It reminds me of Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia.
An American man trapped in the Soviet Union 77 years ago - deep in Stalinist times - has suddenly reverted to speaking in his native English instead of the Russian he was forced to learn to survive his epic Communist ordeal.
DAILY MAIL
Last updated at 9:13 AM on 14th June 2011
An American man trapped in the Soviet Union 77 years ago - deep in Stalinist times - has suddenly reverted to speaking in his native English instead of the Russian he was forced to learn to survive his epic Communist ordeal.
Kenneth Edwards, now 95, recently suffered a stroke which left him unable to communicate with his Russian family and children.
'I am having to learn Russian all over again,' he said in a halting American accent in Zlatoust, an industrial Ural Mountains outpost where he worked in a watch-making factory for 60 years, latterly as the locksmith to the head of his department.
'I say something in Russian to him, and he replies only in English,' said wife Zoya, 79.
'I only understand what he wants to say by his intonation.'
'I only understand what he wants to say by his intonation.'
He rarely used English after his idealistic left-wing father Willard moved his family from Alabama to the USSR in 1934, the year after Franklin D Roosevelt came to power, believing the future lay with Communism not Capitalism.
Kenneth's parents and siblings found a way to escape back to the U.S., but he was stuck because his father had insisted his eldest son should give up his American citizenship and hold only a Soviet passport.
Read more:
No comments:
Post a Comment