17 March 2025
by Vic Peterson
Vic Peterson reviews Patriot: A Memoir by Alexei Navalny [Hardback, £25, 496pp., ISBN-9781847927033, Bodley Head, London 2024]
Alexei Navalny’s memoir, Patriot, is heartbreaking. Published after his death, announced February 16, 2024, it is a singular prison diary by the most remarkable Russian opposition activist and political prisoner of our time. Navalny travels under the long shadow of dissidents such as Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, a fact of which he is tragically aware. Prison memoirs are, after all, practically a genre of their own in Russian history.
Navalny begins by recounting his upbringing in a small town near Moscow, where he was born in 1976. He reflects on his formative years during the waning days of the Soviet Union, detailing how the political and social upheavals of the 1990s shaped his worldview. Witnessing widespread corruption and the erosion of democratic principles under President Boris Yeltsin, Navalny’s disillusionment grew, fueling his desire for political reform.
The memoir delves into Navalny’s transition from a lawyer to a prominent anti-corruption crusader. He founded the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) in 2011, which exposed high-level graft within the Russian government. Navalny’s investigations, often presented through compelling online videos, garnered millions of views and mobilized public support. Interwoven with his political journey, Navalny shares insights into his personal life, particularly his relationship with his wife, Yulia Navalnaya. He credits her unwavering support as a cornerstone of his resilience, especially during periods of arrest and public vilification. Their partnership underscores the personal sacrifices endured in the pursuit of political change.
A pivotal section of Patriot addresses the 2020 assassination attempt on Navalny’s life. He provides a harrowing account of being poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok, his subsequent medical evacuation to Germany, and the arduous recovery process. Demonstrating steadfast commitment, Navalny returned to Russia in January 2021, fully aware of the imminent risks. Upon arrival, he was promptly arrested, leading to a series of trials and a prolonged prison sentence.
The latter part of the memoir transitions into Navalny’s prison diaries, where he documents daily life within the penal colony. Despite facing isolation, harsh conditions, and declining health, his writings reflect an unbroken spirit. He muses on diverse topics, from literature to contemporary music, and articulates a vision for a democratic Russia. These entries serve as a testament to his enduring hope and intellectual vigor, even in the face of systemic oppression.
The reader should not be naïve, however. There is a danger of viewing Navalny through rose-colored glasses, allowing admiration to devolve into hagiography, writing in praise of saints and martyrs. Navalny was, after all, a retail politician. His nationalism flirted with xenophobia; he never decisively repudiated his early jarring anti-immigrant rhetoric. The facts of his past dogged him throughout his political career, and in February 2021 Amnesty International removed his “prisoner of conscience” status, albeit with the decisive caveat that it still considered him a political prisoner who should be released immediately. After a public outcry, however, in May that year Amnesty International reversed its decision and reinstated Navalny as a “prisoner of conscience.”
Navalny is an extraordinary figure, careful to speak directly and unambiguously about his liberal commitments in terms a broad audience can understand. And he is an artful writer, skilled at blending moments of poetry and poignancy that underscores the seriousness of his commitment.
All this goes to rendering a portrait of a brave, evolving sensibility deeply committed to liberalizing his homeland. Navalny wanted Russia to rise under the star of Western democracy. He never wavered from his denunciations of autocrats, among whom Putin ranked first. He despised the dictator’s war in Ukraine and deplored the Putin-like tropes of Donald Trump.
It is impossible to second guess a future never to be. While on one of his “exercise walks” in a Siberian prison courtyard little larger than the cell he inhabited, Navalny notes the fragile beauty of snowflakes drifting through the barbed wire. This moving image could serve as a tableau for the book. There is no question of his bravery and the genuineness of his conviction. Brilliant, witty, tender, with a gift for public oratory, Navalny was a champion of a free democracy. He might have made the great liberalizing leader of Russia who could have changed everything. But that future was extinguished. We have, instead, the image of a snowflake drifting down through barbed wire.
