The Navalny Family during rehab
courtesy of Navalny Family Archive
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courtesy of Navalny Family Archive
The Navalny Family during rehab
courtesy of Navalny Family Archive
In the opening moments of the 2022, Oscar-winning documentary Navalny, Russian opposition leader Alexei Nalvany is asked by the film’s director about the possibility of him dying. Nalvany avoids answering the question.
“Daniel no, no way, it’s like you’re making movie for the case of my death. I’m ready to answer your question, [but] let it be [in] another movie, movie number two, let’s make a trailer out of this movie.”
That film, in reality, wasn’t a trailer for a second movie. It was a chronicle of Navalny’s final moments of freedom, before he was imprisoned for the rest of his life.
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Fighting back.
By the time Navalny died in a Russian penal colony north of the Arctic Circle last February, he’d been a powerful opposition force in Russia for more than a decade.
During those years Navalny chronicled government corruption on his blog and YouTube channel, ran for mayor of Moscow, and tried to challenge Putin for President in 2018.
He was barred from running, but as he told 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl in 2017…he wouldn’t let the Russian government intimidate him.
“These are people, who are trying to steal my country, and I strongly disagree with it. I’m not going to be a kind of speechless person right now. I’m not going to keep silent.”
In 2020, during a flight over Siberia, Navalny collapsed, a moment that is captured in the documentary.
It’s believed that Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novachok. he recovered from the attack in Germany, and was arrested almost immediately after he returned to Moscow.
In the final moments of Navalny, Alexei gives a serious answer to the director’s question about the risk he was taking.
“My message for the situation when I am killed is very simple, [to] not give up.”
A look at his memoir.
In his posthumous memoir, Patriot, Navalny wrote – “If they do finally whack me, the book will be my memorial.”
Though his voice has fallen silent, his wife Yulia Navalnaya is sharing his message. She now leads the movement her husband started, fighting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power.
She spoke with NPR’s Ari Shapiro about her husband’s book, and legacy. For Navalnaya, it’s a look into him in his entirety; including his unshakeable sense of positivity.
“I think that it was a kind of his superpower,” Navalnaya told Shapiro. “That’s why he was so popular. That’s why people love him. That’s why he had so many supporters. From one side, he was the leader of the Russian opposition. He was a serious politician.”
But as he shares in the book, Navalny also wanted to be the ordinary guy next door.
“He was really funny. It’s not about the book. It’s about all of his life. I spent more than 25 years with him, and all the time, he was very funny and he was very easy. And he laughed a lot during very difficult moments in our life. And it helped a lot and it gave him a lot of strength.”
Listen to the full interview to learn what Navalnaya learned about her late husband from his writing, and her reflections after losing him.
This episode was produced by Michael Levitt. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.