Sonic Manifesto: Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and the Representation of Russian Musical Identity.

This article examines Modest Mussorgsky’s 1872 opera *Boris Godunov* as a complex exploration of Russian musical identity and historiography, highlighting its fusion of national folk elements with Western influences. It argues that the opera’s harmonic dissonances, folk-inflected choruses, and Shakespearean-inspired psychological depth reveal the contradictions in mythologizing Russian history, portraying it as a cyclical and contested process rather than a linear narrative. The transformation of the chorus from submissive petitioners to anarchic rebels and Boris’s musicalized mental disintegration underscore the instability of collective memory and autocratic power. Rather than serving as straightforward nationalist propaganda, *Boris Godunov* functions as a meta-commentary on the construction of history and national identity, emphasizing ideological ambivalence and the performative nature of Russianness amid imperial uncertainty.