In Memory of Valentina Skujinia

(1937.X.2–2015.IV.27)

Amid sorrow, tears, and laughter, / There are many paths through life, / Yet they all lead crowds of people / To the common castle.

(Putinas, poem “The Common Castle,” 1913)

STASYS KEINYS

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

At noon on April 30, 2015, the body of Valentina Skujinia (Valentīna Skujiņa), the renowned Latvian linguist and the most distinguished and industrious terminologist of recent decades, was entrusted to the soil of her native Riga, at Meža Cemetery (Meža kapi). Among the many bouquets covering the grave and the wreaths and baskets arranged around it, illuminated by a shared circle of candles, the eyes of white Lithuanian roses brought from Vilnius also shone. They had been brought by our terminologists Albina Auksoriūtė and Angelė Kaulakienė, whose hearts impelled them to travel quite a distance to accompany into eternity a good acquaintance and fellow scholar of Lithuanian terminologists.

V. Skujinia was a great scholar, a cultivator of her native Latvian language and culture, and a lover of her homeland. Simple and friendly in nature, talkative, an excellent organizer, and also a good singer and travel enthusiast, she had many acquaintances both in her homeland and abroad. She was a frequent guest

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She also used to be in Lithuania, participating in Balticist congresses, scientific conferences held at research institutions and universities, and other language-related events. In addition, from 1976 to 1990, Baltic terminologists and language-culture specialists were brought together by joint theoretical and methodological seminars held every two or three years, in turn in Vilnius, Tallinn and Riga; Valentina was the principal organizer of the two seminars held in Riga (it was customary for participants to address one another by their first names alone, not only at those seminars).

V. Skujinia embarked on her academic career in 1959, while still in the final (fifth) year of her Latvian language and literature studies at the University of Latvia, when she was hired by the Language and Literature Institute of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. After graduating, she soon took on the never-ending work of Latvian terminology, which also entailed the constant care required by language culture. V. Skujinia carried this twofold burden steadfastly for more than fifty years, advancing through the Institute’s service ranks from laboratory assistant to head of the Terminology and Language Culture Group and, after Latvia regained its independence, to head of the Terminology Department of the Latvian Language Institute. At the same time, from 1961 she was scientific secretary of the Terminology Commission of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, from 1992 its deputy chair, and from 1999 its chair.

V. Skujinia’s path to scholarly recognition also rose steadily. In 1969 she defended her candidate of philological sciences dissertation, “Tehnisko zinātņu terminu veidošana latviešu valodā” (“The Formation of Technical-Science Terms in Latvian”). Her 1993 theoretical monograph Latviešu terminoloģijas izstrādes principi (“Principles for Developing Latvian Terminology”) explored in depth the intralinguistic and interlinguistic foundations of terminology creation and development, and surveyed non-linguistic foundations more briefly. It drew on the work of the aforementioned Terminology Commission over forty years (the author herself had worked there for thirty of them by then), as well as on terminology dictionaries from various fields, bulletins and other publications issued during that period. For this foundational synthesis of Latvian terminology, V. Skujinia was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philological Sciences with habilitation that same year. In 1994 she was elected a corresponding member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences and, three years later, a full member of the Academy (and a member of its Senate from 2000 to 2012). In addition, from 1995 V. Skujinia was a member of the International Institute for Terminology Research (IITF) in Vienna and of several other Latvian and international institutions.

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V. Skujininia was a highly industrious and active scholar. Although the principal direction of her theoretical and practical work throughout her scholarly career was Latvian terminology, she devoted much time to Latvian language culture, its establishment and quality as the state language (for several decades she was a member of state-language commissions), and to scientific and specialist language. The scale of her work is evident from the fact that, besides the dissertation and monograph mentioned above, she wrote several other important books: a dictionary of Latin and Greek word elements used in Latvian (1999); a study of the dictionary Lettus (1638), by Georg Mancelis, a seventeenth-century Latvian writer (the first Latvian dictionary), and the compounds in the collection Phraseologia Lettica (2006); and a couple of books on the language of official documents in Latvian (1993; 1999, 2003, 2014). She also published about 600 scholarly and popular-science articles and shorter pieces on language culture, terminology and other subjects in scientific publications and general periodicals; some appeared in publications in Lithuania, Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Canada, Russia, Germany and other countries, as well as in international journals. Incidentally, her active collaboration with periodicals and concern for their language probably led to linguist V. Skujinia’s admission to the Latvian Journalists’ Union.

V. Skujinia’s contribution to Latvian lexicography was immense. She was one of the authors of the first single-volume prescriptive explanatory dictionary of Latvian (Latviešu valodas vārdnīca, first edition, 1987). She was especially productive in compiling terminology dictionaries: her name appears as author, co-author, scholarly editor, reviewer or expert in some seventy Latvian terminology dictionaries covering various fields, and she led the compilation of major dictionaries of economics and management and of education. Also worth mentioning is the substantial explanatory and translating dictionary of basic linguistic terms, with English, German and Russian equivalents, written by a team led by V. Skujinia (Valodniecības pamatterminu skaidrojošā vārdnīca, 2007). It should also be added that much of the linguist’s time was taken up by preparing bulletins of terms in various fields recommended by the Academy of Sciences’ Terminology Commission, harmonizing the standards of the Republic of Latvia, and other practical terminology work.

V. Skujinia’s extraordinary scholarly energy is evidenced by her participation, with papers, in numerous scientific conferences in Latvia and abroad; her organization of conferences; and her preparation and editing of their abstracts and proceedings, as well as collections of scholarly articles. Very interesting and, moreover,

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undoubtedly useful not only to Latvians is the publication on practical matters of terminology, Terminoloģijas Jaunumi (“Terminology News”), issued by the Academy of Sciences’ Terminology Commission since 2002 on V. Skujinia’s initiative and under her editorship. We have long needed a publication—or even a small publication—of this kind! Incidentally, from 1998 to 2012 the renowned Latvian terminologist was also a member of the editorial board of our own Terminoloģijos (volumes 5–19).

For about three decades, V. Skujinia also carried out her mission as a terminologist and language-culture specialist by teaching at Latvian universities: the University of Latvia, the Liepāja Academy of Pedagogy (University), Riga Technical University and the Latvia University of Agriculture. She was awarded the title of professor in Liepāja in 1999. V. Skujinia’s principal subjects as a teacher were terminology and language culture; she also taught specialist language and stylistics from time to time.

In recognition of her services to Latvian terminology and language culture, V. Skujinia received, among other awards, the Jānis Endzelīns Prize of the Latvian Academy of Sciences (2001), the Eugen Wüster Prize of the International Information Centre for Terminology (INFOTERM) (2006), and a prize from the Latvian Academy of Sciences and the “Grindeks” joint-stock company’s foundation; the latter came with the “Golden Owl” (“Zelta pūce”) honorary award (2007).

In their farewell to their colleague, her fellow members of the Latvian Language Institute wrote: “We have lost a distinguished linguist—a renowned Latvian terminologist and theoretician of terminology research, author of many terminology dictionaries, a tireless worker for language culture and practice, a sincere and compassionate colleague, an energetic and hardworking person who devoted her life to the Latvian language and nation.”

Lithuanian terminologists will remember their wonderful colleague, friend and helper fondly for a long time and will make use of her terminology work; the friends of her early days in terminology, whom the deceased herself fondly remembered in her letter, will mourn her for a long time. Sadly, as Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas wrote (“Fantazijos III,” poem, 1925),

Libera! – Libera! – ah, you cannot awaken That over whom death reigns in life, That whose brow, bowed beneath the sun, Has been marked with crosses of mourning.

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