His main academic interest and specialism was in Belarusian-Polish and Belarusian-Lithuanian literary connections.

[3] Despite strict ideological control in the Soviet Belarus, Maldzis managed to publish a review of Arnold McMillin's A History of Byelorussian Literature from Its Origins to the Present Day (1977) – the first English-language history of Belarusian literature.

[4] In 1982, Maldzis was the first scholar from the Soviet Belarus to spend a considerable amount of time at the Belarusian Library in London working with the materials unavailable to researchers at home due to censorship.

[4] In 1990, he made a public statement – the first in the BSSR – calling for the acknowledgement of the important and positive role of the Uniate Church in the history of Belarus.

In the same year, he founded the Francis Skaryna National Research and Education Centre; he was its director in 1991–98.