He was Vladimir Putin’s most tenacious opponent and the Kremlin’s public enemy number 1. Alexei Navalny tells his story in Patriothis memoirs published this Tuesday posthumously, eight months after his death at the Kharp penitentiary center, in an Arctic prison. The 47-year-old Russian citizen was serving a nineteen-year prison sentence for extremism after multiple arrests and an attempted poisoning during his life as an anti-corruption activist.
A childhood spent in a village near Chernobyl, the awakening from his coma, an arrest in Russia… In this autobiography written during the twists and turns of his life, Alexeï Navalny reveals events more or less known to the public, adding his perspective staff.
Chernobyl and the first experience of the regime’s lies
This is the first time that he faces the lies of the Russian regime, which at the time was still the USSR. After the Chernobyl explosion, the authorities tried to reassure the population, hide the extent of the damage, and track down scientists who knew the reality of the disaster.
Alexeï Navalny, then aged 9 and living with his family in the small town of Obninsk, 700 kilometers from the nuclear power plant, wondered about seeing soldiers “dressed from head to toe in curious white overalls” with gas masks on their heads which “gave them the appearance of a strange species of animal”. Soldiers who checked the cars using a “special metal rod” to measure the radioactivity level of the vehicles and their passengers. The objective: to identify the “atomic scientists” who, “despite the lies disseminated by the media”, had “made their families get into the car to reach Obninsk”.
“The authorities lied when they claimed there was no danger,” remembers Alexeï Navalny in his memoirs. This explosion which occurred on April 26, 1986 “was the first major event, the first lesson of my life and influenced my vision of the world”, explains the activist who then became aware that “hypocrisy and lies have invaded the whole country” following the event.
The coma experience and Yulia’s love
“Dying didn’t hurt,” begins Alexeï Navalny in his first chapter. On August 20, 2020 while on a flight to Moscow watching an episode of Rick et Mortythe activist involved at the time with the Anti-Corruption Foundation felt “cold sweats”. “There’s something wrong, I’ve never experienced anything like this. (…) I simply have the strange impression that my whole body is giving up on me,” he remembers. He is the victim of poisoning by a Novichok nerve agent. “I’m about to die,” he said to himself, comparing his sensations to a kiss from the “dementors of Harry Potter “. Alexeï Navalny will wake up in pain after “a sort of interminable and particularly realistic journey through the circles of Hell”. He was taken care of by a hospital in Berlin which put him in a coma for eighteen days, to which were added “26 days of intensive care and 34 days in hospital”.
“Youlia, you saved me. » The love for his wife Yulia Navalnaïa emerges several times in his posthumous work, and in particular in this post written from prison on September 21, 2020. He recounts his emergence from the coma and how, while he does not “understand what is happening” around him, his “only pastime is waiting for His coming (sic). » “Each of his visits literally had therapeutic virtues” and “this experience taught me in the shadow of a doubt, love heals and restores life”.
First chapter from prison
“A twist of theater. » This is how the activist introduces his eighth chapter written from prison. On January 18, 2021, the day after his return to Russia, he was arrested by the Russian authorities when he got off the plane. Alexeï Navalny goes from his hospital bed to a cell bench and always seems to take the misadventures of his life in perspective. Before returning to Russia, however, he had these “butterflies in his stomach”, a certain apprehension in the face of an “uncertain future” which did not prevent him from wanting to return home. He even makes plans for when he is “at home”, such as reading “at least one book per month, and half in a foreign language”.
Until the end, he reasoned, believing that his arrest would not be in the interest of the very established tenant of the Kremlin. These hours before getting on the plane are, however, the last moments of freedom of his life. When he arrived at customs at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport, after a heated exchange with the authorities, he finally agreed to follow the police. “I kiss Yulia again and I set off, accompanied by a police escort,” he wrote. When he was taken to prison, he said “with some smugness that Putin was not the only one to be carried around Moscow in a procession, with flashing lights”. ” Mattress. Pillow. Bowl. Spoon. » These are the utensils he was entitled to once he was taken to his cell. He then asks for “at least” a pen and paper. “That’s how I came to write this chapter,” he concludes.
The last note before death
Alexeï Navalny was sentenced in February 2021 to three and a half years in prison for defamation. He was then tried again under different pretexts during trials held directly in penitentiary centers, without witnesses, without journalists. In March 2022, he was sentenced to nine years of “strict regime” colony, then in 2023 to nineteen years of “special regime” colony. With each judgment, Alexeï Navalny was transported to a new prison. On January 17, almost a month to the day before his death and three years after returning to Russia, the opponent of Vladimir Putin wrote his final post, subsequently deprived of material.
Our file on Russia
“For three years, I have been answering the same question (…): “Why did you come home?” “, he says before continuing: “In answering this question, (…) I am exasperated with myself, because I am incapable of finding the right words that would make everyone understand and put an end to these incessant questions. » “I refuse to abandon my country or betray it. If your beliefs have meaning for you, you must be ready to fight for them and make sacrifices if necessary,” calls the man who paid for his political commitments with his life. Although he says he is “obviously not happy” about being imprisoned, he promises never to give up his ideas, “nor (his) homeland”. “Victory is inevitable,” adds the one who is still unaware that he is living his last days.
