Patriot
A Memoir
Vladimir Putin knew better than to say his name, referring simply to “this person,” “the defendant,” and, after failing to assassinate him, “the Berlin clinic patient.” The late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny chose a more confrontational title for himself: patriot. Despite the term’s frequent misuse, it aptly conveys Navalny’s challenge to the “party of crooks and thieves” that currently runs his country.
Patriot is a vivid account of opposition politics under a brutal dictatorship. It is also, at its core, a love story. Navalny expresses deep and abiding love for his homeland, his political work, his wife, Yulia, and their children. These loves are all strengthened, as his prison writings attest, by his Christian faith.
Navalny’s love for Russia, from its rich literature to its melancholic landscapes, is evident throughout the book. He even affectionately refers to the ironies of the Russian national character, with its “bravado about enduring privation, which could so easily be avoided.” This becomes a point of pride in comparison with other nations: “Well, yes, we say, the Japanese do make good cars, but just let them try to assemble a functioning car from the spare parts of three others and some rusty scrap metal the way our neighbor Vasily managed to.”
