Abstract
Jan Zahradníček's Psalm of the Year '42 is in this article presented as a specific type od Czech poetry in its reaction to the Nazi terror in revenge for the assassination of the R. Heydrich in May 1942.
Against the background of the contemporaneous poetic reflections of this fact, the paper charakterizes the expressive methods leading to a specific orchestration of the poetic compossition, such as various metrical and rhyme patterns, the specification of verse and strophic units, the handling of intertextual references etc. The Psalm in also interpreted as the beginning of a series of monumental compositions in Zahradníček oeuvre, culminating in the late 1940s and early 1950s with the poetic ""symphonies"" La Saletta and Znamení moci (The Sign of Might).