The Conception and Reception Boris Godunov’s Image of a New Jerusalem in Moscow

• In Event: Exploring Images and Perceptions of Rulers and Religious Ideals in Muscovy

Abstract

Tsar Boris Gudunov’s efforts to create a replica of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Moscow Kremlin embodied the enduring conception of Moscow as new Jerusalem at the end of the sixteenth century but they spawned accusations of vainglory among some contemporary critics. This study will reconsider the conception and reception of Godunov’s project by exploring the potential motives behind Godunov’s plan as well as the ideas that informed and enabled it and the verbal and visual images available to realize it. In doing so it locates Godunov’s New Jerusalem project in relation to those of Ivan IV which preceded it and Patriarch Nikon’s/the Romanovs’ which followed it, fleshing out previously overlooked connections, especially Moscow’s relations with the Holy Land.

Author

• Kevin Michael Kain, U of Wisconsin-Green Bay