Boris Godunov(1825)

This historical play tells the story of the ‘Time of Troubles’ in Russia at the turn of the 17th century. After the death of Feodor, the last tsar of the Rurik dynasty, a struggle for the throne erupted between his wife's brother, Boris Godunov and Grigory Otrepiev, who pretended to be the miraculously surviving Tsarevich Dmitry.

Pushkin liked his own work so much that a phrase from his letter to the poet Pyotr Vyazemsky: "Ah, Pushkin, a bastard!" became a catchphrase.

Pushkin was inspired to write the play by Nikolai Karamzin's ‘History of the Russian State’. Several dozen theatrical productions of ‘Godunov’ have been staged, the play has been adapted for the screen four times and Modest Mussorgsky wrote an opera of the same name, which is still performed on stages worldwide.

Translated by Babette Deutsch, Maurice Baring, Thomas B Shaw, Max Easterman, Constance Garnett, Oliver Elton, Alfred Hayes, A.F.B.Clark, T.Keane, Publisher  Random House, 1936