“I will spend the rest of my days in prison and I will die here,” wrote Alexeï Navalny in March 2022, according to extracts published Friday from the posthumous memoirs of Vladimir Putin’s number one opponent, who died in a Russian jail in February.
“There will be no one to say goodbye to […] All birthdays will be celebrated without me. I will never see my grandchildren. I will not be the subject of any family history. I will not be in any photos,” adds Alexeï Navalny on March 22, 2022, in this prison diary, extracts of which were published by the magazine The New Yorkerbefore publication in bookstores on October 22.
Upon his return to Russia in January 2021, after a serious poisoning, the anti-corruption activist was immediately arrested. He was serving a 19-year prison sentence for “extremism” in an Arctic penal colony when he died at the age of 47 on February 16.
“The only thing we should fear is abandoning our homeland to the plundering of a bunch of liars, thieves and hypocrites,” he wrote on January 17, 2022.
In the extracts, where traits of humor emerge despite the solitude and confinement, the opponent recounts, 1er July 2022, a typical day: get up at 6 a.m., breakfast at 6:20 a.m. and start of work at 6:40 a.m.
“At work, you sit for seven hours at the sewing machine, on a stool lower than knee height,” he describes.
“After work, you continue to sit for a few hours on a wooden bench under a portrait of Putin. This is what we call a “disciplinary activity”,” describes Alexeï Navalny.
The book, titled Patriotis released worldwide on October 22, and a Russian version is planned according to the American publisher Knopf. The death of the activist provoked unanimous condemnations from Western capitals, with many leaders pointing the finger of blame at Vladimir Putin.
For David Remnick, editor-in-chief of New Yorker“it is impossible to read Mr. Navalny’s prison diary without being outraged by the tragedy of his suffering and his death.”
In the last journal entry published by the New Yorkeron January 17, 2024, the opponent confided that a question kept coming back to his fellow prisoners or certain prison officers: why did he return to Russia?
“I don’t want to abandon my country or betray it. If your beliefs are meaningful, you must be willing to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary,” he replies.