Gyvenimas kaip krintanti rugpjūčio žvaigždė

J. KaracieJus. Life as a Falling August Star 363 Custom JUOZAS KARACIEJUS Institute of Lithuanian Language Life is a mystery THE STAR OF AUGUST In memory of Saulius Ambrazas It’s hard, very hard to write about a co-worker and colleague (so far my hand still doesn’t rise to write “ex”) whose life burned down along with the falling and possibly fading stars of the last August nights. It was also difficult because it seemed to all of us that Saulius was at the peak of his strength not only scientifically and creatively, but also physically – he never complained to anyone about any ailments, he was not ill. And then... on August 30, an unexpected message appeared in our e-mail inbox that our colleague Saulius Ambraz is no longer alive, that his star of life has gone out before he even reached his fifty-third birthday. At first I didn't want to believe it, still somewhere deep in my heart was the hope that maybe there is a mistake, that so 364 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 83 It could not be, because on that very day my colleague Saulius Ambrazas had to come to work after his regular annual vacation, sit down as usual at his work desk loaded with books and, having taken out of the drawer the manuscript of the third monograph on the development of adjective formation in Lithuanian, which he was about to finish, explain on a clean sheet of paper in his upright handwriting to the future reader the history of the as yet unsolved riddles of word formation in this part of Lithuanian language. Unfortunately... today we can only guess what colleague Saulius did not have time to tell both us, his colleagues, and all future readers. I remember well the day of November 14, 1984, when a young man with an elegant beard came to the Department of Language History and Dialectology of the then Lithuanian Language and Literature Institute and, having greeted his future colleagues modestly (perhaps a little reluctantly), immediately sat down at the desk assigned to him. It is true that Saulius Ambrazas did not come directly from the university auditorium bench, as many young people who came to the Institute at the time, but he had already finished his postgraduate studies at Vilnius University and had written and defended his doctoral dissertation (then a candidate of philological sciences) Abstracts of Verbs (nomina actionis) in the Old Lithuanian Language in 1984. We, the staff of the Department of Language History and Dialectology, knew that Saulius Ambrazas is a very well-prepared employee, well acquainted with both older and newer linguistic literature of the time, because he grew up and matured among books of a humanitarian profile. From the first days, the junior research associate Saulius Ambrazas was involved in the preparation of the third volume of the then main department’s collective work – the Atlas of Lithuanian Language Dialectology. For this volume on the morphology of Lithuanian dialects he prepared 20 maps and wrote quite extensive commentaries on them. During the time spent in this work, which required a lot of energy and diligence, Saulius Ambrazas not only wrote scientific articles for Lithuanian and foreign linguistic journals, but also began to prepare the first part of the capital work Noun Formation Development, which was published in Lithuania in 1993. Two years later, in 1995, my colleague Saulius, having successfully defended his habilitation thesis, intensively continued his historical researches on the formation of Lithuanian nouns, which he summarized and published five years later (2000) in the continuation of the first monograph, The Development of the Formation of Lithuanian Nouns. II. 1998-1999 In this book, based on extensive material collected from various sources, he described the development of the Lithuanian noun-verbal derivatives from the earliest times to the present day. Along with this work, Saulius Ambraz’s duties changed. As already mentioned, he started working at the Institute as a junior research associate in 1985. J. KaracieJus. Life as a falling August star 365 was re-tested by a research associate, in 1991 – a senior research associate, and since 1995 – a senior researcher. but neither about his duties, nor about scientific degrees colleague Saulius was not inclined to talk. He preferred to talk about the latest linguistic books and the questions they addressed, and if the conversation suddenly turned to the problems of our country’s internal life, he always argues fervently that we should not react too pessimisticly to the difficulties that still occur, that all the problems will disappear with time, just have patience. Saulius Ambrazas devoted a lot of attention and time not only to his own research papers, but also to all the papers that were being worked on and discussed in the department. He read all the papers he was discussing carefully and not only made notes on a separate sheet of paper so that he could make them during the discussion, but several times, and occasionally (especially in the dissertations) even several dozen times more, he wrote those notes with his specifically blunt pencil in the margins of the paper he was reading. Saulius Ambrazas always demanded that the statements in the work under consideration be clear and based on linguistic data that did not give rise to doubt. This attitude of my colleague Saulius, which perhaps a little frightened some young researchers, seemed to be a secret methodological measure characteristic only to him, which encouraged the authors of each work under consideration to prepare well, to become accustomed not to be afraid to defend their claims, but at the same time to learn the basics of serious scientific discussion. For a young man taking his first steps in scientific research work, this was undoubtedly a very good school, and correctly expressed remarks (I compare with those in the margins of the work) were also an encouragement not to be afraid, always to believe in our strengths. Of course, one could write and write about my colleague Saulius Ambraz, as a scientist and a person with all the human weaknesses characteristic of each of us: list dozens of his scientific articles, edited works, what Lithuanian and foreign scientific journals editorial boards he was a member. but those words, those calculations will not change anything, and sometimes maybe they are not even needed, because it is not always easy to express the loss that has befallen us in those beloved Lithuanian words of Saulius Ambraz, especially that when you come to the ordinary meeting of the section, when the gathered colleagues are not in a hurry to start it, as if they are still looking at something, you immediately start thinking that the door will open and colleague Saulius will enter through them... but the meeting begins, the illusions of that moment dissipate, and then you realize that this will never be the case again. It is only unclear why the merciless fairies of destiny pity you, Colleague, offer longer life, why cut it too early... so may your native land of Lithuania be easy for you...