The Story Archive

Boris Godunov

Alexander Pushkin · 1831 CE · Play · Russian · Romantic

A boyar who is believed to have had the child heir murdered takes the crown from a crowd driven into the square to kneel and weep on cue. Six years on, a runaway monk crosses into Poland calling himself the murdered prince, and the dead boy's name raises what no army of his own could. Twenty-three scenes in blank verse and prose, cut to Shakespeare's chronicles rather than French neoclassical tragedy, and built out of Karamzin's History of the Russian State.

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Lineage

Attributes

Genre
HistoricalTragedyPolitical
Theme
Power & CorruptionGuilt & ConscienceLegitimacyAmbition & Hubris
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Ruler / KingTricksterShadow
Plot structure
ChronicleRise and FallPolyphonic
Symbol / motif
The CrownThe GhostBloodThe Mask
Conflict
vs Selfvs Personvs Society
Mode / tone
TragicIronicEpic
Culture / tradition
Russian

Closest analogues