The paper characterizes the stages of reconstructing Russian classical poetry
in English language anthologies. It describes general principles of organizing the anthologies published from the beginning of the 19th century up to the recent times. The paper presents a brief history of these anthologies. The work includes an analysis of the most remarkable and significant points in the choice of material for the anthologies, statements made by translators, compilers, and authors of forewords; thus tracing the sequence of stages in which the Russian classical poetry was perceived within the English-speaking world. The work shows its progression from the attitude to the Russian poetry as an interesting and sometimes even highly artistic but clearly alien phenomenon at the beginning of the 19th century towards the desire to «domesticate» the Russian poetry, to «appropriate» its best achievements to such an extent that a completely new type of anthology is emerging at the turn of the new century.