Navalny left behind memoir, to be published this October
During the years leading up to his death in a Russian prison, Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, was writing a memoir about his life and work as a pro-democracy activist.
Titled “Patriot,” the memoir will be published in the United States by Knopf on Oct. 22, with a first printing of half a million copies, and a simultaneous release in multiple countries.
Navalny, who rose to global prominence as a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, resisted the Kremlin’s repeated attempts to silence him through physical harm, arrests and imprisonment in a remote Arctic penal colony, where he died in February at 47.
The book, telling his story in his own words, comes as a final show of defiance, his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said in a statement, and could have a galvanizing effect on his followers.
“This book is a testament not only to Alexei’s life, but to his unwavering commitment to the fight against dictatorship — a fight he gave everything for, including his life,” Navalnaya said.
In a news release, Knopf said the memoir “expresses Navalny’s total conviction that change cannot be resisted and will come.”
Navalny wrote the entire memoir himself, dictating some parts, and Navalnaya is working with the publisher to edit and finalize the manuscript, according to a Knopf representative. A Russian-language edition will be available, the representative said.
The project is a more sensitive endeavor than most memoirs by high-profile political figures. Navalny’s supporters and his team, which has carried on his work, continue to draw the scrutiny of Russian authorities as they direct criticism at the Kremlin against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine.
Navalny began working on his memoir in 2020, after surviving a near-fatal poisoning with a nerve agent, an attack that Western intelligence officials believed was a state-sponsored assassination attempt. The book covers his youth, his rise as a political activist, his marriage and family, his political career, and the attempts on his life and attacks on those close to him, according to the publisher.
Navalny had political aspirations but was barred from a presidential run after a conviction on fraud charges by a Russian court, widely seen as politically motivated. He exerted his political influence in other ways: organizing protests against Putin and building offices and investigative teams across the country to uncover corruption.
Navalny wrote much of the memoir while he was in Germany recovering from poisoning. In February 2021, he returned to Russia, knowing that he would likely be detained or attacked again. He was arrested at the airport and later charged with embezzlement and fraud in a trial that international observers concluded was also politically motivated. In August 2023, he was charged with “extremism” and given a 19-year sentence. His harsh treatment in Russia’s severe penal colonies included lack of medical care and many stints in solitary confinement.