In Posthumous Memoir, Navalny Shares the 'Important Thing'

In a memoir released eight months after he died in prison, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny never loses faith that his cause is worth suffering for while also acknowledging he wished he could have written a very different book. "I so much do not want my book to be yet another prison diary," Navalny writes in Patriot, published Tuesday, per the AP. "Personally I find them interesting to read, but as a genre—enough is surely enough." The final 200 pages of Navalny's 479-page book do, in some ways, have the characteristics of other prison diaries. He tracks the boredom, isolation, exhaustion, suffering, and absurdity of prison life, while working in asides about everything from 19th century French literature to Billie Eilish.

But Patriot also reads as a testament to a famed dissident's extraordinary battle against 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. "The important thing is not to torment yourself with anger, hatred, fantasies of revenge, but to move instantly to acceptance," he writes. During the first section of his book, Navalny reflects on the fall of the Soviet Union, his disenchantment with 1990s Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, his early crusades against corruption, his entry into public life, and his vision of himself as a leader "who would undertake all sorts of needed, interesting projects and cooperate directly with the Russian people."

The authorities responded to Navalny's growing popularity by levying multiple charges against him, his allies, and even family members. They jailed him often and shut down his entire political infrastructure—the Foundation for Fighting Corruption he started in 2011 and a network of several dozen regional offices. Navalny describes the 2020 nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin in great detail in the very beginning of the book, recounting, "This is too much, and I'm about to die." He recalls telling his wife while still hospitalized in Germany that "of course" he will go back to Russia. Upon arrival, he was arrested and sent to prison, where he would spend the last three years of his life. (Widow Yulia Navalnaya has vowed to continue her late husband's fight.)