Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny expected to die in custody, according to his memoirs, which were compiled posthumously. “I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here,” Navalny wrote in his diary while in custody in March 2022.
The ‘New Yorker’ published excerpts from Navalny’s memoirs in advance. The new book, titled ‘Patriot’, is based on Navalny’s diary entries from prison and the period before. It will be released on October 22.
“There will be no one to say goodbye”
He clearly had a clear idea of how he would spend his death. “There will be no one to say goodbye,” Navalny wrote. But he didn’t seem afraid of it. In a message dated January 17, 2022, Navalny wrote: “The only thing we have to fear is that we will give up our homeland to let it be plundered by a gang of liars, thieves and hypocrites.”
Sitting under Putin’s photo for hours for ‘discipline’
In a post dated July 1, 2022, Navalny summarized a typical daily routine: waking up at 6 a.m., having breakfast at 6:20 a.m. and going to work at 6:40 a.m. “At work you sit at the sewing machine on a stool below knee height for seven hours,” he explains. “After work you sit for a few hours on a wooden bench under a portrait of Putin. They call this ‘disciplinary activity’.”
The Kremlin critic began writing his memoirs after a poison attack in 2020, which left him treated in a Berlin hospital for several months. The following year, Navalny returned to Russia, where he was arrested and sentenced to 19 years in prison.
Navalny wanted to “make sacrifices” by returning home
The last diary entry published in advance by the ‘New Yorker’ is dated January 17, 2024. In it, Navalny answers questions from fellow prisoners and prison guards about why he returned to Russia. ‘I didn’t want to give up or betray my country. If our beliefs are to mean anything, we must be willing to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary.”
Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, died on February 16, 2024 in a Russian prison camp in the Arctic. Navalny’s supporters and numerous Western politicians blame Russian leaders and President Vladimir Putin for the opposition figure’s death.
Source: Krone
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