Profesoriui Vincentui Drotvinui – 80

BIRUTĖ TRIŠKAITĖ Institute of the Lithuanian Language PROFESSOR VINCENTAS DROTVINAS TURNS 80 Vincentas Drotvinas, professor at Vilnius Pedagogical University, historian of the language, and researcher of the lexicography of Lithuania Minor, has celebrated his 80th summer. On the occasion of this happy jubilee, we would like to look back and recall the path the Professor has travelled. Vincentas Drotvinas was born on July 10, 1929, in Stakiai, in Jurbarkas District. He began his studies in Stakiai, later attended schools in Raudonė and Vėdžgirys, and graduated from Maironis Secondary School in Betygala, Raseiniai District, where his greatest role model was the renowned educator Antanas Juška. Encouraged by his beloved teacher, in 1949 he enrolled at Vilnius Pedagogical Institute (now a university), where his older brother Leonardas1 was already studying, and chose to specialize in Lithuanian language and literature. Language courses there were taught by Professor Juozas Budzinskis, Professor Zenonas Slaviūnas, Associate Professor Petronėlė Bernadišienė, Associate Professor Elzbieta Mikalauskaitė, and others. 1 Leonardas Drotvinas (1924–1983), also a linguist, taught at Vilnius University and Vilnius Pedagogical Institute, and published articles on Lithuanian syntax (especially that of old writings) and other topics. 370 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 82 After graduating in 1953, Vincentas Drotvinas enrolled in the Lithuanian-language postgraduate program at Vilnius University. Under the supervision of Professor Jonas Palionis, he wrote and defended in 1967 his dissertation Compound Nouns in Lithuanian Writings of the 16th–18th Centuries, for which he was awarded the degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences (now a doctoral degree). He published scholarly articles on the dissertation topic, examining the components and methods of compounding of compound nouns in old Lithuanian writings, including Kristijonas Donelaitis’s The Seasons. While gathering material for his dissertation from old Lithuanian texts, he also became more thoroughly acquainted with the first German–Lithuanian dictionaries compiled in Lithuania Minor. This essentially determined his subsequent scholarly interests: from then on, the principal focus of his research became the bilingual Lithuanian lexicography of Lithuania Minor. He investigated various issues concerning the compilation of both manuscript and printed old German–Lithuanian and Lithuanian–German dictionaries: the circumstances of their creation, authorship, dating, sources, lexicographic method, and the vocabulary and phraseology recorded in them. After Lithuania regained its independence, the scholar sought sources for the dictionaries of Lithuania Minor in libraries in Germany (Berlin, Halle, Münster, Wolfenbüttel) and Poland (Gdańsk, Toruń). He presented the results of his searches and research in articles published not only in Lithuanian but also in foreign scholarly publications (for example, Europa in der Frühen Neuzeit, Geschichte der Sprachtheorie, Hallesche Forschungen, Kulturgeschichte Ostpreußens in der Frühen Neuzeit, Zeitschrift für Slawistik, and others). He delivered numerous papers at international scholarly conferences on various topics concerning old Lithuanian writings, chiefly dictionaries. Vincentas Drotvinas did not limit himself to lexicographic research; he was also interested in Lithuanian lexicology, terminology, and language culture. He wrote numerous articles about loanwords, calques, and international words in Lithuanian, the formation of terms (for example, in linguistics, lexicology, military affairs, education, postal services, and monetary nomenclature), as well as phraseological expressions. He prepared the study The Linguist Kazimieras Jaunius (with Vladas Grinaveckis, 1970), published this linguist’s work on compound words (1970), and wrote about lexical matters in K. Jaunius’s manuscript legacy. He published the booklet August Schleicher, Lithuanian Scholar (1979), and published valuable archival material about Lithuanian linguists Kazimieras Būga, Jurgis Gylis, Fridrichas Kuršaitis, Antanas Salys, and Andrius Ugianskis, as well as letters by August Schleicher, among other materials. The Professor’s conclusions on dating the dictionaries of Lithuania Minor make a substantial contribution to the history of Lithuanian lexicography and, more broadly, to the scholarship of language history: B. TRIŠKAITĖ. Profesoriui Vincentui Drotvinui – 80 371 Having examined the watermarks on the manuscript paper, he clarified the date of compilation of Clavis Germanico-Lithvana (the year 1680 should be regarded as the dictionary’s terminus post quem) and established that the so-called Krause dictionary was compiled in the 1720s or 1730s, thereby disproving the previously widespread view that its author was Andreas Krause, who lived in Nybudžiai in the seventeenth century. The community of Lithuanian philologists is grateful to the Professor for publishing sources of significance to Lithuanian studies—manuscript German–Lithuanian dictionaries now held in the manuscript collection of the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. In 1987, a facsimile, transcription, and index of Lithuanian words appeared of the anonymous mid-seventeenth-century manuscript dictionary Lexicon Lithuanicum, and in 1995–1997 a facsimile of the manuscript of the two-volume Clavis Germanico-Lithvana was published (volumes 1–4). V. Drotvinas wrote introductory articles for both publications, discussing the circumstances in which the dictionaries were produced, examining questions of authorship, their structure, and the Lithuanian vocabulary they contain. Also published was the carefully prepared fruit of many years’ work, which demanded considerable effort: a three-volume edition of Jokūbas Brodovskis’s dictionary Lexicon Germanico-Lithvanicum et Lithuanico-Germanicum. The first and second volumes present a digital copy and transcription of the manuscript, while the third is devoted to an index of the dictionary’s Lithuanian words. Thanks to the Professor, therefore, manuscripts written in hard-to-decipher Gothic cursive have become more accessible not only to scholars but also to the general public. It should also be noted that, at Vincentas Drotvinas’s initiative, work began at the Faculty of Lithuanian Studies of Vilnius Pedagogical University on electronic versions of manuscript dictionaries: the Lithuanian text of Clavis Germanico-Lithvana has already been transcribed (on its basis, electronic concordances of word forms will be compiled), as has the text of the aforementioned Krause dictionary. The Professor managed to find a copy of Michael Mörlin’s treatise Principium primarium in lingua Lithvanica (1706, Königsberg, long thought lost) in the Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Gdańsk. A facsimile of this find, a documentary transcription with textual commentary, a translation into Lithuanian, and an index of Lithuanian words were published together with two other sources from the philological controversy that took place in Lithuania Minor in 1706 (2008). Three years ago, the Professor celebrated fifty years of teaching at his own Alma mater—Vilnius Pedagogical University. Over more than five decades, he has educated many generations of Lithuanian studies specialists. At first, he taught students of Lithuanian studies an introduction to linguistics and the history of the literary (written) language; in recent decades, he has taught courses in lexicology 372 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 82 and lexicography. Students readily choose topics in his subjects not only for term papers. Each year the Professor supervises bachelor’s and master’s theses; four of his doctoral students have defended dissertations in lexicography, onomastics, and terminology. He has also written several textbooks: Pagrindinės leksikologijos sąvokos (1986), Lietuvių kalbos leksika ir frazeologija (1987), Leksikologijos užduotys (2002). Vincentas Drotvinas was awarded the title of associate professor in 1969 and professor in 1987. Although the Professor managed to combine his teaching subject with his scholarly interests, he has often remarked that he is first and foremost a teacher, and only then a scholar. Nor did nearly four decades of administrative work allow him to devote himself exclusively to research: from 1962 to 1983 he was vice-rector for academic affairs; from 1983 to 1991, head of the Department of Lithuanian Language in the Faculty of Lithuanian Studies; and from 1991 to 2002, head of the Department of Lithuanian Linguistics. While pursuing his research and teaching, V. Drotvinas has not forgotten schools. He has published articles on the teaching of Lithuanian in schools and edited the collections Lietuvių kalba mokykloje (volumes 1–3, 1983–1989). For some time now, he has also been an active participant in an educational outreach project run by the faculty of the VPU Faculty of Lithuanian Studies and, together with colleagues, organizes conferences and seminars for Lithuanian studies specialists in various Lithuanian towns. On the occasion of this happy anniversary, we would like to wish the esteemed Professor unfailing enthusiasm, good health, and the strength to continue solving the riddles of old Lithuanian writings and working in the field of historical Lithuanian lexicography. B. TRIŠKAITĖ. Profesoriui Vincentui Drotvinui – 80 373