Taras Bulba

[βαθμιαίος]

My guess is that Taras Bulba was a real person, who happened to have a book written about him, but now the book is more famous than the person.

I think that's my guess, too, since I give Ra the benefit of the doubt in cases where definitive answers are unavailable.

Could it be that the wikipedia author(s), by using terms like "historical" and "non-fictional", are implying that there was an actual figure who was the basis for the book? Certainly. I'm just a little surprised that there is no readily findable definitive answer in this age of google and wikipedia.