With reference to metalyrical poetry, the author draws a genre model of the meta-prayer, a variety of the poetic prayer. Basing their analysis on Russian 19th century lyrical poetry, the author shows the constructive features of the genre form in question, making a content-oriented typology of meta-prayers. The analysis of individual works makes the author conclude about the reduction of genre features and meta-textual reflection as a main way of evolution of the prayer as a genre in the Russian poetry of the early modern period.