In 1934 Peisach and Tyble Coodin, dissatisfied with their life in Winnipeg, decided to return to the Soviet Union. They had emigrated to the West 6 years earlier. Their son Arnold had been born in Winnipeg. The family crossed the Atlantic for the second and last time, resumed using the Kudinsky family name, and remade their lives in Leningrad. Arnold’s sister, Rita was born there in 1937.
The family was ruptured by the conflict known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War. Peisach, now more than 40 years of age, was mobilized by the Red Army and died near the Finnish border fighting the Nazis. Tyble supported her children by teaching English.
Arnold graduated from high school with a gold medal. In 1952, he completed 5 years of mathematics study at Lenin University. Perhaps because he was a Jew, the Soviet authorities forced him to leave Leningrad and assigned him to the town of Pechora, 100 km. from the Arctic Circle. There, he taught high school, organized a school choir and worked at an engineering institute. Four years later, he was able to return to Leningrad where he resumed his studies. But again, Soviet anti-semitism frustrated his ambitions. He was denied entry into a post graduate university program and had to settle for studies in engineering and mathematics at a technical institute.
Arnold’s career was characterized by combining his affinity for mathematics with his love of music. He taught mathematics at the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute for many years. He wrote the textbook, “Mathematical Analysis for Shipbuilders.” While excelling in mathematics, he studied music and graduated from the Lenin State University as a musicologist.
He founded the chamber choir “Blagovest” and was its director for 25 years. He is renowned in Russia for reviving the sacred music of the composer Vasily Fateyev whose work had been suppressed by the Soviets. In 1981, when his choir sang Tchaikovsky’s Liturgy, it had never before been performed in the Soviet Union.
As a teacher, Arnold had a flair for the dramatic and was beloved by his students. He would kneel and beg his students to prove a theorem. They called him “Miracle Kudo.” Sometimes, when a ship’s whistle sounded outside of the Shipbuilding Institute, he would ask his students to name its musical note. Then he would remove a tuning fork from his briefcase to resolve the question.
Arnold’s impish sense of humour is exemlified by the palindromes which he loved to compose. Here is one, translated from Russian: I was in charge of sleep – Ygorov bought cottage cheese, ate and farted in Ade’s nose.
In 1971, Arnold Kudinsky briefly connected with his Canadian cousin, Arnie Coodin when Arnie and his wife Zoya visited Tyble, Arnold and Rita in Leningrad.
Arnold married Lyudmila Vasilievna Gusakovskaya. Their daughter, Nina was born in 1970. In the 1980’s, Arnold was baptised in a Russian Orthodox church.
In 1996, while running to catch a train, his heart failed. He died at the age of 65.
Story by Mark Kreger and Arnie Coodin
