The article discusses the largest and least known work of prince Sergy Alexandrovich Shirinsky-Shikhmatov (1783- 1837) published in 1824. As distinct from his earlier religious didactical poems «The Night On Coffins» (1812) and «The Night For Thoughts» (1814), the poem «The Nights by the Cross» is written without rhymes (iambic hexameter) and is not an imitation of E. Young. This is a theological work divided into five “nights” having systematical represen- tation of the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah and explaining the doctrinal meaning of the earthly life of Jesus. To avoid associations with J. Milton's and F.G. Klopstock's epics, Shikhmatov did not call his final work a «poem», but gave it an expressly neutral genre subtitle of a «verse».
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