P E R S O N A L I J O S

ALGIRDAS SABALIAUSKAS

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

IN MEMORIAM KAZYS PAKALKA (1928–2009)

On September 16, 2009, after being worn down by a serious illness, we lost Kazys Pakalka, a hard-working lexicographer and distinguished researcher into the history of Lithuanian lexicography. He left quietly (he was quiet in life, too), without flowers or farewell speeches, not wishing to inconvenience either his closest friends or acquaintances. He died in Vilnius, where most of his life had passed, and his urn of ashes returned to his homeland, to his parents’ grave in the cemetery of Gedžiūnėliai village.

Not far from here lies his native village of Jūodalaukis (Daugėliškis parish, Ignalina district). According to family tradition, Kazys Pakalka came into the world in the very midst of the flax-threshing season. However, the organist entered in the parish records: in 1928

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on January 1. Making a newborn seem younger was quite common in those days—later he would have to serve in the army.

In 1941, Kazys Pakalka began attending the famous Vilnius Vytautas the Great Gymnasium. The deceased often spoke warmly of Dr. Pranas Germantas (Meškauskas), the so-called General Education Advisor during the German occupation, who took particular care of Lithuanian schools in the Vilnius region. The future linguist’s path to education was also made easier by his uncle, Nikodemas Pakalka, the longtime pastor of Marcinkonys, fondly remembered by his parishioners, who had once studied in Switzerland at the University of Fribourg alongside Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas and had worked for a time at Vilnius Vytautas the Great Gymnasium. Nikodemas Pakalka, one might say, was very hospitable to linguists. Professor Juozas Balčikonis not only spent his summers here; the professor’s bees, too, found pleasant shelter near the rectory. Kazio Pakalka’s friends Aloyzas Vidugiris and Antanas Balašaitis were also frequent guests. Local residents suspected that these three young men were clerics.¹

At first, Kazys Pakalka was not among the Lithuanian studies students who began their studies at Vilnius University in the autumn of 1948. He appeared somewhat later, having “transferred” from the Faculty of Forestry. In giving up the profession of forester, generally more desirable for a country boy, the Lithuanian lessons taught by Lionginas Vaitiekūnas, his teacher at Vytautas the Great Gymnasium, probably played no small part. His former Latin teacher, later a university lecturer, Jadvyga Tijūnelytė (Šimkauskienė), helped him take care of the formalities of the “transfer.”

Kazys Pakalka’s classmates remember him as a student of exceptional diligence. He never took an exam without being well prepared. The author of this short article could attest to this with certainty—for he usually took his exams immediately after his friend. He was seldom seen in dance halls or other entertainment venues. He never shouted in stadiums. Still, a funny episode comes to mind—the physical education instructor, seeing how easily his student climbed the rope, here

¹ Pranas Germantas (1903–1945) 1936 m. Leipcigo universitete apgynė disertaciją „Liaudies papročiai lietuvių šeimos gyvenime“. 1941 m. buvo paskirtas Švietimo generaliniu tarėju. 1943 m. suimtas už priešinimąsi nacių politikai, ypač paskelbtai mobilizacijai į SS dalinius. Mirė Štuthofo koncentracijos stovykloje apsikrėtęs šiltine. Lietuviai kaliniai, papirke krematoriumo viršininką, išgavo jo urną ir bėgdami iš stovyklos išsigabeno į Švediją. Vėliau palaidojo vienose Kopenhagos kapinėse. Deja, kapas 1960 m. buvo sunaikintas. P. Germanto brolis, lituanistas mokytojas, įvairių redakcijų darbuotojas, aktyvus Lietuvių kalbos draugijos narys Kastas Meškauskas (1906–1932) nuskendo prie Palangos. Plačiau apie P. Germanto veiklą žr. M a c k o n y t ė B. Vilnius karo karuselėje. – Vilniaus kultūrinis gyvenimas. 1939–1945. Vilnius, 1999, 78–88.

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He even felt his muscles to check them and insistently invited him to attend boxing practice. But such offers held no appeal whatsoever for the hardworking Lithuanian philologist. Kazys Pakalka, like other students from the Vilnius region who had felt national oppression in childhood, was probably much more Lithuanian than those of us who had come to university from other parts of Lithuania, and more sensitive to every ambition of outsiders.

Kazys Pakalka soon became an active word collector for the academic Lietuvių kalbos žodyno. We, his classmates, would sometimes watch with perhaps a little envy as Professor Juozas Balčikonis handed his student a bill during a lecture and explained that he would receive some money in Antakalnis for the words he had brought in. Over the course of his life, Kazys Pakalka recorded perhaps more than 20,000 words for the dictionary. Most of them were probably collected from the lips of his mother, Anelė Pakalkienė (Cicėnaitė). Pakalkienė knew her native dialect very well; her speech was exceptionally vivid and rich in words. It is worth recalling that Kazys Pakalka loved his mother immensely. The wife of the author of this article, who, as a doctor, had occasion to interact with Pakalkienė, used to say that she had never met anyone in her life who cared for their mother as much as Kazys Pakalka did.

The future linguist became involved early on in research into the history of Lithuanian lexicography as well. Under the supervision of Professor Jonas Palionis, he wrote a valuable diploma thesis on Dionizas Poška’s manuscript dictionary².

After graduating from university in 1953, Kazys Pakalka taught for several years at the Vilnius Pedagogical Institute. However, all his subsequent scholarly work was primarily associated with the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. During his postgraduate studies there, he wrote a dissertation, Pirmasis lietuvių kalbos žodynas (Konstantino Širvydo³ „Dictionarium trium linguarum“ 1629 m.). His supervisor was Associate Professor Jonas Kruopas. Professor Juozas Balčikonis, the dissertation’s official opponent, concluded his evaluation with these words: “the work completed amply deserves the Scientific Council’s agreement to award K. Pakalka the degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences.” Both Professor Juozas Balčikonis and the members of the Scientific Council were especially impressed by the dissertation’s second part—a 917-page register of Lithuanian words. “It goes without saying,” J. Balčikonis said, “that an enormous amount of work has gone into compiling such a large register. It should be published at once. Otherwise,”

² See P a k a l k a K. The genesis and fate of D. Poška’s dictionary. – Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai 29, 1991, 113–117.

³ At the time, employees of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature were required to use this form of our lexicographer’s surname.

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“it would be capital buried in the ground.”⁴ In Professor Kosto Korsakas’s opinion, dissertations of this length should be prohibited altogether.

It may be said that work on this monument of Lithuanian lexicography had only just begun when the dissertation was defended. Kazys Pakalka published numerous articles about the dictionary and its author, identified the sources of its Polish section, revised the date of the dictionary’s first edition, and studied its neologisms. Most importantly, of course, he prepared new, handsome, and now widely accessible facsimile editions, with introductory studies and indexes of Lithuanian words, of the so-called first edition (c. 1620) and the third edition (1631) (Pirmasis lietuvių kalbos žodynas, 1979; Senasis Konstantino Sirvydo žodynas, 1997).

We might say that Konstantinas Sirvydas was Kazys Pakalka’s great love as a researcher, accompanying him until the final days of his life.

Another area of Lithuanian linguistics in which the late scholar accomplished much was the academic Lietuvių kalbos žodynas. Kazys Pakalka first became involved with this most important work of our lexicography—which, one might say, the Lithuanian nation worked on for exactly a hundred years—while still a student, and worked actively on it for nearly four decades. In 1996, he and other lexicographers were awarded the Lithuanian Republic Science Prize for this work.

Kazys Pakalka was also interested in the history of individual Lithuanian words, the subjects of Lithuanian-language research, language culture, and the dialect of his native Daugėliškis.

His colleagues in scholarship and work remember Kazys Pakalka as an exceptionally sensitive, always thoughtful, and sincere person.

Dear Friend, rest in peace forever, having returned to the corner of our land dearest to Your heart.

⁴ Balčikonis J. Rinktiniai raštai. Vol. 1. Vilnius, 1978, 367–370.

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