Benjamin Nathans, “To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement”
2026 Petrovich Lecture
Reception to follow in Pyle Center, AT&T Lounge
Abstract:
How do orthodoxies generate their own heresies? How do people and societies emerge from totalitarian forms of rule? During the Cold War, the struggle of Soviet dissidents for the rule of law and human rights made them instant heroes in the West. But rather than see dissidents as surrogate soldiers of democracy and liberalism beyond the Iron Curtain, historian Benjamin Nathans begins with the idea that dissidents were Soviet people.
Thursday, 16 April 2026
16:00 CST
Pyle Center
Room 121
702 Langdon St.
Madison, WI 53706
