Išėjusi pasilikti. In memoriam Kirstin Casemir

Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 2026, vol. 94, pp. 1–2 Table of Contents link / Contents link ISSN 2669–218X (electronic / online) GONE TO REMAIN In memoriam Kirstin Casemir (6 May 1968, Liuneburg – 4 May 2026, Getingenas) GRASILDA BLAŽIENĖ Institute of the Lithuanian Language E-mail: [email protected] https://doi.org/10.35321/all94–11 The early death of Dr Kirstin Casemir shocked the community of onomasticians from more than one country, especially in view of her boundless productivity and her inexhaustible work researching the nomenclature of her country, Vokietijos. She managed to be everywhere and with all researchers of their countries’ nomenclatures, devoting the greatest attention, naturally, to the nomenclature of her native country and of Europe as a whole. Already seriously ill in hospital, she reached her 58th birthday. The scholar was a maximalist; for her, insurmountable things did not exist. The early death of a creative, inspired person full of ideas shocked not only her colleagues working on the 25-year project “Place Names between the Rhein and Elbe,” initiated by the Academy of Sciences of Lower Saxony in Getingenas. The German Academy of Sciences supports long-term projects. In one of them—“Hydronymia Europea”—the author of these lines also worked and wrote two monographs in 1995–2005. The project was headed by Wolfgang P. Schmid, who was elected a foreign member of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and an honorary doctor of Vilnius University. A close and respectful relationship also connected him with K. Casemir, whose doctoral dissertation was written at the seminar of historical-comparative and general linguistics and defended under the supervision of the long-serving head of the department, W. P. Schmid, of whom Kirstin spoke particularly warmly. In the introduction to her already published dissertation Place Names of Wolfenbüttel County and the City of Salzgitter, she emphasized that studying under such a professor was a privilege she greatly appreciated, stressing the professor’s Copyright © 2026 Grasilda Blažienė. Published by the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. // Išleido Lietuvos kalbos institutas. Šis straipsnis yra atviros prieigos, platinamas pagal „Creative Commons“ priskyrimo licencijos sąlygas, leidžiančias neribotai naudoti, platinti ir atkurti turinį bet kokioje laikmenoje, nurodant autorių ir šaltinį. Received: / Gauta: 2026–05–11. Accepted: / Priimta: 2026–05–14. 1 patience and goodwill. To obtain a doctoral degree, Germany also required a second reviewer, who was Professor Jürgen Udolph, never tiring when it was necessary to discuss even one unclear-oikonym of uncertain origin=. Kirstin became the professor’s intellectual companion and colleague. Incidentally, her doctoral dissertation was published as a separate volume in 2003 in Bielefeld, which even has a regional history publishing house. We cannot boast of such publishing houses. The scholar’s early death shocked her closest colleague, co-author, assistant, and talented historian—her husband Uwe Ohainski, who accompanied Kirstin through all stages and along all paths of her life, worked together with her on every project, and affected all of us who communicated with her. Place names had become the Scholar’s life and identity, because they spoke and revealed so much about Kirstin’s native country, its history and inhabitants, and her mother tongue. The scholar spoke in Vilnius at the second international Alesandro Vanagas conference “The Name in Language, History and Self-Awareness,” held on October 24–26, 2007. Kirstin’s presentation was entitled “Ortsname und Ortsnamen­geber” (in Lithuanian, “The Place Name and the Giver of the Place Name”), in which she emphasized the importance of reliable information about place names. I also participated, as an author, in the preparation of the book Namen und Appellative der älteren Sprachschichten (in Lithuanian, Names and Appellatives of the Older Language Layers), initiated by Kirstin. The book, published in Germany in 2015, included her article “Altpreußische Toponyme als Gegenstand selbstständiger Untersuchungen” (in Lithuanian, “Old Prussian Toponymy as an Object of Independent Research”). Kirstin certainly had a strong sense of responsibility; with an open heart, she reached out to people, encouraging and urging them while herself working immensely hard. Already during her studies, she worked as an assistant; afterward, she was invited to work on the Jacob Grimm’s and Wilhelm Grimm’s German Dictionary at the Academy of Sciences in Getingenas, where she was responsible for a new version of the oldest sections of the dictionary. In 2007, she began working on the Academy’s project “Place Names between the Rhein and Elbe—Onomastics in the European Space” (German: “Ortsnamen zwischen Rhein und Elbe – Onomastik im europäischen Raum”); her workplace was by then in Miunster (Vestfalija). She became its head and worked until her death. Together with her colleagues, K. Casemir published two series of the Westphalian Place-Name Dictionary (German: Westfälisches Ortsnamenbuch) and the Lower Saxony Place-Name Dictionary (German: Niedersächsisches Ortsnamenbuch). She was a co-author of more than one volume and wrote not only on the onomastics of Lower Germany. The author of these lines was invited to Miunster to evaluate the project. The excellent colleagues and academy staff did not hinder the work, but everything had to be completed on time. Kirstin was associated with more than one society of linguists, onomasticians, and historians, and collaborated in publishing the journal “Beiträge zur Namenforschung” (Lithuanian: “Onomastics Studies”). It is important to mention that in 2019 her work was recognized with the prestigious Henning Kaufmann Prize. German onomastics has lost an exceptional person who did not work for fashionable, short-lived ideas, but for the kind of onomastics that will remain after we are gone. Kirstin Casemir also found time for students. From 2002, she worked at the University of Getingenas (German: Georg-August-Universität Zu Göttingen), and from 2007 she taught students—naturally, onomastics—also at the Vestfalijos Vilhelmo University (German: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster). Her traces are deep; they contain neither anger nor insistent attempts to prove her own truth. Kirstin Casemir was a free person who knew what was important to her and to her country. 2