Meaning of refusenik | Babel Free

Definitions

1. One of the citizens of the former Soviet Union who was refused permission to emigrate (typically but not exclusively a Jewish citizen denied permission to emigrate to Israel).
   historical, slang
2. A person who refuses to do something, usually as a protest; for example, one who refuses conscription or vaccination.
   broadly, informal

Equivalents

Examples

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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 […]”

“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: […]”

“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.”

CEFR level