Navalny’s memoirs describe isolation and suffering in a R…

NEW YORK (AP) — In a memoir released eight months after his death in prison, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny never loses confidence that his cause is worth suffering for, while also acknowledging that he wished he he could have written a completely different book.

“There is a mixture of bits and pieces, a traditional story followed by a prison diary,” Navalny writes in “Patriot,” published Tuesday, and which is indeed a traditional story followed by a prison diary.

‘I really don’t want my book to become yet another prison diary. Personally, I find them interesting to read, but as a genre, enough is certainly enough.”

The last 200 pages of Navalny’s 479-page book have in some ways the hallmarks of other prison diaries or of classic Russian literature such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.” He follows the boredom, isolation, exhaustion, suffering and absurdity of prison life, while working on the sidelines on everything from nineteenth-century French literature to Billie Eilish. But “Patriot” also reads as a testament to a famous dissident’s extraordinary struggle against despair as Russian authorities gradually increase their crackdown on him, even sharing advice on how to face the worst without losing hope to lose.

“The most important thing is not to torment yourself with anger, hatred and revenge fantasies, but to immediately move to acceptance. That can be difficult,” he writes. “The process that goes on in your head is certainly not easy, but if you are in a bad situation, you have to try this. It works, as long as you think about it seriously.”

In recent years, Navalny had become an international symbol of resistance. A lawyer by training, he started out as a campaigner against corruption, but quickly turned into a politician with aspirations for public office, eventually becoming the main challenger to Russia’s longtime president, Vladimir Putin.

Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, oversaw the book’s completion. In a promotional interview for “Patriot,” she told the BBC that she would run for president if she ever returned to Russia — an unlikely move with Putin in power, Navalnaya acknowledged. She was arrested in absentia in Russia on charges of involvement in an extremist group. Putin “needs to be in a Russian prison, to feel everything that not only my husband, but all the prisoners in Russia feel,” Navalnaya said during an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

Navalnaya has vowed to continue her late husband’s fight. She has regularly recorded video speeches to her supporters and met with Western leaders and top officials, advocating for Russians who oppose Putin and his war in Ukraine. She had two children with her husband, who writes in his book about his immediate attraction to her and their enduring bond, praising Navalnaya as a kindred spirit who could “discuss the most difficult matters with me without much drama and hand-wringing.”

In the first part of his book, Navalny reflects on the fall of the Soviet Union, his disillusionment with 1990s Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, his early crusades against corruption, his entry into public life and his discovery that he was not far away. had to search. for a politician “who would undertake all kinds of necessary, interesting projects and work directly with the Russian people.”

“I wanted and waited, and one day I realized I could be that person,” he wrote.

His vision of a ‘beautiful Russia of the future’, where leaders are elected freely and fairly, official corruption is tamed and democratic institutions function – as well as his strong charisma and sardonic humor – won him widespread support in the country’s eleven member states . time zones. He had young, energetic activists at his side – a team that, according to his memoirs, resembled a “fancy startup” rather than a clandestine revolutionary operation. “From the outside we looked like a bunch of Moscow hipsters,” he writes, and together they released colorful, professionally produced videos exposing official corruption. These were viewed millions of times on YouTube and led to mass rallies, even as authorities cracked down on dissent.

Authorities responded to Navalny’s growing popularity by filing multiple charges against him, his allies and even family members. They often jailed him and shut down his entire political infrastructure: the Foundation for Fighting Corruption that he founded in 2011 and a network of several dozen regional offices.

In 2020, Navalny survived a nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin, which denied his involvement. He describes it in great detail early in the book, saying, “This is too much, and I’m about to die.” His family and allies fought for him to be transported to Germany for treatment, and after recovering there for five months, he returned to Russia, but was arrested and sent to prison, where he would spend the last three years of his life .

In the memoir, Navalny recalls telling his wife, while still in hospital in Berlin, that he would “of course” go back to Russia.

Pressure on him continued behind bars and increased after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and stepped up the suppression of dissent to unprecedented levels. In messages he managed to get out of prison, Navalny described the harrowing conditions of solitary confinement, where he was locked up for months for various minor offenses that prison officials ruthlessly accused him of, sleep deprivation, meager diet and lack of medical attention. In October 2023, three of his lawyers were arrested and two more were placed on a wanted list.

In December 2023, authorities transferred Navalny to a penal colony with the highest level of security in Russia’s penitentiary system in a remote city above the Arctic Circle. In February 2024, 47-year-old Navalny died suddenly there; the circumstances and cause of his death still remain a mystery. Yulia Navalnaya and his allies say the Kremlin killed him, while authorities say Navalny died of “natural causes” but would not reveal details of what happened.

Tens of thousands of Russians attended his funeral in March on the outskirts of Moscow, in a rare show of defiance in a country where every street rally or even a few pickets often result in immediate arrests and prison sentences. For days, people brought flowers to the grave, and even a handful arrived on Tuesday.

“I dream that as many people as possible will read this book, because it seems to me that everyone will learn something new about Alexei. (Everyone) will laugh and cry a little. He was so cool: strong and brave, kind and funny. The best. And the sweetest,” said Yulia Navalnaya on X.

Navalny’s team has said that the book will be available in Russian, the language in which he wrote it, but shipping to his home country and neighboring Belarus will not be possible “because we have failed to ensure delivery and the absence of problems at customs cannot guarantee.”

The Kremlin and Russian state media ignored the release, just as they ignored many other developments involving Navalny, whose name Putin and other top officials almost never uttered in public.

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Litvinova reported from Tallinn, Estonia.