Drama, General & Miscellaneous Drama

Boris Godunov

Name: Boris Godunov
Author: Alexander Pushkin
ISBN: 9781406803808

by Alexander Pushkin, Alfred Hayes (Translator)

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Overview

"Boris Godunov (1825), Pushkin's great history play, recounts the tragic conflict between Tsar Boris and the pretender Dimitri. Following the death of Ivan the Terrible, Boris Godunov became regent for the feebleminded Tsar Fyodor. Dimitri, the heir to Fyodor's throne, died mysteriously, and Boris was suspected of murdering him. When a renegade monk later claims to be Dimitri, he soon becomes a focus for widespread revolt. Pushkin's dramatic account is filled with dazzling poetry and an earthy realism." The Little Tragedies were written in an extraordinary burst of creativity in the autumn of 1830. The four plays are short, highly-charged episodes, each a study in obsession. In The Miserly Knight a father and son are so infatuated with wealth that each would welcome the other's death. Mozart and Salieri presents an elaborate rationalisation of a murder committed in the name of art. In The Stone Guest, Pushkin's Don Juan invites his own destruction by confessing his true identity to his dead rival's widow. A Feast in Time of Plague features a group of survivors celebrating life in the midst of death, with a banquet among the corpses.

About the Author, Alexander Pushkin

Maria Virolainen is director of the Pushkin Studies Department at the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Alexander Dolinin is professor of Russian literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of three books (in Russian) and more than 150 articles (in Russian and English) on Russian and comparative literature.