Navalny's Memoir Released Eight Months After Death
"The important thing is not to torment yourself with anger, hatred, fantasies of revenge, but to move instantly to acceptance. That can be hard."
These are the words of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison eight months ago.
They come from his memoir, Patriot, which was released in October. In it, he writes about his battles with the Russian authorities and his time in prison.
He tracks the boredom, isolation, suffering and absurdity of prison life, while touching on a wide range of subjects, from 19th century French literature to Billie Eilish.
The book also documents Navalny's despair as the Russian authorities gradually increase their crackdown against him, and even shares advice on how to confront the worst and still not lose hope.
A lawyer by training, he started out as an anti-corruption campaigner, but soon turned into a politician and eventually became the main challenger to Russia's longtime president, Vladimir Putin.
The authorities responded to Navalny's growing popularity by levying charges against him, his allies and even family members. They jailed him often and shut down his entire political infrastructure.
In 2020, Navalny survived a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin, which denied involvement. After recovering in Germany for five months, he returned to Russia, only to be arrested and sent to prison, where he would spend the last three years of his life.
In February 2024, 47-year-old Navalny suddenly died in prison in the Arctic Circle; the circumstances and the cause of his death still remain a mystery.
Tens of thousands of Russians attended his funeral on the outskirts of Moscow in March in a rare show of defiance.
"I dream of as many people as possible reading this book, because it seems to me that everyone will learn something new about Alexei," his wife Yulia Navalnaya said on X. "He was so cool: strong and brave, kind and funny," she added.
Navalny's team has said the book will be available in Russian, the language he wrote it in, but shipping to his homeland and its neighbor Belarus won't be possible.
