Maziulis (original) (raw)

Prof. Dr. Hab. Vytautas MAŽIULIS was born on 20 August 1926 in Rokėnai, Lithuania. After finishing a high-school in Rokiškis, for a short time he was a student of theological seminary, as it was almost a tradition for gifted children from well-to-do farmers’ families in Lithuania. Acquaintance with Latin language, so similar to Lithuanian in many aspects, arouse in him interest in linguistics and comparison of languages. In 1947–1952 he studies classical philology at Vilnius university. As an advanced student he was recommended to write doctor theses at the Chair of Comparative Historical Linguistics at Moscow university. With a research of Lithuanian numerals he acquired the degree of Dr. Phil. in 1956.
His academic activities at Vilnius university began in 1955 and lasted 43 years. In 1968–1973 he headed Chair of Lithuanian Language at Vilnius university and habilitated in 1969 (professor since 1969).
This was time of his fruitful cooperation with outstanding Lithuanian linguist Jonas Kazlauskas (1930–1970) who introduced methods of modern linguistics into comparative historical studies of Baltic languages. Together with J. Kazlauskas, V. Mažiulis developed and grounded an idea of Christian Stang (1942) concerning transition of IE *ō both into Baltic *ō and *ā: 2 allophones of Balt. *ō were defined, of which an accented and narrow one developed into Pr. *ō, Lith., Latv. uo, but an unaccented and broader one coincided with a broad Baltic *ā of the low timbre. In paradigms with the mobile accent the broader allophon of Baltic *ō was generalized in Prussian and coincided with Pr. *ā (Saml. dātwei), while the narrower allophon was generalized in Lithuanian (duoti) and in Latvian (duot). However in stabile unaccented positions an unstressed Balt. allophone *ō turned into Lithuanian o (vilko) and coincided with Balt. *ā > o (Lith. motė). This concept is known as Kazlauskas’–Mažiulis’ hypothesis.
Together with J.Kazlauskas, V. Mažiulis initiated Vilnius international journal for Baltic linguistics Baltistica (since 1965), but he established Chair for Baltic philology in 1973 after the murder of J. Kazlauskas. More than 20 years Prof. Mažiulis headed this Chair which became an international centre of Baltic studies and organiser of international congresses of the baltists.
An explanation of Lith. gen. sg. (vilk)-o had wide Indoeuropean implications. It led to a conclusion about origin of _o_-stem IE dative which appeared to be “a lengthened stem”, identical with Lith. dial. dat. (vilk)-uo < *ō, but this finally allowed to question not only the myth of Common-IE dat. *-ōi, but to create a new theory of Indoeuropean declension.
This theory is set forth in V. Mažiulis' monograph “Relations of Baltic and other Indoeuropean languages” (1970). When nominative, accusative and genitive were products of reshaping pre-accusative Common-Indoeuropean structure, the secondary cases formed in separate IE dialects separately, although by different paradigmatising of the same elements of adverbial meaning. Thus the myth of the 7-cases “Common-IE” declension was ruined. Baltic appeared to be an archaic representative of former “ocean of Indoeuropean dialects”, from which Slavic dialects differentiated among the last after the Germanic dialects. In this book for the first time was set forth an idea of the formation of Slavic amid the same peripheral Baltic-Slavic dialects, where future West-Baltic dialects were formed.
This was a period of a very close cooperation of outstanding Indoeuropeanists, Baltists and Slavists with the Chair of V. Mažiulis. Then Victor Martynov published his theory of Slavic as first italicised and then iranicised Baltic but Wolfgang Schmid defined Baltic as a centre of IE continuity, so that a difference between this centre and any other IE group is always smaller than between any other groups among themselves.
The problem of Baltic-Slavic relations and Western Baltic as a continuation of the same peripheral dialects stimulated V. Mažiulis’ interest in Prussian. This interest in a fruitful way coincided with the interest in Prussian of an outstanding Russian Indoeuropeanist and Slavist Vladimir Toporov who had also contributed to the development of all mentioned ideas. V. Toporov is author of an unfinished Dictionary of Prussian which is a huge philological encyclopaedia of cultural linguistic relations of Prussian with the neighbouring region and all Indoeuropean world.
In 1966 V. Mažiulis published facsimile of all Prussian written documents, but in 1981 he published transliteration and philological translation of these documents. Finally, in 1988–1997 he published his main work: 4 volumes of Prussian etymological dictionary, which presents the deepest linguistic analysis of Prussian and Baltic word derivation. This work will remain indispensable for future generations of prussologists.
The fruitful activities of Vytautas Mažiulis, who had been never cited positively by most of his colleagues especially after the monograph of 1970, for which he had been granted membership of the Academy of Sciencies, was finally acknowledged by his countrymen in 1996, when a bloody criminal provocation was organized murdering his wife in his own flat. V. Mažiulis was the single linguist in Lithuania whose importance could overpass Lithuanian boundaries, but this personally insulted his ambitious colleagues. When Letas Palmaitis dared to mention V. Mažiulis' contribution to Indoeuropeanistics at a party dedicated to V. Mažiulis' seventieth birthday, colleague Aleksas Girdenis sprang shouting without any logic: "Who can estimate one's contributions into anything!" etc. Such relations were similar to those in 1970, when J. Kazlauskas was murdered. A typical sample of this atmosphere was on day of defending doctor thesis by colleague Bonifacas Stundžia. All members of the Faculty Council praised his work, nevertheless the secret vote showed that one of them had struck the positive evaluation off. L. Palmaitis sitting in first rows together with his elder colleague, member of the Council, heard how the latter murmured: "This is Zinkevičius!". Alas, this was not Prof. Zigmas Zinkevičius, but a younger colleague who was cleared up in several minutes: he was the single of the whole Council who used a fountain-pen with black tint. This was well-known to everybody of that narrow circle but the colleague appeared to be incautious. Unfortunately, this psychopathological atmosphere of jealousy, hypocricy and betrayal coincided with a peak of criminality in Lithuania when different clans fought for a better position under restituted statehood, but every isolated and weak person was ousted or even physically liquidated. Thus a Lithuanian architect Martynas Purvinas was menaced to be killed for his public articles defending Curonian Spit against a project to arrange a profitable airport in this U.N.E.S.C.O. reserve. M. Purvinas is one of the last representatives of once German Lithuania Minor with its Lutheran culture and mentality, essentially different from serfage mentality of Catholic Russian Lithuania Major. Since M. Purvinas constantly showed ruination of cultural monuments of Lithuania Minor, he was labelled an "enemy" by the "patriots". The menace was realised: M. Purvinas was bestially beaten at the doors of his house in Kaunas, he got a heavy head trauma and escaped death on operating-table only to a miracle. The orderers of this crime were too high, nobody was found neither after several appeals to the President and to Procurator General.
Once having escaped the fate of Jonas Kazlauskas, V. Mažiulis had to be eliminated in a sophisticated way as a person and thus removed from further concurrence. Having been isolated by his colleagues for decades and finding himself in vacuum, he was taken ill with alcoholism together with his wife. That month in 1996 a dermal cancer was diagnosed on his face and he got into a hospital. This was made use of. On the eve of the crime some unknown acquainted person visited his wife and made her strongly drunk. There are people able to witness that she had been drunk before V. Mažiulis' coming home, who was let from his hospital that day, probably poisoned with soporifics. On waking up next morning he found his wife dead in a pool of blood. He could not remember not a single detail of the past evening, but he was accused having murdered her. He never recognised this accusation. Although he really had problems in two his previous marriages, he never was so aggressive to beat anybody. Finally, it is highly doubtful how an old man could murder a much younger and much stronger woman. It seems also strange that in spite of the court's verdict, he was left free as if as a canser patient. After 9 years some Gerardas Rosis (Editor Darius Kauzanas?), published an article about Mažiulis in "Respublika", one of the main newspapers, in which he depicted "a fallen scholar" ending his days in poverty. Editor Darius Kauzanas evaded proposals to meet and to continue the theme in press. This brave journalist of a new generation said he saw the decision of the court what as if was sufficient for him. With no doubts his article was ordered by the same persons who had ordered the crime.
In 2004, after V. Mažiulis had been 8 years ousted from academic activities, he published a short "Historical Grammar of Prussian" in which he partly yielded to decades-long pressure of his plentiful rivals, although they had proved nothing new, especially in the field of Prussian. Among their arguments is since long-ago debated Samlandian form dat. māim from the 3rd Katechism. This form occurs in a printed text even 3 times, of which once without any dash above the letter a. Nevertheless poor critics of V. Mažiulis' theory do not hesitate to repeat in all publications that the dash as if means an omitted letter n but not a circumflex tone on a. Thus an unattested pure Lithuanian instrumental form manim as if is restored but this goes as one of the main arguments for former existence of the instrumental in Prussian.
Vytautas Mažiulis was a member of Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, as well as of Mainz Academy of Science and Literature.

Vytautas Mažiulis died in Vilnius on 11 April 2009. With no doubts he remains among outstanding Lithuanian and European linguists in spite of all criticism of all kinds of opponents and of all ordered articles of any journalists.