refusenik

plural refuseniks · plural refuseniki

1. historicalslangSoviet UnionOne of the citizens of the former Soviet Union who was refused permission to emigrate (typically but not exclusively a Jewish citizen denied permission to immigrate to Israel).

   The refuseniki say they don’t want to change anything in the U.S.S.R., only leave it.

   1985 June 2, Louis Moore, “‘Refuseniki’ look to the West with hope”, in Houston Chronicle, volume 84, number 232, Houston, Tex.: Houston Chronicle Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, section 1, page 3, column 1

   2 more examples

   In 1974, a handful of brave Soviet Jews haunted foreign embassies in Moscow hoping for exit visas. Refuseniks, they were called; the Brezhnev Government wouldn't let them out.

   1990 December 14, “Remember the Refuseniks?”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 May 2015

   The refuseniki (those refused exit visas) were at the forefront of the dissident movement of the 1970s and a major irritant in US-Soviet relations until Gorbachev signalled a change in policy by allowing the veteran refusenik Anatoly Scharansky to emigrate in 1986.

   2005 April, Dan Richardson, “Jewish history in Russia”, in The Rough Guide to Moscow, 4th edition, London; New York, N.Y.: Rough Guides, →ISBN, page 185

   Synonyms: otkaznik

2. broadlyinformalA person who refuses to do something, usually as a protest; for example, one who refuses conscription or vaccination.

   Near-synonyms: recusant, decliner, dissenter, objector, protester, defier, maverick, nonconformist, rebel, renegade

   4 more examples

   Hope in liberation can imbue the singular transgressive body-performativity as well as the performative uses of fallibilist pragmatic presuppositions of human communication action. This risky hope—it is another name for the coalitions and the communities among refuseniki—appears under the figures of a radically existential and multicultural democracy.

   1998, Martin J[oseph] Beck Matuštík, “Hope and Refusal”, in Specters of Liberation: Great Refusals in the New World Order (SUNY Series in Radical Social and Political Theory), Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, →ISBN, page 98

   Richard Ellmann once referred to Samuel Beckett as “Nayman from Noland”—the author as national refusenik. Beckett famously refused to allow a national representative from either Ireland or France to pick up his Nobel Prize, sending his publisher instead […]

   2006, Lawrence Thompson, The Princeton University Library Chronicle, page 678

   One IDF refusenik recounted how commanders on the field tried very hard to accommodate potential conscientious objectors by offering alternative and less controversial missions, in order to avoid their refusal to serve from becoming a public, and thus, political statement: […]

   2008, Sergio Catignani, Israeli Counter-Insurgency and the Intifadas: Dilemmas of a Conventional Army, Routledge, →ISBN, page 94

   Authorities are offering incentives to those slow to accept the needle. In Tel Aviv, this has meant one bar offering a 'shot for a shot.' In Bnei-Barak, a bowl of stew has been offered to get the Ultra-Orthodox refuseniks over their reservations.

   2021 February 26, “What life is like in countries where Covid-19 vaccination is increasingly a success”, in CNN

   Synonyms: refuser, recusant, decliner, dissenter, objector, protester, defier, maverick