Bendradarbių prisiminimai apie Kazį Ulvydą

COLLEAGUES’ MEMORIES OF KAZYS ULVYDAS KLEMENTINA VOSYLYTĖ I REMEMBER KAZYS ULVYDAS AS AN AUTHORITATIVE AND COLORFUL PERSONALITY Mano studijų Vilniaus universitete metais (1955–1960) Kazys Ulvydas mums, lituanistams, dėstė sintaksę. Jis iš kitų dėstytojų išsiskyrė gražiu stotu ir aiškia dikcija, tad jo paskaitų klausėme ištempę ausis. Akis į akį su juo teko susidurti sintaksės egzamino metu. Kiekvienam reikėjo atsakyti į du sintaksės teorijos klausimus ir išnagrinėti sintaksiniu atžvilgiu po vieną sudėtinį sakinį. Klausimai nebuvo sudėtingi, tad egzaminą išlaikiau labai gerai. Ulvydas tuomet dirbo Lietuvių kalbos ir literatūros institute Žodynų skyriaus vadovu, užtat mus egzaminavo po darbo. Gerai prisimenu, kad iš šio pavasario sesijos egzamino grįžome jau temstant. I began working in the Dictionary Department in 1963. At the time, the department was headed by Jonas Kruopas, who was respected and liked by everyone. When he died unexpectedly on October 17, 1975, Kazys Ulvydas was appointed to lead us; he had already headed the Dictionary Department from 1955 to 1960. Thus, leadership was entrusted to reliable hands, and we continued calmly doing our own work. In 1976, I had finished writing the dictionary entries and began editing them. If any questions arose during editing and we turned to our supervisor, he would answer them in detail, explain, or offer advice. I do not remember the supervisor ever raising his voice or angrily scolding anyone. More than once, he supported or defended us lexicographers. BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 Bendradarbių prisiminimai apie Kazį Ulvydą | 2 At the end of the year, monetary awards were given to the authors of the Institute’s more important publications. Once, we learned that the awards planned for lexicographers were considerably smaller than those for literary scholars. We were indignant, so we all agreed with one of the most authoritative lexicographers, Sofija Kėzytė, who proposed refusing the awards. We informed our supervisor. He did not object, but told us to notify the administration. Since no volunteers came forward, I agreed to do it. The award amounts were reconsidered and adjusted: the awards for literary scholars were reduced somewhat, while those for lexicographers were increased slightly. Once, at an Institute-wide staff meeting, one of the literary scholars declared that the lexicographers’ work of sorting cards was easy and hardly qualified as scholarly. Apparently, this was after the aforementioned redistribution of the awards. Ulvydas retorted bluntly that in a few decades probably no one would read the literary scholars’ work anymore, while the Dictionary Department’s work would be used for centuries. Another instance when our supervisor stood up for the lexicographers: once, someone from the administration saw employees from our department leaving in a group earlier than they should have. Ulvydas was informed. He explained that the department had held a meeting that had run over lunchtime, so he had let the employees leave early. In fact, there had been no meeting at all. For twenty-seven years, Kazys Ulvydas hosted the radio program “Let’s Speak and Write Correctly,” so almost everyone in Lithuania knew his surname. We became aware of this during expeditions and trips to collect words for the Dictionary from informants. When we introduced ourselves as being from the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature, people would often immediately mention Ulvydas’s surname. Perhaps his fame also led to some unexpected encounters. Ulvydas once told how a woman had come to their home and asked him to help her daughter get into the University. She offered him a gold coin in return for his help. He replied that even if he wanted to, he could do nothing to help, but would gladly look at the coin, since he had never seen a gold coin with his own eyes. BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 I remember Antanė Kučinskaitė’s account, which testified to how Ulvydas always kept his word. At the time he was writing his dissertation (which he defended in 1955), the Dictionary Department employees Antanė Kučinskaitė and Bronė Zlatkutė lived with the Ulvydas family in one apartment. Once, Ulvydas asked Kučinskaitė to buy him cigarettes because he was very busy. Kučinskaitė promised to buy them if he gave his word that he would quit smoking. Ulvydas replied that as soon as he finished writing his dissertation, he would indeed quit. He really did keep his word—he quit smoking. There is no doubt that Kazys Ulvydas earned great authority and respect through his scholarly, editorial, organizational, and other work. He headed as many as three departments of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature, was the senior editor of the nine-volume Lietuvių kalbos žodyno and the three-volume Lietuvių kalbos gramatikos, served for thirty years as editor-in-chief of Kalbos kultūros, was a member of the editorial boards (committees) for three editions of the Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodyno and other publications, a member of the Institute’s Scientific Council, and a corresponding member of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. These are only some of Ulvydas’s more significant works and duties. The high positions he held did not affect his personal qualities. He was always kind-hearted, open, and sincere. In my memory, he remains an authoritative, interesting, distinctive, and colorful personality. Received 2020 11 24 BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351–7204 Bendradarbių prisiminimai apie Kazį Ulvydą | 4 GERTRŪDA SAVIČIŪTĖ-NAKTINIENĖ ABOUT KAZYS ULVYDAS My first encounter with Kazys Ulvydas was over the radio. I was a pupil at the eight-year school in the remote town of Suvainiškis. Ulvydas’s strong, persuasive voice, unusual content, and expressive intonation set him apart from other speakers and made listeners pay attention. Many years later, a friend from Vilnius, talking about the memorable radio programs “Let Us Speak and Write Correctly,” cautiously asked me: “I suppose it must be very difficult to work with Ulvydas?” In 1977, after graduating from the Faculty of Philology at Vilnius University, my fellow student Ritutė Šepetytė-Petrokienė and I came to work in the Dictionary Department of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature, as assigned. When selecting prospective employees, Kazys Ulvydas, head of the Dictionary Department, relied on more than just the graduates’ assignment list. As we learned later, he had also made inquiries with more than one lecturer. I was invited for an interview. He asked where I came from, which schools I had attended, about my parents and the dialect of my native region, and about the origins of my surname and first name. He asked me to talk about Kazimieras Būga’s work and say which of his works I thought was the most important. I was, and still am, convinced that the two most important are the Lietuvių kalbos žodyno fascicles, unfinished but so broad in content and scope that they laid the foundations for the collective work of many decades. I had to define one or another part of speech, identify them in sentences, and give examples in which the same word would be an adverb or a preposition. “You’re cool-headed; you didn’t get frightened or burst into tears”—that was the conclusion. He spoke about how it was not customary in one’s first years of work BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 years, preference was given to colleagues who had already gained work experience when applying for postgraduate studies (now doctoral studies). I did not understand why this was being discussed, since I had no such intentions. We were hired, as was customary at the time, as senior laboratory assistants. We began by preparing dictionary texts for publication—reading handwritten proofs. Ulvydas greatly valued such support tasks as typing LKŽ texts, proofreading, and building up the card index; he regarded them as important and worthy work. He treated senior laboratory assistant Elena Ažusienienė with particular respect: she was responsible for supervising and maintaining the LKŽ card index, communicating with word collectors, and keeping records of the data. The quality of the linguistic data submitted for the card index was usually assessed by one of the researchers; later, a data acceptance committee was formed. There were too few postgraduate study places in Lithuania. However, in those years none of the lexicographers could or wanted to apply for postgraduate studies at the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow. The place was earmarked, which meant that one would have to return to the sponsoring institution and work there for a period. I was urged by the department head and my colleagues to write an entrance paper and go take the examinations. Kazys Garšva had already completed his postgraduate studies there, while Regina Bagvilaitė, Stasė Krinickaitė, Nijolė Sisaitė, and Skirmantas Valentas were studying. It turned out that Ulvydas had secured the postgraduate places in Moscow and Leningrad. He told me how difficult and complicated this had been, how much effort it had required and how much time it had taken. He tried to keep in touch with the postgraduate students; he would ask me to call him from Moscow and, when I came briefly to Vilnius, to drop by. I received a letter from him inviting me to return to work in the Dictionary Department and not to look for a job anywhere else. It pained him deeply when specialists whom he had carefully selected, trained, and nurtured joined another work group, took jobs at other institutions, or chose teaching or some other career. When, after completing my postgraduate studies, I was working at the Institute again, Ulvydas called me into his office several times to ask how my dissertation work was progressing. He was very concerned about how I was becoming involved in the Dictionary Department’s work and getting accustomed to lexicographic tasks. Under the guidance of an experienced BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 Bendradarbių prisiminimai apie Kazį Ulvydą | 6 lexicographer, Irena Ermanytė, I learned to write LKŽ texts and read countless press proofs, among other things. Ulvydas also told me about more complex cases involving the editing of the LKŽ and the Kalbos kultūros publication. Later I understood how much I had benefited from those conversations. Lexicographers were under great pressure to keep speeding up the preparation of the LKŽ and to publish dictionary volumes at ever shorter intervals. We lexicographers know how complex and meticulous dictionary-making is, how much varied expertise it requires and how much time it takes. But not everyone understands this. Coordinating plans for lexicographic work with maintaining and improving employees’ qualifications was, and remains, difficult. Before work plans were approved and discussed at meetings, Ulvydas would speak individually with each employee and listen to everyone. He did not insist that we write lengthy theoretical works; shorter articles were also acceptable, especially for Kalbos kultūrai. He advised me to choose article topics as closely related to the dictionary as possible. Once, circumstances happened to coincide so that as many as four of us lexicographers were about to take maternity leave. Understandably, this caused the department head considerable concern, and there was much talk. My colleague Klementina Vosylytė produced a humorous wall newspaper about current issues in the department, which included a joke along these lines: “The geese saved Rome, and women saved the Dictionary Department. But they could also bring it down.” Although the situation was difficult for the department, the head was concerned but did not reproach us or show any hostility. One day he came into the office and began apologizing to me; some time later he came and apologized again. Neither I nor my colleagues understood why. Jonas Paulauskas set about finding out. It turned out that a few days earlier I had asked about the approaching attestation deadline. The research secretary responsible for these matters, Adelė Seselskytė, decided to speak with our department head just to be on the safe side, since the procedure had changed and a resolution had been adopted to postpone the attestation of pregnant women BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 for that reason. That was why Ulvydas was apologizing, although he was not at all to blame: he had no intention of organizing a department meeting about the attestation at that time, and had not urged me to inquire about it. Another incident was a sad one. My husband’s mother died. After calling the department head and asking to be excused for a couple of days, I left with my family for the funeral. When I returned, I found my colleagues worried. They said they had heard Ulvydas’s famous remark: “Your husband’s mother—let your husband bury her,” as if there were no need to travel so far and waste time. Nevertheless, Ulvydas himself did not reproach me; he expressed his condolences and asked about the deceased, her family, and the funeral. Here is the background to this story: the funeral took place on Christmas Eve. I returned to Vilnius late in the afternoon on Christmas Day and went back to work the following day. In those days, not coming to work on days that coincided with religious holidays was risky and could arouse suspicion. The conscientious department head protected and defended his colleagues from such and similar dangers as well. I remember Kazys Ulvydas, the Dictionary Department head who seemed stern, with gratitude. He always stood firm in defense of the Lithuanian language, the dictionary and lexicographers—each one of us, and all of us together. Received 2020 12 29 BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 Bendradarbių prisiminimai apie Kazį Ulvydą | 8 NIJOLĖ SLIŽIENĖ’S MEMORIES OF KAZYS ULVYDAS I met Kazys Ulvydas when I was studying Lithuanian philology at Vilnius University; Ulvydas taught syntax to my year. The students liked him as a lecturer: he was such a handsome, good-looking man, likable, and his lectures were interesting. He would take an interest in the more talented students and ask that they be assigned to work at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature. That is how Vitas Labutis, Elena Valiulytė, Albertas Ružė, and Irena Jašinskaitė came to the Institute. Ulvydas invited me to work at the Institute himself, by phone, when, after graduating from the University, I had spent a few months working in the library of a ministry. So I really came to the Institute thanks to his efforts. By the time I defended my candidate of sciences dissertation, he was no longer teaching at the University, because he had more than enough work at the Institute. Ulvydas was head of the Dictionary Department, and a Grammar Group had been set up within the Dictionary Department. Adelė Valeckienė and Vytautas Ambrazas belonged to the Grammar Group. There was also Valerija Vaitkevičiūtė, who later left the Institute amid a great deal of fuss. The Grammar Group subsequently became a department, and Ulvydas took charge of it, leaving the Dictionary Department in the hands of Jonas Kruopas. The backbone of the Grammar Group was Ulvydas himself, Ambrazas, and Valeckienė. Then we graduates came along, without any practical experience, while those three had already done some work. Ulvydas was constantly concerned with bringing together more talented staff to write the grammar, and invited some of the authors from the University: Vincas Urbutis wrote the section on word formation, and Vytautas Mažiulis wrote about the numeral. Under Ulvydas’s direction, the three-volume Lithuanian Grammar was written. Three large volumes—we worked on them for many years. When the grammar was published, Ulvydas returned to head the Dictionary Department, while Aleksandras Vanagas headed the Grammar Department, followed briefly by Algirdas Sabaliauskas, and then Vytautas Ambrazas took over. BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 Ulvydas was my dissertation supervisor, but his supervision was rather unusual. It seems he had read little of my dissertation; he probably didn’t have time, since he was editing the three-volume grammar with great intensity. He spent a lot of time on it, inviting authors to his office and explaining what they had written incorrectly. If someone managed to persuade him that it was right, he would accept that; if not, they had to correct it. Ulvydas devoted a great deal of heart to editing the three-volume grammar. There was a lot of working material, which is why it turned out so large. The descriptions of parts of speech were supplemented with a wealth of dialect material. If necessary, Ulvydas would raise his voice; grammar was sacred to him. There were plans: each year, it was laid out what each staff member had to write. By the end of the year, we were supposed to have written what had been planned. Everyone in the Grammar Department had a lot of work; that was how things were done at the Institute. First, the senior staff—Ambrazas and Valeckienė—would edit the grammar texts that had been written. They edited them first, correcting anything that could be easily fixed; then the work would pass into Ulvydas’s hands. Ulvydas would then make his corrections—always in red ink, so the texts would end up quite reddened. He would correct both the language and the content; the editing was done very carefully. Sometimes he made valid comments, pointing out that something had not been written correctly; then I would agree and leave the room. But if I felt that I might be in the right, I would wait until Ulvydas had run out of things to say, and then, when he was speaking less energetically, I would gradually begin: perhaps it could be interpreted differently after all. I wouldn’t say that I was right. I would make him doubt, and he himself would begin to wonder whether perhaps that really was so; eventually we would agree that what I had written was fine and needed no correction. He corrected things very minutely; he could summon you to his office over every little paragraph and ask why you had written it that way, when he thought another way was better. He was very conscientious, perhaps a little pedantic. But generally, I think, when editing, that sometimes comes in useful BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 Bendradarbių prisiminimai apie Kazį Ulvydą | 10 pedantry. Then you look not at the surface, but deeper. Ulvydas never looked only at the surface; he assessed everything very conscientiously, carefully, and thoughtfully. When Ulvydas returned to the Dictionary Department, we had little to do with one another. There is one thing I have not mentioned: Ulvydas used to host radio language segments called “Let us speak and write correctly.” They were very interesting, and their host became very famous and popular. People eagerly listened to the language segments hosted by Ulvydas; they were so popular that many jokes circulated based on his corrections. Those segments and corrections were well known; unfortunately, nobody collected the jokes, though we could have collected and written them down. It should also be said that Ulvydas began publishing Kalbos kultūrą. Obtaining permission to publish this Lithuanian-language periodical took considerable effort. Ulvydas certainly did his part here. Such a publication was needed, as many mistakes were being made in the language. Sometimes, when protocols were sent from the Council of Ministers to the Grammar Department for checking, Ulvydas would have had to rewrite the whole text from scratch, because practically every sentence contained a mistake. At one point I had written the most articles for Kalbos kultūrą. I used to write articles for almost every issue, then less and less often, and when I began writing a dictionary of verb valency, I no longer had time. Someone would be assigned to put together each issue of the publication, while Ulvydas would take up the editing only after the issue’s material had been printed. Rūžė prepared quite a few issues; I prepared one, and Valiulytė prepared several as well. To put an issue together, one had to gather material and ask people to write, but in those days we still wrote and had things to say. As time went on, it became increasingly difficult to collect those articles. Ulvydas was the editor-in-chief; later, Pranas Kniūkšta prepared most of the issues. Of course, BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204 Ulvydas did a great deal of work editing the completed articles; if something was perhaps written improperly, he would not let such articles pass. Ulvydas was a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences. The Academy of Sciences mattered to him, and he was very distressed when it fell apart. Ulvydas certainly did a great deal of work, editing so many volumes of the Lietuvių kalbos žodyno. His three-volume Lietuvių kalbos gramatika is also a major achievement, since there had been no Lithuanian grammar of this kind, nor a dictionary of this kind. All his works are very important, and they are still consulted and relied upon. Recorded from a telephone conversation by Rasuolė Vladarskienė Received 2020 10 12 BENDRINĖ KALBA 93 (2020) http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba ISSN 2351-7204