Janis Endzelynas mokinių ir bendradarbių atmintyje

to the Dictionary a substantial bundle of slips bearing carefully recorded, interesting sentences. Grinaveckienė submitted about 30,000 such slips. The words she collected alone would make up a large dictionary volume. Many of the words she recorded have appeared in the published volumes of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language. Many more will be used for the Dictionary’s supplements. Her words were collected throughout Lithuania, from all Lithuanian-speaking parishes. But, of course, mostly from Jurbarkas, where she spent her vacations, where many people knew and respected her. The Dictionary will sorely miss such a word collector… It is no surprise that a gifted and hardworking person contributed much to the study of the Lithuanian language. But is it possible to imagine that Grinaveckienė accomplished most of her work while already suffering from an incurable illness? Every step she took was unbearably painful. Bearing her suffering, she walked and walked across Lithuania, to the Lithuanian people… until the Jurbarkas cemetery, visible from her childhood home, took her in. Jonas Paulauskas JĀNIS ENDZELĪNS IN THE MEMORIES OF HIS STUDENTS AND COLLEAGUES Jānis Endzelīns atmiņās, pārdomās, vēstulēs. Sast. Dzidra Barbare, Brigita Bušmane. Red. kol. B. Bušmane, A. Stafecka, V. Skujiņa (red. kol. vad.), M. Stengrevica. Rīga, 1999: Latviešu valodas institūts, 323 p. The Latvian Language Institute published an interesting book of memoirs about Jānis Endzelīns, the most eminent scholar of the Latvian language, whom Lithuanian linguists, as the book also notes, have called a giant of the Latvians. The book presents memoirs by nearly forty authors. The oldest among them, Mērija Saulė-Sleinė, born at the end of the previous century, met J. Endzelīns in her youth and spent the final years of his life with him. The youngest, Valentina Skujiņa, who was also the head of the book’s editorial board, joined a student delegation to congratulate the linguist on his 85th birthday and carried one of his orders in the funeral procession. One could say that in all the memoirs J. Endzelīns emerges as an extraordinary personality. His legendary punctuality, the substantial lectures he delivered without notes, his rigorous examinations, intolerance of any language errors (even the slightest dialectal forms), and refusal to defer to any authorities all made a profound impression on everyone. We find a great deal of interesting information not only about J. Endzelīns’s personality but also about Latvian cultural life as a whole, especially the university and its faculty, in the memoirs of Kārlis Draviņš, his wife Velta Rūķe-Draviņa, and Rūdolfs Grabijs (the latter had already been published in part in the book dedicated to R. Grabijs, Savai valodai, Rīga, 1997). 224 The book reveals tragic pages in the history of Latvian linguistics during the postwar years. The main force of the Marxists’ attack is directed against J. Endzelīns. Even the Komsomol organization joins the campaign against the scholar. He is forced to leave the university. In the printing house, the Latvian text of “Lettische Grammatik,” already almost completely set in type, narrowly escapes destruction. (Is this not the irony of fate: in 1958, J. Endzelīns was awarded the Lenin Prize for this book!) The chief Soviet Latvian ideologue, Arvyds Pelše, himself publishes an article in 1952, “The State of Latvian Linguistics and the Tasks of the Republic’s Linguists,” in which the distinguished linguist and his school are vilified. And, of course, it is saddening to learn from the memoirs published in the book that Evalds Sokols, longtime director of the Institute of Language and Literature, who had “crushed” J. Endzelīns more than once, had himself been tortured in Yezhov’s prisons. Sadly, this idealist communist also fell into great disfavor with the authorities toward the end of his life. There are also more amusing passages in the book. In 1934, J. Endzelīns is examining applicants to the university (among them is V. Rūķe, the future V. Rūķe-Dravinia). In Latvia, Kārlis Ulmanis has just come to power following a coup. The professor suddenly asks one of the examinees: “What do you know about Kārlis Ulmanis?” Barely catching his breath, the young man rattles off facts from the Latvian president’s biography. “I am not asking you about this Kārlis Ulmanis,” J. Endzelīns interrupts him. He wanted to know what the prospective student knew about the 19th-century Latvian lexicographer, Bishop Kārlis Christian Ulmanis. Or take Kārlis Draviņš, who arrives at the examination in military uniform. After the exam, he clicks his heels like a soldier, swiftly raises his hand to his head, and only when he sees the smiles in the lecture hall does he realize that he is not wearing his cap… At a meeting of the academic council of the Institute of Language and Literature, one council member, disagreeing with J. Endzelīns on some point, notes that Jānis Loja thinks so too, and that he “is a professor and a well-known senior linguist.” Angrily, J. Endzelīns retorts to his opponent: “There is no doubt that he is old, but it is not known that he is also a well-known linguist.” J. Endzelīns’s correspondence with his students who had ended up in Siberia is deeply moving. He was not afraid to correspond with them, and sent them his books and even money. When one of his students, returning from the Far East, wanted to thank him for his moral and material support, the professor merely smiled, waved his hand, and said: “I don’t remember—I’ve forgotten. I’m glad to see you.” When Milda Grynfeldė, a translator returning from the Tayshet labor camp, borrowed a considerable sum from J. Endzelīns to buy a home and later wanted to pay it back, he refused to take the money. Lithuanian readers may be interested to learn that in their letters, former students of J. Endzelīns rejoice that they have become much more proficient in Lithuanian while in exile. They write that Latvian schools should provide more familiarity with Lithuanian literature and not be content, as they had been until then, with Lithuanian folk songs alone. In his reply to one exile’s letter, J. Endzelīns adds: “Your appearance (the correspondent had sent J. Endzelīns her photograph. – A. S.) and the fact that you can devote time to Lithuanian 225 language and the poetry of Salomėja Nėris suggest that now you can not only exist, but also live.” Or take the translator and polyglot Silvija Kuzė, whose fate was exceptionally tragic. Twice exiled to Siberia and having evaded arrest in Lithuania as well, she is assigned the task of organizing foreign-language books at the Scientific Library of Tomsk University. In the library basement, she sees a huge pile of moldy books covered in cobwebs (she estimates there may be about 10,000, while the director calculates 20,000–30,000 books). As she begins sorting this “pile of junk,” the Latvian woman’s attention is caught by the second volume of Krišjānis Barons’s “Latvian Songs,” published in 1903. Of course, she cannot resist leafing through a book so dear to her heart in her distant exile. She is astonished by the “notes written in a careful, fine hand, which show that the reader of the songs was a linguist.” Right there, she also finds several scraps of paper that finally help her establish that the author of these notes was Kazimieras Būga.1 The author of this review recalls that in 1961 Professors Borisas Larinas and Kostas Korsakas discussed his article about a Latvian linguist who had recently died. They advised the young author to include some critical remark in the article. B. Larinas said, half-jokingly: “What do you mean—there are spots even on the sun.” As we read the memoirs, we might find such “spots” in Jānis Endzelīns’s life as well. He did not always get along with his colleagues2. For some reason, he did not want younger linguists to take doctoral examinations. Many were surprised when Alvilis Augstkalnis3—regarded by his friends and colleagues as a veritable genius—failed one of his doctoral examinations. The attitude of Edytė Hauzenberga-Šturma, J. Endzelīns’s principal assistant, was rather ambivalent, one might say. The distinguished linguist’s relationship with his brother was peculiar. His family life was very complicated. Yet these “spots” can in no way eclipse Jānis Endzelīns’s greatness as a scholar4. Algirdas Sabaliauskas 1 K. Būga was a professor in Tomsk in 1919–1920. 2 “It can safely be said that research into the Latvian language and the collection of material would have achieved and accomplished more if Endzelīns, the most important pillar and mainstay in this field, had been able to find common ground a little more with his colleagues,” – K. Draviņš. 3 A. Augstkalnis doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire in 1940. When V. Rūkė-Dravinia told J. Endzelīns this tragic news, he whispered: “At least he could have thought about his children.” 4 It is a great pity that, due to disagreements over spelling issues, Rasmos Gryslės article “Endzelynas and His Family” (Endzelīns un viņa dzimta), which presents interesting facts about the famous linguist’s ancestors, descendants, and the origin of his surname (the three brothers spelled their surnames differently; the surname derives from the Low German Hänselin – a diminutive form of the word Hans ‘John’, which meant not only ‘Johnny’ but also ‘little finger’), was not published in this book. R. Gryslė’s article was later published in the newspaper “Brīvā Latvija” (1999, May 8–May 14, No. 18(607)); see also A. Mieze, R. Grisle. Endzelīna dzimtas uzvārds. – Ibid., 1998, Jan. 3–9, No. 1(542). 226