Albina Bataitytė – liko darbai ir šviesus paveikslas

PRANAS KNIŪKŠTA ALBINA BATAITYTĖ – HER WORK AND A RADIANT PORTRAIT REMAIN We bid farewell to our colleague at Kalbos kultūros, the capable editor and devoted nurturer of her native tongue, Albina Bataitytė. Albina departed for eternity a year after her eightieth birthday, so the words of congratulations intended for her jubilee became a farewell, as well as a remembrance of our former colleague’s radiant portrait. A. Bataitytė was born on January 9, 1935, in the village of Paantvardis, Jurbarkas District. She attended Paantvardis Primary School and Jurbarkas Gymnasium. After graduating, she studied Lithuanian language and literature at Vilnius University. Following her studies, she taught for a year at Tverėčius Secondary School and worked in editorial, publishing, and archival roles at various institutions. In 1993, drawing on her experience in preparing publications and working as an editor, A. Bataitytė was invited to the Language Culture Department (hereafter, the Department) of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, where she was entrusted with overseeing the preparation and publication of Kalbos kultūros. Until then, the journal had had no permanent editor; different Department staff members prepared each of its individual issues. This turnover among editors made it difficult to plan work over a longer period and maintain a consistent editorial direction. A. Bataitytė was appointed the journal’s permanent editor. Her work involved collecting articles written for Kalbos kultūrai, submitting them to the editorial board for consideration, and preparing them for publication. As she herself admitted: “It was somewhat awkward and difficult, because the journal demanded both meticulousness and responsibility.” A. Bataitytė began her work in the Department with issue 67 of Kalbos kultūros. Her short article “What turned into structures?” appeared in it, and, most importantly, she prepared this issue for publication—though she had not yet compiled it herself. The next issue, number 68, was compiled by her, and its second page bears the note: “Compiled and prepared for publication by A. Bataitytė.” In all, she compiled and prepared 16 issues of the journal for publication (numbers 68 to 83); only the final two were no longer called issues, as the term no longer suited their expanded size. During that period, the journal’s character changed: Kalbos kultūra, once a publication devoted to language practice and the popularization of scholarship, became an academic journal examining a wide range of issues in language use and theory. As the editor of its issues, A. Bataitytė made a considerable contribution to these changes and helped put them into effect. Gathering material for Kalbos kultūrai required liaising with linguists from various research institutions, and with others as well. For example, the journal published articles by Arvydas Juozaitis (issue 77) and Vytautas Landsbergis (issue 83). The index to issues 71–80 shows that about 90 authors published articles or other works in those issues, which contained a total of more than 230 publi- BENDRINĖ KALBA | 88 (2015) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 PRANAS KNIŪKŠTA. Albina Bataitytė – liko darbai ir šviesus paveikslas | 2 cations. The editor who compiled those issues was the first to familiarize herself with them. Since the articles were written by authors engaged in various kinds of language work and holding differing views on linguistic phenomena, Kalbos kultūra received all kinds of articles from them, often on entirely new and unexpected topics. It was necessary to find ways to present them, to coordinate them with one another and with the journal’s overall subject matter. For many years, Kalbos kultūra had no established structure, and articles in its issues were arranged freely. At first, official documents on language policy and language planning were usually presented, while biographical profiles most often came at the end of the list of articles. The other articles appeared wherever they happened to fit. A. Bataitytė set about organizing the journal’s structure by subject, distinguishing and naming individual sections. Issues 67 and 68, which she prepared, had only a “Biographical Profiles” section; “Language and Society” and “Review and Information” appeared in issue 69. Issues in the 70s included sections on language practice with various titles, until issue 74, when they acquired the name “Current Issues in Language Practice.” From issue 76 onward, the journal’s structure took shape, with the following main sections: “Current Issues in Language Practice,” “Language and Society,” “Review and Information,” and “Biographical Profiles.” This structure remained essentially the same through issue 86, though occasionally another section or a different title was used. A fuller picture of Kalbos kultūros can be gleaned from the indexes to issues 61–70 and 71–80, prepared by A. Bataitytė. In addition to Kalbos kultūros, A. Bataitytė also helped prepare other Institute publications for print. She edited ten volumes (vols. 44–53) of the linguistics journal Acta Linguistica Lithuanica (Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai), three issues of Terminologijos, and more than ten other books (monographs and collections of articles). She carried out her editorial work meticulously and creatively. As she herself wrote, it was interesting to follow an author’s train of thought, linguistic expression, insights, generalizations, and conclusions. A. Bataitytė also wrote and published informational and review articles in various publications; six appeared in Kalbos kultūroje. Issue 76 of the journal featured her essay “As Kalbos kultūra began its fifth decade,” which reviewed the four decades of Kalbos kultūros and a meeting held to mark the jubilee. Concluding her review, the author cast an anxious glance toward the future: “But time goes on and inevitably brings changes to which we must grow accustomed and which we must evaluate in one way or another. We constantly hear: the age of knowledge, the information society. <...> And what of language? What will it be like in this society of ever-advancing technologies? Will it not become overly standardized and dry, like a withered tree?” A. Bataitytė not only defended the living language in her statements and urged people to cherish it; her own texts, too, are fluent, lively, and compelling. She also honed her craft through poetry, and a collection of her poems was published in the newspaper Literatūros ir meno (December 2000). They speak of the word, its bond with life and with “the heartbeat’s breathing”: Do not come from anxiety, from a sleepless night. Long-suffered word, painful thought. Come from the Earth. From life. And pour yourself out not as water. But as blood. As the heartbeat’s breathing. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 88 (2015) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 PRANAS KNIŪKŠTA. Albina Bataitytė – liko darbai ir šviesus paveikslas | 3 Nevertheless, everyday life and work involved not poetry but matters of language culture and Kalbos kultūra. This is also evident from her detailed article about Kazys Ulvydas, organizer of Kalbos kultūros and its first executive editor—“Kazys Ulvydas – the Last Representative of the Classical School of Linguistics” (Literatūra ir menas, January 12, 2001). A. Bataitytė’s final article, meanwhile, appeared in the final print issue (no. 86) of Kalbos kultūros. It is as if this were a sign that one era of Kalbos kultūros was ending—an era that was also an important period in our lives. It is a pleasure to remember the work Kolege Albina and I did together over a decade and a half, and it is painful to know that we will no longer hear her warm, wise words, brimming with optimism. Received 2015 11 20 Revised 2016 01 20 BENDRINĖ KALBA | 88 (2015) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204