Once More unto the Speech, Dear Friends: Volume II: The Histories Book

When doing the tasks for a literary birthday Challenge I am participating in, I try each month to pick authors I have never read. For June my choice was Alexander Pushkin, and I selected three titles of his, the first being Boris Godunov.

I wanted to read a bit about Pushkin himself before starting so I visited wiki and while there read a separate link about this play which gave a short outline of the main details leading up to Boris becoming Tsar in the late 1500's and what went on after that. I am embarrassed to admit I had not known that Boris Godunov had been a real person.

This is a play with only 25 short scenes, but a lot happens throughout. Court intrigue, mysterious deaths, battles, romance, treachery and murder. But was Boris really guilty of causing the death of Ivan the Terrible's youngest but illegitimate son? According to the wiki article, his guilt was never established in real life but Pushkin chose to believe Boris was guilty, in order to add more drama to the play. He also
modeled this work on Shakespeare's Henry IV, which of course I will want to read soon so I can compare the two while Boris is still fresh in my mind.

I liked the play; it flowed smoothly from scene to scene, and I was so caught up in the action I found myself holding my breath in more than one spot. This is another work that has shown me that Russian history and literature is not always as intimidating as I have thought. I am looking forward to exploring Russia more thoroughly, and will start with two more works by Pushkin.