One does not have to be a student of Russian history to recognize the title name as familiar. Mussorgsky’s great opera, based on Pushkin’s historical drama, and on Mussorgsky’s own historical research, has been an exotic and fascinating attraction of all opera lovers for generations, and an immensely gratifying Wagnerian challenge for the greatest bassos of the world, from Chaliapin to Ruggiero Raimondi, for whom the title role has long become a proving ground to show off both their vocal, and especially acting prodigiousness.
But we are here now not to discuss opera or drama. We are here to take advantage of the fact that the name of Boris Godunov rings a loud bell to our well-educated reader, much louder than this name could ever have hoped to elicit under purely historical, that is, non-operatic circumstances.
Pity, though, as Tsar Boris was a truly fascinating figure in his own right, historically speaking. Descendant of a minor branch of an old Tatar family, his father Fedor Ivanovich was quite undistinguished, but his uncle Dmitri Ivanovich was a trusted servant of Tsar Ivan Grozny, from whose great fortune Boris Godunov was able to benefit a lot. But, otherwise, young Boris’s rise was largely of his own doing. Since an early age, he was clever and calculating, using every opportunity as a stepping stone in his spectacular career. At the age of eighteen he became Tsar Ivan Grozny’s dreaded Oprichnik, marrying the daughter of Ivan’s most vicious henchman Malyuta Skuratov. He further benefited from his sister Irina’s marriage to Ivan’s feeble-minded son Fedor, the future Tsar Fedor Ioannovich. (A historical curiosity: as a result of a boyar compromise, on her husband’s death in 1598, Irina Fedorovna Godunova suddenly became the next ruler of Russia, as Irina I, but she was never crowned, removing herself to a monastery as a nun just one week after her accession to the Russian throne.)
Having soon become one of Ivan’s most trusted courtiers, Boris may have played a role, at least according to some accounts, in Ivan’s physical retirement by strangulation, after which he became the most powerful man in Russia, alongside the four-man Regents Council, established to conduct the affairs of the state under the nominal monarch Tsar Fedor, who was of course Boris’s brother-in-law. By very careful intrigue, Boris managed to undermine the four members of the Council, ending up as the sole Regent of Russia during the last thirteen (1585-1598) out of the total fourteen years of Fedor’s reign. Thus the total years of Boris’s stay in power cannot be limited to his official tenure as Tsar (1598-1605), but in fact cover the last twenty years of his life.
There were several truly world-historical events taking place under Boris’s extraordinary rule both as regent and as tsar. The year 1589 marked the official establishment of the Russian Patriarchate, when the factually independent from Constantinople Metropolitan Job [Iov] was finally recognized by Constantinople, and thus by all Eastern Orthodox Christendom, after a hundred years of non-stop bickering, as Patriarch, rather than Metropolitan, settling this matter forever from then on.
Among other earth-shattering events was an unprecedented level of building and construction across Russia. Towns and fortresses were being built along the Volga to protect the Kazan-Astrakhan water route. Existing towns were fortified and beautified. Two fortification walls were built around the center of Moscow. These walls actually convinced an advancing army of Crimean Tatars to turn back, to be eventually defeated by a pursuing Russian army. The most famous fortification of all, however, was the great Stone Wall of Smolensk also known as the Stone Necklace of the Russian Land. A magnificently beautiful national monument, it was to play a vital role in Russia’s Western defenses, and, despite centuries of direct assault and destruction, of which it was the focus, many parts of it have endured up to this day as a testimony to the inspired sturdiness of its engineering and construction.
It was also during the 20-year rule of Boris that foreign merchants and craftsmen started pouring into Russia from the West, bringing trade and numerous technological advances, thus envisaging Peter’s activities more than a century before Peter.
In foreign affairs Boris Godunov was an enlightened ruler preferring peace to war and brains to muscle. His Peace with Sweden, closing down this rather unfortunate legacy of Grozny’s time, was beneficial to Russia, returning to her all the assets previously lost in the Livonian War, and at least temporarily restoring peace to the “Western Front.”
It was very unfortunate, in terms of Boris’s historical legacy, that his last years were marred by pathological fears and suspicions, which finally rose to the level of wholesale paranoia. Ironically and tragically, he was much unliked by the later generations, who did not even blink accusing Boris of murdering Ivan Grozny’s youngster son Dimitri, which would of course become a dominant theme in the Mussorgsky opera. It is true that the death of Ivan’s epileptic son, who was indeed standing between Boris and the throne after the death of Tsar Fedor Ioannovich, was very convenient for Boris, however. the actual evidence is pretty shoddy and under normal circumstances Boris should not have been accused of this crime.
But the reason for such prejudice against him is easy to see. Quite obviously, after his death, the succession of False Dimitris would never accuse him of murdering the boy whom they were now impersonating. But it was different and personal with the Romanov dynasty coming to power in 1613, and ruling Russia for more than three hundred years. The Romanov family could never forgive Boris for persecuting the Romanovs in a power struggle. In 1601, the eldest Romanov Fedor Nikitich was arrested and exiled to a monastery, where he was forced to become a monk under the name of Philaret (the future Patriarch Philaret of Russia). His wife Xenia Ivanovna Romanova-Shestova was also exiled and forced to become a nun, and also exiled was their little son Mikhail, the future first Russian tsar of the Romanov dynasty.
But we are here now not to discuss opera or drama. We are here to take advantage of the fact that the name of Boris Godunov rings a loud bell to our well-educated reader, much louder than this name could ever have hoped to elicit under purely historical, that is, non-operatic circumstances.
Pity, though, as Tsar Boris was a truly fascinating figure in his own right, historically speaking. Descendant of a minor branch of an old Tatar family, his father Fedor Ivanovich was quite undistinguished, but his uncle Dmitri Ivanovich was a trusted servant of Tsar Ivan Grozny, from whose great fortune Boris Godunov was able to benefit a lot. But, otherwise, young Boris’s rise was largely of his own doing. Since an early age, he was clever and calculating, using every opportunity as a stepping stone in his spectacular career. At the age of eighteen he became Tsar Ivan Grozny’s dreaded Oprichnik, marrying the daughter of Ivan’s most vicious henchman Malyuta Skuratov. He further benefited from his sister Irina’s marriage to Ivan’s feeble-minded son Fedor, the future Tsar Fedor Ioannovich. (A historical curiosity: as a result of a boyar compromise, on her husband’s death in 1598, Irina Fedorovna Godunova suddenly became the next ruler of Russia, as Irina I, but she was never crowned, removing herself to a monastery as a nun just one week after her accession to the Russian throne.)
Having soon become one of Ivan’s most trusted courtiers, Boris may have played a role, at least according to some accounts, in Ivan’s physical retirement by strangulation, after which he became the most powerful man in Russia, alongside the four-man Regents Council, established to conduct the affairs of the state under the nominal monarch Tsar Fedor, who was of course Boris’s brother-in-law. By very careful intrigue, Boris managed to undermine the four members of the Council, ending up as the sole Regent of Russia during the last thirteen (1585-1598) out of the total fourteen years of Fedor’s reign. Thus the total years of Boris’s stay in power cannot be limited to his official tenure as Tsar (1598-1605), but in fact cover the last twenty years of his life.
There were several truly world-historical events taking place under Boris’s extraordinary rule both as regent and as tsar. The year 1589 marked the official establishment of the Russian Patriarchate, when the factually independent from Constantinople Metropolitan Job [Iov] was finally recognized by Constantinople, and thus by all Eastern Orthodox Christendom, after a hundred years of non-stop bickering, as Patriarch, rather than Metropolitan, settling this matter forever from then on.
Among other earth-shattering events was an unprecedented level of building and construction across Russia. Towns and fortresses were being built along the Volga to protect the Kazan-Astrakhan water route. Existing towns were fortified and beautified. Two fortification walls were built around the center of Moscow. These walls actually convinced an advancing army of Crimean Tatars to turn back, to be eventually defeated by a pursuing Russian army. The most famous fortification of all, however, was the great Stone Wall of Smolensk also known as the Stone Necklace of the Russian Land. A magnificently beautiful national monument, it was to play a vital role in Russia’s Western defenses, and, despite centuries of direct assault and destruction, of which it was the focus, many parts of it have endured up to this day as a testimony to the inspired sturdiness of its engineering and construction.
It was also during the 20-year rule of Boris that foreign merchants and craftsmen started pouring into Russia from the West, bringing trade and numerous technological advances, thus envisaging Peter’s activities more than a century before Peter.
In foreign affairs Boris Godunov was an enlightened ruler preferring peace to war and brains to muscle. His Peace with Sweden, closing down this rather unfortunate legacy of Grozny’s time, was beneficial to Russia, returning to her all the assets previously lost in the Livonian War, and at least temporarily restoring peace to the “Western Front.”
It was very unfortunate, in terms of Boris’s historical legacy, that his last years were marred by pathological fears and suspicions, which finally rose to the level of wholesale paranoia. Ironically and tragically, he was much unliked by the later generations, who did not even blink accusing Boris of murdering Ivan Grozny’s youngster son Dimitri, which would of course become a dominant theme in the Mussorgsky opera. It is true that the death of Ivan’s epileptic son, who was indeed standing between Boris and the throne after the death of Tsar Fedor Ioannovich, was very convenient for Boris, however. the actual evidence is pretty shoddy and under normal circumstances Boris should not have been accused of this crime.
But the reason for such prejudice against him is easy to see. Quite obviously, after his death, the succession of False Dimitris would never accuse him of murdering the boy whom they were now impersonating. But it was different and personal with the Romanov dynasty coming to power in 1613, and ruling Russia for more than three hundred years. The Romanov family could never forgive Boris for persecuting the Romanovs in a power struggle. In 1601, the eldest Romanov Fedor Nikitich was arrested and exiled to a monastery, where he was forced to become a monk under the name of Philaret (the future Patriarch Philaret of Russia). His wife Xenia Ivanovna Romanova-Shestova was also exiled and forced to become a nun, and also exiled was their little son Mikhail, the future first Russian tsar of the Romanov dynasty.
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