A. Salio veikla Vytauto Didžiojo universitete 1930–1939 m.

LITHUANIAN LINGUISTICS QUESTIONS, XXXIV (1994) LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE DIARCHEMS AND THEIR STUDIES K. ULVYDAS A. SALYS ACTIVITIES AT VYTAUTAS MAGIUS UNIVERSITY 1930-1939 A. Salys entered the history of Lithuanian linguistics as one of the most famous Lithuanianists and Baltic comparatists of the 20th century. He achieved the peak of his academic career — all degrees and titles — thanks to his great talents, which began to manifest themselves at a very young age, when he was still studying at the "Saulės" gymnasium in Telšiai. As witnessed by his peers (e.g., lexicographer Z.Jonikaitė and others), already at that time he stood out from other young people with his scholarship and abilities, which surprised and delighted especially the teachers; A. Salys, together with another student of the same gymnasium A. Jucius (future professor of theoretical physics and academician) were considered to be the high school's best students. The talents of A. Salis were especially evident during his years of study at Kaunas University, Vytautas The name of the great. Here. 1923 m. He was fortunate to learn from such prominent people iš as the greatest Lithuanian linguist in the history of Lithuanian linguistics, the Baltic comparative ir linguist K. Būga, the greatest Lithuanian common language creator, the normativist J. Jablonskis. Probably the greatest ir influence K. Būga, who was already famous in the world at the time, made A. Saliui, who ir probably decided that two years of po study In Kaunas he was given the opportunity to go to study į Leipzig, where the world-famous Lithuanian Baltist worked at the time ir J. Gerulis, who became Scientific Director of A. Salis. With such a leader, A. Salys 1929 m. finishes ir defends doctoral dissertation "The Samogitian dialects: History of the Samogitian Sprachgebietes”. Ši The dissertation is particularly significant in that for the first time in Lithuanian studies the history of the Žemaičių ir dialects from the earliest times has been so thoroughly investigated, and the chronicles of the Crusader Order and other ancient documents have been used more ir extensively. It should be recalled that at the same time In Leipzig studied ir another Lithuanian student of to extraordinary diligence sent to Kaunas University — P. Skardžius (as in ir A. Salys, the future academic ir professor). The latter in the same year as ir A. Salys, defended his doctoral dissertation in Leipzig * The Slavic Lehnwėrter im Old Lithuanian”. Jo one of the most important teachers was also J. Gerulis, who took care of both of his students, jų watched ir the work and patronized them. Here those our du linguists are compared in order to remind once again the great talents of the first, witnessed already by another iš jų person's own teacher — J. Gerulis, who was delighted with the talents of one of his pupils and o the diligence of ir tą the other, liked to describe his joy to others roughly, but pictorially: "Salys savo disertaciją parašė galva, Skardžius o subine". — Such a comparison, unexpectedly iš heard from the lips of a famous linguist many decades ago, characterizing the talents of my respected teachers, could not fail to shock me, a young student. ar jų Only later, listening to interesting Maironio lectures on The Prussian Lithuania of the K. Donelaitis era ir jo creation, I realized that ir J. Gerulis’s native language had to be as simple, concrete, sometimes rough, sometimes wonderfuo lly gentle as the Boer language, ir which he had learned from his father. K. Donelaitis brilliantly immortalized his "Years". 20 Salys returned to Vytautas the Great University in 1930, after having spent a semester in the phonetic laboratory of the University of Hamburg, and in the autumn began teaching Lithuanian and Baltic studies. : That year all of Lithuania celebrated the 500th anniversary of Vytautas the Great’s death. Lithuanians living in their homeland and abroad organized many different festive gatherings. The whole Republic lived in the conditions of great spiritual patriotic rise, which had already become apparent several years ago, in preparation for the celebration of this anniversary. This spiritual patriotic upheaval especially affected the whole Lithuanian youth, both in the cities and in the villages. Even the maturity certificates issued that year were special: different from the usual paper, larger format and with the image of Vytautas the Great. This spiritual patriotic rise of the youth, especially the students, was noticeable even to foreigners arriving in Lithuania. For example, J. Gerulis, who came here for academic purposes, in the preface to his book "Die litauischen Dialektstudien" (1930) regards the spiritual patriotic rise of the students mentioned here simply as a kind of renaissance of Lithuanian studies. In fact, hundreds of young people chose Lithuanian studies as their main field of study. First-year students alone could not fit in the large auditorium, and since the university had a semester system (students of different courses could listen to lectures on the same subject at the same time), many had to stand during lectures. Of course, such enthusiasm of Lithuanian students could not fail to catch the eye of the lecturers themselves, including J. Gerulis and others. To the student spirit of the time raised ir jų patriotism was strengthened by the fact that from It was only about ten years since the end of the struggle for Lithuanian independence. The historic conquest of independence and the heroism of Lithuanian volunteer soldiers moved every Lithuanian, especially young people. Everyone, following the example of their parents, brothers or other relatives who recently už fought for independence, tried to contribute at least a little bit to Strengthening the homeland. This period is characterized by the growth of various youth organizations. Vytautas ir jų the Great University had dozens of student corporations, whose members were given the noblest tasks: to serve To God ir For the homeland, neighbor, to develop your personality, spread virtue, tirelessly pursue science, ir honestly prepare for the future profession. Iš The largest and most active student organizations of ideological ir orientation were the organizations of ateists, nationalists ir (neolituans) bell-bearers and corporations of ideological orientation. One more example of the activities of such organizations can be given here. The Atheists had declared the Atheist House In Kaunas, the construction was in full swing: everyone had to donate at least one brick for — the construction, i.e. buy a penny ticket. Of course, that buzz encouraged people to donate to the building ir of the house, the result was tų a grandiose building at o the time Kaunas In the avenue of freedom, where In the years of independence, many poor students found refuge here. The youth also contributed a lot by donating and collecting donations for the construction of the magnificent Church of the Resurrection ir It's a shame. It was built in the years of the Soviet occupation. In an independent Lithuania, it should be finished to be used by believers. The Neolithic ji bellsmen also had their own premises, the ir first more power, the second public funds and. ir with effort. Everywhere there was an active, creative student life, scientific and political discussions, cultural events, recreation evenings, etc. were organized. ir In all these premises there were canteens that ir were more accessible to students than in the city. Regarding the period, we cannot fail to mention that tą the relationship between students ir distributed (often ir according to ethnic regions) ar with various associations, or corporations, were completely normal, friendly ir correct, except perhaps only small groups of extreme left-wing ir students, which were usually made up of foreigners or otherwise decayed young people. These occasionally caused or ir simply provoked certain excesses, which most of the students only laughed at. iš That was the atmosphere in Lithuania ir Vytautas the Great Universityte after starting pedagogical work here A.Saliui. The very first semester of the professors 21 In the autumn of 1930, he began to teach several important disciplines of Lithuanian studies (Old Prussian, Latvian, etc.) and to supervise practical work. In the following semesters, the number of disciplines and seminars taught by him increased. In the first two years of his work he emerged as one of the main Lithuanian studies lecturers at Vytautas Magnus University. A year earlier (1929) A. Salis’s colleague P.Skardžius had started teaching work at the same university. At the time, the humanities were taught in two faculties: Humanitariniy Sciences and Theology and Philosophy. Such duplication was absolutely no obstacle for the professors or the students. On the contrary, it made for everyone only convenience and diversity of science and study. First of all, the regulations of the faculties themselves were not quite the same. tų Therefore, there were different ir disciplines of the humanities in them. The student, regulated by be the required disciplines, could freely choose other disciplines of his liking in ir any of the two faculties. No obstacles were made to the student iš tų to choose any ir iš tą who teach the same subject. Therefore, Lithuanian studies could be studied in any of the faculties mentioned iš above. However, there was usually no greater diversion here: the absolute majority of disciplines the student listened to and passed the exams usually in one quarter of those faculties. This eprinting of the two faculties was especially convenient for poor students who did not receive scholarships and ir had to earn their living by working. The lectures of similar disciplines in individual faculties were often given at different times: in one place in the morning, in another in the afternoon, so it was easier for the earning student to coordinate his work time with the lecture time. su Mr. Skardzius from the very 1929 m. Lithuanian studies disciplines read Faculty of Humanities, A. Salys from o 1930 m. — Faculty of ir Philosophy. But in the very first During the years of A. Salis’s pedagogical jo work, Lithuanian students from both faculties gathered to listen to his lectures, so the auditoriums were simply filled to the brim. To can't say about Mr. Skardzio lectures, although they were also less interesting. ne ir Both of these iš Lecturers returning to Leipzig į Vytautas the Great University brought a lot of new. They simply enriched revived ir here all Lithuanian studies, the teaching of which disciplines our great po linguists K. Biigos ir Jablonski's death was very painful. To the already to mentioned flash of Lithuanian Renaissance observed by J. Gerulis, no doubt, contributed both be A. Countries su P. Skardziumi and, of course, J. Gerulis, who helped prepare such excellent scientists for Lithuania. du It's just a pity that to time The Lithuanian authorities, probably because of difficulties in their formation, were not able to take care of the preparation of the highest qualified Lithuanianists at least several years earlier, although the best leaders for this purpose could have been easily found if in the very ne In Lithuania, at least In Germany ar even in Latvia (I mean J. Gerulį ir J. Engelhardt). As the reader may have noticed, A. Salio 90th anniversary of death ga commemorated ir P. Skardžius and J. Gerulis. This is because these three famous linguists are closely related in their lives ir and works: A. Countries ir Mr. Skardžius was J. Gerulis’ pupils in Leipzig, they both taught Lithuanian studies at the same university for about ten years. Vytautas the Great University, both fortunately avoided the returning wave of red terror 1944 m. withdrawing į Germany, o a little later — į He worked tirelessly in the field of Lithuanian studies until his death. They only ne developed Lithuanian studies, but contributed ir greatly to the development of the Lithuanian language, its culture among our expatriates, revived Lithuanian studies USA, garsino tenai The name of Lithuania. 22 Now let us return to A. Salis’s pedagogical work at Vytautas Magnus University. First of all, I would like to describe him as a teacher, because at that time, when he just started teaching, he had not done any major Lithuanian studies work, except for his dissertation, and his teaching, all his pedagogical work fascinated us, students, both first-year and graduating from the university, such as P. Jonikas, J. Kruopas, J. Senkus, J. Labokas, Z. Jonikaitė, E. Mikalauskaitė, I. Matuzevičiūtė and many others. The lectures of A. Salis were simply crowded with students from both faculties mentioned here. What was it that drew them here? First of all, of course, I was attracted by his excellent teaching, which was determined by the good preparation for the lectures, their novelty, exemplary literary discourse of the lecturer, even the external attractiveness of the person, his elegance. At lectures and seminars A. Salys would come dressed in a beautiful Scottish sheath suit, golf style trousers, which at the time were very common in Western Europe and began to spread in Lithuania. Later, during his military service in the motorized battalion, he would come to lectures in the uniform of a soldier, and later of a lieutenant, which was interesting for the listeners. Of course, the most important thing here was the content of the lectures and the way of teaching itself, free, consistent, lively language, which is not only easy to understand immediately, but also to write down. Salys never gave lectures from writing, as many other professors did. It was true that he had the text of the lecture, but he never read it, he told the content itself, only occasionally glancing at a small note, which he wrote on the board the very examples of the facts of the language. jo į iš — We were all surprised by the methodology of his teaching, which he was apparently endowed with by nature. Later, other professors taught us the methodology of language teaching, but the methodology that distinguished Mr. Salys, it iš is really impossible to learn either iš methodologists or iš methodologists, because this must already be innate. This is how students were taught ancient Prussian. First of all, each student was given texts to of the ancient Prussian language, multiplied by the means of the time, indicating the main sources of the subject taught, the most important of which were the following: R. Trautmanno " The old Prussian Language monuments” (1910), G.H.F. Nesselmanno " Thesaurus linguae Prussicae’ (1873), E. Bernekerio "The Prussian Sprache” (1896). By the way, the copied texts presented to the students were very reliable because they were taken iš The books of R. Trautmann, o the author of the accurate transcription of the texts, seem to have been surpassed by ir no one so far. The subsequently obtained texts were examined linguistically: translated į into Lithuanian, each word is discussed semantically, phonetically, etymologically, especially paying attention to the į relationship su with other Baltic languages, primarily su Lithuanian. Thus, in the auditorium there was a lively, comprehensive analysis of the text, į in which all the listeners were involved. And after several po weeks, the texts just stuck in the į students' minds, o jų the analysis became clearer ir and more interesting. Of course, the leader himself, as į already mentioned, came to such lectures very carefully prepared. It should be said here that this method of examining language texts was also mo practiced by other professors, especially Western Graduates of European universities, such as Brenner, taught us Latin authors in a similar way. The main feature of such teaching was the — liveliness, the activity of the audience, į its involvement in the work. It is clear that the study methodology iš required the student to do ir preparatory work at home, time for that, o unfortunately, we rarely gave. However, 23 preparing for the exam of that language, especially for the student who had diligently attended lectures, was not difficult, because after such teaching there were not so many gaps left. The latter had to be filled out from special literature, which was almost entirely published in German and was easily accessible to everyone in the University library, which was exemplarily maintained by V. Biržiška, A. Salkauskaitė, I. Kisinas and others. The Latvian language course was taught in a similar way. The main works and sources of this subject for us at that time were J. Endzelyno "Lettische Grammatik" (1922), J. Endzelyno and Mylenbach's "Latviešu gramatika", compact, well written, reminiscent of our J. Jablonski's grammar, J. Endzelyno "Lettisches Lesebuch" (1922), the most accessible and popular textbook. During the lectures we mainly used the latter book, drawing from it examples and texts for linguistic analysis, which was usually practiced after the theoretical lectures. It must be said that the exam in this subject was not difficult either, because the mere diligent attendance of lectures and the examination of texts helped to learn the basics of the Latvian language, especially that the language was taught by a great Baltist, well versed in the use of ide. the comparative historical method of languages. In addition to Ancient Prussian and Latvian languages, A. Salys taught many other disciplines of Lithuanian and Baltic studies or general linguistics at Vytautas the Great University, except for the general Lithuanian language course, which he taught in 1990. The Faculty of Theology and Philosophy taught J. Balčikonilų s, and the Faculty of Humanities — S. Ciurlioniene. By the way, the seminars led by A. Salis lecture on ar general phonetics covered ir the subjects of general phonetics of the Lithuanian language and general pronunciair tion in more detail than in the previous lectures. J. Balčikonio ar S.Čiurlionienė reads lectures of the general Lithuanian language course and conducts exercises. The mastery of A. Salis’s teaching was especially evident in the lectures and exercises on historical Lithuanian grammar, dialectology and general phonetics. ir These disciplines seemed to be most close to his heart, he only loved them most, but was best ne prepared to teach them. The course of ir historical grammar he started with phonetics ended with syntax, which then were still being created only the foundatioir ns which compared to phonetics morphologidar least was ir su ir ja "historical." By the way, we do not have a detailed historical syntax of Lithuanian language, except for ar historical syntactic studies of individual constructions of individual parts of the language, ir even today. There is still a lot of work to be done. Nevertheless, The lectures of A. Salis on historical Lithuanian grammar constitute a fairly complete course of this discipline, which at the time Nobody in Lithuania ir has taught anywhere so thoroughly. In the field of teaching historical grammar, A. Salys was the only well-prepared specialist in the Vytautas Magnus University. 1930—1939 The teaching of that discipline was also greatly improved by the faculty’s ability to involve students in independent work. The į notes of this discipline, compiled by more diligent students, simply replaced the university textbook of historical grammar. Antra A. Sali’s favorite ir ne discipline taught to less talented na At Vytautas the Great University there was Lithuanian dialectology. Here it is, again During his studies in Leipzig, he studied the history of the Žemaitijos dialects, ir K. Jauniaus, A. Baranauskas, Fr. Spekhta, K. Bogas, J. Gerulis and ir other researchers, as well as traveling on foot with a motorcycle ar 24 While travelling around Lithuania in a cycle, after carefully checking, and most often establishing himself, the boundaries of Lithuanian dialects, he created for the first time in the history of Lithuanian studies a coherent university course of Lithuanian dialectology, which he constantly completed and improved. A. Salis’s course of aralectology was beautifully supplemented and the teaching of the subject itself was improved for the first time in the history of Lithuanian studies by the dialect map drawn up by the author of the course himself so carefully and at the same time relatively detailed, which, like the course itself, has not lost its great significance in our days. The first copies of this dialect map were created by the author using the "Map of Mountainous and Mountainous Lithuania and its Outskirts- ...", which was compiled by P. Matulionis in 1920—1922 for dialect purposes. Here he drew out the boundaries of dialects with various colours of ink and where necessary coloured their areas with dotted lines in different directions. Of course, the first map of A. Salys could not be perfect and completely accurate compared to modern cartographic works, A. Salys himself improved it while living in Lithuania, but nevertheless, it could be said that it was the beginning of the cartography of Lithuanian dialects. It is true that the printed copy of the map has been lost, because it was probably never multiplied in the printing press, but it was easily accessible to the students of the time: it hung in front of the auditorium during every dialectology lecture. Salys was happy to lend it to any student who wished to copy it, and in doing so he seemed to feel a certain pedagogical satisfaction and pride: the original of the map, drawn by his own hand, was wonderfully carefully made, like a printed copy. I have preserved an exact copy of this map, painted on canvas, as tų a beautiful ir jo memory of the relationship between the teacher and the student. By the way, A. Salys has published a remake of this map 1933 m. "Archive Philologicum" IV tome. The latter was used 1948 m. "Lietuvių kalbos ortografijos ir žodynas" elsewhere. Be Old Prussian language, Latvian language, historical grammar of Lithuanian language, Lithuanian dialectology, A. Salys has taught at Vytautas Magnus University several other subjects: general ir phonetics, introduction to Baltic linguistics, basics of linguistics in school work, etc. ir General phonetics ir lectures were particularly interesting, varied with experimental phonetic apparatus data. ir A. Salys had established the first In Lithuania, the Phonetics Laboratory, which was well organized, is ir being enriched. Į every lesson stud. J. Labokas (like a lab ir worker) brought the materials from the lab iš in advance. iš Į those lectures were involving the entire audience. They were very vividly remembered. ir The most important su issues of experimental phonetics were highlighted ir here on the basis of general phonetics. Since the general phonetics lectures were based mainly on the facts of the general phonetics of the Lithuanian language, there was also a course of general phonetics. ir It was interesting to watch the professors during the lectures on general phonetics. He taught ir other subjects in a lively and attractive way, and ir during the o lectures on general phonetics he was even more enlivened, it seemed ir that he simply admired the discipline. ta He was awarded a Ph.D. from the ją University of Hamburg in 1995. There was no general phonetic literature in Lithuanian at that time (in fact, not yet). ir The professor, apparently, used himself ir to recommend to the students mainly the following works of phonetics: H. Gutzmanno 25 "Physiologie de la voix et de la langue” (1921), G. Panconcellio-Calzios “Experimental Phonetics” (1921), to paties autoriaus —"The Experimental Phonetics in its Application to Linguistics” (1924) ir P. Rousselot ”Principes de phonétique experimentale” (1924). In addition, A. Salys had prepared and read to us an original introductory course on Baltic linguistics, which was very different from K. Biiga’s work on Baltic linguistics. A certain part of this course was later published in the Lithuanian Encyclopedia. The students were very interested in the course on the use of linguistic facts in teaching language at school. It was a completely new and original subject, which was intended to revive and deepen the inoculation of linguistic thought to high school students. This was particularly relevant for Lithuanian students, as many of them left the university to work in schools. The exam of each of the larger subjects taught by A. Salis demanded from the student particularly serious and painstaking work, because the professor, always communicating with the students in a friendly and democratic manner, was very demanding during the exams. ir It is true, that such extraordinary situations as occurred, for example, during the exam of the general Lithuanian language course taught by J. Balčikonis, did not occur here. For J. Balčikonis, the whole group of examinees had to first write an essay on a given jo ta ir po to was allowed to complete the oral examination. However, a very tą small number of students could be allowed to take the oral examination. iš 60 2—3 Others had to hold it repeatedly, mostly several times. po Due to such exam practice J. Balčikonis, who previously taught In the Faculty of Humanities, even received a student protest, which probably will have led to ir the exit jo iš to College. Examinations of the subjects taught by A. Sali were only held verbally. There were no strictly ką restricted exam sessions: if you didn’t want to, nė couldn’t or didn’t pass the exam at the scheduled time, it was easy to agree with the teacher to hold it su at another time. jį But in order to prepare well for the exam, I had to devote at least a whole month to this matter, completely renouncing any other work entertainar ments. Sometimes, ir preparing in this way, it was not iš possible to get the best grade immediately. I remember, thoroughly prepared for the dialectology exam, completely confident in myself, I answered dialectology į questions for almost an hour. iš They only offered me four. I was excited and asked to be allowed to take the exam again tomorrow. I felt sorry because I saw the ir examiner’s face as if discontent. ir Iš indeed, how I dared to į answer such a proposal differently than the other students! Still, I was allowed to take the exam again tomorrow, but I was questioned even longer and I got a 5. ir The needle was my teacher, but he ir iš self less ne demanding came to ir lectures į exercises ar extremely well prepared. A. Salio 1930—1939 m. activity is not limited to teaching Lithuanian disciplines mu Vytautas The Great University. Being an extremely lively ir energetic scholar, he made a great contribution to the Lithuanian Language Society ir The "Native Language" newspaper was founded. That reviving one Draugija ir newspaper played an extremely important role in the history of Lithuanian language ir and culture. Those du phenomena of our culture (friendshio p, especially the newspaper) found a great resonance Independent in the Lithuanian intelligentsia. Salys was one of the most active 26 members and leaders of the Language Society and editor and collaborator of "Gimtoji kalba". The meetings of the members of the Language Society mostly took place in the Phonetic Laboratory headed by A. Salis. At the university, I had the opportunity to see the most active members of the Society, Prof. P. Avizoni, teacher J. Talmantas, Colonel J. M. Laurinaitis, P. Skardžius and others, rushing to the meetings of the Society members or board meetings where many questions of terminology and language practice were resolved. Mr. Sa li’s opinion and authority were highly valued by the participants in those meetings and meetings. My former teacher J. Talmantas, a zealous member of the Language Society, has testified to this on several occasions. : A. Salis' articles (e.g., on Lithuanian double names), his short, extremely thoughtful answers to readers' questions, terminological instructions, etc. greatly enriched the issues of the newspaper "Gimtoji kalba" and attracted readers, whose subscribers alone were 10 thousand. At the same time, A. Salys wrote a lot for the Lithuanian Encyclopedia. his articles published here sixty years ago (e.g. on the Baltic languages and peoples) do not lose their great scientific significance even today. The abundance of articles published by A. Sali during the Kaunas period, the variety of themes and the depth of content are simply amazing. His linguistic articles abound in all the prestigious scientific journals, publications and newspapers of the time (Archivum Philologicum, Atheneum, Židinys, Naujoji Romuva, Tautos mokykla, Lietuvos aide and elsewhere). But the most important thing is that all the articles and other works of A. Salis, as well as his lectures, are not only scientifically very well-founded, but also very clear, understandable, easily accessible to the reader. In them we will not find silence, ambiguities of thought or incompleteness, which sometimes abound in the works of other, especially young scientists. The language of A. Sali’s writings, like the above-mentioned speech during the lecture exercises, is simply exemplary. Without any doubt, next to K. Jaunius, A. Baranauskas, J. Jablonskis, K. Būga, J. Balčikonis, P. Skardžys he emerges as a true classic of Lithuanian linguistics. ir jo ar « Activities of A. Salis The breadth ir of diversity in Kaunas ir is shown by the fact that it was Adviser of the State Council on terminology issues, collaborated with lawyers, su correcting the language of legal codes, worked a lot as Member of the Ministry lų of Home Affairs. He was one of the most active organizers of the Lithuanian census. ir Student assisted, together su The Secretary of the Surname Commission, M. Jurkynas, compiled a database of surnames, according to which several diploma thesis of supervised ir students were written jo and defended in the field of surnames. iš In addition to tą the list, a dictionary of jo all the names ir collected was compiled. A. Salys, with the help of M. Jurkynas, edited the dictionary, indicating the paradigms. Based on the tą verified data collected in the 1930s, the Surname ir Dictionary indicated where these families lived. A. Salys more than other linguists was concerned with the ir už In the dictionary of surnames there were sometimes even several po Lithuanian equivalents (variants) of the Slavicized surnames, with which it is easy to replace the Slavicized surname. By the way, ir the mentioned Names Commission itself was ja established mainly by A. Salis’s concerns in preparation for the initialization of names, which failed to be implemented due to the ir war of occupation. For the same tų reasons, the edited Surname Dictionary, ir jo the manuscript of which remained in the 27 Lithuanian Language Institute, was not published. As soon as Vilnius was regained, A. Salys organized the collection and verification of the Vilnius Land Register. The result of this work was a dictionary of local names of Vilnius region prepared for printing, the printing of which was also hindered by the war and the manuscript of which is still in the Lithuanian Language Institute. Without the help of A. Salis, even specialists in the field of trade could not cope. He put a lot of painstaking work into L. Dargis's "Trade correspondence" published in 1938, at the end of which is attached a carefully prepared dictionary of trade terms, which can be said to be the first in Lithuanian terminology. It was only thanks to the work of A. Salis that the book was the best and most modern textbook at the time, helping to organize the language of merchants. Seeing that there were still many defects in the church language, he did a significant job here as well: he edited the second edition of the prayer book "We praise the Lord" by canon A. Sabaliauskas (1938). It is the best surviving prayer book. The overview of the activities of A. Salis during the period discussed here clearly shows that he was not only a distinguished scholar, but also a very productive linguist, who lively responded to every topical issue of language life. Even while serving in the army, he found time to take care of the terms used by motorists (who were still very few at the time). The terms used in this area are still in use. He spent a few years as a student of A. Salis. anyway constantly encountering su him, especially when he worked Kaune, I think I can say a few words about him as a person, as a personality. First of all. he was available to everyone, friendly, ready to help everyone, sincere, a true democrat and humanist, a great Lithuanian patriot. When I met him in 1940, during the first Bolshevik occupation, I felt his sadness for the ir Tragedies in Lithuania; at the same time realized that without losing hope for The future of Lithuania; ir he then believed that all ne Lithuanians į included in the Bolshevik power have surrendered Moscow. I jo remember the words said about the agronomist Mr Mickius: "Mickey no communist" (called, positive person). About A. Salis' political views can be judged by the fact that the student iš ateists always received favourable support. jo ir The patriotism jo and political determination of A. Salis are particularly clearly shown by the ir following facts. Great shortage in the post-war years Lithuanian universities of Lithuanian disciplines lecturers, the Academy o of Sciences academics, — the communist government tried to recover iš German M.Skardžių. As he has told me A. jo Venclova, du even together by order of the authorities drove in the matter to P. Skardžių į Germany ir invited to jį return to į the ir academy university. Both meetings were unsuccessful: Mr. Skardžius categorically refused to return. Finally, another to communist figure of the time, G. Zimanas, told me a few years before his death, that even after A. Venclova’s unsuccessful efforts po he had gone to the same place for the same reason. į Washingtir on there, having catered to his friend Mr. Skardžių restaurant for breakfast, once again talked to go jį back to work į Lithuania. But he did not want nė to hear about it. In the meantime Saleh's communist rule never failed. On the contrary, in the post-war years he became a zealous member of the party University of Kaunas R. Miron has once told me that if A. Salys would not have withdrawn į German 28