Stand in the Moscow square as the bells ring for a new tsar, and watch a man confront the weight of a crown he did not seek and cannot escape. Read Alexander Pushkin’s revolutionary drama completely free online.
Published in 1831, Boris Godunov is the founding text of modern Russian literature. Before Pushkin, Russian drama was a wasteland of neoclassical imitation and courtly spectacle. After Pushkin, it was capable of Shakespearean range, psychological depth, and political danger. The play was banned for five years. It was finally performed, in censored form, in 1870. Its subject was too close, its questions too sharp. A tsar who seizes power, haunted by guilt, threatened by a pretender, abandoned by his people—this was not history. This was prophecy.
The play is set in the Time of Troubles, the chaotic period between the death of Ivan the Terrible and the establishment of the Romanov dynasty. Boris Godunov, a boyar of Tatar descent, has maneuvered himself onto the throne after the death of Ivan’s feeble son. Rumors swirl that Boris murdered the true heir, the Tsarevich Dmitry, a child. A young man emerges in Poland, claiming to be Dmitry, miraculously saved from assassination. He marches on Moscow, gathering supporters. Boris rules, doubts, and dies. The pretender enters the Kremlin. And the people, as Pushkin’s final stage direction notes, “remain silent.”
On this page, you can experience the play that taught Russia to see itself onstage. We offer the complete 1831 text in English translation for online reading.
Book Info
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Title | Boris Godunov |
| Author | Alexander Pushkin |
| Year of Publication | 1831 |
| Genre | Drama, Historical Tragedy |
| Language | English Translation (Original: Russian) |
| Legal Status | Public Domain Worldwide |
| Format | Online Reading |
Read Boris Godunov Online
Hear the bells of Novodevichy and the whispers of the crowd. Begin this revolutionary masterpiece by entering the Kremlin chambers interactively below.
This preview introduces the reluctant tsar and the monk who chronicles his reign. However, the full, tragic narrative—the murder of the innocent, the pretender’s march, the banquet of ghosts, and the final, terrible silence—is available in the complete text for our subscribers.
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About the Play Boris Godunov
Pushkin called Boris Godunov a “romantic tragedy.” He meant it as a declaration of war against the neoclassical rules that had constrained Russian drama for a century. He rejected the unities of time, place, and action. He mixed verse and prose, comedy and tragedy, court and tavern. His model was Shakespeare—not the Shakespeare of refined adaptations but the Shakespeare of history plays, chronicles, crowds.
Boris: The Guilty Tsar
Boris Godunov is Pushkin’s portrait of power as burden. He is not a monster; he is a man who committed a monstrous act and has spent his reign trying to forget it. He is intelligent, capable, genuinely concerned with the welfare of his people. He is also haunted. His children die. His nobles conspire. His conscience will not be still. His great monologue—”I have attained supreme power”—is the finest soliloquy in Russian drama, a meditation on the emptiness of ambition, the loneliness of the throne, the impossibility of escaping the past.
The Pretender
Grigory Otrepyev, the renegade monk who claims to be Dmitry, is Boris’s opposite and his double. He is young, charming, reckless. He does not seek power from guilt or ambition but from youth’s appetite for adventure. He falls in love with Marina Mniszech, the Polish noblewoman, and his desire for her becomes indistinguishable from his desire for the crown. He is not a better man than Boris; he is simply a different kind of man. His success is not moral victory; it is historical contingency.
The People
Pushkin gives the Russian people a role unprecedented in serious drama. They appear throughout the play—in the square, at the monastery, on the road—as chorus, witness, and finally judge. They are manipulated by boyars, frightened by authority, capable of pity and cruelty. Pushkin does not romanticize them; he observes them. Their final silence, confronting the new tsar, is the play’s most famous and most ambiguous moment. Are they silent in assent? In fear? In judgment? Pushkin does not say. He only records.
The Monk Pimen
Pimen, the chronicler of the Miracle Monastery, is the play’s moral center. He is old, calm, detached from the struggles of the present. He writes history, the true record of events, the testimony that will outlast tsars and pretenders. He tells Grigory the story of Dmitry’s murder, unwittingly planting the seed that will grow into rebellion. He is the historian as unwitting cause, the scribe whose words become actions.
The Polish Scenes
The play’s fourth act shifts to Poland, to the court of the voivode Mniszech. Pushkin portrays Polish society as sophisticated, cynical, seductive. Marina plays with Grigory’s love, demanding the crown as proof of his devotion. The contrast with Moscow—pious, anxious, inward—is sharp. Pushkin, who admired Polish culture and resented Russian provincialism, renders these scenes with particular vividness.
Shakespeare and Pushkin
Boris Godunov is Pushkin’s most sustained engagement with Shakespeare. He borrows the structure of the English history plays, the alternation of court and common life, the interweaving of public and private. He borrows also the psychological depth, the refusal to reduce historical actors to moral exemplars. But Pushkin is not imitating Shakespeare; he is absorbing and transforming him. The result is a play that is Shakespearean in its ambition and utterly Russian in its sensibility.
The Censorship
Nicholas I personally censored the play. He objected to the portrayal of a tsar as guilt-ridden and isolated, to the depiction of popular will, to the implication that power could be illegitimate. Pushkin revised, deferred, and eventually published the play with the understanding that it would not be performed. It reached the stage only after his death, in a version heavily cut. The complete text was not performed until 2007.
Why Read the Play Boris Godunov Today?
Because it is the beginning. Russian literature of the nineteenth century—Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov—all flows from Pushkin. And Boris Godunov is Pushkin at his most ambitious. It is also, simply, a powerful drama about power, guilt, and history. Its questions are our questions: What legitimates authority? Can a crime be outlived? What do the people owe the ruler, and what does the ruler owe the people? The play does not answer these questions. It only stages them, brilliantly, and then falls silent.
FAQ
Is this the same as the Mussorgsky opera?
Yes and no. Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov (1874) is based on Pushkin’s play, but the libretto adapts and reorders Pushkin’s scenes significantly. Mussorgsky adds the crowd scenes, expands the role of the people, and composes the great coronation scene. The opera is a masterpiece in its own right, but it is not a faithful setting of the play.
Do I need to know Russian history to understand it?
A basic outline helps. The Time of Troubles (1598-1613) was a period of dynastic crisis, foreign invasion, and social collapse. Boris Godunov was a historical figure, as was the False Dmitry. Pushkin follows the historical record fairly closely, but he also compresses and dramatizes. A brief introduction will suffice.
Is this play in verse?
Mostly. Pushkin wrote the play in blank verse, but he also uses prose for comic scenes and colloquial dialogue. The translation we offer preserves these distinctions.
Is it difficult to read?
The play is shorter than it appears; the many scene breaks create an impression of length, but the actual text is approximately 100 pages. Pushkin’s verse is clear and direct, even in translation.
Can I read it on my phone?
Yes. The scene structure—short, concentrated episodes—makes it ideal for mobile reading. Each scene is a complete dramatic unit. Read one, pause, consider. The bells will ring again when you return.