The paper studies long-term changes in the length of Russian poetry (1750–1921) to reveal the relation of poem length (counted in lines) to a poetic form and its evolution. The research has shown a dramatic decrease in the mean and median poetry lengths during the 19th century. This decrease was followed by the decline in length diversity, which resulted in short poems (8–20 lines) overpopulating the literature during the age of Modernism. We argue that this transformation towards the short form could be understood in the framework of cultural evolution: Russian poetry struggled to keep its literary niche, while being continuously under the pressure of successful large narratives of the 19th century. Therefore, it was forced to develop complexity while being highly constrained formally (accentual-syllabic verse and rhyme maintained for a long time) by the shrunk length of a lyrical poem.

中文翻译：

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最短的物种：俄罗斯诗歌的长度如何变化（1750–1921）

该论文研究了俄罗斯诗歌长度（1750–1921）的长期变化，以揭示诗歌长度（以行为单位）与诗歌形式及其演变的关系。研究表明，在19世纪，诗歌的平均长度和中位数大大减少。这种减少之后是长度多样性的减少，这导致了短诗（8至20行）在现代主义时代泛滥了文学。我们认为这种向简短形式的转变可以在文化演变的框架中理解：俄罗斯诗歌努力保持其文学地位，同时不断受到19世纪成功叙事的压力。因此，