The Russian dissident's posthumous memoir, 'Patriot,' is funny, tragic and somehow optimistic about the future of his beloved country.
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to die by nerve agent — the kind of poison Russian President Vladimir Putin is known to use against his enemies — I highly recommend Alexei Navalny’s posthumous memoir, “Patriot.” The story begins in the summer of 2020. Navalny, the charismatic Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption crusader, is on a plane en route to Moscow from Siberia, where he had been organizing candidates to run against Putin’s United Russia party.
“It’s a real Russian spring day,” he wrote on April 3, 2023. “That is, the snowdrifts are up to my waist, and it’s been snowing all weekend.” He fought to stay hopeful, and he refused to let Putin imprison his mind the way he had imprisoned his body in freezing “punishment cells.” He called his coping strategy “prison Zen,” imagining his incarceration as a kind of “space voyage.” “One day, I simply made the decision not to be afraid,” he writes.
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