Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

Although it may read to modern audiences like a hilarious slapstick comedy, The Inspector-General is actually much more than that. Famed Russian writer Nikolai Gogol intended it to be a veiled but pointed satire of the ineptitude, corruption, and greed that exemplified the Russian bureaucracy in the nineteenth century. The witty play was later used as the basis for a movie version starring Danny Kaye (1949).

In Gogol's historical short novel, Taras Bulba, he takes us on a journey into the world of the ancient Ukrainian Cossacks. Taras Bulba, an old Cossack, sends his two sons Andriy and Ostap to study at the Kiev Academy. After returning, the three men embark on a journey to Zaporizhian Sich in Ukraine to join other Cossacks to go to war against the Polish nobles. Eugene Htz is better known as the singer, lyricist and visionary of the internationally acclaimed Gypsy punk rock band Gogol Bordello. Born in Kiev in 1972, Htz's road to the United States was a long trek through Poland, Hungary, Austria and Italy, an immigrant experience that informs much of his band's material. Descendants of Gypsies called the Serva Roma (a tribe known for its blacksmiths, pottery makers and musicians), his family relocated to Vermont after the Chernobyl meltdown through a Refugee resetelment program. "It's the last place where I wanted to go," Htz says of the Green Mountain State. "Once I saw Sonic Youth in 1989 in Kiev, all I wanted to do is be in New York." It was in 1998 that Htz finally moved to New York and formed what would become the eight-piece lineup of Gogol Bordello. The band's name pays homage to the author of Taras Bulba Nikolai Gogol whose writings remain to be a large influence on the band's ethos, particularly, the innovative treatment of tradition and folklore. Since their formation Gogol Bordello has been described as one of the best live bands of our time and been featured in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Q Magazine and Time Magazine to name a few. NPR described their last album as "the best rock album of the decade. Period." Gogol Bordello have created a new level of musical andlyrical intensity in their continuing cultural crusade to build a bridge between Gypsy music, rock 'n roll, reggae and other brands of rebel music.

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