ABSTRACT

In the 1970s, tens of thousands of Soviet citizens, mostly Jewish, were allowed to emigrate to the West or forced into exile as a result of the regime’s repressive policies. This chapter looks at the trajectories of two Soviet dissident scholars in exile in the 1970s and shows not just the difficulties they faced once they were cut off from the Soviet people for whom they had been advocating, but also the new avenues of protest that they employed to pursue their struggle. The first case is that of Zhores Medvedev, a dissident biologist who was deprived of his Soviet citizenship while he was in London on sabbatical leave in 1973. Medvedev spoke at academic conferences in order to influence public opinion in the West and helped publish the work of his dissident brother Roy, who remained in Moscow. The second case is that of Alexander Nekrich, a historian pushed into exile after his expulsion from the Communist Party. While he faced various legal and financial challenges after settling in the United States, he was also able to publish histories that denounced the regime’s record of repression and violence.