Kostrov is considered to have shown his real talent and originality in his translations, chiefly in his incomplete translation of Homer's
Iliad (written 1780–1786). After some hesitation, Kostrov moved to
Saint Petersburg at the invitation of his friends in early 1786. While there, he appears to have lived in Shuvalov's home. In 1787, Kostrov's translation of the first six books of the
Iliad were published. While attempting to escape from classicist conventions, he decided to translate the Greek epic into
Alexandrine verse (iambic hexameter, with rhymed couplets), the standard meter for heroic subjects in French classicism. He felt that he was not ready to use the Russian hexameter (dactylo-trochaic meter), developed earlier in the eighteenth century by
Vasily Trediakovsky as the Russian counterpart to the
Ancient Greek hexameter. In Altshuller's view, Kostrov's choice of meter "doomed Homer's epic to serious distortion, imbuing it with the spirit not of antiquity but of classicism." Despite this, Kostrov, with his adeptness in philology and ancient languages, made an effort to recreate the simplicity of the epic and not force it to correspond to classicist tastes. In this striving for authenticity and his use of archaic and
Old Church Slavonic words to reflect the ancientness of the work, Kostrov moved in the direction of the Romantic ideas of national art. Kostrov's translation of the
Iliad was well received. Some contemporaries honored him as "the Russian Homer". The great interest in Greece and Hellenic culture at the time of the translation's publication increased the popularity of the work. Empress Catherine had designs on Ottoman territory and considered plans for the creation of a Greek state centered in
Constantinople and ruled by her grandson. The publication of Kostrov's
Iliad includes a dedication in verse to the empress, in which he compares her to Athena and foresees the liberation of the Greeks by Russian armies. Catherine personally ordered a reward of four hundred rubles to Kostrov for his translation, which the poet reportedly gave away. Kostrov planned to publish the remaining books of the
Iliad (twenty-four books in four volumes in total) and began work on the following six. His translations of the seventh, eighth and part of the ninth books were discovered after his death and published in the journal
Vestnik Yevropy in 1811. (The discovery prompted
Nikolai Gnedich to abandon his continuation of Kostrov's translation; later, he completed a new translation of the
Iliad in Russian hexameter.) It is not clear why Kostrov discontinued his work on the translation of the
Iliad and never published the planned second, third and fourth volumes. He may have been disappointed with his work, perhaps seeing the inability of Alexandrine verse to reflect his vision of the
lliad as the Greek national epic. Instead, he began translating the works of
Ossian, which were presented as the genuine poems of an antique Gaelic poet. In fact, the poems were the compositions of
James Macpherson, who claimed to be the translator. Kostrov's translation of Ossian, made from a French version by Pierre Le Tourneur, was published in two volumes in 1792 under the title (Gaelic poems). Like his version of the
Iliad, Kostrov's translation of Ossian contains many Old Church Slavonic and archaic words. The result is a higher style than the English original, which, according to Altshuller, produces a "darkly romantic mood." Kostrov dedicated the translation to the general
Alexander Suvorov, who read the translation every day and kept it with him while campaigning. Through Kostrov's translation, the poems of Ossian exerted great influence on Russian
sentimentalist and pre-Romantic authors. == Death and legacy ==