Nikolay Shatrov

Nikolay Ivanovich Shatrov (1767–1841) was a Russian poet who wrote patriotic odes. Bowring prints his ode “To the Army of the Don”, written during the war with Napoleon. Bowring’s volumes give no separate notice of his life, so the dates are those supplied by the archive’s editor.

The versions here are by John Bowring, from his Specimens of the Russian Poets (Part the First, 1821; Part the Second, 1823), one of the first English anthologies of Russian verse. They are free, rhymed versions, and should be read as period translations rather than as literal renderings.