Mozart and Salieri and Boris Godunov: Hidden Parallels

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Khondzinsky, P. V. “Mozart and Salieri and Boris Godunov: Hidden Parallels.” Dva veka russkoi klassiki, vol. 7, no. 2, 2025, pp. 118–141. (InRuss.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2686-7494-2025-7-2-118-141
Abstract:
Pushkin’s short tragedy Mozart and Salieri has been in the field of view of researchers for almost 200 years. The result of understanding the tragedy during the time that passed from the first publications about it to the end of the 20th century was the collection published in 1997 by V. Nepomnyashchy: Mozart and Salieri, Pushkin’s Tragedy. Movement in Time. Although its significance is great even today, the question of the possibility or impossibility of an adequate stage embodiment of the tragedy has still not been unambiguously resolved, and several associative connections of the tragedy with other Pushkin works that are not obvious have not been exhausted. The article attempts to look at the tragedy through the hypothesis of internal connections between Boris Godunov and Mozart and Salieri, which was conceived, as we know, in Mikhailovskoye in 1826. Based on this hypothesis, the analysis of Pushkin’s text concludes that the musical subtext of the tragedy is more important than the scenic one, and the image of the “holy fool” Mozart reflects the ideas of righteousness in the spirit of the French mystical tradition of the 17th century, which were characteristic of Pushkin’s time.
Keywords: A. S. Pushkin, Mozart and Salieri, Boris Godunov, holy fool Nikolka, Requiem, Fenelon, Kant, Boldin autumn.
Author: Pavel V. Khondzinsky
Information about the author:
Pavel V. Khondzinsky, Archpriest, PhD in Theology, Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University for the Humanities, Likhov Lane, 6 bld. 1, 127051 Moscow, Russia.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9805-045X

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Received: November 02, 2025
Approved after reviewing: March 28, 2025
Published: June 25, 2025
Issue: 2025 Volume 7 No. 2
Department: Russian Literature of the 18th–19th Centuries
Pages: 118-141
DOI: Visit Website
EDN:
https://elibrary.ru/BXQDEJ
UDK: 821.161.1.09"19"
Publication Type: Research Article

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