Irena Kostkevičiūtė
Irena Kostkevičiūtė (1927–2007) was born in Kaunas. In 1951, she successfully completed her Lithuanian language and literature studies at the Department of Philology of the Faculty of History and Philology of Vilnius University. In 1953, Kostkevičiūtė defended her thesis as a junior research fellow in philology, and from 1956 to 1961, taught at the university. By Order No. 236/K of 13 September 1961, the Rector dismissed Kostkevičiūtė from Vilnius University “as being incapable of ensuring proper education of communist students due to the ideological mistakes and shortcomings that she allows in her teaching and educational work”. Already on 26 May 1961, the meeting of the party bureau of the Faculty of History and Philology made the following statement: “Since lecturers Irena Kostkevičiūtė and Vanda Zaborskaitė have not yet drawn serious conclusions based on the party criticism and stubbornly continue to adhere to incorrect, fundamentally non-Marxist views to the detriment of the communist upbringing of young people, the party bureau has proposed to the Scientific Council of the Faculty to hold an extraordinary competition for the position currently held by lecturer Kostkevičiūtė this year, and suggests that lecturer Vanda Zaborskaitė should not be re-elected in a competition that will take place this year.”3
After being dismissed from the university, Kostkevičiūtė worked in the field of art research at the Institute of History of the LSSR Academy of Sciences, prepared monographs about Vincas Svirskis, Jonas Švažas and other artists, and was proactively engaged in the dissemination of Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas’ works, including their research.
