khizhina diadi Toma

Tue Jun 12 01:17:46 UTC 2001

I am new to this list but thought I might reply to your request re:"Uncle
Tom's Cabin",or any other anecdotes indicating that people in Russia read
"our stories" there.

We had a very special little friend who came to the USA in about 1930 as a
Norwegian citizen, She was born in Omsk, in 1896, of a Norwegian father and
German mother.They were able to get out of Communist USSR in 1921 because of
the father's Norwegian passport, in spite of the fact he had been living in
Siberia for many years. He has gone there, in the first place, when he was
hired to go with a team to look for the survivors of the shipwrecked
JEANNETTE, a wooded sailing ship that set out from San Francisco in 1879
headed north through the Bering Strait to look for a Northwest Passage.

Not long after taking on fuel (coal?)for the journey, in Alaska, the ship
became stuck in the ice. Believe it or not the men stayed with the ship for
22 months before taking three small rowboats off the ship and up over the
ice and out to the open sea, trying to get back to civilization.The
JEANNETTE was breaking up.

One third of the men did survive ...not including the Captain George
Washington DeLong, but the Chief Engineer did survive to write a story about
it entitled, "ON THE LENA DELTA". It was he who hired my friend's
father...then a young man who spoke several languages and who had previous
experience in the Arctic with the great Swedish explorer Nordenschold. His
name, the father of our friend, was Joachim Gronbeck-Gulbrandson...usually
referred to as Captain Gronbeck. After his exploration he of course ended up
in Siberia as you probably know that the Lena River is in the eastern part
of the country. He became a captain of a ship on that river and also on the
Irkutsk and the Ob. It was in Siberia that he met our friend's mother who
was from Berlin, Germany. She already had a daughter from a previous
marriage and then they had three more daughters. Claire, our friend, was the
youngest.

Claire, as I have said, was born in Omsk in 1896. It seems, from what Claire
told us, that they had a rather  good life until the Russian revolution. At
one time when Claire was still quite young, like maybe 10-12 they were
living in Ural Mountains in Tyumen and their house caught fire and from then
on they lived in an apartment but they had had a nursemaid, a cook, a
driver...or coachman. Captain Gronbeck had an extensive libary and he was an
avid reader, both parents were well educated. Claire's brother- in- law
 also had an extensive library and was so fussy about how his books were
handled that children were not allowed to even look through them without
first washing their hands,

So when Claire was a lttle girl she loved to have her father read to her and
I know she mentioned some of what she loved to hear. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was
one story she mentioned and she loved to hear her father sing, "YANKEE
DOODLE". She was paticularly entranced by the true life story of Nathan Hale
who declared as he was about to die, "I regret that I have but one life to
give to my country!"  She was so impressed by this declaration that she was
determined to go someday to America.

It is a very long story about Claire's life and about her parents and
sisters and the Russian Eevolution and what it did to their lives. Very sad,
indeed. The communists destroyed Captain Gronbeck's library. Claire was
about to graduate from Moscow University when there was fighting in the
streets of Moscow. That she and her parents were able to get out of the USSR
was quite an accomplishment . They went to Norway t live with her uncle as
her father was dying of cancer. Later she and her mother left Norway, but
Claire had to wait 7 years for a VISA to go to  America. She took all kinds
of jobs in this country, nursemaid to Igor Sikorsky's children, made "tutus"
(ittle frilly skirts) for Sonia Henie, the famous ice-skater, painted on
silk scarves, made Mexican Sombreros, cooked, etc. and in 1945 married a
White Russian who worked at the Sikorsky Helicopter plant. When he retired
they moved out west to Arizona. She often said to us, "At least I die in
America!" But it was Uncle Tom's Cabin, Yankee Doodle, and Nathan Hale (a
spy for America against the British) through her father when she was a chid,
that inspired her to want to come to America.
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Mackay" <john.mackay at YALE.EDU>
To: <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 3:37 PM
Subject: khizhina diadi Toma

> Hi, all -- I'm doing a little digging into the Russian/Soviet reception of
> Harriet Beecher Stowe (esp. Uncle Tom's Cabin), and was wondering if
> anyone knows of
> any adaptations (stage, screen, etc.) of the book in Russia, pre- or
> post-1917. I get the impression (from R.D. Orlova's fascinating short
> monograph "Khizhina, ustoiavshaia stoletie") that the novel was widely
read
> in the Soviet
> Union-- is that the case? Any info/anecdotes you might have would be
> greatly appreciated -- many thanks!
>
> j.
>
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