LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXXIV (1994)

LIETUVIŲ KALBOS TARMĖS IR JŲ TYRINĖJIMAI

K. ULVYDAS

A. SALYS’S ACTIVITIES AT VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY, 1930–1939

A. Salys entered the history of Lithuanian linguistics as one of the most distinguished Lithuanian language scholars and comparative Balticists of the twentieth century. He reached the highest levels of scholarship—all degrees and titles—thanks to his great talents, which began to emerge in his early youth, while he was still studying at the Telšiai “Saulė” Gymnasium. As his contemporaries attest (e.g., lexicographer Z. Jonikaitė and others), even then he stood out among the other young people for his scholarly ability and aptitude, which astonished and delighted teachers in particular; A. Salys, together with another student at the same gymnasium, A. Jucys (the future professor of theoretical physics and academician), was considered one of the gymnasium’s brightest pupils.

A. Salys’s talents became especially evident during his studies at Kaunas University, later renamed Vytautas Magnus University. In 1923, he had the good fortune to study there under such luminaries as K. Būga, the greatest Lithuanian language scholar and comparative Balticist in the history of Lithuanian linguistics, and J. Jablonskis, a prominent creator and codifier of the Lithuanian standard language. Perhaps the greatest influence on A. Salys was K. Būga, already renowned throughout the world at the time, who was likely responsible for the fact that, after two years of study in Kaunas, arrangements were made for him to go to Leipzig, where the world-renowned Lithuanian language scholar and Balticist J. Gerulis was then working and became A. Salys’s academic supervisor. With such a supervisor, A. Salys completed and defended his doctoral dissertation in 1929, “Die žemaitischen Mundarten: Geschichte des žemaitischen Sprachgebietes.” The dissertation is particularly significant because, for the first time in Lithuanian studies, it provided such a well-founded and comprehensive examination of the history of the Samogitian dialects from the earliest times, drawing more extensively on the chronicles of the Teutonic Order and other ancient documents.

It is worth recalling that, at the same time, another student from Kaunas University was studying in Leipzig: P. Skardžius, an exceptionally diligent Lithuanian language scholar (like A. Salys, he would later become a professor and academician). In those same years, like A. Salys, he defended his doctoral dissertation in Leipzig, “Die slavischen Lehnwörter im Altlitauischen.” One of his most important teachers was also J. Gerulis, who looked after both his students, observed their work, and guided them. These two linguists are compared here so that we may once again recall the great talents of the former, attested to by another person—his teacher J. Gerulis himself. Gerulis admired one student’s talent and the other’s diligence, and liked to express this to others rather bluntly, but vividly, as follows: “Salys wrote his dissertation with his head, and Skardžius with his backside.” Decades ago, hearing such an unexpected characterization or comparison of my esteemed teachers’ abilities from the lips of a famous linguist could not help but shock me, a young student. Only later, while listening to Maironis’s fascinating lectures on Prussian Lithuania in the era of K. Donelaitis and on his work, did I understand that J. Gerulis’s mother tongue, too, must have been just as plain and concrete, sometimes rough, and at other times wonderfully gentle as the language of the peasants, which K. Donelaitis immortalized with genius in his “Metai.”

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A. Salys returned from Germany to Vytautas Magnus University in 1930, having first managed to spend a semester working diligently in the Phonetics Laboratory at the University of Hamburg; in the autumn, he began teaching courses in Lithuanian and Baltic studies there.

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 solemn events. The entire Republic was caught up in a tremendous spiritual and patriotic upsurge, which had become evident several years earlier as preparations were made to celebrate this anniversary. This spiritual and patriotic fervor had especially gripped all of Lithuania’s young people, in both cities and villages. Even the school-leaving certificates issued that year were unusual: they were made of different paper than usual, were larger in format, and bore an image of Vytautas the Great. The spiritual and patriotic fervor of the young, especially students, was apparent even to foreigners visiting Lithuania. For example, in the preface to his book “Die litauischen Dialektstudien” (1930), J. Gerulis, who came here on academic business, viewed the student body’s spiritual and patriotic upsurge mentioned here as a kind of renaissance of Lithuanian studies. And indeed, hundreds of young people chose Lithuanian studies as their principal field. Even first-year students could not fit into the large lecture hall, and since the university operated on a semester system (students from different years could attend lectures on the same subject at the same time), many had to stand during lectures. Naturally, the enthusiasm of these Lithuanian studies students could not go unnoticed by the lecturers themselves, including J. Gerulis and others.

The fact that only about ten years had passed since the end of Lithuania’s struggle for independence also lifted the spirits and strengthened the patriotism of students at the time. The historic achievement of independence and the heroism of Lithuania’s volunteer soldiers moved every Lithuanian, especially the young. Following the example of their parents, brothers, and other relatives who had recently fought selflessly for independence, each person tried to contribute, however modestly, to strengthening the Fatherland.

The formation and flourishing of all kinds of youth organizations was highly characteristic of that period. Dozens of student corporations operated at Vytautas Magnus University, and their members were set the noblest aims: to serve God and the Fatherland and their fellow human beings, cultivate their own character, spread morality, pursue scholarship unswervingly, and prepare conscientiously for their future profession. Among student organizations with an ideological orientation, the largest and most active were the Ateitininkai, the nationalists (Neolituanians), and the Varpininkai, along with ideological student corporations.

One or two examples may be given here to illustrate the activity of such organizations. The Ateitininkai had launched a campaign to build an Ateitininkai center in Kaunas: everyone was expected to donate at least one brick to the construction—that is, to buy a voucher costing a few cents. Naturally, the campaign also encouraged people in general to contribute to the construction, and the result was a building that was monumental for its time on Laisvės Avenue in Kaunas, which provided shelter to many needy students during the years of independence. Young people also made a major contribution by donating and raising funds for the construction of the magnificent Resurrection Church in Kaunas. During the occupation, while it was still unfinished inside, a television factory was installed there. In an independent Lithuania, it should be completed and handed over for use by the faithful.

The Neolituanians and the Varpininkai also had their own premises: the former acquired theirs with greater support from the authorities, while the latter obtained theirs through the efforts and funds of the public. Everywhere, student life was bustling and creative: scholarly and political discussions, cultural events, social evenings, and more were organized. All these premises also housed cafeterias that were more affordable for students than those elsewhere in the city.

In speaking of that period, it is also important to mention that relations among students who belonged to various organizations, societies, and corporations (often divided along national or regional lines) were entirely normal, friendly, and respectful, with the possible exception of a few small groups of far-left students, usually made up of people of other nationalities or young people who had otherwise become denationalized. These occasionally caused or directly provoked certain disturbances, which the great majority of students merely laughed off.

This was precisely the atmosphere prevailing in Lithuania and at Vytautas Magnus University when A. Salys began teaching there. During his very first semester of work

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(In the autumn of 1930) he began teaching several important Lithuanian studies subjects (Old Prussian, Latvian, and others) and supervising practical work. In subsequent semesters, the number of subjects he taught and seminars he led kept increasing. In just his first two years of work, he emerged as one of the principal teachers of Lithuanian studies subjects at Vytautas Magnus University. A year earlier (1929), A. Salys’s colleague P. Skardžius had begun teaching at the same university.

At that time, the humanities were taught in two faculties: the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy. This duplication was absolutely no obstacle either to the professors or to the students. On the contrary, it offered everyone convenience and variety in scholarship and study. First of all, the regulations of the two faculties were not entirely identical. Thus, they also included different humanities subjects. In addition to the subjects required by the regulations, a student could freely choose other subjects of interest in either of the two faculties. Students faced no obstacles to choosing any of the professors who taught the same subject. Thus, one could attend Lithuanian studies classes in either of the aforementioned faculties. However, this generally did not lead to much running back and forth: students attended and passed examinations in the vast majority of their subjects at just one of the faculties. The existence of the two faculties was particularly advantageous for students of limited means who did not receive scholarships and had to earn their living by working. Lectures in corresponding subjects at the separate faculties were often held at different times: in one faculty in the morning, in the other in the afternoon, making it easier for working students to coordinate their work schedules with lecture times.

From 1929 onward, P. Skardžius taught Lithuanian studies subjects in the Faculty of Humanities, while A. Salys did so from 1930 in the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy. But already in the very first years of A. Salys’s teaching career, Lithuanian studies students from both faculties would gather to attend his lectures, so the halls were absolutely packed. The same cannot be said of P. Skardžius’s lectures, although they too were no less rich in content and interesting. These two lecturers, returning from Leipzig, brought much that was new to Vytautas Magnus University. They truly enriched and invigorated the whole field of Lithuanian studies there, whose teaching had become very difficult after the deaths of our great linguists K. Būga and J. Jablonskis. Beyond the glimmer of a Lithuanian studies renaissance noted earlier by J. Gerulis, both A. Salys and P. Skardžius undoubtedly contributed, as did, of course, J. Gerulis, who helped prepare such excellent scholars for Lithuania. It is only regrettable that the Lithuanian authorities of the time, most likely because of the difficulties involved in establishing the country, failed to arrange for the training of highly qualified Lithuanian studies scholars at least several years earlier, even though it would have been easy to find outstanding mentors for this purpose, if not in Lithuania itself, then at least in Germany or even Latvia (I have J. Gerulis and J. Endzelynas in mind).

As readers may already have noticed, P. Skardžius and J. Gerulis are also mentioned here on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of A. Salys’s death. This is because the lives and work of these three eminent linguists are closely connected: A. Salys and P. Skardžius were J. Gerulis’s students in Leipzig; both taught Lithuanian studies at the same Vytautas Magnus University for about ten years; both fortunately escaped the returning wave of Red Terror by withdrawing to Germany in 1944 and, a little later, to the United States, where they tirelessly worked in the field of Lithuanian studies until their deaths. They not only developed Lithuanian studies but also made a major contribution to cultivating the Lithuanian language and elevating its culture among our emigrants, invigorated Lithuanian studies research in the United States, and made Lithuania’s name known there.

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Now let us return to A. Salys’s teaching at Vytautas Magnus University. First, I would like to describe him as a teacher, because at the time, having only just begun teaching, he had not yet produced any major works in Lithuanian studies apart from his dissertation; yet his teaching and all his pedagogical work utterly captivated us students, from first-years to those about to graduate, such as P. Jonikas, J. Kruopas, J. Senkus, J. Labokas, Z. Jonikaitė, E. Mikalauskaitė, I. Matuzevičiūtė, and many others. Students from both of the faculties mentioned here flocked to A. Salys’s lectures. What drew them there? First and foremost, of course, they were attracted by his excellent teaching, made possible by his thorough preparation for lectures, their originality, his exemplary literary pronunciation, and even his personal charm and elegance.

A. Salys came to lectures and seminars dressed in an excellent Scottish tweed suit and golf-style trousers, which were very popular in Western Europe at the time and were beginning to catch on in Lithuania. Later, while performing his military service in an automobile battalion, he came to lectures in the uniform of a private and later a noncommissioned officer, which was somewhat intriguing to the students. Of course, what mattered most was the richness of the lectures and the manner of teaching itself: his fluent, coherent, lively speech, which was not only easy to understand at once but also to take notes on. A. Salys never read his lectures from a manuscript, as many other professors did. It is true that he had the lecture text with him, but he never read it; he presented the content orally, only occasionally glancing at a small note from which he wrote examples—the facts of language—on the blackboard. We were all amazed by his methodical approach to teaching, which he seems to have been endowed with by nature. Later, other professors taught us language-teaching methodology, but the kind of methodical approach that characterized A. Salys truly cannot be learned from textbooks on methodology or from methodologists, because it must be innate.

This is how Old Prussian was taught to students. First, each student received duplicated copies of Old Prussian texts, reproduced using the means available at the time, and was given the principal sources for the subject being taught, the most important of which were: R.Trautmann’s ”Die altpreussischen Sprachdenkmäler” (1910), G.H.F.Nesselmann’s ”Thesaurus linguae Prussicae” (1873), E.Berneker’s ”Die preussische Sprache” (1896). Incidentally, the duplicated texts given to students were highly reliable, since they were taken from R.Trautmann’s book, and, as far as the accuracy of transcription is concerned, it seems no one has yet surpassed this author. The texts received were then examined linguistically: translated into Lithuanian, with each word discussed semantically, phonetically, and etymologically, paying particular attention to its relations with the other Baltic languages, especially Lithuanian. Thus, the classroom became the setting for a lively, comprehensive analysis of the text, involving all the students. After working this way for a few weeks, the texts became firmly embedded in the students’ memories, and their analysis grew ever clearer and more interesting. Of course, as already mentioned, the instructor came to such lectures very thoroughly prepared. It should be noted here that other professors also used this method of analyzing language texts, especially graduates of Western European universities. For example, P. Brender taught us Latin authors in a similar way. The main features of this teaching approach were liveliness, an active audience, and engaging it in the work. Clearly, the study method also required students to do preparatory work at home, but unfortunately, few of us could ever find the time. However,

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Preparing for the examination in that language was not difficult, especially for a student who had attended the lectures diligently, since after such teaching few gaps remained. These had to be filled by consulting specialist literature, almost all of it published in German and readily available to everyone in the University library, so admirably organized by V. Biržiška, A. Šalkauskaitė, I. Kisin, and others.

The Latvian language course was taught in much the same way. The principal works and sources for this subject at the time were J. Endzelynas’s ”Lettische Grammatik” (1922), J. Endzelynas and Mylenbach’s ”Latviešu gramatika”, a compact, beautifully written work reminiscent of J. Jablonskis’s grammar, and J. Endzelynas’s ”Lettisches Lesebuch” (1922), the most accessible and popular textbook. We made greatest use of the last of these books in lectures, drawing examples and texts from it for linguistic analysis, which was generally practiced after the theoretical lectures. It should be said that the examination in this subject was not difficult either, since diligent attendance at lectures and the analysis of texts alone helped students learn the fundamentals of Latvian, particularly as the language was taught by an excellent Balticist, well versed in the comparative-historical method of Indo-European languages.

Besides Old Prussian and Latvian, A. Salys taught many other disciplines in Lithuanian and Baltic studies, or general linguistics, required by the curriculum at Vytautas Magnus University, with the exception of the general Lithuanian language course, which was taught in the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy by J. Balčikonis and in the Faculty of Humanities by S. Čiurlionienė. Incidentally, A. Salys’s lectures in general phonetics and the seminars he led also covered topics in the phonetics of standard Lithuanian and standard pronunciation more fully and in greater depth than the lectures and practical classes in the general Lithuanian language course taught by J. Balčikonis or S. Čiurlionienė.

A. Salys’s teaching mastery was especially evident in his lectures and practical classes in the historical grammar of Lithuanian, dialectology, and general phonetics. These disciplines seem to have been closest to his heart: not only did he like them most, but he was also best prepared to teach them. He began his course in historical grammar with phonetics and ended with syntax, whose foundations were only then being laid and which, compared with phonetics and morphology, was the least “historical.” Incidentally, even today we still lack a comprehensive historical syntax of Lithuanian, apart from historical-syntactic studies of individual constructions or parts of speech. Much work remains for researchers here. Nevertheless, A. Salys’s lectures on the historical grammar of Lithuanian constituted a fairly complete course in the discipline, which at that time no one else in Lithuania taught anywhere in such detail. In the teaching of historical grammar at Vytautas Magnus University, A. Salys was, one might say, the only specialist so thoroughly prepared during 1930–1939. His ability to engage students in independent work also greatly enhanced his teaching of this discipline. The notes made by the more diligent students effectively served as a university textbook on historical grammar.

A. Salys’s second favorite discipline, which he taught with no less talent at Vytautas Magnus University, was Lithuanian dialectology. Having studied the history of the Samogitian dialects while still in Leipzig, he drew extensively and creatively above all on the work of K. Jaunius, A. Baranauskas, Fr. Specht, K. Būga, J. Gerulis, and other scholars. He also traveled on foot or by motorcy-

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cle around Lithuania, carefully checking—and most often determining himself—the boundaries of Lithuanian dialects. In so doing, he created the first coherent university course in Lithuanian dialectology in the history of Lithuanian studies, which he continually expanded and refined. A. Salys’s dialectology course was beautifully supplemented, and the teaching of the subject itself improved, by a dialect map drawn up for the first time in the history of Lithuanian studies with such care and relative detail by the course’s own author. Like the course itself, it has retained its great significance to this day.

The author created the first copy of this dialect map using P. Matulionis’s map ”Kalnuotumo ir nuotakumo Lietuvos ir jos pakraščių žemėlapį...” (”Map of the elevation and drainage of Lithuania and its borderlands...”), newly compiled in 1920–1922 for the purposes of dialect study. On it, he traced dialect boundaries in inks of various colors and, where necessary, shaded their areas with dashed lines running in different directions. Of course, compared with modern cartographic works, A. Salys’s first map could not yet be perfect or entirely accurate; he continued to improve it while he lived in Lithuania. Nevertheless, one may say that it marked the beginning of the cartography of Lithuanian dialects. It was never possible to see a printed copy of the map, since it was probably never reproduced at the printing house, but it was readily accessible to students of the time: it hung at the front of the lecture hall during every dialectology lecture. A. Salys gladly lent it to any student who wanted to copy it, and in doing so he seemed to feel a certain pedagogical satisfaction and pride: the original map, drawn by his own hand, was executed with remarkable care, like a printed copy. I have kept an exact copy of this map, transferred onto canvas, to this day as a cherished memento of the warm relationship between a beloved teacher and his student. Incidentally, A. Salys published a revised version of this map in 1933 in volume IV of ”Archivum Philologicum”. The latter was used in the 1948 ”Lietuvių kalbos rašybos žodynas” and elsewhere.

Besides Old Prussian, Latvian, the historical grammar of Lithuanian, and Lithuanian dialectology, A. Salys also taught several other subjects at Vytautas Magnus University: general phonetics, an introduction to Baltic linguistics, the fundamentals of linguistics in school teaching, and others.

The lectures in general phonetics were especially interesting and rich in content, enlivened by equipment and findings from experimental phonetics. A. Salys had established the first Phonetics Laboratory in Lithuania, which was well organized and continually expanded. Before each lecture, student J. Labokas (apparently an assistant in that laboratory) would bring materials from it. The entire audience took part in these lectures. They were lively and memorable. Along with the fundamentals of general phonetics, the most important questions in experimental phonetics were also presented. Since the lectures in general phonetics were based mainly on facts about the phonetics of standard Lithuanian, they effectively covered a course in the phonetics of the standard language as well. It was fascinating to observe the professor during his general phonetics lectures. He taught other disciplines in an animated and engaging way too, but during these lectures he became even more animated, and seemed simply to delight in the subject. Evidently, he had grown very fond of it while furthering his studies in the renowned Phonetics Laboratory of the University of Hamburg. At the time, there was no literature on general phonetics in Lithuanian (in fact, there still is none). The professor apparently used and recommended to his students mainly works on phonetics such as H. Gutzmann’s

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”Physiologie der Stimme und Sprache” (1921), G. Panconcellio-Calzio’s ”Experimentelle Phonetik” (1921), the same author’s ”Die experimentelle Phonetik in ihrer Anwendung auf die Sprachwissenschaft” (1924), and P. Rousselot’s ”Principes de phonétique expérimentale” (1924).

In addition, A. Salys had prepared and taught us an original introductory course in Baltic linguistics, which differed greatly from K. Būga’s work on questions of Baltic linguistics. Part of that course was later published in ”Lietuviškoji enciklopedija”.

Students were greatly interested in the course mentioned earlier on the use of linguistic facts in teaching language at school. This was an entirely new and original subject, intended to enliven and deepen the cultivation of linguistic thought among pupils as early as the gymnasium level. It was especially relevant to students of Lithuanian studies, since many of them left the university to work in schools.

The examination in each of A. Salys’s more extensive courses required especially serious and painstaking work from students, because although the professor always interacted with them in a friendly and democratic manner, he was also very demanding during examinations. To be sure, examinations here were never as extraordinary as those, for instance, in J. Balčikonis’s general Lithuanian language course.

J. Balčikonis first required the entire group of examinees to write an essay on a topic he had assigned, and only then were they allowed to complete the examination orally. But very few examinees were granted permission to do so: of about 60 who wrote the essay, only 2–3 students might be allowed to finish the examination orally. The others had to retake it, often several times. This examination practice even led to a student protest against J. Balčikonis, who had previously taught in the Faculty of Humanities, and was probably what prompted his departure from that faculty.

Examinations in A. Salys’s courses were oral only. There were, one might say, no examination sessions strictly limited by time: if a student did not wish or was unable to take an examination, or failed to do so at the appointed time, it was easy to arrange with the instructor to take it at another time. But preparing well for an examination meant devoting at least a whole month to it, while giving up absolutely all other work and leisure activities. Sometimes, even after preparing in this way, one did not manage to get the highest grade on the first try. I remember that, having carefully prepared for the dialectology examination and feeling entirely confident, I answered questions on dialectology for almost an hour. He offered me only a four. Upset, I asked permission to retake the examination the next day, and regretted it, because I thought I saw displeasure on the examiner’s face. Indeed, how had I dared to respond to such an offer differently from the other students! Nevertheless, I was allowed to retake the examination the next day, but was questioned for even longer and got a five. My teacher was demanding, but he was no less demanding of himself and came to lectures or practical classes exceptionally well prepared.

A. Salys’s activity in 1930–1939 was not confined to teaching Lithuanian studies courses at Vytautas Magnus University. An exceptionally lively and energetic scholar, he contributed greatly to reviving the Lithuanian Language Society and founding the newspaper ”Gimtoji kalba”. The revived Society and the newspaper played an exceptionally important role in the history of Lithuanian national and linguistic culture. These two features of our culture (the Society and, especially, the newspaper) resonated strongly among the intellectuals of independent Lithuania. A. Salys was one

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of the most active members and leaders of the Language Society, as well as an editor and contributor to ”Gimtoji kalba”.

Meetings of the Language Society’s members were held mostly in the Phonetics Laboratory headed by A. Salys. More than once, in the evenings at the university, I saw the Society’s most active members—Professor P. Avižonis, teacher J. Talmantas, Colonel J. M. Laurinaitis, P. Skardžius, and others—hurrying to members’ meetings or board meetings, where numerous questions of terminology and language practice were discussed. The participants in those meetings and sessions greatly valued A. Salys’s opinion and authority. This was attested more than once by my former teacher J. Talmantas, a devoted member of the Language Society.

A. Salys’s articles (for example, on two-stem Lithuanian personal names), his brief, exceptionally considered answers to readers’ questions, his terminological recommendations, and so on, greatly enlivened and enriched issues of the newspaper ”Gimtoji kalba” and attracted readers; it had 10,000 subscribers alone.

At the same time, A. Salys wrote extensively for ”Lietuviškoji enciklopedija”. His articles published there sixty years ago (for example, on Baltic languages and peoples) remain of great scholarly significance today. The abundance, thematic variety, and depth of content of A. Salys’s articles published during the Kaunas period are truly astonishing. His linguistic articles appeared in, one might say, all the prestigious scholarly journals, publications, and newspapers of the time (”Archivum Philologicum”, ”Atheneum”, ”Židinys”, ”Naujoji Romuva”, ”Tautos mokykla”, ”Lietuvos aidas”, and elsewhere). Most importantly, all of A. Salys’s articles and other works, like the lectures he gave, were not only thoroughly grounded in scholarship but also very clear, comprehensible, and readily accessible to readers. They contain none of the omissions, obscurities of thought, or unfinished arguments that are sometimes common in the work of other scholars, especially younger ones. The language of A. Salys’s writings, like the speech mentioned above that he used in lectures and practical classes, was simply exemplary. Beyond any doubt, alongside K. Jaunius, A. Baranauskas, J. Jablonskis, K. Būga, J. Balčikonis, and P. Skardžius, he stands out as a true classic of Lithuanian linguistics.

The breadth and variety of A. Salys’s work in Kaunas are also evident from the fact that he served as an adviser to the State Council on matters of terminology, collaborated with legal professionals to revise the language of legal codes, and worked extensively as a member of the Surname Commission of the Ministry of the Interior. He was one of the most active organizers of the collection and recording of Lithuanian surnames. With students’ assistance, he and M. Jurkynas, secretary of the Surname Commission, compiled a surname card index, which was used to write and defend several diploma theses in the field of surnames under his supervision. On the basis of the same card index, through his care and efforts, a dictionary of all the surnames collected was compiled. With M. Jurkynas’s assistance, A. Salys marked the stress in that dictionary, indicating the paradigms, and edited it in its entirety. Based on data collected and checked through collaborative work in the 1930s, the Surname Dictionary used numerals to indicate where those families lived. A. Salys took more care than other linguists to Lithuanianize surnames, so the Surname Dictionary sometimes gave several Lithuanian equivalents (variants) alongside Slavicized surnames, making it easy to replace a Slavicized surname. Incidentally, the Surname Commission itself had been established largely through A. Salys’s efforts, primarily in preparation for the Lithuanianization of surnames, which the occupation and war prevented from being implemented. For the same reasons, there was no time to publish the Surname Dictionary he had edited, whose manus-

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The manuscript remained at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. As soon as Vilnius was recovered, A. Salys organized the collection and verification of place names in the Vilnius region. The result of this work was a dictionary of the place names of the Vilnius region prepared for publication; its printing, too, was interrupted by the war, and its manuscript is also still held at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language.

Even specialists in the field of commerce could not manage without A. Salys’s help. He devoted a great deal of painstaking work to L. Dargis’s *Commercial Correspondence*, published in 1938, which included at the end a carefully prepared glossary of commercial terms—one might say, the first of its kind in Lithuanian terminology. Thanks solely to A. Salys’s work, that book was at the time the best and most modern textbook, helping to bring order to the language used by merchants. Seeing that many shortcomings had long remained in church language, he also did significant work in this area: from a linguistic point of view, he edited the second edition (1938) of Canon A. Sabaliauskas’s prayer book *We Praise the Lord*. It is the best prayer book to have survived to this day.

Even this brief overview of A. Salys’s work during the period discussed here clearly shows that he was not only a distinguished scholar but also a highly productive practitioner of language, keenly responsive to every current issue in the life of the language. Even while serving in the army, he found time to attend to the terminology used by motorists (of whom there were still very few at the time). The terms he coined in this field have survived.

Having spent several years in contact with A. Salys as his student and diploma candidate, and otherwise encountering him regularly—especially when he worked in Kaunas—I feel able to say a few words about him as a person and an individual. First and foremost, he was approachable to all, friendly, ready to help anyone, sincere, a true democrat and humanist, and a great Lithuanian patriot. When I met him in 1940, during the first Soviet occupation, I could feel how deeply he grieved and mourned the tragedy that had befallen Lithuania; at the same time, I understood that he had not lost hope for Lithuania’s future. Even then, he thought that not all Lithuanians drawn into power by the Bolsheviks had sold themselves to Moscow. I remember his words about the agronomist M. Mickis: “Mickis is no communist” (meaning, a person of good character). A. Salys’s political views can be judged from the fact alone that the Ateitininkai students always received his sympathy and support.

The following facts also show A. Salys’s patriotism and political convictions especially clearly. In the postwar years, when Lithuania’s institutions of higher education were in great need of lecturers in Lithuanian studies, and the Academy of Sciences in need of academicians, the communist government tried to bring P. Skardžius back from Germany. As A. Venclova told me, at the government’s direction he went to Germany twice to see P. Skardžius and urged him to return to the academy and the university. Both meetings were unsuccessful: P. Skardžius categorically refused to return. Finally, another communist official of that time, G. Zimanas, told me several years before his death that after A. Venclova’s unsuccessful efforts, he had gone to Washington for the same purpose and, after treating his friend P. Skardžius to breakfast at a restaurant, had once again urged him to return to work in Lithuania. But Skardžius would not even hear of it.

The communist government, meanwhile, never sought A. Salys’s return. On the contrary, R. Mironas, who became an ardent party member in the postwar years and worked at Kaunas University, once told me that if A. Salys had not withdrawn to Germany—

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—he would have had to be deported to Siberia. Of course, hearing my beloved teacher A. Salys spoken of in this way could not help but move and anger me. But, knowing what my protest would have meant, I had to restrain myself and remain silent, especially since all the lecturers and students at Kaunas University knew very well at the time how excessively zealous R. Mironas was in serving the party and its institutions.

The facts presented here alone are quite enough to understand that A. Salys’s decision to withdraw to the West while it was still possible ensured freedom and life for him and his family. Here, one might say, the hand of God saved him from the terrible fate that befell many distinguished Lithuanian scholars (e.g., P. Dovydaitis, L. Karsavinas, M. Reinys, V. Sezemanas, A. Žvironas, A. F. Jurskis, and others), most of whom died heroically in camps or prisons, while only a few, utterly tortured, died after returning to Lithuania.

A. Salys loved Lithuania, Žemaitija, his homeland, and all Lithuanians immeasurably. He spent most summers either traveling around Lithuania and studying dialects or at his family home in Reketė. He was an excellent beekeeper, kept many bees, and developed beekeeping terminology. Now, many years after he is no longer among the living and his collected writings have been published, it is even clearer what a great personality Vytautas Magnus University had, what a remarkable man worked at the re-established Vilnius University, and what a fine professor of ballistics and comparative linguistics the universities of Germany—and later those of the United States—had after the war. It must be said here that even while working abroad, A. Salys devoted himself wholeheartedly to his homeland, Lithuania; through his entire life and work he brought renown to Lithuania throughout the world and thereby contributed to the achievement of independence.

For several decades now, whenever I recall the lessons I received in high school or the lectures I attended at university, or read something about M. Valančius and his work, a vivid image of A. Salys seems to arise in my mind of its own accord. I think the basis of this association is, first of all, that these two beacons of our culture were born and grew up—not at the same time, but close to one another—in the very same Salantai district (one in Narsėnai, the other in Reketė). Whenever I pass Plungė station by train, for many years now I have remembered each time my young teacher A. Salys, dressed in a sporty outfit, waiting with his motorcycle for the train to take him to Kaunas. That is how I saw him when I was a student, stopping here on my way to Notėnai, where I spent my holidays. In my mind, the names of M. Valančius and A. Salys are always associated with those of S. Daukantas, L. Ivinskis, Žemaitė, Lazdynų Pelėda, Šatrijos Ragana, and other great Samogitians, as well as with the wonderful land of Samogitia and its people. This, in turn, gives rise to the thought that if that land and its people, trampled and devastated for centuries by the Teutonic Knights, oppressed by serfdom, and tortured and destroyed by the tsar’s gendarmes and Cossacks, had the strength to raise such luminaries for the homeland as those mentioned here, along with many others, then Lithuania will undoubtedly raise many enlightened, upright, and devoted people who will lead it onto the path followed by the free, democratic nations of Europe.

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