he article considers the poetry of S.S. Averintsev. The analysis of itsdominating thematic, generic and verse features allows us to see in this poetry apeculiar development of literary trends of the late 17th/early 18thcenturies, whichwere connected with the transformation of autochthonous artistic sources andgenerated a whole range of original texts, including poetic ones (“Povest’o Go-re-Zlochastii”, Songs of P.Kvashnin-Samarin). On the basis of another historiccorrelation Averintsev’s poetry can be considered an attempt to present the clas-sical tradition of Russian literature as a direct development of medieval verbalprinciples in their Moscow variant. This position was supported by the scholar’sphilological conceptions and was also confirmed by the statements of a numberof literary critics, as well as by the poetic practice of Olga Sedakova, which wasclose to that of Averintsev. The article explores the correlation of these percepti-ons with historical and literary facts.