Zigmas Zinkevičius
Zigmas Zinkevičius | |
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Proto-Baltic | |
Notable work | History of the Lithuanian language (6 vols., published in 1984–1994) |
Zigmas Zinkevičius (4 January 1925 – 20 February 2018) was a Lithuanian
Zinkevičius was a member of the editorial boards of the Lithuanian Language Society (Lietuvių kalbos draugija) and of the international periodicals "Baltistica " and "Lituanistica".[1] Zinkevičius created the theory about the three Lithuanian written languages at the beginning of Lithuanian writing.[5] During his 72-year academic career, he taught at Vilnius University for 45 years.[6] Zinkevičius was fluent in a number of languages, including English, German, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian and French.[7]
Life and career
Zinkevičius was born on 4 January 1925 in the Juodausiai village in Ukmergė district.[4] In 1939, after finishing the six-year school, he transferred to the Antanas Smetona Gymnasium in Ukmergė .[8] In 1945, Zinkevičius entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Vilnius University.[8]
Academics
Zinkevičius' academic career began in 1946,
Then, in 1988–1991, Zinkevičius became the head of the Department of Baltic Philology.[1][5] After Lithuania regained its independence, he also began lecturing at the Vytautas Magnus University.[1] He was the director of the Lithuanian Language Institute in 1995–1996.[1][5]
From 2001 to 2009, he was the Chairman of the Council of the Science and Encyclopaedia Publishing Institute.[5] Zinkevičius was also the editor-in-chief of the Lithuania Minor Encyclopedia (3 vols. 2000–06).[5] While in his nineties, he still worked as many as 10–12 hours a day.[10] The professor was widely acclaimed as the most famous, productive and cited Lithuanian linguist of recent times.[11][10][3] His works concerned subjects such as dialectology, the Lithuanian language's history as well as the history of its study, its historical grammar, onomastics, and he reviewed many works of linguistics.[1][8] Zinkevičius' work was well received, both in Lithuania and abroad, where he was elected as a foreign member of many academies: the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities from 1982, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1991, Latvian Academy of Sciences from 1995.[4][5]
Zinkevičius is also the author of the "wicz" theory, according to which Lithuanian Poles whose surnames end in "wicz" constitutes a separate ethnic group, but are really ethnic Lithuanians.[12][13]
Politics
According to Polish historian Barbara Jundo-Kaliszewska, during the 1980s and 1990s, Zinkevičius was one of the prominent activists of the nationalist, described as anti-Polish,[14] organization Vilnija,[15] whose main goal was a rapid Lithuanization of the Vilnius region.[16][17]
Zinkevičius tenured as Minister of Education and Science from December 10, 1996, to March 25, 1998, in Vagnorius Cabinet II and was a state consultant on education and science issues in 1998.[1][18] During his tenure as Minister of Education and Science, he helped intensify the policy of Lithuanianization of the Polish minority living in Lithuania.[12] On December 17, 1996, in an interview he said that Lithuanian should be the sole language of lectures in state schools, and that youth in Vilnius Region speak a "simple" language, while in schools they are forced to speak in a language foreign to them, Polish. He also questioned the citizenship of those who do not speak Lithuanian.[19] The statement prompted a protest from the Polish Foreign Ministry and the Congress of Poles of Lithuania.[19] Prime Minister Gediminas Vagnorius declared that the minister's opinions did not reflect the government's position.[19]
On February 3, 2015, he was one of 60 signatories of an open letter addressed, among others, to Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė and members of the government, in which he demanded that the Polish minority party LLRA be excluded from the government coalition and that the party's deputies be stripped of their seats in the Seimas, due to the stated reasons that LLRA's views are openly directed against the state and it repeatedly lies in international forums about discrimination against the Polish minority in Lithuania, without specifying which parts of Lithuanian or international law were broken by Lithuania.[20] On August 28, 2015, he published an open letter addressed to the Minister of Education Juozas Bernatonis protesting a planned reform allowing Poles in Lithuania to spell their names in Polish, arguing that "Undoubtedly, the supposedly Polish surnames of most Polish-speakers in Southeastern Lithuania are actually of Lithuanian origin. They were Polonized during the Polish and Soviet occupations".[21]
After Zinkevičius' death, Lithuania's prime minister in 1996–1999 Gediminas Vagnorius said that Zinkevičius "brought a different approach, a sincere, matter-of-fact, professional approach to education policy and forced others to step up" and described him as "very sincere, very benevolent and distinguished by high intelligence".[22] He was elected chairman of the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party in 1999.[7] He resigned from the leadership of the party on November 17, 2000, in protest against the merger of the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party with the Christian Democratic Union (KDS) led by Kazys Bobelis.[23] He became a member of the new Lithuania's Christian Democracy Party in 2001.[24]
Personal life
This section contains too many or overly lengthy quotations. (January 2023) |
Zigmas Zinkevičius was always a practising Roman Catholic.[9] His wife was Regina Zinkevičienė and they had two children, Laima Zinkevičiūtė and Vytautas Zinkevičius.[1][25] He died in hospital on 20 February 2018, surrounded by his family.[1] He was buried in the Antakalnis cemetery on February 23.[6][26] The contemporary president Dalia Grybauskaitė, when expressing her condolences on his death, said that Lithuania lost an outstanding linguist:
"The fundamental scientific works of the long-time Vilnius University professor made it possible to learn about the past of our language and nation, to understand its origin, to strengthen Lithuanianness and national self-esteem".[22]
The contemporary Minister of Education and Science Jurgita Petrauskienė said:
"Lithuania and the entire educational community lost an authoritative linguist, dialectologist, researcher of Baltistics, a great person. A bright memory of his personality also remains: a prominent scientist and at the same time a modest, benevolent, very hardworking and respectful person".[4]
Reception and legacy
The Lithuanian linguist Zigmas Zinkevičius is highly acclaimed in international sources, where he is described as an "excellent linguistic historian of the greatest professional repute",
"They need to look at history correctly, recognizing that Lithuanians are not descended from Polish-speakers, but on the contrary: local Polish-speakers descend from Lithuanian-speaking people."[30]
On his 90th birthday in 2015, Zigmas Zinkevičius said: "I saw many governments, but I never changed my views, which made me disliked by those who changed them. This is how I am, this is how I will die, I wish everyone every success".[10] Vytautas Landsbergis, the honorary chairman of the Homeland Union at the time, congratulated Zinkevičius on his birthday with the following words:
"I want to say, dear academician, that your name and the name of Lithuania are connected. Lithuania is a nation, and the basis of the nation is language. You have done immeasurable work in this area. May God give you the strength to increase the large pile of books about Lithuania".[10]
Other notable people in Lithuania, such as the contemporary
Awards
In 1994, Zinkevičius, as the professor of VMU, was awarded the
Criticism
American historian Theodore R. Weeks regards Zigmas Zinkevičius as a "flagship example" of a trend in Lithuanian historiography and linguistics that depicts the Vilnius region as "always Lithuanian". According to Weeks, Zinkevičius in his book Eastern Lithuania in the Past and Now (published in 1993) "wishes to argue for the eternal Lithuanian nature of the region, a viewpoint that no historical or linguistic methods seem likely to support."[32] He also defines Zinkevičius' approach as "historical-linguistic ethnocentrism".[33] He emphasizes that Zinkevičius tends to ignore the actual ethnographic data and national self-identification of the inhabitants, in favour of promoting the thesis of the unchanging Lithuanian nature of the region.[33]
Polish researcher Robert Boroch is of a similar opinion, in his review of Zinkevičius' work The History of the Lithuanian Language (published in 1996) Boroch emphasized that "the weakness of the work is the lack of objectivity, mixing ideology and scientific facts".[34] He describes Zinkevičius' thesis about the lack of connection between the Polish language used in Lithuania and the one used in Poland as "wrong, because differences in pronunciation cannot be a distinctive feature sufficient to distinguish a given language", and his position as "justified only from the propaganda point of view", which Boroch believes aims to put the Polish language in Lithuania in the position of "a secondary and dying language".[34]
Publications
In Lietuvių dialektologija (1966), his most important work in dialectology, Zinkevičius presented the comparative phonetics and morphology of the Lithuanian dialects, which included 75 maps with the phonetic data of the dialects.[5] For this book, he received the LSSR state prize in 1968 and a Habilitated Doctor degree.[5]
His most important work for Lithuanian accentology is his work Iš lietuvių istorinės akcentologijos: 1605 katekizmo kirčiavimas (lit. From Lithuanian Historical Accentology: Accentuation of the 1605 Catechism) from 1975.[5] Zinkevičius was the editor-in-chief of the book Kalbos praktikos patarimai (1976, 1985).[5] In his 1977 book Lietuvių antroponimika: Vilniaus lietuvių asmenvardžiai 17 a. pradžioje (lit. Lithuanians' anthroponymics: Vilnius' Lithuanians' personal names in the early 17th century), Zinkevičius looked at more than 5,000 Lithuanian personal names and examined the process of the polonization of Lithuanian surnames.[5] Zinkevičius prepared textbooks for higher education, e.g. Lietuvių kalbos dialektologija (lit. The Lithuanian language's dialectology; 1978, 1994) and Lietuvių kalbos istorinė gramatika (lit. Lithuanian language's historical grammar; 2 vols. 1980–81).[5] The latter book was the first historical grammar of the Lithuanian language, which thoroughly examined the main issues of Lithuanian grammar.[5]
Zinkevičius researched and published the
- Lietuvių poteriai (2000)
- Istorijos iškraipymai (2004)
- Krikščionybės ištakos Lietuvoje (2005)
- Lietuvių tautos kilmė (2005)
- Lietuvių tarmių istorija (2006)
- Lietuvių tarmių kilmė (2006)
- Senosios Lietuvos valstybės vardynas (2007)
- Lituanistikos (baltistikos) mokslas ir pseudomokslas (2007)
- Rašto kilmė (2007)
- Mažosios Lietuvos indėlis į lietuvių kultūrą (2008)
- Lietuvių asmenvardžiai (2009)
- Lietuvos vardas: Kilmė ir formų daryba (2010)
- Krikščioniško vardyno kelionė į Lietuvą (2010)
- Lietuviškas paveldas Suvalkų ir Augustavo krašto Lenkijoje pavardėse: polonizacijos apybraiža (2010)
- Šventasis Brunonas ir Lietuva (2010)
- Lietuviškas (baltiškas) paveldas Balstogės vaivadijos Lenkijoje pavardėse: slavizacijos apybraiža (2011)
- Ukmergės rajono gyvenviečių vardynas: pavadinimų kilmė (2011)
- Lietuvos senosios valstybės 40 svarbiausių mįslių (2011)
- Vilnijos lenkakalbių pavardės (2012)
- Lietuviai: praeitis, didybė, sunykimas (2013, 2014)
Zinkevičius has also published studies regarding the Lithuanian language in the writings of
- Kaip aš buvau ministras (1998)
- Prie lituanistikos židinio (1999)
- Po aštuonerių metų (2006)
He also published the four-volume book Rinktiniai straipsniai (lit. Selected articles) in 2002–2004, containing his articles that were published in the Lithuanian press.[5] He also prepared the Kazimieras Būga's Rinktiniai straipsniai (lit. Selected articles; 3 vols. 1958–61 and an index volume in 1962) and the book Kazimieras Būga: Gyvenimas ir darbai (lit. Kazimieras Būga: Life and Work; 1979).[5] Together with others, he also created the Lietuvių kalbos vadovėlį IX–XI klasei (lit. Lithuanian language textbook for classes IX–XI), which was first published in 1971 and was re-printed a third time in 1997.[5]
References
Notes
Citations
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p LRT.lt 2018.
- ^ Bojtár 1999, p. 54.
- ^ a b Subačius 2018, p. 413.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k smsm.lrv.lt 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac Sabaliauskas 2018.
- ^ a b Karosas 2018.
- ^ a b Zigmas Zinkevičius Archived 2008-10-25 at the Wayback Machine. Central Election Committee. Retrieved on 2008-08-18
- ^ a b c d G. ž. 2018.
- ^ a b c Voverienė 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g 15min.lt 2015.
- ^ Stundžia, Bonifacas (2005). "Akademikui Zigmui Zinkevičiui – 80". Universitas Vilensis (in Lithuanian) (45). Retrieved 2022-09-29.
- ^ a b Jundo-Kaliszewska 2013, p. 234.
- ^ Jundo-Kaliszewska 2019, p. 111.
- ^ Budryte 2005, p.163: Anti-Polish sentiments were publicly expressed in February 1995, Vilnija and its sister organizations were especially offended by the decision of the Brazausks government to officially recognize the Polish War Verterans Club.
- ^ Jundo-Kaliszewska 2013, p.236: Uaktywniła się nacjonalistyczna, działająca do dziś, organizacja Vilnija (Wileńszczyzna), która za swój główny cel uznała jak najszybszą lituanizację tzw. Litwy Południowo-Wschodniej (lit. 'The nationalist organization, which is still active today, was activated Vilnija (Vilnius Region), which saw as its main goal the earliest possible Lithuanianization of so-called Southeastern Lithuania') [...] Najwybitniejszymi działaczami Vilnii w omawianym okresie byli m.in. wspomniani wyżej naukowcy – Zigmas Zinkevičius i Alvydas Butkus (lit. 'The most prominent Vilnija activists during the period in question included the aforementioned scientists - Zigmas Zinkevičius and Alvydas Butkus')
- ^ Jundo-Kaliszewska 2013, p. 236: Uaktywniła się nacjonalistyczna, działająca do dziś, organizacja Vilnija (Wileńszczyzna), która za swój główny cel uznała jak najszybszą lituanizację tzw. Litwy Południowo-Wschodniej (lit. 'The nationalist organization, which is still active today, was activated Vilnija (Vilnius Region), which saw as its main goal the earliest possible Lithuanianization of so-called Southeastern Lithuania') [...] Najwybitniejszymi działaczami Vilnii w omawianym okresie byli m.in. wspomniani wyżej naukowcy – Zigmas Zinkevičius i Alvydas Butkus (lit. 'The most prominent Vilnija activists during the period in question included the aforementioned scientists - Zigmas Zinkevičius and Alvydas Butkus') [...] "Od samego początku istnienia miała głównie antypolski charakter i jako organizacja „pożytku publicznego”, której celem jest krzewienie języka i kultury litewskiej na tak zwanej Litwie Wschodniej (Wileńszczyźnie), była dofinansowywana z budżetu państwa." (lit. 'From the very beginning, it had a predominantly anti-Polish character and, as a "public benefit" organisation aiming to promote the Lithuanian language and culture in the so-called Eastern Lithuania (Vilnius region), it was subsidised from the state budget.'
- ^ Budryte 2005, p. 148.
- ^ Kaunas, Domas (1998). "Biography of Zigmas Zinkevičius". pirmojiknyga.mch.mii.lt.
- ^ a b c Bobryk 2013, p. 114.
- ^ "Mokslo ir kultūros atstovai reikalauja mesti iš koalicijos lenkus". DELFI (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 2023-01-20.
- ^ kalbininkas, Prof akad Zigmas Zinkevičius. "Z. Zinkevičius. Lietuvos piliečių pavardes rašyti lenkiškomis raidėmis – nesąmonė". DELFI (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 2023-01-20.
- ^ a b 15min.lt 2018.
- ^ "Atsistatydina Lietuvos krikdemų lyderis". DELFI (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 2023-01-23.
- ^ "Lietuvos krikščioniškosios demokratijos partija". www.vle.lt (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 2023-01-23.
- ^ Glebavičiūtė 2015.
- ^ Venckutė 2018, p. 356.
- ^ Bojtár 1999, p. 189.
- ^ Boroch 2004, p. 262.
- ^ Bammesberger 2005.
- ^ a b Grinevičiūtė 2018.
- ^ BNS 2015.
- ^ Weeks 2015, pp. 231–232.
- ^ a b Weeks 2015, p. 232.
- ^ a b Boroch 2004, Wydaje mi się jednak, że słabością pracy jest brak obiektywizmu, mieszanie ideologii i faktów naukowych lit. 'However, it seems to me that the weakness of the work is the lack of objectivity, mixing ideology and scientific facts'.
Bibliography
Articles
- smsm.lrv.lt (21 February 2018). "In memoriam akademikui Zigmui Zinkevičiui" [In memoriam to academician Zigmas Zinkevičius]. Ministry of Education and Science (Lithuania) (in Lithuanian).
- LRT.lt (14 March 2018). "Atsisveikinama su velioniu kalbininku Z. Zinkevičiumi" [Farewell to the late linguist Z. Zinkevičius]. LRT.lt(in Lithuanian).
- Sabaliauskas, Algirdas (25 April 2018). "Zigmas Zinkevičius". vle.lt(in Lithuanian).
- Karosas, Gintaras (22 February 2018). "Įžymiausio Lietuvos kalbininko atminimui: Z.Zinkevičius (1925-01-04 – 2018-02-20)". Respublika.lt (in Lithuanian).
- G. ž. (21 August 2018). "Mirė Ukmergės garbės pilietis Zigmas Zinkevičius". Gimtoji Žemė (in Lithuanian).
- 15min.lt (20 February 2018). "Netekome akademiko Zigmo Zinkevičiaus" [We lost academician Zigmas Zinkevičius]. )
- 15min.lt (7 January 2015). "90-metį švenčiantis kalbininkas Zigmas Zinkevičius: "Niekada nekeičiau savo pažiūrų"" [Linguist Zigmas Zinkevičius celebrating his 90th birthday: "I have never changed my views"]. )
- 15min.lt(in Lithuanian).
- Glebavičiūtė, Loreta (10 February 2015). "Lietuvišką žodį iškėlęs. Kalbininko Zigmo Zinkevičiaus 90 metų jubiliejui paminėti" [He who elevated the Lithuanian word. To commemorate the 90th anniversary of linguist Zigmas Zinkevičius.]. Voruta (in Lithuanian).
- Voverienė, Ona (17 January 2020). "Gyvenimas, skirtas lietuvybei ir tėvynei Minint prof. habil. dr. akademiko Zigmo Zinkevičiaus 95-ąsias gimimo metines". Aidas (in Lithuanian).
- Grinevičiūtė, Agnė (21 February 2018). "Profesorius Z. Zinkevičius – pralenkęs laiką ir savo mokytojus" [Professor Z. Zinkevičius – ahead of time and his teachers]. LRT.lt.
Books, journals and theses
- Bammesberger, Alfred (Summer 2005). "Mapping the position of Lithuanian in the Twenty-first century". ISSN 0024-5089.
- Bobryk, Adam (2013). Społeczne znaczenie funkcjonowania polskich ugrupowań politycznych w Republice Litewskiej 1989 - 2013 [Social significance of the functioning of Polish political groups in the Republic of Lithuania 1989 - 2013] (in Polish). Siedlce.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Bojtár, Endre (1999). Foreword to the Past: a Cultural History of the Baltic People. ISBN 963-9116-42-4.
- Boroch, Robert (2004). "Review of: Zigmas Zinkevičius, The History of the Lithuanian Language" (PDF). Pamiętnik Literacki (in Polish). 1.
- Budryte, Dovile (2005). Taming Nationalism?: Political Community Building in the Post-Soviet Baltic States. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0-7546-3757-3.
- Danjoux, Olivier (2002). L'Etat, c'est pas moi: Reframing citizenship(s) in the Baltic republics (PhD). Department of Political Science, Lund University.
- Donskis, Leonidas (2005). Identity and freedom. Mapping Nationalism and Social Criticism in Twentieth-Century Lithuania.
- Jundo-Kaliszewska, Barabara (2019). Zakładnicy historii Mniejszość polska w postradzieckiej Litwie [Hostages of history. Polish minority in post-Soviet Lithuania] (in Polish). Łódź.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Jundo-Kaliszewska, Barbara (2013). "Etnolingwistyczna istota nacjonalizmu litewskiego i antypolonizm Litwinów na przełomie lat osiemdziesiątych i dziewięćdziesiątych XX w." [The ethnolinguistic essence of Lithuanian nationalism and the anti-Polonism of Lithuanians at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s]. Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Historica. 91.
- Subačius, Giedrius (2018). "In memoriam: Zigmas Zinkevičius (1925–2018)". Archivum Lithuanicum (in Lithuanian). 20. ISSN 1392-737X.
- Weeks, Theodore R. (2015). Vilnius Between Nations 1795-2000. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
- Venckutė, Regina (2018). "ZIGMAS ZINKEVIČIUS (1925 01 04–2018 02 20)" (PDF). Baltistica (in Lithuanian). LIII (2). .