Godunovské úvahy. Možnosti inscenovania historickej drámy
Godunov-Like Reflection on Historical Staging

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the present paper, written after the 19th Pushkin festival in Pskov, is to explore Pushkin’s drama Boris Godunov that had – despite its importance and attractiveness for Slovak culture and history – never been staged. In order to understand this, we should have a closer look into the history. The Council of Florence resulting in the Union of Florence (1439) is one of the crucial points of Slovak history – at those times the Upper Part of the Hungarian Kingdom. However, although the Hussite movement meant different things for 15th century Bohemia and for the Kingdom of Hungary engaged in a uniatist movement, the artificially forged historical narrative served the political idea of Czechoslovakism to the point of excluding any mention of both the Council and Union of Florence in general education. In 1951, the Greek Catholic Church, the keeper of the unionist idea, had been abolished and her bishops became martyrs of their faith. Only in 1968 did the Greek Catholic Church get a legal status again. Then the Soviet occupation following the Prague spring limited the process of growing self-consciousness to the freedom of cult, henceforth assuring that it will not contaminate the historical education. The author tries to prove her statement by analyzing Pushkin̒s play from the perspective of religious history. She shows that the problem is usually simplified to the struggle of latin/byzantine, resp. Polish/ Russian conflict, omitting other possibilities. In accordance with Pushkin’s understanding of history, she sees the pretender Dmitri (Otrepiev) as a representative of the third – unionist – tendency. She also introduces a subtle distinction between the Florentine union (1439) and the following local unions to the subject matter. By founding the Moscow patriarchate (1589), Boris Godunov accomplished the process started by the refusal of the Union of Florence by Vasili II., the Blind. Reaction to it had been the local Brest-Litovsk Union (1595) changing Constantinople jurisdiction for that of Rome – thus, inevitably strengthening the latin cultural influence over the byzantine Christendom. But Dmitri̒s uniatism is not purely defensive if we consider his plan to liberate the city of Constantinople. Dmitri (1605-6) with his native Galician folks and Hungarian uniats (including Rusyns and Lemkos) remote both to Moscow and Rome, were the last potential crusaders, while they were cherishing the Florentine union till the local Union of Uzhhorod (1646). Classifying Dmitri´s tragic position in history as both utopian and visionary, the author draws attention to the last image of Pushkin̒s drama where we encounter Dmitri quietly sleeping – and with him the idea of Florence…

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