Listen

Moscow (AP). Russian dissident wrote in March 2022 Alexey Navalnyaccording to their parts posthumous memoir Has been published before the release of. Patriot On bookstore shelves October 22.

“There will be no one to say goodbye to (…) All birthdays will be celebrated without me.” I will never be able to see my grandchildren. I will not be the subject of any family story. “I won’t be in any pictures”Navalny, the main rival of Russian President Vladimir Putin, wrote this in his diary from jail on 22 March 2022.

Upon returning to Russia in January 2021, following severe poisoning, the activist was detained. He was serving a 19-year sentence for “extremism” in the Arctic penal colony, where he died on 16 February, aged 47. “Don’t be afraid of anything. This is our country and this is our only country,” he wrote on January 17, 2022. “The only thing we should fear is leaving our motherland to be plundered by gangs of liars and thieves.”

In excerpts from his diary, where traits of humor emerge despite loneliness and confinement, Navalny describes a typical day on July 1, 2022: getting up at 6, having breakfast at 6:20 and starting work at 6:40 . “You sit for seven hours at a sewing machine, on a bench below knee height,” he described.

“After work, you still sit for a few hours on a wooden bench under Putin’s portrait. It’s called ‘disciplinary activity,'” he said.

He ironically compared himself to the Russian president: “Putin leaves ministers sitting in the waiting room for about six hours, and my lawyers have to wait for five or six hours to meet me.”

The book, titled “Patriot,” will be published worldwide on October 22, and the American publishing house Knopf is planning a Russian edition. Navalny’s death drew unanimous condemnation from Western governments.

To David Remnick, editor-in-chief of the magazine the new Yorkerwhich published a preview, “It is impossible to read Mr. Navalny’s prison diary without feeling outrage at the suffering he suffered and the tragedy of his death.”

In the last entry of his diary published by the new Yorker On January 17, 2024, the opponent expected to be asked a question by other prisoners or some prison officials: Why did he return to Russia? “I don’t want to leave or betray my country. If your convictions make sense, you must be willing to defend them and make sacrifices if necessary.He replied.

AP and AFP agencies

Nation

according to criteria of