Taras Bulba was made into a movie in 1962 starring Yul Brenner and Tony Curtis - The name stuck in my mind so I remembered there was a movie though I didn't know it was based on the book.

Curiously, per Wikipedia entry: "The story line of the film is considerably different from that of Gogol's novel, although it is closer to his expanded 1842 (pro-Russian Imperial) edition than his original (pro-Ukrainian) version of 1835."

So the author put out two versions- one pro-Russian the other pro Ukrainian. Hm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Bulba_(1962_film)