“Patriot” is a shocking book, something completely out of the ordinary. It starts in the most dramatic way possible, with Alexei Navalny, the lawyer and opposition politician, telling us about when he died. Memoirs that start with the main character dying, and then tell about it? It makes me sit up in my chair. Here we are really into creative storytelling. BEHIND LOCK AND BLOCK: Alexei Navalny smiles at the press photographers in a courtroom in Moscow, 2017. Photo: STR / AP In 2022, he collapses on a flight to Moscow. He is certain that his life is over, every cell in his body calls out to him. But no. Navalny does not die, but it is not far away. To his own astonishment, he comes to himself. He is in a hospital in Germany, and is being treated for life-threatening poisoning, probably from the notorious Russian nerve agent Novichok. The Putin regime’s favorite method of getting rid of troublesome individuals. Against all odds, Navalny gets back on his feet. He decides to defy all warnings about what lies ahead. He got on a plane to Moscow. Here he was arrested at the airport, and he never got out again. On 16 February 2024, Aleksey Navalny was reported dead from a penal colony in Siberia. Alexei Navalny’s death was met with grief by people from across the continent in February this year. And we, the readers, naturally know how this ends, something that gives this book, this highly personal self-portrait, a weight and an intensity that is sometimes unbearable. Several times I feel like shouting: Don’t do it, Aleksei! Give up! Bend over! Save life! But it doesn’t help. And Navalny is fully aware of how this can end, but he does it anyway. And the question one is left with as a reader is: Where does he get his strength from? What in the world drives him? Facts about Aleksej Navalny Russian regime critic and blogger (b. 1976) with millions of followers on Twitter and YouTube. Trained as a lawyer. Married and father of two. In 2007, started an anti-corruption campaign by buying into state-controlled companies in order to be able to ask critical questions at the general meetings. Has organized a number of demonstrations against President Vladimir Putin. Excluded from the liberal party Jabloko in 2008, where he had been active since 2000, for damaging the party with his nationalist tendencies. Leader of the small Partija Progressa – the Progress Party – since its creation in 2013. Received 27 percent of the vote in the mayoral election in Moscow in September 2013. Has been arrested and convicted of embezzlement and money laundering, charges he himself claims were politically motivated. He has also been arrested and convicted for participating in illegal demonstrations several times. Wanted to stand as a presidential candidate and challenge Putin in the 2018 election, but the candidacy was not approved. On 20 August 2020, he became acutely ill on a passenger plane en route from Siberia to Moscow. Two days later he was evacuated to Berlin after strong Western pressure. Tests have shown that he was poisoned with the nerve agent novichok. On 17 January 2021, Navalny was arrested when he returned to Russia. He was sentenced in February 2021 to serve 2.5 years in a labor camp for breaching the reporting obligation following a conditional sentence from 2014. The sentence was based on a fraud case that Navalny rejects as forgery. In the spring of 2021, he led a hunger strike lasting over three weeks with demands for better health care. The strike was ended at the request of the doctors and after large demonstrations of support in Russia. On 26 April 2021, a court in Moscow decided that Navalny’s foundation had to stop all activities while they waited for a legal decision on whether the foundation was extremist. On 30 April 2021, the Navalny Foundation appeared on the extremist list of Russia’s financial monitoring service Rosfinmonitoring. On 16 February 2024, the prison authorities in the Yamal-Nenets region, where Navalny is imprisoned, announced that he had died. They state that he lost consciousness after a walk and died. (Source: NTB, news) Tyggis and Chernobyl Navalny told about his upbringing as a young soldier in the Soviet Union. Early on, he discovers that all the cool comes from the outside. In particular, he is fascinated by the quality of foreign chewing gum and pop. Chernobyl is another turning point where the lies in Soviet propaganda unravel. A literary rebel, “Patriot” is excellent as a literary self-portrait, one that changes as it becomes, episodic and diary-like. And the tone and genre change along the way, as Navalny’s living conditions change. First we meet the politician who writes about himself, as part of the project to fight against widespread nepotism in Russia. The last half of the book is written in captivity, it is a diary entry that has somehow been smuggled out of the prison. Here Navalny’s value shrinks, and it hurts to see this vital, active man being subjected to the oppressive routines of the notorious prison system in Russia. These will be the last pictures of Alexei Navalny before he died on 16 February 2024. In a video link from prison, he joked about getting a share of the judge’s high salary. Even in these difficult times, Navalny manages in an incredible way to keep his enthusiasm and vitality up, among other things through a powerful and peculiarly Russian sense of humour. He turns out to be a reading rebel. He derives much of his strength and conviction from literature, from stories in all forms. He himself complains with a twinkle in his eye that his book is still written as a prison diary. When he is seen in isolation, he stays focused by memorizing Hamlet’s monologue. Or to recite Bergpreika in four different languages. His story then also becomes an echo of all kinds of stories about the individual who is suffocated by the inhumane system. From “The New Testament” to “Gladiator”, from “An enemy of the people” to “The Process”. And, of course, “1984”. Navalny’s wife, to whom he writes several intense declarations of love, is called Julia for good measure, just like the great love of Winston Smith. Alexei Navalny and his wife Yulia met in 1998. Here in a courtroom in Kirov, Russia in 2013. Photo: AP God and Fatherland So what is it then that keeps Navalny going, in a world that shrinks more and more, towards the death that The regime has decided for him? The answer is as simple and as complicated as it is idealism. The title says it all. Alexei Navalny is a patriot, he loves his country and the Russian people more than he fears Putin and his bandits. What keeps him going is the dream of a Russia that is free, rich and happy. In addition, he finds strength in religion, the faith in God that he has found his way back to. Røysta fra grava “Patriot” is an uneven and brilliant book, a book that is physically and mentally exhausting to read, and impossible to forget. It’s like a friend you know is going to lose his life, no matter how good he is at keeping his spirits up. Rarely have I closed a book with such a feeling of elated sorrow. It is true that Alexei Navalny is dead, but he is not gone. He lives on in this book and in the minds of those who have read it. I don’t think “Patriot” is the end for Putin and his rulers. But it wouldn’t surprise me if it was the beginning of the end. news reports Title: “Patriot. An autobiography” Author: Aleksej Navalny Publisher: Gunnar Nyquist Genre: Nonfiction Publisher: Gyldendal Number of pages: 496 Published: 22 October 2024 Hi! My name is Ola Hegdal, and I read and report books for news. Preferably crime and suspense literature, or non-fiction. Feel free to read my message about “The Anomaly” by Hervé Le Tellier, “Rasande lys” by Nikolaj Frobenius or “A perfect mother” by Alex Dahl. Published 21.10.2024, at 15.59
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“Patriot. An autobiography” by Aleksey Navalny – news Culture and entertainment
