“Dying really didn’t hurt.” These are the opening words of Patriot, the posthumously published autobiography of Alexei Navalny. We know that he died. And this book tells the story of his death—how he approached it, how he prepared for it, and how he conquered it. Navalny’s memoir is that of a man who consciously walks toward death. It is a gospel—but an autobiographical one.
Though Navalny’s memoir is that of a man consciously walking toward death, Patriot begins lightly and humorously. Navalny cracks jokes, recalls old anecdotes, and shares detailed stories from his childhood. He painstakingly recreates the atmosphere of the Soviet Union and the broken Russia of the early 1990s. At times, it reads like a beautifully crafted novel. Here is the author as a little boy, traveling to a village near Chernobyl. Here he is, bundled in his warmest clothes, climbing onto a freezing bus to return home from kindergarten. Here he is, being robbed by an older classmate—Navalny, a nerd who doesn’t like to fight but loves to read, unsure of how to react.
The book begins this way because the author still has time. In August 2020, Navalny was poisoned with Novichok—but it failed. He recovers in Berlin and then Schwarzwald, Germany. He relearns how to walk, how to hold a pen, and prepares to return to Russia.
It is during this time that Navalny begins writing this book, Patriot. He still has enough time to joke, to draw historical parallels, to craft an enjoyable read.
I was probably one of the first to read her in the original, pure Russian version. Alexei’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, was very worried that the file might be stolen—so about a month ago, she asked me to fly from New York to Vilnius, Lithuania, to read the typeset manuscript there. As I began the book, Alexei’s style was immediately recognizable—it felt as though I could actually hear his voice. But that was only the beginning.
In January 2021, Navalny flies back to Russia and is arrested immediately at the Moscow airport. In the book, he explains why he returned, the same way he did in his previous writings and interviews: It is his choice, his Golgotha; this is his sacrifice for his beautiful future Russia.
He continues writing the autobiography in the same tone up until he describes what may be the most important and cherished moment in his life: meeting his wife, Yulia. This is the funniest and most uplifting part of the book. Navalny is in prison when he writes it—separated from his wife. The reader knows, reading it now, that this separation will be forever. But it seems Navalny does not know this yet. Or does he?
The next chapters are Navalny in a rush—he’s chasing time, hurrying to finish. He skips details, cramming several years onto a single page.
I first met Navalny in 2010. I still remember that bold young man, freshly returned from Yale, walking into my office with the exclamation, “At last, I’ve made it to my beloved TV Rain!” At the time, I was running Russia’s only opposition TV station. Navalny was trying to speak like Barack Obama—though it came off a bit exaggerated. But soon, he learned how to be a true politician. The following decade, from 2010 to 2020, was the most active, most remarkable period of his political life. During those years, he became Putin’s chief adversary, Russia’s most popular politician, and a hero to young Russians. He infuriated thousands of officials and fell out with hundreds of journalists.
