: Borulya tries to force his daughter, Marisia, to marry a vain clerk for the sake of status, ignoring her love for the honest suitor Mykola.
The core message is that true nobility is found in work, honesty, and family—not in titles. When Borulya finally loses his legal battle because of a single misspelling in his documents (a change from "Borulya" to "Berulya"), he finally realizes the absurdity of his quest. Availability for Reading
: The play mocks the complex and often corrupt "noble registers" of the 19th-century Russian Empire, where dignity was something to be bought through paperwork. Themes of True Dignity