The True and Fake Names of Boris Godunov

Abstract

This paper takes a new look at the “anthroponymical dossier” of Boris Godunov and his family. Insufficient familiarity with the structure of the Medieval Russian polyonymy (that is, the practice of using many names for the same person) has been known to lead not only to the introduction of redundant and never-existing people to research papers, but also to real people taking redundant, imaginary names, which they did not and often could not have taken in reality. This paper takes a look at both the names the tsar had, without a doubt, and the names under which he existed in previous research (Boris, Bogolep, Iakov, Bogdan, Theodot). Special attention is given to the personal patron saints’ cult in Godunov’s family, mostly to St. Theodotus. Some problems of attribution and dating of several artifacts are raised.