The topic of the poetry and the poet's immortality is among the most important topics of Derzhavin's oeuvre. His last poem 《Reka vremen v svoyem stremlen'yi...》 (1816) is usually not considered along with his works devoted to that topic. However, this poem exhibits a series of motives and images (immortality/poet's death, river, glory, monument/ruins) common to Derzhavin's 《Pamyatnik》 (1795) where the topic in question is resolved in a way that is typical for the rhetorical culture: the poet glorifying the state is co-eternal to it (L. Pumpyansky). By comparing those texts it may be shown that a) Derzhavin preserves the idea of the creative work being connected to the Empire; b) the co-eternity of the poetry and the State turns into their common downfall. The tragedy and eschatology of Derzhavin's last poem, its belonging to the rhetorical culture and the epoch of 《unprepared word》 becomes an occasion for 20th-21st c. poets to refer to the text.
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