Boris Godunov

Boris Godunov by Alexander Pushkin, translated by Philip L Barbour, 80 pages

The historical Boris Godunov was an influential courtier under Ivan the Terrible, and the brother-in-law of Ivan's feeble-minded son and successor Fyodor.  After Ivan's death, Godunov reigned in Fyodor's name, and was widely accused of having ordered the murder of Fyodor's half-brother and heir, Dimitri.  When Fyodor died heirless several years later, Godunov was himself crowned as Tsar, but around the same time a man claiming to be Dimitri but identified by others as Grigori Otrepyev, a renegade monk, appeared in Poland, where he gained the confidence of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility and launched a war to press his claim to the Muscovite throne.  After Godunov's death, the Russian boyars deserted his son in favor of the pretender, sealing the fate of the Godunov line.

In writing Boris Godunov, Pushkin was clearly influenced by Shakespeare's history plays.  As in those, a few smaller moments are planted in the midst of the grand tragedy of Godunov, including scenes of romance and comedy, complete with an aloof princess and bumbling soldiers.  Interestingly, Pushkin portrays both the cynical imitation of sincerity for political advantage and the cynical perception of genuine sincerity as political calculation.