The heliocentric allusions in Antiokh Kantemir's First Ode make it one of the earliest poetic statements in Russian literature to support the Copernican theory. As such it is often cited, and it is certainly the best known of the poet's four surviving odes. Yet neither the precise date of the poem's composition nor its origin is known, though attempts at solving both these problems have been made with a view to explaining the change in Kantemir's poetic style after he left Russia in January, 1732. Though he was then only twenty-three, some of his best satires had already been written, and his poetic output declined after that date.