The Uncensored Boris Godunov: The Case for Pushkin's Original Comedy

Concluding Remarks: Boris Godunov and the Russian Literary Canon

In the preceding chapters, we put forth a case for the 1825 Komediia as the canonical text of Boris Godunov. Our primary motivation has been respect for what we believe to be Pushkin’s intent. But there is also our judgment that the original text is a better, more effective, historically more accurate play. Since the “canonical” Boris coalesced carelessly, inconsistently , and for political reasons during half a century, its status is suspect. What is at stake in these recuperation efforts? Are they worth it? In closing this study, let us try briefly to address these questions. Canon formation in any country is a delicate process, dependent in part upon the inherent excellencies of a text, in part upon institutional support for it, and in part upon simple inertia. The Russian literary canon has reflected additional burdens. In the modern period it has known several levels of censorship (political, ecclesiastic, theatrical, self-); a heroic, salvational role for literature in the quest for national identity and authenticity; and the assumption (not wholly unfounded) that the greatest nineteenth-century writers tended to be dissidents or rebels. That paradigm was flipped only at the end of the century, when the state dropped its official hostility and suspicion toward writers and began to recruit them – indeed, to canonize them, in the strong sense of the word – as secular saints.1 Canons are agonistic. There is exclusivity and struggle built into them. As Frank Kermode wrote several decades ago, discussing institutional Concluding Remarks Boris Godunov and the Russian Literary Canon  Caryl Emerson and Chester Dunning 233 controls on interpretation through a “canonical” exemplar, the Catholic Church: “The desire to have a canon, more or less unchanging, and to protect it against charges of inauthenticity or low value (as the Church protected Hebrews, for example, against Luther) is an aspect of the necessary conservatism of a learned institution.”2 Institutions of literary study – academies with their tenuring procedures, scholarly journals, lay readerships – cannot, of course, discipline or punish with anything resembling ecclesiastical rigor. But even in the weaker and looser secular fields, Kermode points out, command of the canon creates a sense of guild competence, certifying us in ways we are loathe to put in question. Thus the literary canon is formed (and reformed) in the process of resisting “attacks upon it” (178). The “total license in regard to the canon” (Kermode’s phrase), such as currently reigns in American literary studies , is an event of recent vintage, and one that would not have been tolerated under Russia’s two previous Old Regimes. There is, in addition, the centrality of Pushkin, not only to the Russian literary canon but to Russian literary consciousness. In a tradition so compact, so self-referential and reverent, texts quickly become icons. Even tiny parts of texts – such as the stage direction, narod bezmolvstvuet – can accumulate around themselves whole minor industries, passionate debates about the nature of ethical responsibility or historical truth. Our purpose in this study has not been to dislodge (even were it possible) the 1831 text, canonized in the Jubilee Edition of the Soviet era, together with its rich reception tradition. We have aimed, more modestly , to restore the original Komediia to a status more serious than the “minor initial variant” of a play that was published by its author six years after its composition. Optimally, the play could have two canonical versions . Both versions are masterpieces (although we argue that the one less assaulted by outside forces is the more masterful). Both are biographically as well as artistically significant. But this significance attaches to different junctures in Pushkin’s brief, driven life. The 1825 text, recited to fellow poets, confirmed Pushkin in his own eyes as politically daring, a rebel, and an outsider. He intended to tone down some of its indecently vigorous language in his refinements for print. The two subsequent plays in the dreamt-of trilogy would lead Russian theater-goers where no historical dramatist had yet taken them – to the glories of Empire and Romanov splendor, but without sentimentalizing the characters or concealing the costs. The 1831 text was produced 234 Caryl Emerson and Chester Dunning as a result of other pressures and directed at other goals. The angry poet had aged. His favorite drama was now to be a weapon, the golden key to make him acceptable, more of an insider. This desire to serve his country...