Poet, scholar of Lithuanian and Slavic literature, Professor of Russian and Slavic literatures at Yale University (New Haven). Researcher of Russian poetry (including Vyacheslav Ivanov, Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, Maryna Tsvetayev, Osip Mandelstam, and Joseph Brodsky) and Polish poetry (including the monograph Aleksander Wat: Life and Art of an Iconoclast, 1996). Translator of literature into Lithuanian, mainly poetry from Russian and Polish (among others, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Czesław Miłosz, Zbigniew Herbert, and Wisława Szymborska) and Anglo-Saxon poetry. Researcher of the history of Vilnius culture (e.g. Vilnius: City Guide, 2002), Venclova is a member of the editorial staff of the Zeszyty Literackie journal. One of the greatest contemporary poets, Venclova received an honorary degree from several universities, including the Jagiellonian University (2000), but he also received the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, many literary prizes (including the Petrarch Prize) and socio-cultural awards (including the Jan Nowak-Jeziorański Award and Jerzy Giedroyc Award). Along with Czesław Miłosz, Venclova initiated many cultural and socio-political undertakings aimed at the revival and deepening of the Polish-Lithuanian and Lithuanian-Polish dialogue.