When I picked up Patriot, the posthumously published memoir of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, my mind was in a morass of worry, despair, and disgust with the state of the nation. Several people whose judgment I trust had told me Patriot was good; I didn't realize how inspiring I would find it. Or how troubling some of the parallels between oligarch-controlled Russia and our own country would be.
It's an unusual memoir in that Navalny is killed by Putin about halfway through. The chapters after that consist of Navalny's earlier writings from prison. But it begins like any normal bio: parents, schooling, career (he was a lawyer), his gradual leaning into politics, and his eventual metamorphosis into the energetic and charismatic leader of the anti-corruption movement in Russia. As he puts it: "I went into politics to fight against the people who were wrecking our country."
And he was so successful that Putin had no choice but eventually to kill him.
What was remarkable about Navalny was his indomitable courage. He and members of his movement were constantly harassed, family members were jailed, he was jailed multiple times—and he was poisoned. He campaigned with three Federal Security Service thugs tailing him, waiting for a convenient time to let him have it, once and for all. Navalny said, "One day, I simply made the decision not to be afraid." He felt his life's work was to fight the corruption pervasive in the Russian leadership and that's what he did. "All the best things in the world have been created by brave nerds,” he wrote. He dealt with the indignities, the endless boredom, the Kafkaesque regulations, and the wracking solitude of prison with remarkable equanimity—and humor—declaring he was not depressed because he was made for this fight.
His bravery is potent inspiration. Yes, he was killed, but no one who knows what he did (or who reads this book) will believe he died in vain.
Carin Pratt is one of the remarkably knowledgeable crew at the Norwich Bookstore—and an ardent recommender of books. Before she landed in these parts, she spent 27 years at CBS News, including two decades as the executive producer of Face the Nation.