How Aleksei Navalny’s Prison Diaries Got Published
How Aleksei Navalny’s Prison Diaries Got Published
In his posthumous memoir, compiled with help from his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny faced the fact that Vladimir Putin might succeed in silencing him. The book will keep “his legacy alive,” Navalnaya said.
Aleksei A. Navalny knew he would likely die in prison.
In messages to his supporters posted on social media, Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, often struck a hopeful note about the future of his country, or a comic one, joking about the absurdities and indignities of prison life.
But in the journal entries he managed to write and smuggle out of prison, he was more introspective, and blunt: “I knew from the outset that I would be imprisoned for life — either the rest of my life or until the end of the life of this regime,” Navalny wrote in his diary in March 2022. “I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here.”
He reflected on what that would mean: missing birthdays, anniversaries, his children’s graduations. Never meeting his grandchildren. The thought made him want to scream and smash things, he wrote. But then he thought of other Russian dissidents who had suffered similar fates. “I resigned myself and accept it,” he wrote.
Reminder that Navalny was a Russian ultra-nationalist who referred to Chechens as cockroaches.
You don't need to eulogize a nazi, even if another nazi didn't like them very much.
There's even opponents to Putin who've had more electoral success than getting 27% in a mayoral election.
So there's a few things to note; firstly, that this article isn't a eulogy, but about the smuggling and content of his diaries. Regardless of his political positions, those diaries are a fascinating artifact in their own right, especially his perspectives on Russian politics, and the experience of a political prisoner in the Russian prison system.
Also worth consideration is that his views/rhetoric shifted massively over the years, and he became far more liberal as he aged. People who manage to shift away from the far right are a valuable resource in understanding the thought process of other people who think like that.
Indeed. The same wikipedia article says,
Navalny later regretted making the 2007 video.
And citing a source for that claim. His views changed and the cockroach thing didn't represent his later views, as they shifted.
There's even opponents to Putin who've had more electoral success than getting 27% in a mayoral election.
And I'm sure you have the list at hand and ready to inform me, since me, a Russian who lived in Russia until the war started, has no idea who the hell you're talking about. Please include the examples after 2010 at least, the political activity before that is not super relevant.
Media Bias/Fact Check - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for Media Bias/Fact Check:
MBFC: Least Biased - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: Very High - United States of America
Wikipedia about this sourceNew York Times - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for New York Times:
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
Wikipedia about this source