This article examines V. I. Ivanov’s and I. F. Annensky’s mythopoetic strategies which they formulated within the frameworks of realistic symbolism and neohellenistic theories respectively. According to Annensky, the modern artist can modify the ancient myth and enrich it with new, personal, meanings if this is required by the artist’s tasks. However, this “invasion” into the structure of the myth is not the author’s lawlessness but a need to adapt the myth to the modern time and to its reader. Ivanov, on the contrary, insists that the myth should be a form of collective consciousness as mystical and religious aspects of the myth and its connection with the sphere of cult are particularly important to him. The adherent of realistic symbolism believes that the artist should be the mouthpiece of the people’s soul, and only then the myth created by him will receive public recognition. Therefore, for a true mythmaker there is no contradiction between individual and collective, innovation and tradition. This paper aims to demonstrate that despite the contrast between these strategies they are based on the common axiological principle of accepting the values of tradition and artist’s personality, and a new understanding of myth appears during the process of their interaction. Annensky and Ivanov both drew special attention to the fact that there was an interaction of the personal and the collective principle within myths in contemporary art, but the former poet understood this process in terms of culture, whereas the latter looked at it in terms of cult and religion. For Annensky, the author’s freedom is limited by ethical tasks, while for Ivanov the author’s freedom is limited by religious tasks. Though a certain similarity of their views can be traced, it is not the case in the context of the Silver Age. The authors of mythopoetic strategies in question were aware of the opponent’s position but, as it often happens, drew attention to diff erences. Mythopoetic strategy of the acmeist poet N. S. Gumilev developed in close interaction with the ideas of older poets, although after Ivanov’s criticism of his poem The Prodigal Son (Russ. «Блудный сын»), Gumilev moves away from him and emphasises that he is the successor of Annensky’s views on the myth. However, this is not completely tenable because Gumilev argues that the myth in the work of art is based on the image, whereas Ivanov and Annensky proceeded from its symbolic nature. Nevertheless, the acmeist mythopoetic strategy is based on the synthesis of both older poets’ ideas.