Boris Godunov

Posted on December 7, 2006 in History

Boris Godunov’s name is familiar to lovers of the Mussorgsky opera reputed to be about the life of the Tsar. Godunov came to power after the last Rurikid monarch, Feodor I, died without heir. Much of the controversy surrounding Godunov’s ascension to the throne stems from the mystery surrounding the death of Prince Dimitri, Fedor’s half brother.

In the operatic version and in histories which favored tsarist autocracy, Godunov is thought to have killed Dimitri so he could become tsar himself. Godunov was a protege of Ivan the Terrible’s* Oprichnina, a gang of secret police who possessed immunity from all crimes. David Warnes’s Chronicle of the Russian Tsars describes them:

Mounted on black horses, and dressed in black uniforms and hoods, they carried on their saddles the twin emblems of a broom and a dog’s head, symbolizing their mission to rid the land of traitors. They had a strong incentive to persecute the wealthy since they received a quarter of the property of anyone whom they arrested. A second quarter went to whoever had denounced the victim, and the remainder to the tsar. Some historians have seen the Oprinchnina experiment as a device for destroying the boyars [Russian nobility] and replacing them with men who would be loyal to the crown because they owed their wealth and position to Ivan, but the selection of both victims and oprichniki cut across class barriers and appears to have been based on the tsar’s personal feelings. Those whom he trusted were invited to join the Oprichnina, and those whom he distrusted were liable to become its victims. Whole families were slaughtered.

Godunov had been selected for the Oprichnina in 1571. In 1580, he became a boyar and close personal confidant of Ivan IV. This influence led to his sister Irina becoming the wife of the tsar’s son and future tsar Feodor. Some say that Godunov was present when Ivan the Terrible assassinated his own son and that the he had tried to to protect the tsarevich from the enraged monarch. Under Godunov, the Russians expanded their influence into Siberia and established the Patriarchate, an orthodox version of the Papacy.

The nine year old Dimitri was found with a cut in his throat in his home at Ulgrich. Vasily Shuisky, himself the son of a notorious Oprichniki, determined that Dimitri had suffered an epileptic fit while playing with a knife. Rumors that Boris had engineered the boy’s assasination did not arise until after Godunov’s election to the throne in 1598**, seven years after the boy’s death.

Opposition to Godunov came from boyars disaffected with the new tsar’s insistance on absolute power for himself despite his lack of royal or noble ancestors. Godunov organized his own system of informers to counter his critics. In 1601 he purged many of his opponents.

This same year brought ecological disaster. Drought brought famine. Crop failures in 1602 and 1603 followed upon the drought. Amid starvation, epidemics, and social chaos, Godunov rose to the occasion with acts of charity and relief for the destitute of his empire. Nonetheless, hungry serfs and peasants revolted and joined the army of a man who claimed to be the dead Prince Dimitri. Godunov slapped down the challenge (though after the tsar’s death, the pretender came back and ruled for a short while). In 1604, the tsar suffered a stroke and died in April of the following year.

He had not asked for anything or done anything which had not been established as the right of the tsars by Ivan IV. His straightforward and generous response to the sufferings of his people showed him as a better man than many a ruler of his time and after. Unlike our contemporary, George W. Bush, he did not shirk from acts of charity. (One of the complaints against him was that he was too generous.)

We end up with a mixed picture of the tsar. On one hand, he broke the bright blood of his enemies all over the land. On the other, he did not adopt a traditional conservative approach when it came to natural disaster. We might see him as a Lyndon Johnson, mired in a Vietnam and trying to invent the Great Society, a product of Ivan the Terrible’s witch hunts. Godunov was no machiavellian: just a man of the moment who brought the Terrible one’s tools of empire to bear on the problems of his time, adding to them a sense of religiosity and compassion for the poor. He was a frightening if great ruler.

*A better translation of his name is said to be “Ivan the Awesome”. It does not change the fact that the tsar was a nightmare to his subjects and family.

**The sickly Feodor died a natural death without issue.