Marcia Morris's superb study begins by identifying the Time of Troubles (1598–1613, the period of Russian history between the death of Tsar Fedor, the last surviving son of Ivan the Terrible, and the accession of Mikhail Romanov) as a national trauma that has reverberated throughout Russian history from the early seventeenth century to the present. Indeed, the period in question was marked by various calamities: famine, scourge, foreign occupations, civil unrest, tsars’ “elections” and dethronings, and the emergence of at least two (arguably, three) pretenders. The essential casual event was the suspicious death of Ivan's youngest son, Dmitrii, in 1591. The ensuing Time of Troubles resulted in an economic and social collapse that undermined “foundational notions of sovereignty, governance, and identity in ways that are still relevant today” (138). This ur-trauma, as Morris demonstrates, repeatedly flairs up in response to national or dynastic crises in Russia. The perished boy Dmitrii Ivanovich, as well as the False Dmitriis—all liminal, largely unknown figures that allow different interpretations and invite fictionalization—fittingly serve as the repositories of cultural anxieties and doubts. Morris's study not only analyzes seventeenth-century works about Dmitrii(s), it identifies and analyzes four clusters of literary works (mostly dramas) ranging from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth centuries that responded to painful contemporary changes by portraying versions of False Dmitrii.

Writing the Time of Troubles begins with a useful Introduction that sets the historical scene, presents figures central for the Dmitrii plot, and outlines both the book's theoretical premises and its dimensions. Morris skillfully and convincingly presents the Time of Troubles as a national trauma. Her claim that this trauma “has never been fully overcome” (x), forcing Russians to interrogate this original period of catastrophic events whenever they experience similar events in their own times, aptly explains Russians’ tendency to look to the past while contemplating the present and the future.

The book's first chapter focuses on three seventeenth-century works about False Dmitrii that directly responded to the events of the Time of Troubles. The first two, the Life of St. Dmitry and the tale about the translation of his relics to Moscow, came from circles supporting Vasilii Shuiskii, who ascended the throne after the death of the first False Dmitrii (1606) and needed to confirm that the boy Dmitrii Ivanovich had indeed died in 1591. The Story of Grishka Otrepev, in contrast, focuses on the schemes and adventures of the first False Dmitrii. The chapter not only offers a useful discussion of how fictional and historiographical discourses emerged in the seventeenth century, it also provides tools for interrogating later works.

In subsequent chapters, Morris examines four clusters of works that used the figure of the False Dmitrii to confront the troubling problems of their time. Chapter 2 scrutinizes the nature of tyranny in two tragedies—Aleksandr Sumarokov's 1771 Dimitry the Pretender and Vasily Narezhnyi's 1804 Dimitry the Pretender. Chapter 3 interrogates the relationship between the ruler and the ruled in a large group of early nineteenth-century works, including Nikolai Karamzin's History, Aleksandr Pushkin's 1825 Comedy about Tsar Boris and Grishka Otrepev (better known in its abridged form as Boris Godunov), and Faddei Bulgarin's 1830 novel Dimitry the Pretender. Chapter 4 explores questions of legality and justice in two plays—Aleksandr Ostrovskii's Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky and Nikolai Chaev's Dimitry the Pretender (both 1866). Chapter 5 discusses the way that various late nineteenth-century works either responded to the contemporary “pan-national celebration of cultural heritage” or engaged with a “more local frame of reference” (132). Further affirming Morris’ thesis that writers revive the Time of Troubles after social upheavals, the concluding chapter treats two works about Dmitrii that tellingly emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union—a quasi-scholarly work by Liudmila Taimasova and an intriguing time travel fantasy by Boris Akunin.

Throughout her beautifully written book, Morris identifies Sumarokov's tragedy and Pushkin's Comedy as the most influential works about False Dmitrii and argues that the other works responded in various ways to these foundational texts. Her informative analyses of other works about that period bring readers’ attention to neglected works both by well-known (Ostrovsky) and forgotten authors. Morris's splendid book thus offers a wealth of factual material and original interpretations that make it an invaluable contribution to the fields of Russian literary and cultural studies.