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Updated: May 21, 2025
We might remark the Australian black putting sharp bits of quartz in the tracks of an enemy who has gone by, that the enemy may be lamed; and we might point to Boris Godunof forbidding the same practice among the Russians.
All the rest, except those who had fled, were exiled to Siberia, and with them was banished the very church-bell which had called them out by its tocsin peal. A town of thirty thousand inhabitants was depopulated that, as people said, every evidence of the guilt of Boris Godunof might be destroyed. This dreadful violence did Boris more harm than good.
But so wise had been the administration of affairs by the astute Regent that a change was dreaded. A council offered him the crown, which he feigned a reluctance to accept, preferring that the invitation should come from a source which would admit of no question as to his rights in the future. Accordingly, the States-General or Sobor was convened, and Boris Godunof was chosen by acclamation.
No man could have been more unlike the tyrant Ivan, his reputed father. Dmitri proved kind and generous to all, even bestowing honors upon members of the family of Godunof.
Serious historical investigation tends to show that the power of the proprietors over the peasants came into existence, not suddenly, as the result of an ukaz, but gradually, as a consequence of permanent economic and political causes, and that Boris Godunof was not more to blame than many of his predecessors and successors.*
They quarrelled among themselves, in short, and, while they were quarrelling, a bold and ambitious man, Boris Godunof, who happened to be the czar's brother-in-law, conceived the project of becoming prime-minister and actual ruler of the empire. Indeed, his ambition extended even further than this.
He entered the city, and the infatuated people placed in his hand and upon his head the scepter and the crown of Ivan IV.; and after making sure that the wife and the son of Boris Godunof were strangled, this amazing Pretender commenced his reign. An extraordinary thing had happened. A nameless adventurer and impostor had been received with tears of joy as the son of Ivan and of St.
Ivan had killed his ablest son, as told in a previous story, and Feodor, the present czar, was a feeble, timid, sickly incapable, who was a mere tool in the hands of his ambitious minister, Boris Godunof. Boris craved the throne. Between him and this lofty goal lay only the feeble Feodor and the child Dmitri, the sole direct survivors of the dynasty of Rurik.
The chronicles tell us, with striking brevity, "The election begins; the people look up to the nobles, the nobles to the grandees, the grandees to the patriarch; he speaks, he names Boris; and instantaneously, and as one man, all re-echo that formidable name." And now Godunof played an amusing game. He held the reins of power so firmly that he could safely enact a transparent farce.
Such a man was Godwin, father of Harold, last Saxon King; in England; and such a man was Boris Godunof, a boyar, who had so faithfully served the terrible Ivan that he leaned upon him and at last confided to him the supervision of his feeble son Feodor, when he should succeed him.
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