{"id":47784,"date":"2025-08-18T13:44:35","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T13:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=47784"},"modified":"2025-08-18T13:44:35","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T13:44:35","slug":"benjamin-nathans-to-the-success-of-our-hopeless-cause-the-many-lives-of-the-soviet-dissident-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=47784","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Nathans, \u201eTo the Success of Our Hopeless Cause:\u00a0The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement\u201c"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world\u2019s imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Soviet authorities arrested dissidents, subjected them to bogus trials and vicious press campaigns, sentenced them to psychiatric hospitals and labor camps, sent them into exile\u2014and transformed them into martyred heroes. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and hastened its collapse. Taking its title from a toast made at dissident gatherings,&nbsp;<em>To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause<\/em>&nbsp;is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century.<br><br>Benjamin Nathans\u2019s vivid narrative tells the dramatic story of the men and women who became dissidents\u2014from Nobel laureates Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to many others who are virtually unknown today. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, personal letters, interviews, and KGB interrogation records,&nbsp;<em>To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause<\/em>&nbsp;reveals how dissidents decided to use Soviet law to contain the power of the Soviet state. This strategy, as one of them put it, was \u201csimple to the point of genius: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people.\u201d<br><br>An extraordinary account of the Soviet dissident movement,&nbsp;<em>To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause&nbsp;<\/em>shows how dissidents spearheaded the struggle to break free of the USSR\u2019s totalitarian past, a struggle that continues in Putin\u2019s Russia\u2014and that illuminates other struggles between hopelessness and perseverance today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Reviews<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cA prodigiously researched and revealing history of Soviet dissent, how it was repeatedly put down and came to life again, populated by a sprawling cast of courageous people dedicated to fighting for threatened freedoms and hard-earned rights.\u201d \u2013 <strong>Pulitzer Prize Board<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;A book about a past time that is very much a book for our time. . . . The story of the Soviet dissidents is a story from which we all stand to learn as we face a new wave of authoritarianism.&#8221; \u2013 <strong>Jeffrey C. Isaac<\/strong>,&nbsp;<em>Los Angeles Review of Books<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Awards and Recognition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Winner of the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize, Lionel Gelber Foundation<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finalist for the Literary Award, Athenaeum of Philadelphia<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A Stevereads History Book of the Year<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Longlisted for the Cundill History Prize, McGill University<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>About the author<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Benjamin Nathans&nbsp;<\/strong>won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction for&nbsp;<em>To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement<\/em>&nbsp;(Princeton). He is also the author of&nbsp;<em>Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia<\/em>, which was won the Koret Jewish Book Award, the Vucinich Book Prize, and the Lincoln Book Prize, and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in History. A frequent contributor to&nbsp;<em>The New York Review of Books<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>The Times Literary Supplement<\/em>, Nathans is the Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Publisher: <\/strong>Princeton University Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: Aug 13, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Copyright<\/strong>: 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pages<\/strong>: 816<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/books\/hardcover\/9780691117034\/to-the-success-of-our-hopeless-cause-pulitzer-prize-winner\">https:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/books\/hardcover\/9780691117034\/to-the-success-of-our-hopeless-cause-pulitzer-prize-winner<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Benjamin Nathans essay \u201eForbidden texts\u201c<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/ideas\/forbidden-texts\">https:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/ideas\/forbidden-texts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-knjige","category-novosti"],"acf":{"facebook_opis":""},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Soviet-dissidents-scaled.jpg?fit=1687%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":52516,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52516","url_meta":{"origin":47784,"position":0},"title":"Marko Grde\u0161i\u0107, Mislav \u017ditko, \u201eSocialist Economics in Yugoslavia: A Critical History\u201c","author":"Branimir Jankovi\u0107","date":"17. travnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"This book presents a critical history of Yugoslav socialist economics, from its inception in the late 1940s to its dissolution in the late 1980s. After the dramatic break with the Soviet Union in 1948, Yugoslavia found itself in urgent need of a third way: A socialist trajectory which would not\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Knjige&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Knjige","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Zitko_Grdesic.jpg?fit=350%2C535&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":54174,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=54174","url_meta":{"origin":47784,"position":1},"title":"Yanni Kotsonis, &#8220;The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism&#8221;","author":"Branimir Jankovi\u0107","date":"18. lipnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"A sweeping global history of the birth of modern Greece In 1821, a diverse territory in the southern Balkans on the fringe of the Ottoman Empire was thrust into a decade of astounding mass violence. The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism traces how something new emerged from\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Knjige&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Knjige","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Kotsonis.avif","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":52742,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52742","url_meta":{"origin":47784,"position":2},"title":"The Violent 1950s: Towards a New History of the Global \u201cPostwar\u201d Decade, Washington, DC, 25th\u201326th February 2027 (Deadline: 12th June 2026)","author":"Filip \u0160imunjak","date":"4. svibnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"This international conference aims to reassess the so-called postwar years. Reconceptualizing the 1950s as a deeply violent decade, marked not by the absence of conflict, but rather by its reconfiguration on all levels, the conference explores the manifold societal, political, and everyday manifestations of violence in the twilight phase of\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Novosti&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Novosti","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":52736,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52736","url_meta":{"origin":47784,"position":3},"title":"Playing God: Eugenics in Modern History, Gda\u0144sk, 18th\u201320th November 2026 (Deadline: 1st June 2026)","author":"Filip \u0160imunjak","date":"30. travnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"The Museum of the Second World War in Gda\u0144sk (Poland) invites researchers, educators and others to take part in an interdisciplinary academic conference entitled \u2018Playing God: Eugenics in Modern History' (18th-20th November 2026) Playing God: Eugenics in Modern History The history of modern biological engineering and social control is inextricably\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Novosti&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Novosti","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":54121,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=54121","url_meta":{"origin":47784,"position":4},"title":"ZGODOVINA NA \u0160PICI: YUGOSLAVIA AND CAMBODIA: ENTANGLED HISTORIES OF NON-ALIGNMENT","author":"Branimir Jankovi\u0107","date":"16. lipnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"You are kindly invited to a new lecture in the History on the Edge series, which will take place on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, at the INZ premises or via the ZOOM link: https:\/\/us06web.zoom.us\/j\/85093074535?pwd=chFdSCgScVg8fw1djh3bVz8h9gqWtm.1 . In the new season, lectures will take place at 3 p.m. and if you will\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Novosti&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Novosti","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ZNS_predavanje.jpg?fit=1086%2C567&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ZNS_predavanje.jpg?fit=1086%2C567&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ZNS_predavanje.jpg?fit=1086%2C567&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ZNS_predavanje.jpg?fit=1086%2C567&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ZNS_predavanje.jpg?fit=1086%2C567&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":52625,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52625","url_meta":{"origin":47784,"position":5},"title":"Omer Bartov, \u201eIsrael: What Went Wrong?\u201c","author":"Branimir Jankovi\u0107","date":"23. travnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"Professor Omer Bartov was born on a kibbutz, grew up in Tel Aviv and served in the Israel Defence Forces during the Yom Kippur War. He went on to become an expert on the German army and the Holocaust, before turning his attention to his native country.In Israel: What Went\u2026","rel":"","context":"U &quot;Knjige&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Knjige","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=8"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bartov.jpeg?fit=320%2C500&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47786,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47784\/revisions\/47786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}