Alexei Navalny wrote he knew he would die in prison in new Memoir
Russian dissident and political opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in February 2024, foresaw his own demise in prison, according to his posthumous memoir titled Patriot, set for release on October 22. The memoir, shared in part by The New Yorker, includes personal diary entries that illuminate the harsh conditions Navalny faced during his 19-year prison sentence and the toll it took on his body and mind.
Navalny, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, was imprisoned in a remote Arctic penal colony after being sentenced on “extremism” charges. In a March 22, 2022 entry, he writes, “I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here. There will not be anybody to say goodbye to … All anniversaries will be celebrated without me. I’ll never see my grandchildren.”
Navalny’s memoir captures the day-to-day struggles and isolation he experienced. He describes a strict routine, recounting, “At work, you sit for seven hours at the sewing machine on a stool below knee height. After work, you continue to sit for a few hours on a wooden bench under a portrait of Putin. This is called ‘disciplinary activity.’” Through these details, Navalny gives readers a sense of the physical strain and emotional impact of his incarceration.
One entry dated January 17, 2022, reveals his commitment to his beliefs and his homeland. “The only thing we should fear is that we will surrender our homeland to be plundered by a gang of liars, thieves, and hypocrites,” Navalny writes. His words reflect a determination to remain steadfast, despite the personal cost of his activism.
In another diary entry, Navalny hints at his sense of impending death and the role his memoir could play in keeping his story alive. “If they whack me, my family will get the advance and royalties that, I hope, there will be,” he wrote, adding with characteristic dark humor, “Let’s face it, if a murky assassination attempt using a chemical weapon, followed by a tragic demise in prison, can’t move a book,
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