ISSN: 2158-7051 ==================== INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN STUDIES ==================== ISSUE NO. 8 ( 2019/1 ) |
WRITING THE TIME OF TROUBLES, FALSE DMITRY IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE, By Ayse Dietrich*,
Published by: Academic Studies Press, USA. Written by Marcia
A. Morris, Year of Publishing: 2018. Subject Area: Russian History and
Literature Book Type: Literature. Total Number of Pages: 162. ISBN:
9781618118639, $99.00 (Hardcover).
This
book discusses the Time of Troubles (Smutnoe vremya)
period and the pretenders who appeared after the killing of Ivan the Terrible’s legal heir, Ivan, leaving the Empire without leadership. The
power struggle began immediately after the death of Tsar Ivan which brought the Rurikid dynasty to an end; rival boyars
created a weak government and autocracy. The book discusses these issues and
the representations of Dmitry, the son of Ivan the Terrible within the context
of Russian literature.
The absence of legitimate royal authority after the demise
of the Rurikid dynasty in 1598 caused a dynastic crisis. This period known as the Time of Troubles was characterized
by a dynastic struggle that nearly resulted in the shattering of the Muscovite
state. It finally came to an end in 1613 with the appearance of the new
dynasty, the Romanovs.
The
book consists of six chapter. In the Introduction the
author states that she will examine the “protagonist”, Dmitry, within the
context of Russian literature. She examines Dmitry both as a literary figure
and a real historical one, and describes Dmitry as a “tabula rasa” because he died
under mysterious circumstances with no credible witnesses to confirm how he
died.
In
her book, the author conducts her research both chronologically and
diachronically. Chapter I is an introductory chapter that provides information on
the eighteenth and nineteenth-century Russian texts Tulupov’s
Life of St. Dmitry, The Story of Grishka
Otrepev and Tale
of Recovery that illustrate the prehistory of Dmitry. The author compares
seventeenth century text types and arrives at the conclusion that all three
works express a political message and that all of them contain a hagiographical
structure and explication.
Chapter
II examines Russia’s historical experience in the eighteenth century and its literary
tradition. In this chapter, the author examines Sumarokov’s
tragedy Dmitry the Pretender and Narezhny’s Dmitry the
Pretender. The author compares the main causes of his usurpation and its interpretation
in literary works of the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century, and concludes
that the writers of the seventeenth century crafted quasi-literary, polemical, monological interpretations of the period and determined
who was the sole man qualified to rule. Prose treatments of the Dmitry material
were the most appropriate way to shape their literature. Eighteenth century
writers, on the other hand, recognized a large number of candidates to the
throne and their interpretation of the period was multifaceted; tragedy was the
most popular literary genres.
In
Chapter III, the author examines the body of works discussing Dmitry and the
Time of Troubles in the 1820s and 1830s: Alexander Pushkin’s Comedy about Tsar Boris and Grishka
Otrepev, Faddey Bulgarin’s Dmitry the
Pretender, Alexey Khomyakov’s Dmitry the Pretender, Mikhail Pogodin’s Historical
Portrait of Dmitry the Pretender. She states that the writers of Russia’s
early nineteenth century were fascinated with the Dmitry materials, and each
writer depicted him as a man who lived among others and saw him as an
alternative to the reigning autocracy. However, they later arrived at the
conclusion that there was no viable alternative to the reigning autocracy.
Chapter
IV deals with two plays written in response to the Era of Great Reforms in
1866: Alexander Ostrovsky’s Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky and Nikolay Chaev’s Dmitry the Pretender. She criticizes
both authors’ works on a number of fronts, regarding all of them as being overly
ambitious in that they attempt to treat too many unrelated issues, and that the
miscellaneous political issues raised in these dramatic works have no clear
connection to one another.
In
the Chapter V, the author states that Dmitry disappears from Russian novels and
plays for a century and reappears after the demise of the Soviet Union. She
examines Daniil Mordovtsev’s False Dmitry: A Historical Novel of the Time of Troubles, Vasily Avenarius’s In Service to the Tsarevich,
Nikolay Alekseev’s The False Tsarevich and Alexey Suvorin’s
Tsar Dmitry the Pretender and Tsarevna Xenya. The author
concludes that each writer has presented his own interpretation of Dmitry and
his era, that these works are clearly independent and
any similarities among them are merely coincidental with no pattern to them.
Since each writer has selected his own particular assortment of “facts”, the
novels each follow their own unique line of development. On a more general
note, the author argues that the collection of late nineteenth century works on
the Time of Troubles should be interpreted in the context of both their local
frame of reference and national pride in the country’s cultural heritage.
However, in the Soviet period Dmitry’s disappearance was the result of the
Soviets’ emphasis on shaping the nation’s future rather than linking present
realities to the national past.
In
the Conclusion, the author points out that all of the works discussed
simultaneously deal with two distinct periods in time – the time in which the
works are set and the time in which they were composed. For seventeenth century
writers, marking the passing of the old dynasty was important, but the
establishment of a new dynasty was just as significant. In the two eighteenth
century works that were examined, contemporary political issues were treated in
the context of Dmitry’s era. Nineteenth century works more closely resemble
seventeenth century works in that the contemporary relevance of the historical
events these works deal with is their main focus. According to the author, as
long as writers continue to deal with political issues in literature or the
theater, the figure of Dmitry will remain a relevant character.
This
book is very well written source examining the Time of Troubles period, a
period when there was no legal heir to run the state, when dynastic struggle began
the process of bringing an end to the Rurik Dynasty and leading to a period
pretenders. The author provides different interpretations for the “protagonist”,
Dmitry, within the context of Russian literature. The author particularly
examines different writers’ works in chronological order and discusses the
legitimacy of Dmitry by comparing the treatments of the pretenders. This book
should be of interest to anyone interested in the period of the Time of
Troubles and usurpation and their interpretation in Russian literature.
*Ayse Dietrich - Professor, Part-time, at Middle East Technical University, Department of History, and Eurasian Studies. Editor and the founder of the International Journal of Russian Studies e-mail: editor@ijors.net, dayse@metu.edu.tr, dietrichayse@yahoo.com
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