Alexei Navalny: The Patriot
Thursday, July 31, 2025, 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM

With humor and courage, the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny began writing his memoir shortly after being poisoned in Serbia by the FSB, the successor to the KGB. Navalny was Vladimir Putin’s main adversary and most outspoken critic. He survived the attempt on his life, but refused to stay in the West where he was recuperating. The 47 year-old opposition leader flew back to Russia to fight on and was immediately arrested. “‘Do not be afraid, do not give up’, was his constant refrain, and he refused to betray his own counsel and principles,” writes David Remnick in The New Yorker. Navalny finished his autobiography from a jail cell in the Polar Wolf penal colony, once part of the Soviet Gulag system. He died there July 26, 2024. Remnick and Craig Kennedy, historian and Russia expert, will discuss the life and legacy of Alexei Navalny, and the supreme sacrifice he made in the name of a free Russia.

David Remnick Craig Kennedy

Further thinking 

PODCAST: The New Yorker Radio Hour, presented by David Remnick

BOOK: Patriot: A Memoir, by Alexei Navalny