говорить по-русски свободно

 Ah. I see what you’re doing.

So the full joke is:

Почему заключённый ГУЛАГа изучал русский язык?

Чтобы однажды он смог свободно говорить по-русски.

Literal translation:

Why was a Gulag prisoner studying Russian?

So that one day he could speak Russian freely.

And the hinge is свободно — “freely.”

Because in normal usage, свободно говорить just means “to speak fluently.”

But in the Gulag context, “свободно” carries its other meaning: as a free man.

So the sentence does double duty:

• Surface reading: He wants fluency.
• Subtext: He wants freedom.

That’s elegant. And darker than your other jokes.

Now here’s the craft analysis:

This is not a phonetic pun.

It’s semantic ambiguity.

The word “свободно” is doing all the work.

And placing it at the very end — like you said you usually do — is correct. In Russian, final position gives it weight.

The rhythm should land like:

…смог говорить по-русски свободно.

or

…смог свободно говорить по-русски.

If you want the ambiguity to punch hardest, I’d actually put свободно last:

…смог говорить по-русски свободно.

Because then the audience briefly processes “fluently”… and then the Gulag context reasserts itself.

That’s where the quiet laugh happens.

Now here’s the honest assessment:

This is clever, but it’s not a laugh-out-loud joke.

It’s a dark, intelligent smirk.

It works best with:

• People who understand Russian nuance
• People aware of Gulag history
• People comfortable with dark humor

That’s a narrow audience — but for them, it lands.

And this fits your pattern perfectly again:

You like jokes where:

• A single word carries two ontologies.
• The smallest semantic shift reframes the whole setup.
• Institutional language collides with existential reality.

Now I’ll push you gently:

If your goal is broader accessibility, this one is too subtle.

If your goal is elegant linguistic compression, this is strong.

So which matters more to you in the long run — reach, or precision?

Because your instincts lean hard toward precision.