The new Met production of Boris Godunov stresses the troubled history of Russia. A huge book lays on the floor, upon which the monk Pimen chronicles the story of his time.

The clash of cultures and personalities was fascinating. As Shakespeare almost said: "The fault is not in our Tsars, but in ourselves..." Let's look back and examine the period in more detail. This exploration might make the opera even more enjoyable for you.

Pushkin and Mussorgsky told a story in which Boris Godunov comes to power after allegedly ordering the murder of the young Dmitri, who was the rightful heir to the throne. A young monk named Grigory reinvents himself as Dmitri, forms an alliance with a Polish princess and leads an army against Boris. Real life was even more interesting.

The opera is set shortly after the establishment of the Russian Empire by Ivan the Terrible, who ruled from 1547 to 1584. In Russia his nickname means "the Feared" rather than "the Terrible," but he does seem to have been a terrible man. He beat his eldest son to death. Then he raped his second son's wife, who was the sister of the nobleman Boris Godunov. Some historians say that Ivan was poisoned at the behest of Boris Godunov because of what Ivan did.

Ivan was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, the mentally-impaired Feodor, who relied on Boris Godunov to administer the nation. During Feodor's reign, a younger son of Ivan the Terrible, nine-year-old Dmitri, died under mysterious circumstances. An investigation was ordered by Godunov and carried out by Prince Vasiliy Shuisky. It determined that the Tsarevich was playing with a knife, had an epileptic seizure and fell and died from a self-inflicted wound to the throat. Some people didn't believe this and blamed Boris for killing the hier-apparent.

After Tsar Feodor died in 1598, the experienced Boris was elected his successor by a national assembly made up of nobles, administrators and military officials. The brother of Ivan's first wife, Alexander Romanov, might have had some family claim to power, but he was accused of sorcery, banished from Moscow and he became a monk. We'll hear more from him and his family later.

Early in Boris's reign, terrible cold spells lasted through three summers and caused poor harvests, which led to famine. Boris's government distributed food and money to the poor in Moscow - call it a government "bail out" or "stimulus," if you will - but that led to more refugees flocking to the capital and increasing pressure on the rulers. Boris Godunov also faced foreign intrusion by Polish and Lithuanian armies.

In 1603 a young man calling himself Dmitri claimed to be the son of Ivan the Terrible and the rightful heir to the throne. He gathered support from discontented masses and from the Polish king. This imposter claimed that his mother had uncovered a plot to assassinate him and hid him in monasteries across Russia where he bided his time until he could rise up to overthrow Godunov.

Dmitri aided his cause by converting to Roman Catholicism and becoming engaged to Marina Mniszech, the 17-year-old daughter of a prominent Polish noble family. Rangoni, in the opera, says that he is "only a priest." In fact, he was a high official, the Papal Nuncio to Poland, and he organized a plan to convert Russia to a Roman Catholic country. In addition, ex-patriot boyars who had fled to Poland gave support to the False Dmitri as a stepping-stone for returning to glory in their old homeland.

In 1605 Boris died of unknown causes, possibly a stroke. He was succeeded by his 16-year-old son, who ruled briefly as Feodor II. (In the opera, Marina appears to be older; not virtually the same age as Boris's son.) The False Dmitri seized power as his supporters murdered Feodor II and his mother. Boris's other child, the 23-year-old Xenia, was allowed to live. According to two historians, she repaid Dmitri for this favor by agreeing to sleep with him. One historian adds the detail that Dmitri "kept her in his palace as a concubine" for five months. When Dmitri's fiancée Marina came to join him in Moscow, Xenia was sent away to a convent.

Dmitri ruled for less than one year. When Marina came to Moscow with a retinue of about 4000 Poles and had a wedding ceremony with Dmitri, the Russian Church denounced them. Two weeks later, anti-Catholic and anti-Polish insurgents stormed the Kremlin. Dmitri tried to escape by jumping out of a window but was shot dead and Shuisky took power as Tsar Vasily IV.

Soon a new impostor, likewise calling himself Dmitri, came forward as the heir and tried to gain the throne. Polish nobleman Jerzy Mniszech, the father of the first False Dmitri's bride Marina, arranged a "reunion" between the second Dmitri and Marina, who miraculously recognized him as her husband Dmitri. She moved in with him and bore a child of his. This new Dmitri was supported by the same group of Polish and Lithuanian nobles who had propped up the first False Dmitri, and they supplied him with funds and soldiers. Advancing on Moscow in the spring of 1608, he promised confiscation and redistribution of the boyars' estates to the peasants.

To fight this rebellion, Shuisky signed an alliance with Sweden. Understandably, the king of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, Sigismund III, saw that as a threat because Sweden was a rival of the Poles in the Baltic region. So Sigismund forcibly intervened and his army defeated Shuisky's army at the Battle of Klushino on the Fourth of July, 1610. A group of Russian nobles deposed Shuisky and recognized Sigismund's son Wladyslaw, as the new Tsar of Russia. False Dmitri II was shot in the head. Shuisky died in a Polish prison.

When the Polish king tried to convert Russia to Roman Catholicism, this roused anti-Catholic and anti-Polish sentiments within the nation. The Swedes allied themselves with the Russian Orthodox, in opposition to Poland and the Vatican, and supported a new false Dmitri, the third one.

A popular uprising came from within Russia, led by Kuzma Minin, a butcher from Novgorod who became a community organizer. He was helped by a prince named Dmitri (that name again) Pozharski, from an old aristocratic family. They campaigned against foreign occupiers. The Poles were forced to retreat from Moscow, and a new government declared a day of National Unity and elected as tsar Michael Romanov, the 16-year-old son of the Russian Orthodox religious leader and grandnephew of Ivan the Terrible's first wife, Anastasia Romanova.

Tsar Michael had the False Dmitri III executed, the three-year-old son of the False Dmitri II hanged, and had Dmitri's wife Marina strangled. Yes, the glamorous and conniving mezzo of the opera finally got her come-uppance.

With these not-so-peaceful gestures the so-called "Time of Troubles" came to an end. The Romanov dynasty continued to rule Russia until the Communist revolution in 1917.