In 1824, when Pushkin turned to Boris Godounov for his first historical drama, he knew well the colossus he was tackling. Armed with his reading of Shakespeare, Pushkin retold the epic history of the dazzling reign of the Tzar of Russia (1598-1605). Indeed, elements of Macbeth appear throughout this political fable, in which an imposter with ambitions for the throne haunts Boris, pretending to return as the child that Boris had once killed in order to seize power. Adapting this epic poem, Mussorgsky composed a meditation on the solitude of power, a populist drama in which the real protagonist is the Russian people with its burden of eternal suffering.

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