Moscow 1598. The great Tsar Ivan the Terrible has died and Boris Godunov reluctantly, humbly takes the throne. But rumours are rife that Boris has secretly murdered the rightful heir and the distant shadow of this prodigal son threatens to close in and take revenge. Pushkin wrote Boris Godunov , with its beautiful echoes of Shakespeare’s Histories and Macbeth , during the political turmoil of the 1820s in Russia.
