The Uncensored "Boris Godunov": The Case for Pushkin's Original Comedy, with Annotated Text and Translation (Wisconsin Centre for Pushkin Studies) Book

In The Uncensored Boris Godunov: The Case for Pushkin?s Original Comedy, with Annotated Text and Translation, Chester Dunning and his colleagues challenge the canonicity of the published (1831) version of the play, to argue in favor of treating the original (1825) text as the one that should be studied, performed, and celebrated. Boris Godunov, one of the most fascinating and problematic of Pushkin?s works, has long puzzled (and often disappointed) readers. The authors of this study attribute this response to the fact that the later version of Boris Godunov came into being not through a process of the writer?s own artistic maturation, as is generally assumed, but rather as the result of censorship and "political correctness" in the wake of the Decembrist uprising against the reign of tsar Nikolas I in 1825 (an aristocrat-led revolt in which Pushkin was indirectly implicated). In addition to making the case for the canonicity of the play?s earlier rendition, this book includes both the Russian text and, for the first time, an English translation of that version.Read More