The museum’s exhibition presents the 1758 edition of “Ode on the Coronation of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna”. In this work, the Russian Empress was praised in verse by Johann Georg Bock, a German scholar of the University of Königsberg.

The text of the book was printed on special wire-laid paper with watermarks in the form of a characteristic lattice. At the top of the page an engraved headpiece incorporating elements of the coat of arms of the Russian Empire was placed. Each eight verses were separated from the others by decorative patterns. The binding was decorated with gold lettering on the spine.

“Ode on the Coronation of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna” was printed in Russian in the printing house of the Imperial Moscow University in an edition of 600 copies. The translation was done by the Russian scientist, poet and reformer of the Russian language Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov. It is noteworthy that it was he who did it, because back in 1747 he wrote an ode with a similar title.

The author of the ode, Johann Georg Bock (1698–1762), was not only a professor at the University of Königsberg, but also an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. During the period when the Prussian province was under Russian administration (1758–1762), he wrote an ode of praise for the coronation. In the summer semester of 1762 Johann Bock was elected rector of the University of Königsberg.

Bock glorified Elizaveta Petrovna in a solemn and exalted style. The author called her “the goddess of enlightenment”, “the good of the universe”, “the worthy fruit of Peter’s” and emphasized her desire to revive the traditions of her father, Emperor Peter the Great. Bock described her as a harmonious personality combining external and internal beauty.

Johann Georg Bock remarked that the Empress was characterized by reverence for the sciences, arts and music, and was “intolerant of evil deeds”. The author emphasized the greatness of the Empress: it is “greater than gold”. The crown from her head “casts” light. He wrote that she was given a “vast country” as an inheritance by the supreme Providence, which the “Great” Empress ruled with dignity.

From 1900 to 1917 this edition of “Ode on the Coronation of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna” was in the library of the museum of the First Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg.