Keletas smulkmenų Jurgio Gerulio biografijai

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XXXVI (1996) LIETUVIŲ KALBA: TYRĖJAI IR TYRIMAI Algirdas SABALIAUSKAS A FEW DETAILS FOR THE BIOGRAPHY OF JURGIS GERULIS Jurgis Gerulis (in German, he used to spell his name Georg Gerullis1) was born on August 13, 1888, in Jogaudai (Šilutė district, in the former Vilkyškiai parish, Tilžė county). Both his parents were pure-blooded Lithuanians. However, by J. Gerulis’s childhood, the relentless wave of Germanization had already reached the village of Jogaudai. Gerulis himself described this process in detail in the article “The Mother Tongue and Bilingualism in a Village of Prussian Lithuania” (Gerullis 1932: 59—67). In 1914, about 55 percent of the inhabitants of Jogaudai village were “Lithuanians” and 45 percent “Germans.” Less than twenty years later, only three elderly people could still be classified as “Lithuanians.” All the other villagers had already become “Germans.” At the age of five, Gerulis began reading a German primer and Martin Luther’s Small Catechism with his mother. By the time his sisters had arrived, he was already attending the German village school. Gerulis spoke only Lithuanian with his parents, but with his brother he also spoke German. The children still prayed and later wrote letters to their parents in Lithuanian, although religious instruction was already conducted in German everywhere. Following an old tradition, Gerulis’s father did not want to divide his farm. Thus, one son was to inherit the family homestead, while the other—in this case, Jurgis—had to choose between two paths: “digging for coal underground” or pursuing an education. Jurgis Gerulis decided to choose the latter. In 1909, he graduated from the classical gymnasium in Tilžė and began studying African studies at the University of Königsberg. However, Professor Adalbert Bezzenberger persuaded him to devote himself to Baltic studies. Gerulis also studied comparative linguistics and classical languages in Berlin, where his principal teacher was the renowned Indo-Europeanist Wilhelm Schulze. In 1912, Gerulis received his doctorate at the University of Königsberg for a dissertation written in Latin, “On Prussian Place Names in Sambia” (“De Prussicis Sambiensium locorum nominibus”. Tilsit, 1912), and was appointed a Privatdozent at the university. It should be noted that Gerulis’s university studies lasted only three years. This is indeed a rare case in the biography of a scholar specializing in philology. Thus, part of his father’s plan had already been fulfilled. Yet there would have been no need to divide the family homestead anyway, since Gerulis’s brother Heinrich was killed on the Western Front in 1918 (Mois-lains bei Péronne), when only two months remained before the end of the war. In memory of his brother, Jurgis Gerulis dedicated one of his finest works, “Ancient Prussian Place Names” (“Die 1 J. Gerulis explained that he wrote ll in his surname in German so that Germans would not pronounce it “Gerulis.” 12 altpreussischen Ortsnamen”. Berlin und Leipzig, 1922). The First World War left a deep mark on Jurgis Gerulis’s life as well. He had to fight on both the Eastern and Western fronts. He fought on the front lines and was wounded several times. He commanded a machine-gun company. A handsome officer in the Crown Prince’s Guard, while fighting on Latvian territory, he learned not only Latvian but also fell in love with the daughter of a Latvian German landowner. Later, as Gerulis’s wife, she would constantly remember the family estates her father had lost and feel no sympathy for the Baltic lands, especially Latvia. More than once she would declare that she would never set foot beyond Eitkūnai. Even the map of Latvia in her husband’s study irritated her: “such a large map of such a small country.” After the war, Gerulis returned to the University of Königsberg. As soon as the University of Kaunas had been established, largely at the initiative of Kazimieras Būga, it invited him to take up a professorship at this Lithuanian institution of higher education. In an assessment of Gerulis’s scholarly work (“A Brief Assessment of the Writings of Dr. phil. Jurgis Gerulis”), signed on March 2, 1922, by K. Būga, Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius, and Eduardas Volteris, and undoubtedly written by K. Būga, we read: “Since the end of the war, Gerulis has led the Lithuanian language seminar at the University of Königsberg and, as a Privatdozent, has taught the compulsory courses assigned to him by the faculty in comparative linguistics. Last autumn, the University of Hamburg invited him to a professorship in comparative linguistics. At the beginning of February this year, the University of Leipzig offered him an extraordinary professorship in Baltic (Aistian) languages. Gerulis declined both offers, believing that he would be of greater service to the young University of Lithuania, which needs capable and diligent scholars more than Germany’s old universities do.” It is important for our university to have Gerulis not only because he is a Lithuanian linguist, but also because he is a c l a s s i c i s t. Until we obtain professors for the chairs of Latin and Greek philology, Gerulis will be able to lecture not only in comparative linguistics, but also temporarily to perform the duties of a professor of Latin and Greek philology [...] Gerulis has rendered such great services to linguistics that he deserves to be a professor at our young university” (Žukas 1990: 44—46). Unfortunately, however, Gerulis chose not the young University of Kaunas but the old University of Leipzig. It is possible that his wife, who did not want to “set foot beyond Eitkūnai,” played no small part in this. Be that as it may, the Leipzig period was very successful in Gerulis’s scholarly career. During this time he published many of his most important works and made a significant contribution to Baltic linguistics, especially Lithuanian studies, through his teaching as well. For it was then in Leipzig that two of our distinguished linguists, Antanas Salys and Pranas Skardžius, who later succeeded Jonas Jablonskis and Kazimieras Būga at the University of Kaunas, completed their linguistic studies under Gerulis’s supervision. Gerulis took great care of these talented pupils. He taught some courses in Lithuanian studies exclusively for these two, already known among their fellow students as “future Lithuanian professors” (“künftige litauische Professoren”). While teaching in Leipzig, Gerulis continued to deepen his own studies in linguistics. For example, he persuaded the famous German phonetician Eduard Siever- 13 s, by then an emeritus, to teach A. Salys and Pr. Skardžius a course in experimental phonetics. For at least two semesters, every Sunday Gerulis went with both his pupils to Sievers, where they spent a couple of hours discussing Lithuanian stress and pitch accents. Their discussions were especially interesting and successful because the three participants represented different dialects: Gerulis was a western Aukštaitian, Skardžius an eastern Subatėnian, and Salys a Samogitian from Salantai. Sievers’s seminars marked the beginning of Gerulis’s later research into Lithuanian phonetics (Skardžius 1968: 215—216)2. While spending several summers studying Lithuanian dialects, Gerulis traveled throughout Lithuania. He used to joke that while “the Kaunas gentlemen were warming their backsides in Palanga,” he was walking through villages with a backpack on his shoulders, collecting facts about the Lithuanian language. Together with the distinguished Norwegian Balticist Christian S. Stang, Gerulis rescued for linguistic scholarship the East Prussian Lithuanian fishermen’s dialect, which was already on the verge of disappearing completely (“The Lithuanian Fishermen’s Dialect in Prussia.” Kaunas, 1933; the description was published in German). Together with this Norwegian scholar, Gerulis also studied the Lithuanian dialect of the Zietela area, then part of Poland. Unfortunately, the material Gerulis recorded on this dialect has not survived. Yet nearly thirty years later (Gerulis and Stang had visited the area in 1930), Chr. S. Stang published the highly valuable results of their research (Stang 1958: 171—201)3. Among Gerulis’s teaching activities at the time, particular mention should be made of the dialect-research courses organized by the Ministry of Education in Kaunas under his direction. These courses were organized four times between 1931 and 1933. They were attended not only by Lithuanian philologists who later became prominent—Juozas Balčikonis, Vaclovas Baravykas, Julius Būtėnas, Marija Čilvinaitė, Kazimieras Gasparavičius, Napalys Grigas, Zuzana Jonikaitė, Petras Jonikas, Alfonsas Kalnius, Jonas Kruopas, Izabelė Matusevičiūtė, Elzbieta Mikalauskaitė, Jonas Mikeliūnas, Juozas Senkus, Bronė Vosylytė, and Aleksandras Žirgulys—but also by the talented Latvian linguist Alvilis Augstkalnis, who, alas, died tragically young, and the German linguist Walter Fenzlau, who had known Lithuanian since childhood and authored the book “German Forms of Lithuanian Place Names and Personal Names in the Klaipėda Region” (“Die deutschen Formen der litauischen Orts- und Personennamen des Memelgebiets”. Halle, 1936). It should be recalled that the preface to J. Gerulis and Chr. Stang’s book “The Lithuanian Fishermen’s Dialect in Prussia” was written by Antanas Smetona, then president of Lithuania, who also thanked Gerulis for the courses. Having discussed the importance of dialects for the standard language and noted that they were rapidly disappearing, he urged that they be studied. A. Smetona went on to write: “We have young linguists, and we have young teachers scattered throughout Lithuania. They are best suited to assist Professor J. Gerulis, who has kindly agreed to teach them how dialects should be studied and recorded. Under the guidance of a competent scholar, this team will, we may hope, accomplish important work that will serve not only the practical purpose of concern to us, but also the science of language” (pp. III—IV). Unfortunately, after the Nazis came to power in Germany, these courses were not continued for political reasons. On the other hand, in 1930, from Leipzig to the University of Kaunas 2 Cf. also Pr. Skardžius’s letter to J. Jablonskis, dated February 12, 1926 (the letter is held at the Library of the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, F 52—252). 3 For more on this work, cf. Vidugiris A. New Works on Lithuanian Dialects, Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai, 1959, 2, 239—242. 14 With his return and A. Salys’s involvement in the study of the Lithuanian language, Lithuanian dialectology was greatly strengthened, and it was already possible to manage without assistance from abroad. J. Gerulis was also interested in practical matters concerning the Lithuanian language. In a letter written to J. Jablonskis on November 29, 19224, he expresses concern about the inconsistency of our spelling and urges J. Jablonskis and K. Būga to write a spelling handbook, since “a spelling handbook, even an imperfect one, is much better than one which, it seems, will come out without agreement only in the time of our children’s children.” He also expresses his opinion about the language of publications of that time: “You mentioned Žemaitė. She is a woman whose writings I like very much. It seems that we sons of Lithuania Minor have many Germanisms in our language, but we know how to distinguish what is pure from what is not. Žemaitė’s language is the most beautiful. It is not artificial. When I read Šviet. darbas or some other writing of today, I am annoyed by newly coined words, syntax, and so on, for no reason at all. I must admit that I often do not understand what these men write: σκοτελνοί ἐσολὶ (they are dark, A. S.). From Žemaitė’s and Your writings I am learning to write truly Lithuanian.” Gerulis, who at first viewed the National Socialist movement quite negatively, joined their party in 1933 (his wife apparently also played an important role in prompting this step) and became, one might say, an active supporter of Adolf Hitler’s disastrous policies. In 1933 he was appointed Minister of Education of Saxony. That same year he became director of the Department of Higher Education in the Prussian Ministry of Education. In 1934 Gerulis left this post and returned to the University of Königsberg. According to the testimony of Gerulis’s student, Professor Viktor Falkenhahn, Gerulis did so in protest against the authorities (Falkenhahn 1964: 240). Two other students of Gerulis, A. Salys and Pr. Skardžius, state that their teacher “could not hold on to these positions for long because of his military severity” (A. S. and P. S. 1956: 187—188). Soon Gerulis was appointed rector of the University of Königsberg. But from there, too, he was transferred to Berlin because of party infighting. From 1937 he held the position of full professor at the University of Berlin and oversaw the German-founded Ukrainian Scientific Institute. Having become involved in political activity, after 1933 Gerulis published almost no significant works. His pedagogical activity, however, remained important during this period. Among others, the future Lithuanian linguists Jonas Kabelka, Izabelė Matusevičiūtė, and Elzbieta Mikalauskaitė received his careful guidance at the University of Berlin. Gerulis was bound by close ties of friendship to Antanas Vienuolis, a classic of our literature. This friendship grew especially strong when A. Vienuolis spent an extended period in Leipzig during his travels around Europe in 1929. Gerulis enabled him to attend lectures by some professors at the University of Leipzig and to use the university library. Together they traveled around the areas near and farther from Leipzig and visited the famous Schulpforte school near Naumburg. Even Gerulis’s son wanted to exchange postage stamps with A. Vienuolis’s son. Gerulis advised Vienuolis to write a historical novel, perhaps not about Vytautas, but about Jogaila: for A. 4 The letter is held in the library of the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore (F 52—199). 15 Vienuolis would better understand the character of a Highlander, whereas Vytautas was more of a Samogitian. Gerulis also took an interest in the future of A. Vienuolis’s relative Rapolas Šaltenis, then still a student at Kaunas University. Having read his article “Sturm und Drang,” published in Jaunoji Lietuva (1929, No. 8, pp. 17—22), Gerulis tried to make it possible for him to continue his studies at the University of Graz in Austria. In 1926 Gerulis visited A. Vienuolis in Anykščiai (Vienuolis 1988: 95—96, 111—119, 609—612; Šaltenis 1982: 150—151; 1991: 166—167; 1994: 115—116). On various occasions Gerulis rendered other kinds of service to Lithuanians as well. For example, President A. Smetona suggested that Jonas Puzinas, who had helped prepare his writings, study archaeology, promising him a scholarship from the Ministry of Education. At first J. Puzinas wanted to go to Königsberg. Gerulis, however, advised him to avoid Königsberg, since the situation there had become unfavorable toward Lithuania and Lithuanians because of the Klaipėda Region. Following Gerulis’s advice, J. Puzinas went in 1930 to the University of Heidelberg, farther from the Klaipėda Region (Mažulis 1983: 14—15). In general, our renowned archaeologist, who, among other things, initially studied philology at Kaunas University, had quite close dealings with Gerulis. Together with Gerulis, he recorded data on Lithuanian dialects. Most interestingly, however, J. Puzinas served as a kind of intermediary between Lithuanian President Antanas Smetona and Gerulis. A. Smetona, like Kazimieras Būga before him, wanted somehow to persuade Gerulis to move to Kaunas University. J. Puzinas discussed the matter with Gerulis not only in Königsberg, but also in Leipzig. Gerulis was offered a higher salary than the other professors at Kaunas University, and he was already prepared to move to Kaunas. But his wife upset all the plans. Gerulis explained to J. Puzinas that if his wife had been a German from Germany, she probably would not have objected to such a move by her husband, but she was a Baltic German... J. Puzinas recalls various interesting details from his meetings with Gerulis. For example, while serving as rector of the University of Königsberg, Gerulis took pride in the fact that the first head of this institution of higher learning (then called a particular) was the Lithuanian Abraomas Kulvietis, and the last was also a Lithuanian, Jurgis Gerulis. Once, when J. Puzinas, still a student, wanted to visit Gerulis at the University of Königsberg, the guard sitting by Gerulis’s office door warned him that the rector was busy: a faculty dean was with him. J. Puzinas handed over his visiting card, and the other visitor quickly left the office. “A stupid German can wait. We have to talk,” Gerulis said (Jankus 1979: 207). Gerulis entered the Second World War as a major in the German army. At first he was assigned to fight on the Western Front—he was to command an antiaircraft artillery unit near the famous Siegfried Line. But he ended up spending the war on the Eastern Front, where from 1941 he headed the Eastern Department of the Abwehr (the liaison service between the army and the National Socialist Party). During the war Gerulis lived mostly in Vilnius. He occasionally visited the Institute of the Lithuanian Language there, met with former students, Professor Juozas Balčikonis, and linguists of the younger generation, and suggested dissertation topics to them. In the library of Vilnius University he discovered an important monument of the Latvian language—the 1640 manuscript of Georg Elger’s “Gospels and Epistles.” After the war, Gerulis’s wife would hand this manuscript to Professor Chr. S. Stang, who would pass it on to the Latvian philologist Karlis Dravins, driven by the turmoil of war to Sweden. Dravins carefully prepared it for publication, dedicating it to Gerulis’s memory (Draviņš 1961, 1976). Near Lake Ilmen, not far from Velikiye Luki, the German army officer Ge- 16 Gerulis’s son Herbertas, in whom his father had placed so many hopes. When the staff of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language express their condolences to him, Gerulis, gazing somewhere into the distance, says that he was already German... On the Eastern Front, Gerulis also meets V. Falkenhahnas, now an interpreter at the headquarters of some German unit. The two travel together to see the Russian hill forts. When the Germans arrested Balys Sruoga in Vilnius, his wife Vanda Daugirdaitė-Sruogienė turned to J. Gerulis for help. He promised her something. In a letter (spring 1944), Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius offered comfort to V. Daugirdaitė-Sruogienė: “It heartens me that there is hope for Balys. If Professor Jurgis said so, I think there is reason to believe it. I consider him a serious man, and if he said that a promise had been made to him, one can certainly believe it” (Krėvė 1981: 132). In a letter to Algiras Samulionis dated July 18, 1979, V. Daugirdaitė-Sruogienė recalls: ”In the spring of 1944 I learned that he was coming to Vilnius. I knew him, though not very well [...] Where we had met is hazy: some dimly lit room, with what seemed like office furniture. He spoke while standing, and briefly. But what he said was etched in my memory and never faded. I remember it word for word: ”It looks as though I will soon take Jaeger’s place. Then everything in Lithuania will be different [...] He also told me quite clearly that when I went to speak with the Germans, I must not forget that I was ”Frau Professor” and had to conduct myself with dignity, not abase myself [...] Later, in Germany, he helped Dalia and me as well, by giving a recommendation so that Dalia could be admitted to the nursing school at the University of Greifswald”5 J. Gerulis’s loyalty to the German authorities probably never wavered. Pr. Skardžius recalls Gerulis speaking indignantly about his former student Pranas Germantas (Meškauskas)6. The reason was that Germantas, who had once pledged to work for the Germans, began acting against them in Lithuania during the occupation. According to Gerulis, he was a complete idiot. ”This kind of Junker-like thinking by a German major, even if he was Lithuanian, rather stunned me, and I said nothing in reply. But this news proved fateful: having firmly opposed the mobilization of Lithuanian youth, Pr. Germantas was arrested and deported to the Stuthof concentration camp” (Skardžius 1974: 323— 324). Once, at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, Gerulis even argued that his surname derived not from the word gėras, but from the German personal name Gerhard (Skardžius 1970: 270)7. 5 A. Samulionis brought the letter to the attention of the article’s author. 6 Pranas Germantas (Meškauskas), 1903.XII.3 – 1945.IV.22), tragiškai žuvusio lituanisto Kosto Meškausko (1906—1932) brolis, buvo išvykęs į Leipcigą studijuoti kalbotyros. Tačiau čia J. Gerulio patartas pasirinko disertacijos temą „Liaudies papročiai lietuvių šeimos gyvenime”. 1936 m. disertaciją apgynė, bet, anot Pr. Skardžiaus, nebuvo patenkintas nei pačiu J. Geruliu, nei savo disertacija. 1941 m. vokiečiams užėmus Lietuvą, Pr. Germantas buvo paskirtas Švietimo generaliniu tarėju. Eidamas šias pareigas, jis labai stengėsi išsaugoti Lietuvos mokyklas, ypač rūpinosi Vilniaus krašto švietimu. 1943 m. už pasipriešinimą mobilizacijai į vokiečių kariuomenę suimtas. Kalintas Vilniaus, Kauno, Tilžės, Karaliaučiaus, Marienburgo kalėjimuose, Stuthof koncentracijos stovykloje. Čia ypač pasižymėjo ”valenrodišku suktumu” gelbėdamas kalinius (plg. S. Yla. Žmonės ir žvėrys Dievų miške. Kaunas, 1991). Mirė šiltine. Kūnas buvo sudegintas Stuthof krematoriume. Tačiau kaliniai pavogę pelenus ir vėliau palaidojo vienose Kopenhagos kapinėse. 7 The Lithuanians of Lithuania Minor did indeed use the Lithuanian form of the German name Gerhard, namely Gerulis. However, the surnames Gerulis, Gerulaitis, are widespread in Lithuania. 17 Gerulis had considerable contact with the celebrated Latvian Balticist Jānis Endzelīns. Endzelīns apparently held Gerulis in high regard as a specialist. This may also be borne out by the detail that J. Endzelīns included a photograph of Gerulis alongside those of other celebrated Balticists in his “Introduction to Baltic Philology” (“Ievads baltu filoloģijā”. Riga, 1945). In 1943 Gerulis came to the University of Latvia to congratulate J. Endzelīns on his seventieth birthday (II.22). He arrived very smartly dressed, wearing “pheasant clothes” (a pheasant’s outfit), apparently a German officer’s uniform. J. Endzelīns used to recall that his colleague’s attire had greatly alarmed him (Liepiņš 1991: 41). As a conscientious scholar, Gerulis also showed himself capable of navigating complex political situations. When V. Falkenhahn, researching J. Bretkūnas’s biography, found a Latin document indicating that Lithuanians had lived farther west in East Prussia than official German scholarship acknowledged, he went to ask his dissertation supervisor for advice. The latter indeed found a Solomonic solution. He reportedly told him: “Write nothing about your discovery in the dissertation, but include a facsimile of the document somewhere; the censors will overlook it, and whoever needs to will learn the truth...” When Pr. Skardžius sent Gerulis his “work on the words of the Lithuanian language,” Gerulis thanked his former student for the gift in a letter, wrote “Ich bin satt vom Krieg” (“I am fed up with the war”), and added that he would soon leave the army and return to linguistic work (Skardžius 1970:270). Unfortunately, it was already too late8. Valentinas Gustainis provided a fairly detailed characterization of Gerulis in his memoir book “Without Guilt” (Gustainis 1989: 7—20). Before Hitler had seized power, Gerulis had urged Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius to travel to Munich with a substantial Lithuanian delegation to express their sympathies to Hitler, who was still fairly isolated at the time, in return for which “Hitler would be grateful and, having taken power, would be friendly toward Lithuania.” But “that Slav, Krėvė-Mickevičius, could neither understand nor appreciate such a thing: he categorically refused to travel secretly to negotiate with Hitler about the future.” In any case, V. Gustainis’s national pride was flattered by the fact that Gerulis always spoke Lithuanian with him, even at the university in the German capital. Gerulis, meanwhile, reasoned very soberly about relations between Lithuania and Poland. He disagreed with Lithuanian statesmen who, after the Germans attacked Poland, wanted to retake the Vilnius region by force of arms, since Lithuania might acquire the reputation of an aggressor if the Germans lost the war, and that would be very dangerous for a small nation. But if Germany won the war, Gerulis saw Lithuania’s fate clearly: “Our Führer will write your Smetona a postcard saying that a German Europe has now been organized and Lithuania is part of it...” Gerulis’s political views were probably also behind the deterioration of his relationship with Max Vasmer: in Leipzig they had been close friends, but in Berlin they no longer even spoke to each other. As is well known, recalling Jan Baudouin de Courtenay’s political lessons, M. Vasmer behaved with great dignity during the years of Nazi rule. At the end of the Second World War, Gerulis had been ordered to organize a meeting of prominent Lithuanian public figures. The participants were to once again Gerulškis, the place names Geruliai, Gerulaičiai, Geruliškiai show that these words are undoubtedly related to Lithuanian gėras. The Second World War also took a heavy toll on other celebrated German Balticists of Gerulis’s generation. Eduard Hermann lost both his sons. The only son of Franz Specht was killed at the front. In the winter of 1945, F. Specht himself was conscripted into the army of old men and children—the so-called “Volkssturm” units—and sent to the front, from where he trudged back to Dresden with weakened legs. 18 to try to encourage Lithuanian youth to join the German army. The meeting was to take place on September 5, 1944, in Kaltinėnai. However, Gerulis and some other participants were injured in a car accident and ended up in hospital (Laurinaitis 1983: 23). After the Soviet army captured Berlin, Gerulis, who was seriously ill at the time, was beaten in his apartment. His subsequent fate is still unknown. When the famous Berlin Wall was being built, Professor V. Falkenhahnas, who greatly valued and respected Gerulis, was still living in West Berlin, while working at Humboldt University in East Berlin. Before moving to East Berlin, he went to say goodbye to his teacher’s wife, but found that she had already died. One of the neighbors told V. Falkenhahnas then that Gerulis’s wife had been visited by a German who had returned from Russia and who had been imprisoned somewhere together with Gerulis. Here ends the tragedy of this talented scholar, an excellent educator, and, in V. Falkenhahnas’s words, “the great German Balticist of East Prussian Lithuanian descent,” but a poor politician. Sadly, this tragedy befell more than one son of Lithuania Minor. It is also a tragedy brought upon our small nation by its great neighbors. As mentioned, Gerulis dedicated his “Old Prussian Place Names” to his brother, who fell in the First World War. There he included the words of the Greek poet Tyrtaeus, who composed in the seventh century BC and, through his elegies, inspired the courage of Spartan warriors: “It is beautiful for a brave man to meet death in the foremost ranks, fighting in battle for his homeland9. Gerulis, of course, had in mind not the homeland of his brother, which lay quite close to the Nemunas, but the one poets associate with the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Oder. Jurgis Gerulis’s work was also chiefly connected with this homeland. Yet through his work, Jurgis Gerulis also rendered great service to the lands of the Nemunas. The people of this region will always be grateful to him for that. His memory may perhaps endure here even longer than in that other homeland, for which he and his brother “stood to fight”10. LITERATŪRA A. S. ir P. S. 1956: Gerulis Jurgis. — Lietuvių enciklopedija, Boston: Lietuvių enciklopedijos leidykla, 7, 187—188. Draviņš K. 1961, 1976: Evangelien und Episteln ins lettische übersetzt von Georg Elger... hrsg. von Kārlis Draviņš, Lund, 1—2. Falkenhahn V. 1964: Zu den Anfängen der Baltistik. — Beiträge zur Geschichte der Slawistik, Berlin, 239—266. Gerullis G. 1932: Muttersprache und Zweisprachigkeit in einem preussisch-litauischen Dorf. — Studi Baltici, 2, 59—67. Gustainis V. 1989: Be kaltes, Vilnius: Mintis. Jankus J. 1979: Jonas Puzinas apie save ir kitus. — Aidai, 4, 141, 206—208. Krėvė V. 1981: V. Krėvės laiškai. — Literatūra ir kalba, 17, 9—132. Laurinaitis S. 1983: Tėvynės išdavikų krachas. — Laikas ir įvykiai, 17, 20—23. 9 Vertimas iš: V. S. Sergejevas. Senovės Graikijos istorija. Vilnius, 1955, 146. 10 Autorius, rašydamas šį straipsnį, pasinaudojo vienu kitu Gerulio biografijos faktu, girdėtu iš Gerulio mokinių: J. Būteno, V. Falkenhahno, J. Kabelkos, E. Mikalauskaitės, A. Salio, J. Senkaus. 19 Liepiņš J. 1991: Laipnums bardzībā. — Latviešu valodas kultūras jautājumi, 26, 37—44. Mažiulis A. 1983: Prof. Dr. J. Puzinas ir jo mokslinis palikimas. — Jonas Puzinas. Rinktiniai raštai. Chicago: Lituanistikos instituto leidykla, 1, 13—22. Skardžius Pr. 1968: Lietuvių kalbos dialektologija. — Aidai, 5, 215—218, 240. Skardžius Pr. 1970: Prof. J. Gerulis ir jo likimas. — Aidai, 6, 270. Skardžius Pr. 1974: Dar šis tas apie Pr. Germaną. — Aidai, 7, 323—324. Stang Chr. S. 1958: Die litauische Mundart von Zasėčiai im Gebiet von Wilna. — Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap, 18, 171—201. Šaltenis R. 1982: Vienuolio gyvenimo pėdsakais, Vilnius: Vaga. Šaltenis R. 1991: Jau skleidės burės, Kaunas: Šviesa. Šaltenis R. 1994: Tikras netikras A. Vienuolis, Kaunas: Šviesa. Vienuolis A. 1988: Raštai, 6(2), Vilnius: Vaga. Žukas V. 1990: Prof. Jurgio Gerulio darbų charakteristika. Parengė Vladas Žukas. — Gimtoji kalba, 8—9, 44—46. 20