The best Russian literary scholars have devoted their energies to studying the poetic worlds of Alexander Pushkin and Boris Pasternak at different times. Among them, a prominent place is occupied by Alexander Alekseevich Dolinin, a famous philologist, honorary professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, author of numerous works on Russian, English and American literature. This collection includes his works on two great poets, united by common research principles. In each of the articles, the author tries to solve a certain mystery lying in the field of poetics or literary history, resolve apparent contradictions and unclear allusions in the text, and establish its contexts and subtexts. Research by A. A. Dolinin, as a rule, introduces new material from Russian and Western European culture into the field of view and is often polemical in nature. The appendix contains the author's commentary on "Mozart and Salieri", which reconstructs in detail the history of the legend of Mozart's poisoning, establishes literary parallels to it and analyzes the "dark places" of the drama.