This publication includes literary works by the famous Lithuanian poet, philologist, translator, essayist Thomas Venclov: the collections “Articles on Russian Literature”, “Articles on Brodsky”, “Articles from Various Years”. The reader will find in the book the author’s research on the works of L. N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov, poets of the 20th century: Karolina Pavlova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Boris Pasternak, Vladislav Khodasevich, Vladimir Korvin-Piotrovsky, etc. The final part of the book is the collection “ Unstable balance: Eight Russian poetic texts" (developing the ideas and methods of Yu. M. Lotman), the author’s doctoral dissertation, defended at Yale University (USA) in 1985. The collection was published as a separate book and was used as a poetry textbook in some American universities.