Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader in a decade, believed he would die in prison, according to his memoirs.
Fierce critic of President Putin, He died in an Arctic Circle prison in February. He is serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism that are widely seen as politically motivated.
The New Yorker and The Times published portions of the book, a posthumous account of Navalny’s final years, including those he spent in prison.
“I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here,” he wrote on March 22, 2022.
“There will be no farewells…all anniversaries will be celebrated without me. I will never see my grandchildren.”
Navalny’s death earlier this year sparked shock and outrage around the world, amid tributes to his strength as a political activist.
Many blamed Putin. However, immediately afterwards, the Kremlin simply stated that it was aware of his death.
In August 2020, Navalny was poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent at the end of his trip to Siberia.
He began writing his memoirs, “The Patriot,” while receiving professional treatment in Germany.
After recovering, he returned to Moscow in January 2021 and was immediately detained.
Navalny spent the remaining 37 months of his life in prison, during which time he kept diaries in his memoirs.
On January 17, 2022, he wrote: “The only thing we should worry about is that we will abandon our home to be plundered by a group of liars, thieves and hypocrites.”
The excerpts trace Navalny’s deteriorating health and capture the isolation of his imprisonment, laced with his characteristic sense of humour.
Describing a typical day on July 1, 2022, he wrote: “At work, you sit in front of a sewing machine on a stool below knee height for seven hours.”
“After get off work, you continue to sit on the wooden bench under Putin’s portrait for several hours. This is what is called a ‘disciplinary activity’.”
“The Patriot” will be released on October 22. Its American publisher, Knopf, also plans to launch a Russian version.
In introducing the exception, the New Yorker said Navalny managed to get his team to publish some diaries on social media while in captivity.
David Remnick, the magazine’s editor, wrote that “it is impossible to read Navalny’s prison diary without feeling outraged by the tragedy he suffered and his death.”
In the final excerpt published by The New Yorker on January 17, 2024, Navalny said that inmates and prison guards often asked him why he chose to return to Russia.
The answer, Navalny wrote, is simple: “I do not want to abandon my country or betray it. If your beliefs are meaningful, you must be ready to defend them and make sacrifices if necessary.”
