Epigraphy and iconography of illustrations by B. Zworykin to "Boris Godunov" by Pushkin

Boris Zvorykin's illustrations to Pushkin's works, intended for the Western reader, fit his works into the idea of medieval and Renaissance art. If the illustrations for Pushkin's Fairy Tales are decorative, the illustrations for Boris Godunov are interpretive. In these illustrations, a separate plot of the catastrophic development of events as a result of secularisation, the ambitions of the Impostor are viewed primarily as anti-Church. At the same time, Zvorykin dealt with fantasy with church symbols, bringing church art closer to folk art and preferring historical accuracy to rhetorical expressiveness.