Juzefa Širvytė-Marcinkevičienė

Juzefa (Jusefa) Širvytė-Marcinkevičienė (1926–2010) was born in the village of Plingiai, Skaudvilė Rural District, Tauragė County, into a working-class farming (peasant) family. In 1940, she began attending Tauragė Gymnasium and, from 1945, continued at the newly established Skaudvilė Gymnasium, from which she graduated a year later. In 1946, she enrolled in the Biology Department of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Vilnius State University. In 1950, she joined the Komsomol (Communist Youth League). That same year, while still a fourth-year student, she applied for a position as a senior laboratory assistant at the Department of Higher Plant Systematics of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Vilnius State University and was hired. In 1951, she graduated and was awarded the qualification of biologist specialising in botany. On 29 December 1960, she submitted a request to resign voluntarily from her position as a laboratory assistant, as she was moving to a new job. The Rector approved her resignation on 7 January 1961. According to data identified by researchers of the history of Vilnius University, the real reason for her departure was political. Juzefa Širvytė-Marcinkevičienė was forced to leave her position as the wife of a political prisoner (she married in March 1957, and her marriage certificate was submitted to the University in January 1958). It is noted that her husband had been deported to Komi in 1945 and returned to Lithuania in 1956. Her daughter, Audronė Būdienė, confirmed that her mother had been forced to leave her position at Vilnius State University and subsequently worked as a biology teacher at a school in Vilnius. Following the expulsion of her son Saulius Marcinkevičius from the University, Juzefa herself was subjected to scrutiny at the school. According to her daughter, due to strong pressure from her surroundings, she submitted a request to resign from her job.