Making their way through the thickets of thorns, they suddenly see Katerina’s father passing by them in the same direction. He crosses the Dnieper and disappears from sight near the castle.

Terrible revenge. Cartoon based on the story by N.V. Gogol

Stetsko and Burulbash follow him. Near the wall of the castle, Pan Danilo climbs a tall oak tree and sees through the window a witch’s room, flooded with a mysterious light, with strange signs on the walls, where bats fly. Katerina’s father appears in the room and turns into the same sorcerer who appeared in Kyiv.

The sorcerer casts a spell and the soul of his daughter, woven from airy fog, appears before him. Knowing clearly more than Katerina herself, the soul begins to blame her father: why did he kill her mother? Why does he continue to commit terrible atrocities? The soul falls silent, noticing Burulbash looking out the window. and Pan Danilo quickly descends from the oak tree and returns home.

Gogol "Terrible Revenge". Lithograph by V. Makovsky

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter V – summary

Burulbash tells Katerina about his night trip, and it turns out that she saw everything that happened in the magical room of the old castle in a dream. Danilo becomes convinced that his father-in-law is a villain and an apostate.

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter VI – summary

By order of Burulbash, the Cossacks throw the sorcerer into a deep basement. Tomorrow a terrible execution awaits him. The sorcerer, chained in chains, sits in anguish and sees his daughter, Katerina, walking past. With hot passion, he begins to persuade Katerina to unlock the basement lock, saying that he is afraid not of execution, but of eternal torment in the next world for the atrocities committed. The father convinces his daughter that if she lets him out, he will go to a monastery and, through hard asceticism, atone for at least part of his sins. Succumbing to feminine weakness, Katerina releases her sorcerer father - and faints at the door of the dungeon.

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter VII – summary

Waking up, Katerina sees that her father has disappeared. Nobody knows that she released it herself.

“Terrible Vengeance”, Chapter VIII – summary

Armed Poles gather in a tavern near the village of Burulbash. In the midst of drinking, card games and vile dances, they are preparing to attack the Cossack land.

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter IX – summary

Pan Danilo sits at the table and, in a sad premonition of imminent death, tells Katerina about his previous Cossack exploits. A servant runs in and informs him of the approach of many Poles. At the head of his Cossacks, Burulbash rides out on horseback and heroically fights cruel enemies. In the middle of the battle, Katerina's father appears on a nearby hill, shoots his son-in-law with a musket and kills him. Katerina, running out of the house, collapses sobbing on her husband’s body, and the Lyakhs are put to flight by Captain Gorobets, who has come to the rescue.

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter X – summary

Gogol gives in Chapter X of “Terrible Revenge” a famous poetic description of the Dnieper in calm weather and in a storm. In the middle of a storm, in a secluded place, a sorcerer lands on a boat on the shore. Descending into a secret dugout among the charred stumps, he begins to cast spells. A white cloud thickens in front of him, and a male face familiar to the sorcerer clearly appears in it. Seeing him, the villain turns white as a sheet and screams in a wild voice.

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter XI – summary

Katerina in Kyiv tells Esaul Gorobets about her new terrible dreams. The father again appeared to his daughter in them, demanded to marry him and threatened, if she refused, to kill her baby son from Danila. Gorobets promises to protect Katerina, but that same night her child is found stabbed to death in the cradle.

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter XII – summary

Between Poland, Hungary and Little Russia stand the high Carpathian Mountains. At night, a sleeping knight of enormous stature rides along the tops of the mountains, holding in his hand the reins of a horse, on which a baby page is galloping behind him - also in a dream...

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter XIII – summary

Katerina, half losing her mind, wanders through the dense oak forests, singing plaintive songs about the murdered Cossacks. Early in the morning, a stately young guest comes to her farm, saying that he is an old comrade-in-arms of the fallen Pan Danila. Their friendship was supposedly so strong that Burulbash even bequeathed to him to take Katerina as his wife if she remained a widow. Katerina looks at the newcomer - and suddenly realizes that this is her father. She rushes at him with a knife, but he disappears from sight.

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter XIV – summary

Outside Kiev, the people marvel at the miracle: a wide, majestic picture of the countries and lands neighboring Ukraine opens in the sky. Among them the Carpathian Mountains are visible, and on them is a riding horseman with his eyes closed. The sorcerer also sees this picture and recognizes the knight’s face: it was this that appeared to him during a recent sorcery in a dugout near the Dnieper. The hair on the sorcerer's head stands on end with horror. Screaming as if in a frenzy, he jumps on his horse and rushes like a whirlwind to Kyiv, to the holy places.

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter XV – summary

The sorcerer breaks into the cave of the Kyiv schema-monk and asks to pray for his sinful, lost soul. The schema-monk unfolds his book, but sees that the holy letters in it are filled with blood - which means that there is no and will not be forgiveness for the sinner. The sorcerer kills the schema-monk, again jumps on his horse and tries to get to the Tatars in Crimea, but the horse, against his will, drives straight to the Carpathian Mountains. Near them, the mountain clouds clear at once, and a huge horseman appears before the sorcerer in terrible majesty. Laughing, he grabs the damned wizard with his hand, from which he immediately dies. From Kyiv to the Carpathians, dead people with faces similar to the sorcerer are rising from their graves. The horseman, laughing again, throws the body of Katerina’s father into the abyss. The dead also jump there, starting to gnaw the sorcerer’s corpse with their teeth. And one of the most terrible corpses is tossing and turning heavily in the ground, but due to its enormous growth it cannot rise from it.

Gogol "Terrible Revenge". Lithograph by I. Kramskoy

“Terrible Revenge”, Chapter XVI - summary

In the final, XVI chapter of “Terrible Vengeance,” Gogol explains the essence of the sorcerer’s sin. In the city of Glukhov, a blind bandura player tells people a legend about how in the old days two Cossack friends, Ivan and Petro, lived. For a long time they were inseparable, like brothers, until Ivan, on the orders of King Stefan Batory, caught one glorious Turkish pasha. Ivan shared half of the salary he received for this with Peter, but he envied the feat accomplished by his best friend with black envy. Petro hated Ivan and once on a mountain road he pushed him into the abyss along with his baby son. Ivan managed to grab a branch and, with his son over his shoulders, began to climb up, but Petro, not taking pity on his friend’s pleas, pushed them both back with a pike.

The Heavenly King asked Ivan's soul what kind of torment she herself would assign to Judas-Petro. And Ivan asked God to curse the entire Petro family. Let the last in this family be such a villain that his grandfathers and great-grandfathers would turn in their graves because of his sins, and at the same time Petro would suffer the greatest torment: he ate the earth, unable to rise from it.

And God agreed, when the highest measure of the atrocities of the last of the Petro family was fulfilled, to commit terrible revenge : raise Ivan and his murdered son from the coffin to a high mountain, bring a sorcerer to him, so that the innocently murdered man can throw the villain into a deep abyss. And his grandfathers and great-grandfathers, coming out of their graves, will torment him in this abyss with their teeth - except for Petro himself, who in the ground can only gnaw at himself...