Exegit monumentum

They used the anonymous, mid-seventeenth-century manuscript “Lexicon Lithuanicum.” This is also indicated by the author’s handwritten additions to the dictionary, which Prof. V. Drotvinas classifies by content into groups: “1) new headwords with Lithuanian equivalents; 2) synonyms of those equivalents, variants in word formation or inflection; and 3) illustrations of Lithuanian word usage (usually Bible sentences in German and Lithuanian)” (p. XII). In addition to the author’s handwritten additions, in “Pastabose...” Prof. V. Drotvinas also distinguishes annotations, which likewise “most often supplement headwords or their equivalents, or else offer grammatical observations of some kind.” These annotations, however, “are written in a hand entirely different from that of the dictionary as a whole—not calligraphically, but as if in haste, in smaller letters, with ink of varying intensity, usually after Lithuanian words or between the lines” (p. XII). Prof. V. Drotvinas counts more than two hundred such annotations throughout the dictionary. Having noted that their authors are unknown, the editor of “Clavis...” surmises that some annotations may have been added by F. Pretorijus’s son Frydrichas, who inherited the parish of Žiliai after his father’s death; others by Vilhelmas Teodoras Šimelpenigis and Kristijonas Frydrichas Štimeris, who owned the dictionary, and by two or three other people. He concludes by adding that “the content and authorship of the annotations should be investigated specifically” (p. XII). This is an exceedingly interesting and difficult task, since linguists alone are unlikely to be able to establish who wrote them. We cannot manage without the help of graphologists. Yet it is doubtful whether graphologists will be able to identify the authors of these comparatively brief entries, especially since, for example, no other writings by K. F. Štimeris appear to have survived (cf. B i r ž i š k a V. Aleksandrynas 2, Vilnius: Sietynas, 1990, 111). But only graphologists can say. Doubts of this kind show just how many unsolved riddles our old writings—especially manuscripts—still conceal, and how important they are to the history of our language and culture. It is understandable that each such publication is an exceptional event. Prof. V. Drotvinas, the editor of this volume, therefore deserves the greatest respect and gratitude, as do the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the IMTEC Foundation, which funded the publication of “Clavis...,” and the Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla, which in these times of universal materialism resolved to publish an invaluable book for the study of our language. We can only hope that fortune will favor the other volumes of F. Pretorijus’s dictionary, prepared by Prof. V. Drotvinas some time ago. Juozas Karaciejus EXEGIT MONUMENTUM , On March 16, 1996, Kazys Ulvydas, Doctor of the Humanities and corresponding member of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, died. One of the most resilient embers remained from the Lithuanian scholarly hearth, which had begun to burn brightly in the interwar years of independent Lithuania; it had glowed in all its brilliance through the long years of occupation and kindled the flame of love 272 for the Lithuanian language in the hearts of many Lithuanian linguists and others as well. According to K. Ulvydas himself, he was born on August 15, 1910 (Old Style; he did not care for the New Style date) at the Bagotelė estate in Kėdainiai district, into a large family of farm laborers. Consequently, he had to pursue his studies relying entirely on his own efforts. After completing four grades at Kėdainiai Gymnasium, K. Ulvydas went to Kaunas, where he managed to gain admission to the Jesuit Gymnasium. The standard of instruction there was high, and K. Ulvydas thus acquired a solid grounding in the humanities. After graduating from the gymnasium in 1930, he entered the Faculty of Humanities at Vytautas Magnus University. By then, quite a number of local and visiting scholars were already working at the university, creating favorable conditions for talented students. At the same time, he began teaching Lithuanian at that same Jesuit Gymnasium. The combined workload of student and teacher prolonged his studies, but it also gave him the opportunity to put the education he was acquiring to immediate use at school and to avoid the superficiality often characteristic of students who study only during examination sessions. Called up for military service in 1937, K. Ulvydas became a cadet at the Military School. He immediately stood out among his fellow students for his abilities and, being somewhat older, earned considerable respect. The editors of the magazine “Kariūnas” drew on his expertise. K. Ulvydas’s first articles on linguistics were also published in this magazine. It is worth noting that K. Ulvydas celebrated his last (85th) birthday first and foremost with his fellow cadets, who had never forgotten him; together they also planted a young oak as a symbol of his life. After completing his military studies in 1938, K. Ulvydas returned to work as a Lithuanian-language teacher, this time at the Kaunas Commercial School, where from 1944 to 1946 he served as deputy director. While working there, in 1940 he graduated from Vilnius University, having written a diploma thesis entitled “Plant and Animal Surnames.” Not long after qualifying as a Lithuanian-language specialist, in 1942 he was invited to teach at Kaunas University. There, in 1946, he became a senior lecturer in the Faculty of History and Philology; from 1946 to 1949 he served as vice-dean, and in 1949, until the faculty was transferred to Vilnius, as dean. He taught the principal courses in the Lithuanian language there. From 1949, K. Ulvydas had to commute to work at Vilnius University. It was not until 1951 that he moved with his family to Vilnius and immersed himself wholeheartedly in linguistic scholarship, an undertaking that lasted four decades. At Vilnius University he was immediately elected head of the Department of Lithuanian Language, began working at the Lithuanian Language Institute of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, and enrolled as a postgraduate student at Moscow University. When the Institutes of Lithuanian Language and Lithuanian Literature were merged in 1952, K. Ulvydas became deputy director of the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature and head of its Department of Language History and Dialectology. He relinquished his position as head of the Department of Lithuanian Language, remaining only for some time as a senior lecturer. 273 In 1955, K. Ulvydas’s duties changed once again: he gave up purely administrative work and took charge of the Dictionary Department. That same year, he defended his dissertation, “The Adverb in Contemporary Lithuanian (Adverbialization of the Singular Case Forms).” In 1960, he was appointed head of the newly established Department of Contemporary Lithuanian, and from 1976 to 1987 he again headed the Dictionary Department. In 1972, K. Ulvydas was elected a corresponding member of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. These changes in responsibilities were not accidental. They were prompted by circumstances as they unfolded: he had to go wherever there was a gap, wherever the need was greatest. In 1950, a major undertaking began at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language—the preparation of the Atlas of the Lithuanian Language. But first, arrangements had to be made to collect material from all over Lithuania. A program and instructions for collecting the material had to be drawn up. So, after moving to Vilnius, K. Ulvydas took over this work and successfully set it on a sound footing. When the second volume of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, published in 1947, came under heavy criticism, the team of lexicographers at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language was dispersed, publication of the dictionary was halted, and its editor, J. Balčikonis, was removed from his post. Someone was needed who could reorganize the preparation of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language to meet the Communist Party’s requirements, or, as it was put, “in accordance with the principles of Soviet lexicography.” In 1955, K. Ulvydas dared to take on this work, determined to treat this still more painful wound. K. Ulvydas’s ability to argue his case helped preserve the structure of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language with only minor changes. The occasional insertion of formulaic sentences from the Soviet press and publications into the dictionary’s illustrative examples satisfied the critics’ ambitions. But its core material—the facts of dialects and data from old writings—was preserved. After languishing for almost ten years, the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language began to appear again. Once the work on the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language had been put back on track, it was possible to undertake another major field of linguistic research: preparing the Grammar of the Lithuanian Language. No better organizer than K. Ulvydas could be found for this task. The work began, one might say, on a blank slate. First, a team of researchers had to be assembled. As a university lecturer, K. Ulvydas knew many talented students. He kept in touch even with those assigned to work in district schools. He would speak sincerely with anyone wishing to work first in lexicography and later in grammar, and, without the person realizing it, would assess their knowledge and readiness for scholarly work. He sent more than one young linguist and doctoral student to the linguistic research centers in Moscow or St. Petersburg to prepare for this work. He himself supervised six doctoral candidates who defended their dissertations. His students filled the Dictionary Department; his students made up the entire Department of Contemporary Lithuanian, whose members wrote the Grammar of the Lithuanian Language. He also managed to involve some of his students working at institutions of higher education in writing certain sections. Moreover, more than one of the grammar’s authors went on to become lecturers and professors at institutions of higher education. 274 K. Ulvydas provided all the conditions necessary for this. K. Ulvydas produced a substantial body of scholarly and editorial work. He was editor-in-chief of nine volumes (II–V, XI–XVI) of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language and a member of the editorial board for two further volumes (VI–VII), as well as for all three editions of the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian (1954, 1972, 1993). K. Ulvydas’s wise counsel often cooled heated debates and greatly served the common good. K. Ulvydas was editor-in-chief of all three volumes of the Grammar of the Lithuanian Language and authored its introduction and chapter on adverbs. This required not only scholarly expertise but also considerable organizational ability. The work of various authors, with differing levels of scholarly achievement and adherents of different theories, each writing in their own style, had to be processed scientifically and made consistent so that the work would feel unified, while at the same time preserving the authors’ individuality—no simple undertaking. Seventeen years of painstaking work resulted in the first three-volume scholarly grammar of the Lithuanian language written in Lithuanian. Whatever positions he held and whatever work he did, K. Ulvydas devoted his entire life to fostering the culture of the Lithuanian language. From 1961, he served for thirty years as editor-in-chief of the collections of articles “Kalbos kultūra” (Language Culture). He published many articles in them. Many were programmatic and essential reading for those working to promote language culture. For thirty years, K. Ulvydas also hosted the radio program “Taisyklingai kalbėkime ir rašykime” (Let Us Speak and Write Correctly). It was one of the most popular weekly programs. Listeners inundated K. Ulvydas with questions, and he always carefully prepared answers for them. The texts prepared for those broadcasts could have formed a very valuable handbook on language culture. But K. Ulvydas never found the time to prepare that book. The program was discontinued when K. Ulvydas began to argue, with good reason, that children in kindergartens should not be taught a second language. K. Ulvydas had served on the editorial commissions for the publications of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, the continuing publication of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature “Literatūra ir kalba” (Literature and Language), the Bibliographical Index of Lithuanian Linguistics, the writings of K. Donelaitis, and other works. In general, he gave every person seeking his advice his undivided attention, regardless of how busy he was, and never watched the clock. Having begun his scholarly work by studying Lithuanian adverbs, K. Ulvydas continued throughout his life to collect material for a major work on adverbs. But amid all his organizational and editorial work, he never managed to find even a somewhat longer stretch of time to sit down with the vast body of material on adverbs he had collected. One of his many students should now undertake this work in memory of their teacher. It should be mentioned that K. Ulvydas took part in many conferences and symposia, not only in Lithuania but also abroad. He presented papers in Ashgabat, Kyiv, Chișinău, Moscow, Prague, St. Petersburg, Riga, and elsewhere; he visited the language institutes of almost all the republics of the former Soviet Union to learn about their work. He was keen to adapt the effective working methods practiced by other institutes to the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature 275 at work. But there were no conditions for introducing various innovations. K. Ulvydas liked to promote matters of practical language use. He always spoke very persuasively and engagingly. Therefore, he was constantly invited to various groups to give lectures. Lithuanians in the United States, too, had listened to his eloquent speaking. Even after retiring, K. Ulvydas did not sever his ties with the staff of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. He was a member of the editorial board of “Kalbos kultūra,” and until almost the final years of his life was elected to the Institute’s Academic Council, where his authoritative voice was always valued. In February 1996, K. Ulvydas was honored with the Order of Gediminas. Through his work, however, he had himself erected an imperishable monument. May he rest peacefully in Vilnius soil. Jonas Paulauskas IN MEMORY OF ANTANAS LYBERIS AND HIS WORK In the great “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” the two-letter abbreviation Ėr added beside a multitude of words and sentences is a modest yet enduring monument to two linguists who came from the village of Ėriškiai (Panevėžys District). One was the well-known educator Juozas Balčikonis, continuator of the work of Jonas Jablonskis and Kazimieras Būga; the other was his relative, Antanas Lyberis. When Lyberis was choosing his path in life, the spoken word and growing authority of his older fellow countryman undoubtedly influenced him. It is true that, after graduating from Panevėžys Gymnasium in 1928, A. Lyberis decided only a few years later (in 1932) to continue his studies at Vytautas Magnus University, choosing classical philology. He graduated in 1939. Like many young people studying at the time, A. Lyberis had to earn a living while still a student. As soon as he began his studies, he was invited to work at the editorial office of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, which the Ministry of Education had charged J. Balčikonis with establishing and directing at the end of 1930. For A. Lyberis, the editorial office was like a second university, providing theoretical knowledge of lexicography and practical skills in dictionary-making. There he had to learn to collect words from spoken language and various written sources, organize the rapidly expanding card index of words inherited from K. Būga, get accustomed to writing dictionary entries, read proofs, and perform other tasks. In the “Preface” to the first volume of the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” published in 1941 and covering words beginning with A–B, chief editor J. Balčikonis named “the closest colleagues in the editorial office, without whose conscientious work and dedication this volume of the dictionary could not have appeared.” A. Lyberis was among these colleagues. Later, A. Lyberis would often speak engagingly and very warmly to younger generations of linguists about other employees of the dictionary’s editorial office from that period as well—Napalys Grigas, Elzė Mikalauskaitė, Jonas Mikelūnas, Juozas Senkus, Zenonas Uoselis, Kostas Vosylius, and others. The years of war and occupation scattered the small staff of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language— 276