Janácek began this work in 1915, completing it on March 29, 1918. Frantisek Neumann conducted the premiere at Brno on October 9, 1921. It is scored for double winds and trumpets, plus piccolo, English horn, contrabassoon, standard brass, strings, harp, organ, timpani, and four percussion. His admiration of pre-Soviet Russia in the early years of World War I led to the composition of Taras Bulba, based on the fifteenth century Cossack hero of Nikolai Gogol's "gruesome story" published in 1839.

Taras and his sons, Andrey (or Andri) and Ostap, were sent to besiege the Poles at Dubno, whose voyvode had a daughter Andrey loved in their school days. Seeing her, he defected, whereupon Janácek's rhapsody begins, and so does Jaroslav Vogel's detailed analysis in a still-definitive biography, paraphrased here.

The Death of Andrey. "Sweetly and sadly" the English horn depicts Andrey's inner conflict, followed by his fear of being discovered. The distant sounds of organ and bells "express the prayers and anguish of the besieged" (Janácek's own words). Andrey finally finds his beloved, leading to a "passionate" love scene that starts with the oboe. Amid sounds of fighting outside, a loud, ominous trombone motif tells the son that his father is near. When Andrey joins the battle as a Pole, he comes face to face with Taras; with eyes guiltily downcast. He dismounts and is mortally wounded by his father, who gallops off.

The Death of Ostap. An abrasive string ostinato interrupts a soft, slow harp passage several times, until a two-bar motif in the bass introduces another battle on horseback. Now it is Ostap's turn to die. Captured, he is taken to Warsaw where the Poles dance "a wild mazur[ka] of victory," related to the battle motif earlier in this movement. Ostap, hideously tortured (the E flat clarinet shrieks over fortissimo string tremolos), cries out to his father who has infiltrated the onlookers and pushed forward (the trombone motif from movement 1), but just as suddenly vanishes, to the crowd's amazement. The movement ends with the beheading of Ostap.

The Prophecy and Death of Taras Bulba. After cutting a swath through Polish forces Taras, too, is finally captured and sentenced to death by burning. Nailed to a tree, he laments his lost freedom. This develops into "a mournfully majestic melody over undulating sextuplets in the lower strings, as though Taras were thinking, for the last time, of his leaderless warriors while the flames leap higher...." The enemy dances "a wild krakoviak" around him, but his pain is eased by the daring escape of his warriors, who leap on horseback into the River Dnyster. Alone, as fanfares echo in the distance, Taras has a vision of his people and their "indomitable strength." Bells and organ "herald a majestic apotheosis of Russia," whose soaring new melody is "like the arch of a rainbow of peace, spanning the earth."

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