Title
From Russia to America: A Modern Odyseey
Category
Author/Originator
Kushner (Kushnirovitz), Martin D. (Moyshe) (c. 1892-1973)
Year of Publication/Creation
1969Place of Publication/Creation
PhiladelphiaLanguage(s)
EnglishGeographic Places
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Pivni, Ukraine (p. 3, 49, 66, 89)
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Hornostaypil (Gornostaypol, Hornostaypl), Ukraine (p. 6, 10)
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Fastiv (Fastov, Khvastiv, Khvastev), Ukraine (p. 20)
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Kyiv (Kiev), Ukraine (p. 41, 55, 72, 79, 150)
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Boryspil (Borispol, Berishpolye), Ukraine (p. 61)
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Mesilah Hadashah, Turkey (p. 185, 202)
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Istanbul (Constantinople, Kushtadina, Kushta, Stambul), Turkey (p. 193)
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Mount Carmel 1, Pennsylvania, USA (p. 218)
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Philadelphia 1, Pennsylvania, USA (p. 231)
In this perceptive autobigoraphy, the author dedicates dozens of pages to describing his native Ukrainian village, yet curiously delays revealing its name—Pivni—until page 45. This geographic vagueness is compounded by a translation error on page 38, where he states the village was 75 miles from Kiev when the actual distance is 46 miles. The discrepancy stems from his mistranslation of the obsolete Russian unit of distance, the verst (roughly equal to 1.06 kilometers), as a mile. When corrected for this unit, his "75 miles" perfectly aligns with 75 versts—which is almost exactly 46 miles. Similar inconsistencies surround his timeline and later geography. While the author consistently listed his birth year as 1896 on official U.S. documents, records from the JewishGen Ukraine Database suggest he was older. An 1897 revision list (a poll-tax census) for Dmitrovka—a town located just one mile from Pivni—records a five-year-old "Moyshe-Pinkhas Kushnerovich," strongly indicating a birth year around 1892. In American, he used the middle initial of D. instead of P. since his name is Russian was Moishe Davidovitz (i.e., son of David) Kushnirovitz (p. 197). On page 61, the author recalls working in a "small town" called "Bristol," supposedly "75 miles" from Kiev. Because no such town exists in Ukraine, perhaps he meant Borispol, a name easily misread as "Bristol" from a handwritten manuscript. While Borispol is only 20 miles from Kiev, the given distance makes more sense if the author was measuring the distance from Pivni to Borispol.
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