Boris Fyodorovich Godunov

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Opera in four acts with a prologue by Musorgsky to his own libretto after Pushkin and Kramazin: second version (1874, St Petersburg), original version (seven scenes) (1928, Leningrad), revised versions by Rimsky-Korsakov (1896) and Shostakovich (1959).

Boris Feodorovich Godunov (ca. 1551-1605) was czar of Russia from 1598 to 1605. Although an able and intelligent ruler, he came to suspect widespread subversion and treason and more and more resorted to political terror.

Boris Godunov was born in Moscow. He was a member of the ancient Russian family of Saburov-Godunov of Tatar origin, which migrated from the Golden Horde in the 14th century. The family was close to the Moscow court, and Boris became a favorite of Ivan IV. Although he could probably do no more than sign his name and during his whole life never read a book, Godunov had a natural wit and intelligence which the relatively learned Ivan appreciated. While not an oprichnik, (member of the nobility associated with the court) Godunov was linked with the oprichnina by his marriage to the daughter of Maliuta Skuratov, perhaps the most notorious oprichnik of all and a favorite of Ivan. In 1580 Godunov was promoted to the rank of boyar on the marriage of his sister to Feodor, the son of Ivan IV.

The Regent

When Ivan IV died in 1584, Feodor became czar of Russia. Feodor, however, had the mentality of a child and was temperamentally incapable of taking initiative. Rule, therefore, passed to a dual regency of Nikita Romanovich Yuriev, the Czar's uncle, and Boris Godunov. With the death of Yuriev in 1586, Godunov became Russia's new master in all but name.

Godunov kept a separate court of his own and dealt directly with foreign powers. He is believed to have controlled completely the machinery of the government, especially the security police, headed by his cousin, Simon Godunov, which he used to eliminate his political rivals.

During Godunov's regency, Muscovy's warlike operations dating back to the reign of Ivan IV continued on the various frontiers. In 1590 the Russians became engaged in a war with Sweden that lasted until 1595 and resulted in Moscow's recovery of the territories on the shores of the Gulf of Finland lost under Ivan IV. Sweden, however, retained the port of Narva, which was the real object of Russian ambitions.

Russia also resumed its advance in western Siberia and strengthened its hold there by establishing new military and trading outposts. Russian infiltration in the northern Caucasus continued, and in 1598 Moscow established relations with Georgia.

Significant developments also took place in domestic affairs. Taking advantage of the visit to Moscow by the Patriarch of Constantinople, who came to Russia in quest of alms, Godunov obtained his consent to the elevation of the head of the Russian Church to the rank of patriarch. Job, a nominee of Godunov, was elected by a Russian Church Council in 1589 as the first incumbent of the new office.

Godunov was interested in learning from the West and even thought of establishing a university in Moscow, but he had to abandon the idea because of opposition from the clergy. He did, however, send 18 young men to study abroad. He also promoted foreign trade, concluding commercial treaties with England and with the Hansa.

The Czar

It was not surprising that after Feodor's death in 1598 the head of the Russian Church offered Godunov the crown on behalf of the nation. Although Godunov was well fitted by experience and ability to become czar, he refused the crown, insisting on the convocation of a national assembly. The assembly met in 1598 and duly elected Godunov to the throne. Godunov acquired, however, unlimited autocratic power like any hereditary autocrat.

In spite of all his efforts, Godunov's brief reign witnessed tragic events. In 1601 famine brought disaster to the people. The crops failed again in 1602 and also, to a considerable extent, in 1603. Although the government tried to feed the population of Moscow free of charge, send supplies to other towns, and find employment for the destitute, its measures availed little against the calamity. It has been estimated that more than 100,000 people perished in the capital alone. More and more peasants fled from the center of Muscovy to join the Cossacks. Godunov's attempts to restrain them failed, and mass banditry developed.

The people blamed Godunov for these problems. Rumors spread that he was a criminal and a usurper and that Russia was being punished for his sins. It was rumored that Godunov had plotted to kill Prince Dimitry, the son of Ivan IV, but had mistakenly murdered another boy. It was further alleged that the true prince had escaped and would return to claim his rightful inheritance.

In 1603 a claimant to the throne did appear, professing to be Czarevich Dimitry. The true identity of the Pretender is not known, but it was as Grishka Otrepyev, a runaway monk and former serf of the Romanov family, that Godunov officially denounced him. The Pretender spent the year 1603 canvasing help in Poland. In 1604 he crossed into Muscovy at the head of over a thousand adventurers, chiefly Poles. He proclaimed himself rightful heir to the Russian throne and denounced Godunov as a usurper. A measure of Godunov's unpopularity was the fact that Cossacks and disaffected elements in southwest Russia rallied to the invader in large numbers. As Dimitry marched toward Muscovy, many towns went over to him without a shot being fired.

Czar Godunov himself seemed paralyzed in the Kremlin. He did not personally take the field against the Pretender, although he did attempt to confirm that Prince Dimitry was dead. When it seemed that his efforts might succeed, Godunov died suddenly on April 23, 1605. He was succeeded by his son Feodor II. But in a few months riots broke out in Moscow, and Feodor and his mother were murdered. In June 1605 the Pretender entered the capital in triumph.

Further Reading

One biography of Boris Godunov is Stephen Graham's inadequate Boris Godunof (1933). A fictionalized account is Aleksandr Pushkin's drama, Boris Godunov (1831; trans. 1918). A good study of the Pretender episode is Philip L. Barbour, Dimitry, Called the Pretender: Tsar and Great Prince of All Russia, 1605-1606 (1966). Sergei F. Platonov, The Time of Troubles (1923; trans. 1970), is a classic study of the period. George Vernadsky, A History of Russia, vol. 5, 2 parts (1969), is recommended for general background.

Additional Sources

Emerson, Caryl, Boris Godunov: transpositions of a Russian theme, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.

(1552 - 1605), Tsar of Russia (1598 - 1605).

Tsar Boris Godunov, one of the most famous (or infamous) rulers of early modern Russia, has been the subject of many biographies, plays, and even an opera by Mussorgsky. Boris's father was only a provincial cavalryman, but Boris's uncle, Dmitry Godunov (a powerful aristocrat), was able to advance the young man's career. Dmitry Godunov brought Boris and his sister, Irina, to the court of Tsar Ivan IV, and Boris enrolled in Ivan's dreaded Oprichnina (a state within the state ruled directly by the tsar). Boris soon attracted the attention of Tsar Ivan, who allowed him to marry Maria, the daughter of his favorite, Malyuta Skuratov (the notorious boss of the Oprichnina). Boris and Maria had two children: a daughter named Ksenya and a son named Fyodor. Both children received excellent educations, which was unusual in early modern Russia. Boris's sister Irina was the childhood playmate of Ivan IV's mentally retarded son, Fyodor, and eventually married him. When Tsar Ivan died in 1584, he named Boris as one of Tsar Fyodor I's regents. By 1588, Boris triumphed over his rivals to become Fyodor's sole regent and the effective ruler of Russia.

Boris Godunov has been called one of Russia's greatest rulers. Handsome, eloquent, energetic, and extremely bright, he brought greater skill to the tasks of governing than any of his predecessors and was an excellent administrator. Boris was respected in international diplomacy and managed to make peace with Russia's neighbors. At home he was a zealous protector of the Russian Orthodox Church, a great builder and beautifier of Russian towns, and generous to the needy. As regent, Boris was responsible for the elevation of his friend, Metropolitan Job (head of the Russian Orthodox Church), to the rank of Patriarch in 1589; and Boris's generosity to the Church was rewarded by the strong loyalty of the clergy. Boris continued Ivan IV's policy of rapidly expanding the state to the south and east; but, due to a severe social and economic crisis that had been developing since the 1570s, he faced a declining tax base and a shrinking gentry cavalry force. In order to shore up state finances and the gentry so that he could continue Russia's imperial expansion, Boris enserfed the Russian peasants in the 1590s, tied townspeople to their taxpaying districts, and converted short-term slavery to permanent slavery. Boris also tried to tame the cossacks (bandits and mercenary soldiers) on Russia's southern frontier and harness them to state service. Those drastic measures failed to alleviate the state's severe crisis, but they did make many Russians hate him.

Boris was accused by his enemies of coveting the throne and murdering his rivals. When it was reported that Tsar Ivan IV's youngest son, Dmitry of Uglich (born in 1582), had died by accidentally slitting his throat in 1591, many people believed Boris had secretly ordered the boy's death in order to clear a path to the throne for himself. (Several historians have credited that accusation, but there is no significant evidence linking Boris to the Uglich tragedy.) When the childless Tsar Fyodor I died in 1598, Boris was forced to fight for the throne. His rivals, including Fyodor Romanov (the future Patriarch Filaret, father of Michael Romanov), were unable to stop him from becoming tsar, but they did manage to slow him down. At one point, an exasperated Boris proclaimed that he no longer wanted to become tsar and retired to a monastery. Patriarch Job hastily convened an assembly of clergy, lords, bureaucrats, and townspeople to go to the monastery to beg Boris to take the throne. (This ad hoc assembly was later falsely represented as a full-fledged Assembly of the Land [or Zemsky Sobor] duly convened for the task of choosing a tsar.) In fact, Boris had enormous advantages over his rivals; he had been the ruler of Russia for a decade and had many supporters at court, in the Church, in the bureaucracy, and among the gentry cavalrymen. By clever maneuvering, Boris was soon accepted by the aristocracy as tsar, and he was crowned on September 1, 1598.

For most Russians, the reign of Tsar Boris was an unhappy time. Indeed, it marked the beginning of Russia's horrific Time of Troubles (1598 - 1613). By the end of the sixteenth century, Russia's developing state crisis reached its deepest stage, and a sharp political struggle within the ruling elite undermined Tsar Boris's legitimacy in the eyes of many of his subjects and set the stage for civil war. In his coronation oath, Tsar Boris had promised not to harass his political enemies, but he ended up persecuting several aristocratic families, including the Romanovs. That prompted some of his opponents to begin working secretly against the Godunov dynasty. Contemporaries described the fearful atmosphere that developed in Moscow and the gradual drift of Tsar Boris's regime into increasingly harsh reprisals against opponents and more frequent use of spies, denunciations, torture, and executions.

Early in Tsar Boris's reign catastrophe struck Russia. In the period 1601 - 1603, many of Russia's crops failed due to bad weather. The result was the worst famine in all of Russian history; up to one-third of Tsar Boris's subjects perished. In spite of Boris's sincere efforts to help his suffering people, many of them concluded that God was punishing Russia for the sins of its ruler. Therefore, when a man appeared in Poland-Lithuania in 1603 claiming to be Dmitry of Uglich, miraculously saved from Boris Godunov's alleged assassins back in 1591, many Russians were willing to believe that God had saved Ivan the Terrible's youngest son in order to topple the evil usurper Boris Godunov. When False Dmitry invaded Russia in 1604, many cossacks and soldiers joined his ranks, and many towns of southwestern Russia rebelled against Tsar Boris. Even after False Dmitry's army was decisively defeated in the battle of Dobrynichi (January 1605), enthusiasm for the true tsar spread like wildfire throughout most of southern Russia. Support for False Dmitry even began to appear in the tsar's army and in Moscow itself. A very unhappy Tsar Boris, who had been ill for some time, withdrew from public sight. Despised and feared by many of his subjects, Boris died on April 13, 1605. It was rumored that he took his own life, but he probably died of natural causes. Boris's son took the throne as Tsar Fyodor II, but within six weeks the short-lived Godunov dynasty was overthrown in favor of Tsar Dmitry.

Bibliography

Barbour, Philip. (1966). Dimitry Called the Pretender: Tsar and Great Prince of All Russia, 1605 - 1606. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Crummey, Robert O. (1987). The Formation of Muscovy, 1304 - 1613. London: Longman.

Dunning, Chester. (2001). Russia's First Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Margeret, Jacques. (1983). The Russian Empire and Grand Duchy of Muscovy: A Seventeenth-Century French Account, tr. and ed. Chester Dunning. Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh University Press.

Perrie, Maureen. (1995). Pretenders and Popular Monarchism in Early Modern Russia: The False Tsars of the Time of Troubles. Cambridge, UK.: Cambridge University Press.

Platonov, S. F. (1973). Boris Godunov, Tsar of Russia, tr. L. Rex Piles. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press.

Skrynnikov, Ruslan. (1982). Boris Godunov, tr. Hugh Graham. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press.

Vernadsky, George. (1954). "The Death of Tsarevich Dimitry: A Reconsideration of the Case." Oxford Slavonic Papers 5:1 - 19.

—CHESTER DUNNING

Boris Godunov (Russia) (c. 1551–1605; ruled 1598–1605), tsar of Russia. Boris Fedorovich Godunov rose to prominence at the Russian court in the time of Ivan IV the Terrible's oprichnina. He married the daughter of a leading oprichnik, and his sister Irina became the wife of Tsar Ivan's son Fedor (ruled 1584–1598). When the latter ascended the throne on Ivan's death, Boris was one of the five-man regency for the weak tsar. By 1587 Boris had exiled many of his rivals and become the de facto ruler of Russia. Tsar Fedor's younger brother Dmitrii was given an appanage in Uglich on the upper Volga, and his mysterious death in 1591 gave rise to rumors of Boris's complicity.

Boris, in Fedor's name, led Russia to victory over Sweden in 1590–1595 and recovered the Russian lands lost in the Livonian War. He laid the foundations for Russian expansion into Siberia and heavily strengthened the southern frontier. He convinced the Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople to raise the metropolitan of Moscow to the rank of patriarch in 1589. Nevertheless, the reign of Fedor was a time of hardship. The wars of his father, Ivan IV, had undermined Russian agriculture and general prosperity, and Boris's government issued the first decrees limiting peasant movement—the beginnings of serfdom. Though trade with the Dutch flourished, Russian towns only slowly rebuilt their trade and crafts.

In 1598 the death of Tsar Fedor brought to an end to the dynasty that had ruled the Moscow principality and Russia since the end of the thirteenth century. An Assembly of the Land representing the boyars, gentry, towns, and the church elected Boris tsar over other aristocrats and lesser relatives of the former dynasty. Even as tsar, Boris did not feel secure. In 1600 he exiled Fedor Nikitich Romanov (later Patriarch Filaret) and other members of his clan, as well as their relatives and allies, such as the princes Cherkasskii. Increasingly isolated from the ruling elite, he tried to raise his prestige through the marriage of his daughter to a prince of Denmark. In 1601–1603 bad harvests led to a famine throughout much of Russia. At the end of 1604 the first "false Dmitrii," probably the monk Grigorii Bogdanovich Otrep'ev, appeared on the southern frontier. Supported by a number of Polish magnates, Otrep'ev claimed to be the tsarevich Dmitrii who had died in 1591, the legitimate heir to the throne, miraculously rescued by God. Boris's army was at first able to contain the threat, but Boris suddenly died in April 1605, leaving the throne to his sixteen-year-old son Fedor. At the news of his death, resistance to the false Dmitrii collapsed. As the pretender moved north, the boyars in Moscow, led by the princes Golitsyn, overthrew and murdered Fedor and his mother.

Boris was at once a successful ruler, especially in foreign affairs, and a spectacular failure. The rivalries at his court rendered the state weak at its center in a time of rising social tension in the countryside and on the southern frontier. The result was the period of state collapse and anarchy known as the Time of Troubles.

Bibliography

Platonov, S. F. Boris Godunov, Tsar of Russia. Translated by L. Rex Pyles. Gulf Breeze, Fla., 1973.

Skrynnikov, Ruslan G. Boris Godunov. Translated and edited by Hugh F. Graham. Gulf Breeze, Florida, 1982.

Soloviev, Sergei M. History of Russia. Vol. 14, The Time of Troubles: Boris Godunov and the False Dmitry. Translated and edited by G. Edward Orchard. Gulf Breeze, Fla., 1988.

—PAUL BUSHKOVITCH

Common misspelling(s) of Godunov

• Godounov