Духовные оды (Spiritual Odes)

About

Derzhavin (1743-1816) was the dominant Russian poet of the eighteenth century — the poet who addressed Catherine the Great and Suvorov in equal measure, who meditated on God and death with equal grandeur. 'Felitsa,' his ode to Catherine, and 'God,' his meditation on the divine, are among the monuments of Russian Enlightenment poetry. Pushkin declared him his most important predecessor. The spiritual odes have a grandeur of conception and formal ambition that reward close reading aloud.