As I watched this adaption of Modest Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, I was struck by the (apparent) subtext of Grirogy’s (ie, the ‘Tsarevich’) courtship scene with the Polish noblewoman Marina Mniszek. Thompson points to the recapture of Moscow in 1612 by a nascent ‘national movement’ as a clear symbol of Russian determination to regain control over their fate from foreigners and usurpers. Avraamy Palitsyn’s work on ‘Pseudo-Dmitry’ pulsates with vitriol against foreign, non-Orthodox elements: the False Dmitry gives the hated Catholics a ‘written promise’ to deliver Russia up to the ‘Antichrist’ of Papism, as the Poles squander Russia’s ‘ancient’ patrimony and bathe themselves in various holy vessels. Although the recapture of Moscow takes place after the events of Boris Godunov, one could reasonably expect that any work depicting the Time of Troubles, a time charged with swirling crosscurrents of religious and national fervor, would reflect some of these themes.

The danger is of reading too much into a portly ex-Monk begging a haughty princess for her hand. Earlier in the class, we talked about the role the feminine played in Russian culture, that eternal incarnation of the ever-loving mat’. The princess mocks this sort of love-her eyes lifts skywards (a parody of ‘true belief’?), and with glazed eyes she ironically pronounces that her and the tsarevich will live on ‘love alone.’ Then her face changes, and Grigory is reminded that if love is all he wants, in Russia he’ll find all the ‘rosy-cheeked women’ he wants. Rosy cheeks, vital with lifeblood and the ‘feminine’, are to be found in Russia, but Grigory rejects this kind of love with a shrug-it will ‘smother’ him. He offers the princess a flower, a shred of the vital, natural world, but the foreigner rejects it-only the throne can win her heart. Russia, lost and confused in the form of Grigoriy, seeks the ‘love’ of the West, tricked by Blok’s ‘suffocating mortal odor.’ The West (the heretical West!) is not interested, unless Russia will submit in her entirety. Finally, let’s talk about the staging of this scene. Darkness hangs over the stage, and on either side of the center, receding into that darkness, stand two rows of classical-esque toga-bearing statues with their backs turned. Mute idols of the Western tradition, they betray the true fruits of this union-power to the Poles, Russia degraded and left in darkness. This, of course, is not an authoritative reading-it’s just food for thought! (bread and salt, if you will).