Abstract
The article aims at illustrating the importance of the classical antiquity in the "malen'kaia poema", or poetic cycle, "Chomo Musaget" (Homo Musagetes), written by the Russian poet Elena Shvarts in 1994. An introductory paragraph points out the relevance of the motif in the context of the Leningrad Underground, term which refers to a group of poets, writers and artists, who did not take part in the 'official' Soviet culture, such as Viktor Krivulin, Sergei Stratanovskij and the same Elena Shvarts.
The article then considers "Chomo musaget", in which some of the major features of the poetics of Elena Shvarts and references to the classical antiquity intermingle. In particular, the analysis focuses on the nine sections which compose the "poema".
The aim of the analysis is to explore how Elena Shvarts uses and re-interpretates some of the most important authors of the Greek and Latin literary heritage, such as, among the others, Hesiod, Ovid and Plutarch. In order to do so, the Russian text is compared with the works of the above-mentioned authors.