"I'm not ready for my son to be a martyr. ”，Alexei Navalny's mother said this in 2011, when Navalny was beginning to become the most active opposition politician in Russia. Thirteen years later, when news of her son's death in a remote penal colony within the Russian Arctic Circle spread around the world, she said she didn't want to hear any mourning. "On the 12th, when we went to visit my son, I saw him in prison. He is still alive, healthy and cheerful. ”
Navalny's team filled the void in his absence with similar words. "We have no reason to believe certain propaganda. They have lied, are lying, and will continue to lie, ", Navalny's longtime colleagueLeonid VolkovWrote. "Please don't rush to bury Alexey. ”
And who can blame them? Everyone knows what's at stake. Navalny went from anti-corruption activist to internet superstar to grassroots organizer to Russia's most famous political prisoner. Along the way, he endures numerous physical assaults, including one in which the nerve agent Novichok nearly kills him.
Navalny is a unique figure in Russia – although he would be outraged by such a depiction. He hoped to inspire ordinary people through his example to throw off some kind of yoke - the legacy of centuries of Russian imperial rule. Navalny owns a basket weaving factory on the outskirts of Moscow, studies law at a second-rate university, and if Navalny can get to the bottom of his power as a citizen, then no one can? In 2011, when Navalny became the leader of the massive street ** campaign that swept Russia, his slogan embodied this idea. "We exist! "He would shout at the tens of thousands of people. At one such event at the end of 2011, Navalny's roar was deafening.
"The only power ** is the people of the Russian Federation".
Now he's gone.
Navalny has gained a large following inside Russia through a thorough and understandable investigation into the corruption of Russia's top elites. He exposes shady dealings, opulent palaces, nepotism, and luxury yachts. After being poisoned with Novichok on his way to Siberia, he and journalist Christo Grozev beat one of their poisoners, an FSB, to make him confess what he had done.
He began his political career on the streets and then quickly moved on to other areas. In 2013, he ran for mayor of Moscow and won second place. Three years later, he tried to run for **, but was banned. He founded an organization called Anti-Corruption **, which opened regional chapters across the country and was subsequently declared an extremist in 2021, and he launched a campaign for Russians to participate in "smart voting" — voting for anyone in the United Russia party.
In the course of all this, he has undoubtedly maintained himself. Navalny is very serious about his work. Russia's Soviet legacy has done a lot of damage to the country, including its language and the way people who don't know it interact with each other. Listening to a politician or news anchor often requires the use of acronyms, passive voices, and technical language, as if they were talking about the intricacies of factory parts. Interpersonal interactions are dominated by doubt or fear.
In the last scene** filmed before his death, he looks haggard but still smiling, joking with the judge, who is also smiling. His life turned into endless court appearances and solitary confinement at the age of nearly thirty. The attack on him began in 2013 with a ** case. It continued to grow, and he returned to Russia almost immediately after receiving a near-fatal poisoning in Germany**. He was sentenced to 19 years in prison last year.
Now there are a lot of questions to ask: what does Navalny's death mean for Russia's troubled opposition, because there are so many ** deaths in Russia, while writers Vladimir Karamurza and activist Ilya Yashin, among others, are also serving prison sentences? What does this mean for the war in Ukraine? What does it mean for U.S. policy? Republicans in the US Congress have twisted themselves into a neo-isolationist force of nihilists whose only concern is to keep their leader, Donald Trump, away from them?
There will be time to ask those questions. But, right now, a man is dead. As news of Navalny's death spread through Russian social circles, there was an almost unspeakable sense of grief for Navalny's familyHis wife Yulia, his parents, his children Daria and Zahar. “
In an interview about Navalny's work in the 2022 Oscar-winning documentary**, Navalny was asked what message he wanted to convey if he was killed. He replied that his message was simple:"You can't give up. If they [decide to kill me], it means that we are very strong. We need to harness this power. 。All that is needed for victory is for the good guys to do nothing. ”，This simple yet powerful emotion guided Navalny's life and became an even more powerful message in his death – one that inspires Russians to do more to build a better future.
After the death of Alexei Navalny, people gathered in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin, holding signs.