Elaine Furniss
30 March 2025
Alexei Navalny. Patriot, a memoir. Penguin Random House, 2024.
Navalny’s memoir covers his fight against the tyranny of Russian leadership under Putin, written in Germany and in Russia up until the time of Navalny’s untimely death at the hands of the Kremlin in an Arctic prison on 16 February 2024.
In some senses this is a War and Peace kind of memoir. It’s long and detailed, it uncovers the underbelly of Russian politics and it provides a vision of a peaceful, equitable Russia, not yet seen.
Divided into four parts – Near Death, Formation, The Work, and Prison – it starts with his Novichok poisoning in Tomsk, Siberia, and subsequent transfer to Germany at the behest of Chancellor Merkel. He describes the experience of the poisoning and subsequent effects, “Then I died … Spoiler alert: actually, I didn’t”, and recovery.
Navalny then recounts early life experiences as a catalyst for strident opposition to Putin, “I wanted to see a politician appear who would undertake all sorts of interesting projects and cooperate directly with the Russian people … and one day I realised that I could be that person myself.”
He uses mainly digital means in his work with the Anti-Corruption Foundation, and later, Russia of the Future, to expose the untold wealth of Russian officials in contrast to the sparse lifestyles of the populace.
There are echoes of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as the book then becomes a prison diary of what happens to Navalny up until his death.
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What does Navalny have in common with those we regard as everyday saints and heroes in the last hundred years? He could have opted for relative freedom elsewhere but chooses instead to return to the place of concern to fight directly (think Bonhoeffer, Aung San Sui Kyi, Martin Luther King).
In anticipating the day of his return, he says: “I’ve decided to start a new life, the way you do every Monday and every January 1.”
Other reviewers have audited the book to find out just “how Christian” Navalny is: A Russian communist atheist up until the birth of his daughter Dasha; his poignant yet funny comments on keeping Lent in prison; and his philosophy of life, which is expect the worst, hope for the best and let Jesus and his family take care of the rest.
However, I found enticing the themes of bravery, valuing the present moment and investing in humour in the face of deprivation, for example in his actions, debate and keen wit in court and with fellow prisoners.
There’s pathos in his stories of prison cuisine with extremely limited ingredients: the detailed descriptions of ways in which other inmates can cut up a slice of bread before adding noodles or condiments and heating on a radiator. In Kolchugino Pretrial Prison in Vladimir Region, he’s overjoyed that he’s been able to bring his plastic jug with a heating element, useless as he first assessed it, given that access to the prison shop is not open to him.
There’s his humility as a person of faith, in apologising to other prisoners for overstepping the mark, which often makes them more wary of him.
He critiques Russian leader Gorbachev’s irresolution and half-heartedness but also cites him as one to whom many owe their freedom and who also proved to be totally incorruptible.
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He critiques Brezhnev’s sending 26,000 Russian soldiers to their demise in Afghanistan, while playing political games with the US, and although keen on Yeltsin at first, sees his roll over to Putin as a product of the fact that the working day ended about midday and then he was into the vodka.
He recounts how after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Russian citizens were forced to plant vegetables nearby to prove to the West that there’s nothing wrong here.
In 2025, perhaps this dense and nerdy Russian memoir can be a playbook for being brave in the face of alarming political developments in the West and elsewhere, where current political events in the US, China and Russia, echo the Kremlin’s initiating active measures, “Get rid of the person, you get rid of the problem”. As Navalny explains, when corruption is the very foundation of a regime, those who battle it are extremists.
This a memoir but may also be a manual for learning what to do when one feels impotent, dissipated, fruitless. Navalny dares us to be brave, funny, living in the moment, and with faith and hope. And isn’t that the essence of the Christian message to which we are called?
Elaine Furniss attends St Philip’s Collingwood and Benedictus Church in Canberra online.
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