In New York Harbor, not far from the Statue of Liberty, lies Ellis Island. For more than half a century, from 1892 to 1954, the island was the main quarantine and holding center for immigrants. A dozen barracks, hospitals, morgues, a baggage storage, and a palace for bureaucratic officials. Through this patch of land passed 15 million wretched, poor, hungry people.
In the Immigration Museum, photographs of those who survived the ocean voyage hang on the walls, with captions briefly explaining the reason for their arrival. Here are emaciated Ukrainians—driven abroad by the crop failures of the early century; a patriarchal Jewish family from Little Russia, stunned by the pogroms; and here is a very simple explanation: "three Russian Cossacks arrived in search of a better life." In the latter case, the official who made the entry in the immigration record clearly made a mistake. They are not Cossacks, but Circassian muhajirs, settlers from the last years of the Caucasian War. Actually, the official added too much anyway; he was supposed to indicate only geographical origin. And what difference did it make then? The emigrants were given some money, taken to Manhattan, and then it was up to them. They all became equal Americans.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA
The first notable wave of emigration from Russia was the resettlement of about two million Jews after the 1905 revolution.
Ukrainians who arrived earlier roamed the States in search of good farmland; Russians preferred adventurous pursuits, like gold prospecting in Sacramento, or heavy factory work (recall the famous film "The Deer Hunter," in which the main characters go to the Vietnam War from a Russian steel town). But hundreds of Jews from Odessa, Berdichev, and Vitebsk did not travel far, settling in New York. And they settled so thoroughly that in 1916, future U.S. President Harry Truman called New York a "Jewish city." Since many brought their sewing machines overseas along with other belongings, the main occupation of "Russian" Jews at the turn of the century became garment making. Since then, the fashion industry in the United States has belonged to the descendants of Jews who came here at the beginning of the century.
The first wave of emigrants dissolved into American society so quickly that the children of settlers no longer spoke Russian. Grandchildren and great-grandchildren only vaguely know family legends: "My grandfather, I think, was a dockworker in Odessa. That's why I love to go yachting on weekends." Occasionally, such confessions (the grandfather's profession changes, but the location is always Odessa) are shared with journalists by Sylvester Stallone, Barbra Streisand, and Woody Allen. The descendants of first-wave settlers now own banks, large companies, and art galleries. But they do not feel a sense of community. Perhaps that is why the first wave of emigrants is not called their grandfathers, but the people who came to America after the 1917 revolution.
TO WHOM THE STATES OWE THEIR PROSPERITY
At the beginning of the century, Russians were afraid of America and disdained it. Suffice it to say that there are no American heroes in Russian classical literature. There are Germans, French, English, even a Bulgarian, but no Americans. They were far from Russia. In the late 1920s, the mayor of Boston asked Fyodor Chaliapin why he had not taken American citizenship. "I would be honored to help," the mayor groveled. Fyodor Ivanovich was surprised by the question and, as usual, barked at the fool: "Ask this little horse why it doesn't become a Malay!"
After the revolution, most of the "White emigrants" remained in Germany, the Czech Republic, and France. But about half a million of our compatriots made it to the "other side."
* Igor Sikorsky built two helicopters in Kyiv in 1908. They did not take off, and the idea was temporarily buried. In 1923, Sikorsky founded an aviation company in America and lived to see the happy moment when his helicopters crossed the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
* Vladimir Zworykin, a native of Murom, joined the Westinghouse Electric company in Pittsburgh in 1920 and ten years later invented television—creating the world's first iconoscope, a transmitting tube.
* Another famous Westinghouse employee, Stepan Timoshenko, developed the theory of strength and the theory of bridge construction (including "American" suspension bridges).
A FOREIGN THOUGHT ON A DISTANT SHORE
In the extremely technological America, engineers and inventors easily found use for their talents; it was harder for humanities scholars.
* The founder of modern sociology, Pitirim Sorokin, had to fight with American authorities before he founded the now-famous sociology department at Harvard University.
Musicians and dancers are considered the most successful emigrants. Their art is cosmopolitan. Over the years, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Koussevitzky, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and George Balanchine (Georgi Balanchivadze) moved to America. The lives of these great people contain a huge number of triumphs, defeats, and losses. But they conquered America. And that was not easy, because European authorities are rarely taken into account by arrogant Americans. The great Gustav Mahler, for example, suffered a fiasco in 1910 when he came to conquer the New World.
With the outbreak of World War II, emigrants began to leave Europe and cross the ocean.
* In 1940, Vladimir Nabokov arrived. From then on, he wrote only in English.
* Philosopher Father Georgy Florovsky, on the contrary, never wanted to become "American." And although he taught at the Orthodox Theological Academy in New York, of all the Russian theologians of that time, Father Georgy remained the most faithful to Orthodox teaching.
After the war, due to "displaced persons," the number of people from the Soviet Union increased by another two hundred thousand. And again, these were exiles fleeing death and camps abroad.
I WON'T TELL YOU ABOUT ALL OF ODESSA
The third wave of emigration poured into America at the end of June 1967. It was during these days that 4,000 Jews left the Soviet Union: ten times more than in the previous 10 years. And after Richard Nixon's visit to the USSR, 87,000 Jews left the country over the next two years. Since 1976, after the signing of the Helsinki Accords, emigrants were allowed to go directly to the United States. All American universities introduced quotas for Jews from the USSR; they were accepted free of charge and without competition. During these same times, the system of benefits for emigrants was refined, providing them with a decent existence to this day.
The former Jewish neighborhoods in New York (Washington Heights) could not accommodate all the newcomers. And then the flourishing of Brighton Beach, "Little Odessa," began—the world's largest colony of emigrants from the USSR. Most of the third-wave emigrants left the USSR for "economic" reasons. That is, realizing that life is one and you have to get the best out of it: drink Coca-Cola, drive a Ford, and see Bruce Springsteen, so that later it won't be excruciatingly painful.
But there were also those who went for freedom, who were expelled, pushed out, forced to leave so they wouldn't get underfoot and interfere with the fulfillment of five-year plans.
These are Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Brodsky, Sergei Dovlatov. Ephraim Sevela (writer, screenwriter, director), General Grigorenko, Alexander Yanov (professor at New York University), Vasily Aksyonov (writer, participant in the infamous almanac "Metropol"), Pyotr Krasin (served seventeen years in camps, a figure in the show trial "Yakir-Krasin" of 1972), and dozens of others...
Also, singers Willy Tokarev, Misha Shufutinsky, Lyuba Uspenskaya, writer and poet Yuz Aleshkovsky, actors Savely Kramarov, Oleg Vidov, Yevgeny Kindinov, Elena Koreneva, Victoria Fedorova, hundreds of avant-garde artists, nonconformists, underground artists, as well as "barrier breakers," Sots-artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, went to America. Ernst Neizvestny and Mikhail Shemyakin took their place on the artistic Olympus. Eduard Limonov became, according to The New Yorker, a "normal Russian writer" in America, but did not stay long in the States.
The third wave of emigration is powerful, assertive, and talented. But, in addition to the collective of scientific laboratories, Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya, and half a million computer programmers, this wave gave America the best mafia in the world, famous for gasoline dilution, benefit fraud, insurance fraud, discount fraud, and bank account forgery.
BUT WILL THE MOTHERLAND FORGIVE?
Another notable, though small, group of emigrants are the defectors. In 1978, the Deputy Secretary-General of the UN, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USSR Arkady Shevchenko, disappeared from his apartment in New York, leaving a letter to his wife saying he could not return to the USSR. This is perhaps the biggest scandal of its kind, because Shevchenko was the best friend of USSR Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, and had been spying for American intelligence for about five years.
* KGB Lieutenant Colonel Reino Häyhänen stayed in America, having betrayed Colonel Abel and testified against him at an open trial in New York in the late 1950s. Häyhänen was an American citizen for only two years—he drank himself to death and died in a car accident.
* KGB Major Viktor Sheymov was luckier—the CIA secretly smuggled him out of Moscow along with his wife and daughter in 1980. Under the pseudonym "Viktor Orlov," he published several books and became wealthy.
* The fate of KGB Senior Lieutenant, cipher radio operator Anatoly Semyonov, is astonishing. In 1976, he fled the embassy in Niger, abandoning his wife and two children, and decided to start a new life in America. Semyonov did not know any particular secrets, so after dragging him along for six months, the CIA gave him a green card, a social security card, and let him go wherever he wanted. Semyonov struggled for four years and asked to return to the Soviet Union. The motherland accepted the prodigal son and convicted him of treason. Semyonov served six years, was released, but had no residence permit, his wife didn't want to see him, and his children had forgotten him. So he rushed back to America, deciding to start yet another new life.
MONEY IN THE BANK OR HEAD IN THE BUSHES
After perestroika, emigration became calm and deliberate, but remained as massive as before. Now, when we have an abundance of goods but life is so-so, people go for stability, for their children's future, and also out of vanity.
* Hollywood Stuntmen's Association member Viktor Ivanov wrecks 10 Cadillacs and a couple of Mercedes during a single filming episode.
* Screenwriter and director Sergei Bodrov was the first to sell a script to an American producer—and immediately for $200,000.
* Actress Elena Solovey, composer Alexander Zhurbin, and screenwriter Irakli Kvirikadze are trying to conquer their American heights.
In America, it's important not to lose heart and to catch luck by the tail, answering all questions with "fine!"
Not everyone succeeds, of course.
* The famous boxer Oleg Karataev, who had thousands of fans at home, was shot dead on Brighton Beach Avenue: they say he got too tough in collecting debts.
* The no less famous Yaponchik also miscalculated: he spat at reporters too openly and got a prison term.
* But film director Andron Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky succeeded in everything. He is one of the few Russian filmmakers to achieve recognition in Hollywood, made several films, bought a house in Los Angeles for one and a half million dollars—and... returned to Russia. Why? Perhaps creative heights at home seemed more alluring to him.
The eternal question arises: why do most emigrants, even with a very poor existence in the United States, not return to their homeland?
The reason is simple. Emigrants, even after living in America for only two or three years, cease to be emigrants. They become Americans. And few have the courage to emigrate a second time.
Our country still gives America scientists, engineers, gangsters, and artists. No reverse waves are expected. Alas...