In new memoir: Navalny predicted his death in Moscow prison

NEW YORK: Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who was President Vladimir Putin’s top political opponent before his death in February, believed he would die in prison, according to his posthumous memoir which will be released on October 22.

The New Yorker published excerpts from the book, featuring writing from Navalny’s prison diary and earlier. “I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here,” he wrote on March 22, 2022.

“There will not be anybody to say goodbye to ... All anniversaries will be celebrated without me. I’ll never see my grandchildren.” Navalny had been serving a 19-year prison sentence on “extremism” charges in an Arctic penal colony. His death on February 16 at age 47 drew widespread condemnation, with many blaming Putin. Navalny was arrested in January 2021 upon returning to Russia after suffering a major health emergency from being poisoned in 2020.

“The only thing we should fear is that we will surrender our homeland to be plundered by a gang of liars, thieves, and hypocrites,” he wrote on January 17, 2022.

The diary reveals the punishing toll that the prison regime and his hunger strike exerted on his body, according to further extracts published in the London Times.

“Today I feel crushed. We went to the bathhouse. I could hardly tolerate standing under the hot shower. My legs gave way. It’s evening now and I have no strength at all. I just want to lie down, and for the first time I’m feeling emotionally and morally down,” he wrote in one entry.

The excerpts capture the loneliness of imprisonment, but also a touch of humour.

For instance, on July 1, 2022, Navalny outlined his typical day: wake up at 6:00 am, breakfast at 6:20 am and start work at 6:40 am.

“At work, you sit for seven hours at the sewing machine on a stool below knee height,” he wrote.

“After work, you continue to sit for a few hours on a wooden bench under a portrait of Putin. This is called ‘disciplinary activity.’”

The book, entitled “Patriot,” will be released by US publisher Knopf, which is also planning a Russian version. “It’s impossible to read Navalny’s prison diary without being outraged by the tragedy of his suffering, and by his death,” wrote New Yorker editor David Remnick.

In the last excerpt published in the magazine, dated January 17, 2024, Navalny responds to the question asked to him by his fellow inmates and prison guards: why did he return to Russia?

“I don’t want to give up my country or betray it. If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary,” he said. Speculating on the fallout of any attempt to assassinate him, Navalny said his memoirs “will be my memorial.”

“If they whack me, my family will get the advance and royalties that, I hope, there will be,” he wrote.

“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, it is hard to imagine what would,” he joked.

“What more could the marketing department ask for?”