The teaching of prilog as the spiritual basis of the image of Andriy in N.V. Gogol’s story “Taras Bulba”

The article examines the influence of the patristic teaching of prilog (the beginning of a thought) on the formation of the artistic image of kazak Andriy in the story of N.V. Gogol “Taras Bulba”. According to the teachings of Christian theologians, any sin begins with a thought or an image (an idea), with which a person’s conversation is established - a combination, in this case, with the image of a lady, and this image gradually develops into Andriy’s irresistible desire to see the beauty. Being in the captivity of this desire, a person commits the Fall (passion). Andriy goes through all these five stages in the development of the sin. Initially, an abstract image of a beauty appears in his dreams, then, in reality, he saw a Polish lady, and she captivated him with her beauty. Andriy constantly turns to this female image. Having learned that she is in a Polish city besieged by kazaks and is starving, Andriy makes his way to her, forgetting about his honor and duty, betraying his homeland, faith and comrades. His unrepentant sin entails another one - the murder of a son committed by Taras Bulba.