Foreword:

More than 3,000,000 people in America identify themselves as “Russian” - by reason of birth, background or ethnicity, according to the United States Census Bureau. “Russian” is often used colloquially to describe those who came directly or whose ancestors arrived to the U.S.A. from the Russian Empire, or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. When their last census was taken in 1989, the U.S.S.R. had the 3rdlargest population in the world (only behind China and India) with over 285,000,000 citizens – and practically all of them had to use the Russian language to communicate amongst themselves, hence the “Russian” label. Those, who have been commonly referred to as “Russians” were in fact representatives of close to 200 (!) ethnic groups that made up the nation governed by Communists before its collapse. For example, when the U.S. Census Bureau disaggregated people born in various republics of the former Soviet Union the first time in the year 2000, they found that there were close to 275,000 Ukrainian immigrants in the United States. Our selection of famous Americans with roots in the Russian Empire and the U.S.S.R. will reflect those, whose bloodlines originated from the regions that were known as the 15 Soviet Republics (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan), up to 1991, as well as some from territories of modern-day Finland and Poland, which had been ruled by the Czars. It was not easy to choose only 250 out of the millions of great Americans, so I ask for understanding and forgiveness (and perhaps readers can suggest more names for a future, expanded version).

My main recommendation to the reader – as you look at the highly recognizable names and read about the astounding accomplishments, including of those that perhaps you never heard of before, think of what America gained - and what talent and achievements the Russian Empire and the U.S.S.R. lost. Unfortunately, some of the Czars (particularly Alexander III and Nicholas II) and most of the Communists (things started to get better under Mikhail Gorbachev) had major character flaws when it came to valuing all the human lives that they governed. That is the specific reason that I chose “forced out” for the title of this book – many of those, whose families generated famous Americans, found that they could not live in peace, nor thrive in the places that they were born. They came halfway around the world to the U.S.A. for the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness – which they were denied at home. As for their former rulers, some were glad that they left, waving things off with the unfortunately common saying in Russian: “our women will give birth again…” But will they? Cherish all human life, as no one can predict when prodigy will next appear.

With greatest respect and admiration to all who made America great,

Alexey Palladin