Prof. A. Salys ir Pavardžių bei vietovardžių komisija

LITHUANIAN KALBOTYROS QUESTIONS, XXXIV (1994) LITHUANIAN LANGUAGES ARTICLES IR JŲ INVESTIGATIONS Aleksandras VANAGAS PROF. A. SALYS IR SURNAMES EIB "Mother tongue* initiative in June 1933 m. A "surname commission" was elected at a meeting of several people. His most important task was to decipher Lithuanian names. In order ji to do this, the names had to be registered first. At the expense of the Ministry of Interior, with the help of the Civil Protection Department, through the municipalities separate vocabulary cards in a relatively short time were written about names į 200000 (1:2). They are being repaired. This was the main concern of the Commission, whose first meeting took place 1934 m. of January 24 d. The meeting was attended by: J. Balčikonis (chairman), A. Salys, Šeinius, I. Survila, Fr. A. P. Veblaitis ir J. Talmantas. After the information by the representative of the Ministry of A. Interior, Salys read the memorandum "To the Prime Minister ir Ministry of Finance” project. It, among be other things, emphasizes that the name material collected through the municipalities has various shortcomings, therefore "still needed inspection on site" (1:3). The memorandum goes on to say: "In the opinion of the Commission, the most accurate way to į check would be to send people with a certain level of preparation from all iš over the country, who could definitively determine the gender of the names by the pronunciation of the elders called in the villages. We believe that people would be sę needed to do this work through 6—7 pumice. Ta on the very occasion it would be necessair ry to accurately record all In Lithuania, the same genders are strictly defined. In this way, big things are done at once, because the du question of the spelling of place names has now become very sensitive.” (1:3). Ir but: "Because the alphabetization of names cannot be entrusted to ar the discretion of other bodies of municipalities, it is necessary to issue all Lithuanian surname dictionary, which strictly specifies what is to be compulsorily Lithuanianiir zed, how to Lithuanianize which surnames are advised to be freely changed" (1:4). The Commission had a similar approach to place names. ir Apparently, in order to avoid the spontaneous, ma unqualified už change of placenames, May ji 1935 m. 28 d. RESOLVES: "To appeal to į the Department of Land Management, that the latter ordered the County Land Managers to refrain from calling for the non-Lithuanian names of villages to be changed to ir Lithuanian names according to the wishes of the local enlightened population" also ir understood that the wrong (1:79). Ji place names entered into personal documents will į be difficult to correct, so hurried to prepare a dictionary of place names: "The dictionary of place names to be issued also before giving new passports" (1:10). In mind, of course, ne all Place names in Lithuania, o only names of residential places. This profile of the future dictionary of place names determined ir the į approach to place names: as we will see, collected mainly oikonimai (names of places of residence), o other place 64 names (rivers, lakes, fields, forests, meadows, pastures, etc.) names are written only the most important, moreover, not all equally carefully. "In order to prepare the dictionaries of surnames and placenames for publication as soon as possible, the Commission for the Determination of Surnames appointed A. Sali as editor of the dictionary of surnames and J. Balčikonį as editor of placenames" (1:11). "As editor of place names, first of all you will have to select the glorified place names, write them down on sheets and send them through the county chiefs to the county municipalities, which might be able to explain the origin of these place names on the spot or offer replacements for them. In this way, the Commission for the Transliteration of Surnames will have more material to consider their modification" (1:12). The Commission requested LTL 38,000 for the work, cautiously proposing that "This sum could return to the state treasury with surpluses after raising the new passport fee by only 20 cents" (1:5). | At the second meeting (14 March 1934) A. Salys, who presided over it, explained that "the surnames of the inhabitants of Klaipėda region remained more Lithuanian than in Greater Lithuania. It is sufficient to take care that they are written correctly in Lithuanian” (1:7). It was decided to provide a list of names from Klaipėda region "through the Governor of Klaipėda region and A. Survila" (ibid.). Funds for checking names and writing place names have been received, the work is being done quickly. At the meeting of the Commission on October 16, 1934, the "officer for the management of surnames J. Griška" of the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that "four of the seven name checkers have already finished their work in the province and are now working in the Ministry, compiling the county name dictionaries" (1:9). Only one inspector was unlucky — M. Samuel: He was working too slowly. Therefore, on October 24, 1934, the Commission (chaired by J. Balčikonis) decided to "dismiss M. Samulėnas from the work of checking names and to send another checker to Utena County in his place" (ibid.). Samuel will still pray for permission to finish his work, but his request will not be granted (1:11). The governor of Klaipėda region also responded. In his letter he reports that "the Directorate of Klaipėda County, having considered the question of checking names and collecting place names in Klaipėda County, agreed to this at its meeting, decided to allocate 1000 litas for this work and to give all the necessary material" (1:15). The Commission considered it appropriate to select two inspectors from Klaipėda students studying in Kaunas. "Prof. A. Salys changed one other student suitable for examiners to interview" (1:16). The Commission decided to "Write to the Directorate and ask it to prepare and send at the same time lists of places of residence and names, drawn up by districts and villages. That letter will be signed by the Chairman of the Commission and the Head of the Names Management Unit" (i.e. A. Salys) (ibid.). In the end of the collection of surnames and placenames, it was found that the meetings of the Commission did not have an official status: during the meeting of October 16, 1934 (minutes No. 3), it was stated that "so far they are of a private nature, because they are recorded and the members are not paid for them". Therefore, it is decided: "After the beginning of the real work of the delettering of names and place names and the general work of the processing, the meetings are to be considered official, they are to be recorded and paid for to the members of the commission" (1:10). This means that the first minutes of the Commission meetings will have been drawn up retroactively. The name of the Commission has also changed a little: "Commission of Surnames and Pronouns of the Ministry of Interior 65 a N Commissi- (1936—1940 m. on" in the book of ji minutes refers to "Vidaus Cases Ministries Surname ir "Commission on the Status of Women". Thus, at the initiative of the Commission for Surnames and Place-Names, a huge work of extraordinary importance was carried out — most Lithuanian surnames, most names of places of residence, and a considerable number of other place-names were written down from the living language, in an expeditionary manner, so to speak. All this was done in an unimaginably short time—approximately a year. The collection of surnames and place names was the first stage of the Commission's work. After completing it, the Commission took on the next part of the work — namely, the management of names and place names, which was then commonly referred to as literacy. Starting with the names: in the minutes of the Commission meeting of January 19, 1935 (No. 8) we find a laconic entry: "Considered 287 figures from Abadauskis to Aikauskis" (1:20). On January 22, 1935, again similarly: "Considered figure 312 from Aikevičius to Aliachna" (1:21). And so on: January 24, 1935 —"Considered Figure 418 from Aliachna to Androkaitis" (1:23); January 28, 1935 — "Considered 434 figures from Andronavičius to Armino"; 30 January 1935 —"Considered 526 pictures from Arminaitis to Ąžuolas". The committee has remained almost unchanged: Chairman J. Balčikonis, members A. Salys, A. Survila, Fr. P. Veblaitis, J. Griška, J. Talmantas. The pace of her work is surprisingly fast. But there are many names. Therefore, it seems that we have not had time to consider all of them. On December 16, 1938 (protocol No. 180) we find the last entry: "Atlietuvintos pavardės nuo Pilypaitis iki Polokas" (2:161). It is true that the Commission discussed various names matters until the end of its activity — at its last meeting, held on May 16, 1940 (minute No. 201), several applications for correction of names were still examined (2:185). Whether the names were still systematically lithuanized after the 180th meeting is unclear. | It is clear that the names were handled by all, but it is not clear whether by the Commission or, perhaps more plausible, by individual members. There are numerous corrections and remarks throughout the alphabet in the surname files. They are only inconsistent and sometimes completely random. tg Very laconic entries in the protocols do not say anything about how the work was done, what criteria were used to Lithuanianize the surnames. The draft memorandum read by A. Salis mentions the following four principles: "1, all Lithuanian surnames with foreign Slavic suffixes and also undoubtedly transliterations are compulsorily transliterated by law, 2. borrowed surnames of non-Lithuanian origin are untouched, fig. Bu tkus, Jankus, Jon uš as, Stankus, A 3. surnames of Lithuanians who are of foreign, non-Lithuanian origin are not obliged to be changed, 4. otherwise foreign, unliterated surnames and surnames with unpleasant meanings are changed freely” (1:4). i These principles could be talked about and debated extensively. For example, as the experience of preparing the "Lithuanian surname dictionary" (3) has shown, it would be very difficult to follow even the first principle — there are hundreds of cases where it is not possible. ma definitely say whether the surname is Lithuanian or non-Lithuanian. In the second section, the surname Butkus may sometimes be Lithuanian — abbreviation of some compound personal name (3: I 368—369). It will not always be known whether the Lithuanian of today is of native or foreign origin. Even more difficult with transliterated surnames —without detailed studies of the evolution and change of surnames, it is usually not possible to confirm the translation of the surname. There are more similar doubts. They are enough to understand how difficult it was to put the principles declared in the memorandum into practice. Again, these difficulties are not directly visible, they need to be "reconstructed", because the protocols do not reflect the laboratory work. The results were transferred to alphabetical names files, which have all survived. In the files, the names that the Commission has identified are accompanied by handwritten names of one to ten proposed substitutes. For example (first name in alphabetical order): Abadauskas, Abadauskis, Abadovskis — suggested substitutes: Abadas, Abadditis, Abadūnas, Abaddnis, Abadénas, Abadiynas. What does this offer mean? Firstly, it contradicts the second principle, which states that "borrowing surnames of non-Lithuanian origin are inviolable". The surname Abadauskas is borrowed, possibly Belarusian —brus. AGamoycki, Očanay, 66 A6ananra, A6anroy and others: brus. Boban "deep" (3: I 55). The second in line is the name Abakanauskis, the third —Abakanavičius. They are proposed to be changed to Abakdnis, Abakonditis, Abakoniūnas, Abakonidnis, Abakonėnas, Abakonijnas. The proposed surnames are also "borrowing"- *, Slavisms: plg. rus. O6akaus, O6exans (3: I 55). There are many such dubious proposals. And this is not surprising, because the work was done quickly, in haste, without any serious research of Lithuanian surnames, lack of dictionaries of neighboring peoples, etc. In short, the work was done empirically, based on subjective experience and judgment, rather than on the conclusions of research. Fortunately, these proposals were not realized, they remained in the files as an interesting phenomenon of our xalba science and the views of that time, worthy of a closer look. By organizing and publishing the names, the Commission also took care to legally legitimize this activity. On February 28, 1935 (protocol No. 22), the draft law on the transliteration of surnames prepared by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (1:45) was read. He returns later. On March 11, 1935, the Commission considered the draft and, at the suggestion of A. Salis, added Article 4 to it. The draft was signed by Chairman J. Balčikonis, members A. Salys, J. Griška, P. Veblaitis, A. Survila (only the signature of J. Talmantas, who attended the meeting, is missing). On June 7, 1935, a delegation (J. Balčikonis, A. Salys, P. Veblaitis, Talmantas) was formed, mandated to go to the J. 1:83). On 22 September 1936 (protocol No. 91) A. Survila reported that "The Cabinet of Ministers has returned the draft law on names to the Ministry of Internal be Affairs without any resolution, and, as far as we know, the draft was not officially discussed in the Cabinet. It is decided to make marches to raise the bill Seime" (2 : 33). 1937 m. of January 12 d. (prot. No. 111) the bill of surnames again reviewed, supplemented (2 : 65). The Cabinet of Ministers returns the draft again to re-edit the first part is under (2 : 81) — jo consideration 1937 m. of March 2d. (prot. No. 123), 2nd of — March 5 d. (prot. No. 124). Parengiami ir Explanations for the newly edited draft law on surnames. The entire draft of the bill is rewritten su with explanations į in the minutes file. | (2 : 89—93). Jo 67 | The Commission also had to deal with other personal names matters. On November 25, 1938, it begins to consider the list of christening names received from the curia of Vilkaviškis through the prelate J. Laukaitis (2: 158). The discussion lasted and was completed only on 3 April 1939 (2: 173). In 1939, the Commission recommended the following norm for married women's surnames, composed of men's surnames with the ending -(i)us: "From the surnames Simius, Pocius, Girnius, Bartašius, Girdžius, Meidus —women's surnames can be written Simienė, Pocienė, Girnienė... or Simiuviene, Girniuvienė, Pociuvienė, —as their owners call themselves or wish?" (2: 177). This is also the case in our day. Another area of the Commission’s work in the second phase is the management of place names. The collected names of residential and certain non-residential places were transcribed into certain records—states and counties. All of them also survived. Place names in these cases are taken up by the Commission. In the protocol No. 35 of 20 May 1935, we find a short entry: “The committee of the place names of Alytaus valsčiaus villages and hamlets (220) was considered” Commission: Chairman J. Balčikonis, members A. Salys, A. Survila, J. Griška, P. Veblaitis, J. Talmantas (1: 75). This meeting marked the beginning of a whole epic of the standardization of place names, which lasted for several years. Initially, the course of deliberations, the principles and motives for correcting, changing, selecting and giving new place names are not recorded in the minutes (similar to the denotation of surnames). But gangreit (from the third meeting, held on 20 May 1935) begins to reflect the course of the deliberation in more detail. For example, "Margava —Kėdariškės: people call it that way"; "Smolnica —Strazdinė, name of a neighbouring grove", "Dembavka translate —Ožuolinė" (1: 85). Later, the recording (and apparently the work) improved until finally, for example, the deliberations of 1937 were recorded in the minutes so precisely that even today’s reader can easily see the motivation of all the amendments. This is particularly important for today’s normists and researchers of place names, because some settlements were proposed to return their previous names, to name them with the names of other places (meadows, rivers, lakes, forests, mountains, etc.) or simply to come up with a new, i.e. artificial name. Some of these proposals have been adopted. It is very difficult to determine the percentage of the recommendations that have been implemented, as it would take about thirty thousand place names to be confirmed. We will therefore limit ourselves to this example. Trakai aps. Aukštadvario vls. 53 proposals were considered and the Commission considered that they should be corrected or amended (2: 43-44). Of the fifty-three proposals, seven survived: Juozapava—Juézapiskés, Katalaučizna—Katiliai, Kopecai—Kūpčiai (note: "people call"), Sabaliauéizna—Sabūliškės, Gubiškės—Ūbiškės (note: "people call"), Zukauéizna—- Žukai, Novosadai—Naujūsodis. They are still the norm of common language. Most of the proposals did not survive —a total of twenty-- two: now Babraunirikai —proposed * Babrininkai, Graužinkai —* Graužiniai, Mackantiškės —* Mackéniškės, Malinauka —* Avietyné, Mergiskés —* Mėrkiškės (previously so called), Mickūnava —* Mickūniškės, Mikalava —* Mykoliškės, Parankava —* Parankiškės, Rangava —* Ranginės, Ružiava —* Rūžiškės, Samduka — *Samé, Zabarauskai —* Paverkniai, Žilinčiškės —* Žiliškės, Albinava —* Albi68 wt low; Andrijanava —* Anidriskés, Barišiavė —* Barišiškės, Kamaintiškės —* Akméniai, Lavaravéa —* Lavardnys, Staniava —* Stoniské, Šafarnė — *Kirttmai, Dubélka —* Duobélé, Tamasiava —* Tamdsiskés. "In several villages the genders were somewhat different from those proposed by the Commission: there was Markutaučizna —proposed *" Markutonys —the genders were Markūtiškės, Okmenai —* Antakmenys (note: "people call") —Akmėniai, Odincava —* Adinūciškės —Adincava, Vladislavava —* Vladiškės —Vladislava. The remaining twenty were not identified — mainly, apparently, because there are no longer the actual dwellings (mostly single-family). Therefore, although few corrections were made, it can be said that the work was not in vain. After getting acquainted with the corrections of the place names of other villages, there are some differences, but usually insignificant, so it would be reasonable to assume that the extent of the implementation of the recommendations was similar. After the commission began to standardise the place names on 20 May 1935, it essentially completed this work on 23 February 1937 by considering the place names of Zarasai district (2: 84—86). But her work did not end there. In the minutes of the meeting of March 12, 1937, we find the following entry: "After completing the deciphering of the place names of all 20 counties, the deciphering and correction of the remaining unclear place names, about which the village municipalities were additionally asked, was started again from the beginning, from Alytus county" (2: 94). This second phase of deliberations was completed in 1937. of 26 November 2002 (Proceedings No 149) (II: 129-130). The Commission had to take an interest in place names later, but not systematically, but on an ad hoc basis. One thing that is still relevant in relation to place names are the names of settlements approved by the Commission and their abbreviations: "dvaras —dv., until parceliated; the centres of the parcelled manors are to be merged into a village or other residential area and to be called by the common name of that area as well as its other farms. | palivarkas —plv., by the name of the local people of the place; the parcelled land is treated as a manor (see). solitary — vs., single-farm inhabited area; single-family i is also officially called single-family. sodyba —sod., an officer's single-family home; farm is also called eiguva, when it does not mean area, area; planting is not allowed. other inhabited areas, such as: colony, farm, gardeners, tens, bobiliai, farmers, cows, and so on. called by the number of farms villages or villages. guard —sarg. (way, shed), e.g.: railway guard —želez. sarg.’ (2: 181). The commission also proposed some abbreviations and determined the types of names of residential places in Vilnius region (2: 181—182). The Commission has done a great deal of work, which can be divided into two stages. The first, much shorter, is the collection of surnames and place names from the living language. The database of collected surnames, later, after the war, substantially supplemented, especially with surnames from Vilnius and Klaipėda regions, was the source on the basis of which the "Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames" was prepared and published (3). The records of local names recorded and verified in the villages were to be used for the planned dictionary 69 of local names (residential place names). This was not done. Furthermore, the place names files did not cover Vilnius and Klaipėda region (the draft of the “Vilnius region place names” dictionary was prepared later). But what is in the files is very valuable: these place names were used in preparing the normative official Lithuanian list of names of residential places — the "Lietuvos TSR administracinio-teri= nio suskirstymo žinynas" (4). The only thing that could be criticized was that the inspectors sent to the villages were not instructed to record all the place names, but mainly required to record the names of the places of residence. One of the censusmen, A. Žirgulys, writes in his memoirs (1982): "Regarding the writing of the names of places, as it seems to me now, —as it seemed to us then, —we were not oriented in a prospective way. The instruction to write only larger place names, not the names of pools, pools, streams, meadows... was not very appropriate. Before leaving, we decided to write down small geographical names and water names as soon as possible. Balčikonis, after seeing such notes, said that it was not very necessary work. J only those names were important which might be needed by the administration" (5). Thus, the importance of placenames for science, Baltic studies and Indo-European studies was not fully understood at that time. It is worth mentioning this alone because at that time K. Buga’s onomastics studies were famous in Lithuania and the world. Of course, the circumstances made it necessary to hurry, not to waste time, to do everything before the passports were changed, but it is obvious that thousands of beautiful place names were not collected. The work of handling, standardizing and deciphering surnames and placenames should be assessed somewhat differently. There was a lot of work done — 201 meetings were held: as already mentioned, the first meeting took place on January 24, 1934, and the last on May 16, 1940 (its minutes were signed only by the Secretary of the Commission, M. Jurkynas) (2: 185). Salys was one of the most zealous members (after J. Balčikonis) — she missed only 19 meetings. There is no doubt that Mr Salis' contribution to this work is one of the most important. Unfortunately, it cannot be said that the result is adequate for the work. Most of it is lost in spelling names. But this work basically went to nothing — it remained only a protocol result of certain efforts, peculiar tendencies: More fruitful was the standardization of place names. Whatever our assessment of the Commission- 's journey, there is certainly one thing we must acknowledge: the importance of the work it has done. Even those who were not particularly prolific in certain aspects nevertheless left their mark — at least as an expression of the views and moods of the time, which they tried to translate into a specific linguistic and cultural space. Much of what the Commission started is continuing in our time, only the circumstances are now much more favorable: we have a large collection of personal names, a library of 700,000 place names collected from the living language, a library of 300,000 historical place names, general onomastics studies. LITERACY 1. V.R.M. The Commission on Surnames and Pronouns. Book of Records. 1934. I. 24. —1935—1936. III. 27 (Preserved in the Namebook Section of the Lithuanian Language Institute). 2nd V.R.M. Committee on the Determination of Names and Place-Names 70 dog. 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940 (Preserved in the Lithuanian Language Institute Namebook Section). 3. Dictionary of Lithuanian surnames. V., 1985, T. 1; 1989, T. 2. 4. Handbook of the Administrative-Territorial Division of the Lithuanian SSR. V., 1976. D. 2. | 5. A. Zirgulis’s memoirs (preserved in the Names Section of the Lithuanian Language Institute). PROFESSOR A. SALYS AND THE COMMISSION FOR FAMILY AND PLACE NAMES Summary In 1933, the “Commission for Family and Place Names” was elected, which was active until May 1940 as an organ of the Ministry of the Interior. Specially trained persons have written down the Lithuanian settlement names (oikonymes), a part of the other place names from the living language. Later, the commission worked on the family and place names, standardized them. It was planned to publish a dictionary of family and place names. The war prevented the project from being realized. One of the most active members of the commission was Professor A. Salys. 71