Bendradarbių prisiminimai apie Kazį Ulvydą

BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 BENDRADARBIŲ PRISIMINIMAI APIE KAZĮ ULVYDĄ KLEMENTINA VOSYLYTĖ I remember Ulvydas as an authoritative AND COLORFUL PERSONALITY During my studies at Vilnius University (1955-1960), Kazys Ulvydas taught syntax to us Lithuanians. He stood out from the other lecturers with a beautiful posture and clear diction, so we listened to his lectures with our ears stretched out. I had to face him face to face during the syntax exam. Each participant had to answer two syntax theory questions and analyze one compound sentence syntactically. The questions were not difficult, so I passed the exam very well. Ulvydas then worked at the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature as head of the Dictionaries Department, and he examined us after work. I remember well that we returned from this spring session exam at dusk. I started working in the dictionaries department in 1963. The department was then headed by the respected and beloved Jonas Kruopas. After his unexpected death on October 17, 1975, Kazys Ulvydas, who had already been head of the Dictionaries Department from 1955 to 1960, was appointed to lead us. So the leadership was handed over to reliable hands, and we continued calmly to do our work. In 1976 I had already finished writing the texts of the Dictionary and started editing them. If we had any questions during the editing process, we would contact the manager, who would answer them in detail, explain them or give us advice. I don’t remember the manager ever raising his voice or cursing anyone angrily. On many occasions he has supported or interceded for us, the dictionaries. At the end of the year, the authors of the most important publications of the Institute were BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 awarded cash prizes. Once we learned that the prizes for dictionaries were intended to be awarded to the lexicographer Sofia Kėzytė, who had proposed to give up the prizes. We mažesnės nei literatams. Mes tuo pasipiktinome, tad visi pritarėme vienai autoritetingiausių informed our manager about this. He didn't object, just told me to report it to the directorate. Since there were no volunteers, I agreed to do this. The size of the prizes was re-examined and adjusted: the literary prizes were slightly reduced and the dictionaries were slightly increased. Once, during the general meeting of the Institute's staff, one of the writers stated that the work of the dictionaries is easy and can hardly be considered scientific. Apparently, this was after the mentioned redistribution of bonuses. Ulvydas briefly replied that in a few decades no one will probably read the works of the writers, but the Dictionary will be used for centuries. Another case where the manager conspired with the dictionaries. Once someone from the management saw that the employees left our department in a group earlier than they should. Ulvydas was informed about this. He explained that there was a meeting in the department, which lasted for lunch, so he released the employees earlier. And that meeting didn't even happen. Kazys Ulvydas hosted the radio programme “Let’s speak and write correctly” for twenty-seven years, so his name was known almost throughout Lithuania. We were convinced of this during expeditions or trips to collect words from dialects for the Dictionary. When we introduced ourselves as members of the Lithuanian Language and Literature Institute, many jo žinomumo pasitaikydavo ir netikėtumų. Ulvydas yra pasakojęs, kad vieną kartą į jų namus immediately said Ulvydas. Probably because of a woman who came and asked to help her daughter enter the University. He offered gold for her help. He replied to the woman that if he wanted, nothing could help, but he would gladly look at the coin, because he had never seen gold money with his own eyes. BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 I remembered the story of Antanas Kučinskas, who testified that Ulvydas kept his word. At the time when he was writing his dissertation (protected in 1955), Antanė Kučinskaitė and Bronė Zlatkutė, employees of the Dictionaries Department, lived with the Ulvydai family in the same apartment. Once Ulvydas asked Kučinskaitė to buy him cigarettes because he was very busy. Kučinskaitė promised to buy them if he would give her the word to quit smoking. Ulvydas replied that as soon as he finished writing his dissertation, he would definitely throw it. He really kept his word – quit smoking. Undoubtedly, Kazys Ulvydas earned great authority and respect through his scientific, editorial, organizational and other activities. He has headed three departments of the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature, was the chief editor of nine volumes of the Lithuanian Language Dictionary and three volumes of the Lithuanian Language Grammar, responsible editor of Language Culture for thirty years, member of the editorial boards (commissions) of three editions of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language Dictionary and other publications, member of the Institute’s Scientific Council, correspondent member of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. These are only Ulvydas’s more important tasks and duties. His high position did not affect his manner. He was always kind-hearted, open-minded and sincere. In my memory he remained as an authoritative, interesting, distinctive and colorful personality. Received 24 November 2020 Memories of Kazys Ulvydas from colleagues | 4 BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 GERTRŪDA SAVIČIŪTĖ-NAKTINIENĖ ABOUT KAZ ULVYD The first acquaintance with Kazis Ulvydas was through the radio. I was a pupil of the eight-year school in the distant town of Suvainiškiai. Ulvydas’ strong, powerful voice, unusual content, vivid intonation differed from other speakers and made me wonder. Many years later, a friend from Vilnius, talking about the impressive radio programme “Let’s speak and write correctly”, asked me cautiously: “Is it very difficult to work with Ulvydas?” After graduating from the Faculty of Philology of Vilnius University in 1977, together with my fellow student Ritutė Šepetaitė-Petrokienė, I was appointed to work in the Dictionaries Department of the Lithuanian Language and Literature Institute. When selecting future employees, the head of the Dictionaries Department, Kazys Ulvydas, did not rely solely on the list of graduate appointments. As we learned later, he also questioned more than one lecturer. I was invited for an interview. They were interested in where I came from, what schools I attended, about my parents, the dialect of my native country, the origin of my surname and name. He asked me to tell about Kazimieras Bogas’s works and to say which of his works, in my opinion, is the most important. I was and am sure that the most important are two dictionary books of Lithuanian language, unfinished, but in their content and essence so extensive that they laid the foundations for many decades of collective work. I had to define one more part of speech, recognize them in sentences, give examples where the same word would be an adverb or a preposition. “You are cold-blooded, you are not afraid, you do not cry” – that was the conclusion. BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 He talked about the fact that it is not accepted to enter postgraduate studies (now doctoral studies) in the first year of work, preference is given to colleagues who have already worked. I did not understand why this was mentioned, because I did not have such thoughts. We were accepted to work, as was usual at the time, as chief laboratory assistants. We started with the preparation of dictionary texts for printing – reading manuscript proofreading. Ulvydas highly valued such auxiliary work as typewriting, proofreading and compiling the LCZ archive, considering it an important and respectable activity. He treated Elena Ažusiene with particular respect, she was assigned to oversee and manage the LKŽ record library, communicate with the word collectors, keep records. The quality of the language data submitted to the archive was usually assessed by some of the researchers, and later a data acceptance committee was formed. In Lithuania, there were too few places for postgraduate studies. However, no dictionarist could or wanted to enroll in the postgraduate program of the Institute of Vocabulary of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow that year. The location was targeted, which means that you will have to return to the sending institution and rework. I was urged by the head of the department and colleagues to write a thesis and go to the exams. Kazys Garšva had already finished his postgraduate studies there, and Regina Bagvilaitė, Stasė Krinickaitė, Nijolė Sisaitė, Skirmantas Valentas studied there. Ulvydas apparently arranged for postgraduate places in Moscow and Leningrad. He told how it was difficult, complicated, took a lot of effort, took a lot of time. He tried to keep in touch with the aspirants, he asked me to call him from Moscow, and when he came to Vilnius for a short time – to visit him. I have received a letter from him inviting me to return to work in the Dictionaries Department, not to look for a job anywhere else. It was very painful for him when the specialists he carefully selected, prepared and nurtured were transferred to another working group, were employed in other institutions, chose to become lecturers or other activities. When I returned to work at the Institute after my postgraduate studies, Ulvydas repeatedly invited me to his office, asked me how my final dissertation works were going, cared very much about my involvement in the activities of the Dictionaries Department and how I got used to lexicographic work. Advised by experienced Bendradarbių prisiminimai apie Kazį Ulvydą | 6 BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 I learned how to write LKŽ texts from the dictionary writer Irena Ermanytė, read countless proofreading works from the printing press, etc. Ulvydas also told about more complex cases of editing the LKŽ and the publication of Language Culture. Later I realized how much I benefited from those conversations. The lexicographers were under great pressure to accelerate and accelerate the preparation of the LKŽ, to publish the volumes of the dictionary with ever smaller intervals. We, dictionaries, know how complicated, detailed, complex and time-consuming the preparation of dictionaries is. However, this is not understood by everyone. It was and is difficult to combine lexicographic work plans with the maintenance and improvement of employee qualifications. Before approving work plans, before considering them in meetings, Ulvydas would talk to each employee individually, listen to everyone. It did not necessarily require the writing of large volumes of theoretical works, shorter articles were also suitable, especially for Language Culture. I was advised to choose topics as close as possible to the dictionary. Once life circumstances coincided so that four of us dictionary writers took a decree leave (now – maternity leave). Understandably, the head of the department was very worried about this, and there was a lot of talk. A colleague, Klementina Vosylytė, published a funny wall newspaper about the current events in the department, which also contained the following mockery: “Roma was saved by geese, and the Dictionaries Department was saved by women. But they can also ruin it.” Although the situation was not easy for the department, the manager was concerned, but did not reproach or show any dislike. One day he entered the office and began to apologize to me, and after a while he came back and apologized again. Neither I nor my colleagues understood the reasons. The Paulauskas. Pasirodo, prieš kelias dienas pasidomėjau dėl artėjančio atestacijos termino. Už scientific secretary responsible for these matters, Adelė Seselskytė, decided to talk about everything with the head of our department, because the procedure had changed, the decision was BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 taken to postpone the attestations of pregnant women. That is why Ulvydas apologized, although he was not at all guilty, he did not even intend to organize any meeting of the department about the attestation at the time and did not encourage me to be interested in it. The next incident was sad. My husband's mother died. After calling the head of the department and apologizing for a couple of days, I and my family went to the funeral. When I returned, I found my colleagues worried. They said that they had heard Ulvydas’ famous phrase: “The husband’s mother, let the husband funeral”, that there was no need to drive so far and waste time. However, Ulvydas did not reproach me, expressed his condolences, asked about the deceased, her relatives, about the funeral. The subtext of this story is this: the funeral took place on Christmas Day, I returned to Vilnius on the eve of the first day of Christmas and came to work the next day. In those days, not coming to work on days that coincided with religious holidays was a risky thing that could raise suspicion. The careful head of the department protected and defended his colleagues from such and similar dangers. I remember with gratitude the seemingly angry head of the Dictionaries Department, Kazys Ulvydas. He always stood up for the Lithuanian language, for the dictionary and the dictionaries, for each and every one of us. Received 29 December 2020 I met Kazis Ulvydas when I was studying Lithuanian philology at Vilnius University, Ulvydas taught BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 syntax in my course. As a lecturer, he was liked by the students, so handsome, they asked him to assign them to work at the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature, so Vitas Labutis, Elena Valiulytė, Albertas Ružė, Irena Jašinskaitė came to the Institute. Ulvydas invited me to gražus vyras, simpatiškas, ir jo paskaitos buvo įdomios. Jis įsižiūrėdavo gabesnius studentus, work at the Institute by calling me himself, when I graduated from the University and worked for a few months in a ministry library. That's why I came to the Institute, it's really his concern. When I defended my doctoral dissertation, he was not working at the University, because he had enough work at the Institute. Ulvydas was the head of the Dictionaries Department, and the Grammar Group was formed in the Dictionaries Department. The grammar group was led by Adelė Valeckienė and Vytautas Ambrazas. True, there was Valerija Vaitkevičiūtė, but later she left the Institute with noise. Later, the Grammar group became a department, which Ulvydas took over, and the Dictionaries department was left to Jon Kruopas. The grammatical group was led by Ulvydas himself, Ambrazas and Valeckienė. Then came us, graduates, without practice, and these had already worked a little bit. Ulvydas always took care to gather more skilled employees to write the grammar, some of whom the author invited from the University: Vincas Urbutis wrote the section on creation, Vytautas Mažiulis wrote about numerals. The third Lithuanian grammar was written under Ulvydas's leadership. Three big volumes, many years of writing. When he published the grammar, Ulvydas returned to head the Dictionaries section, and the Grammar section was headed by Aleksandras Vanagas, then briefly by Algirdas Sabaliauskas, and then by Vytautas Ambrazas. BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 Ulvydas was the supervisor of my dissertation, but his supervision was a bit strange, it seems that he had read little of my dissertation, probably he didn’t have time, because he edited the three-dimensional grammar from the shoulder. He would waste a lot of time, invite the author to his office, explain what was wrong, and if someone succeeded, he would prove that it was right, and if he failed, he would have to correct it. Ulvydas devoted a great deal of his heart to the editing of the tertiary grammar. There was a lot of work material, but it was so big and it came out. The descriptions of the parts of the language were supplemented with extensive dialect material. If necessary, Ulvydas would raise the tone, grammar was a sacred thing to him. There were plans: every year, it was planned what the employee must write. At the end of the year we should have written what was planned. In the grammar department everyone had a lot of work, that was the order in the Institute. The first grammar texts were edited by the elders – Ambrazas and Valeckienė. They were the first to edit, if something was easy to correct, they would correct it, and then those works would go to Ulvydas’ hands. And already then Ulvydas corrected – always with red ink, so the texts were quite reddish. The language was corrected, and corrected in a professional manner, it was edited very carefully. Sometimes they made correct remarks, that something was not written that way, then I agreed and left the room. But if I saw that the truth was on my side, I would wait until Ulvydas exhausted himself by making remarks, then he would not speak so energetically, then I would start slowly, or maybe there was still a different way of evaluating. I didn't say it was my right. I caused him to doubt, and he began to doubt himself, and He gal tikrai taip, ir galų gale susitariam, kad mano buvo gerai parašyta ir nereikia nieko taisyti. corrected very meticulously, for each paragraph He could call me to the office and explain why you wrote it in this way, and He thinks that it is better to write it differently. He was very caring, maybe a little pedantic. But in general, it seems to me, when editing sometimes helps that