Alexei Navalny accepted he would die in prison, new memoir reveals
Russia’s late opposition leader Alexei Navalny believed he would die in prison, according to excerpts from his memoir.
Mr Navalny was one of President Putin’s fiercest critics and relentlessly campaigned against corruption in the Kremlin.
He died in a remote Arctic penal colony in February while serving a 19-year prison sentence on extremism charges and always maintained the charges were politically motivated.
Read more: What we know about the death of Putin’s critic
Excerpts from his upcoming memoir, Patriot, were released by the New Yorker magazine on Friday.
The book has been described as his “final letter to the world” by its publisher Alfred A Knopf.
In an excerpt, Mr Navalny wrote that he would “imagine, as realistically as possible, the worst thing that could happen. And then… accept it”.
For him, the worst thing that could happen was dying in prison.
“I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here,” he wrote on 22 March 2022.
“There will not be anybody to say goodbye to… all anniversaries will be celebrated without me. I’ll never see my grandchildren.”
Although he accepted what would become his fate, he didn’t accept the problems he saw in Russian society.
“My approach to the situation is certainly not one of contemplative passivity. I am trying to do everything I can from here to put an end to authoritarianism (or, more modestly, to contribute to ending it),” he wrote.
He was sent to jail in 2021 after recuperating in Germany following a nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
Russian officials deny involvement both in the poisoning and his death.
Alexei Navalny and his wife Yulia look on during a support rally in central Moscow in 2013. Pic: Reuters
In the memoir, he said people had asked him why he returned to Russia from Germany following the poisoning.
“I don’t want to give up my country or betray it,” he wrote in response.
“If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary.”
Mr Navalny worked on the book while recovering from being poisoned and then continued writing in Russia, including from prison, according to Mr Knopf.
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He marvelled in the book about the absurdity of having to sit for “hours on a wooden bench under a portrait of Putin” as a “disciplinary activity”.
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In April, Yulia Navalnaya, Mr Navalny’s widow, said the book was not only a testament “to Alexei’s life, but to his unwavering commitment to the fight against dictatorship”.
She said sharing his story would “inspire others to stand up for what is right and to never lose sight of the values that truly matter”, adding the memoir was already translated into 11 languages and would “definitely” be published in Russian.
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