Lecture 5: In 1825, a group of aristocrats attempted an uprising on a St.
Petersburg square.
Naively, given that they had no widespread support, they thought they could overthrow the tsarist regime and replace it with a republic.
Among these would-be revolutionaries were many friends of Pushkin.
After an interview with the new tsar, the poet managed to extricate himself from these associations.
He then discovered the work of another great poet - William Shakespeare, whose works Pushkin read in French translation.
He was particularly impressed by the plays written about the guilt-ridden Henry IV, and he decided to respond in Russian.
The result was his tragedy Boris Godunov, concerning events surrounding Russia’s early-17th-century “Time of Troubles.”