For years, Alexei Navalny remained clear on a key message: he was a Russian F opposition he was determined politician and to stay in Russia.
Exile, he believed, would lead to political irrelevance, and calling on Russians to oppose Vladimir Putin from the safety of the west would mark him as a hypocrite.
Navalny, who died last week aged 47, while serving a lengthy prison term in an Arctic penal colony, stuck to this belief as the political climate in Russia deteriorated and the space for dissent narrowed ever further, and even after he was poisoned with novichok in 2020, leading to his ill-fated decision to return early the next year.
Russian authorities had tried various methods to shut Navalny up for more than a decade. Initially, some in the Kremlin thought he could be allowed to remain on the political scene as a release valve for disgruntled urban Russians. A dangerously good performance in the 2013 Moscow mayoral vote put paid to that. Instead, authorities moved to launch various criminal cases against him.
In 2014, Navalny was put under house arrest and his brother, Oleg, was given a three-and-a-half-year jail term, widely seen as a way to put pressure on him. Some suggested he might be more use to the opposition movement abroad and at liberty rather than in Russia and potentially sent to join his brother in jail.
Late that year, padding around his small apartment in a Moscow suburb wearing an ankle tag, Navalny scoffed at the idea that it might be better to leave. "If I want people to trust me then I have to share the risks with them and stay here. How can I call on them to take part in protests and so on if they are risking things and I am not?" he said.
この記事は The Guardian Weekly の February 23, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は The Guardian Weekly の February 23, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
If kids get protected from online harm, how about the rest of us?
The Australian government has proposed a ban on social media for all citizens under 16.
'It's not drought - it's looting'
Spain is increasingly either parched or flooded - and one group is profiting from these extremes: the thirsty multinational companies forcing angry citizens to pay for water in bottles.
Life in the grey Zone
Neonatal care has advanced so far that babies born as early as 21 weeks have survived. But is this type of care always the right thing to do?
Out of tune? Band Aid under fire for Africa tropes as it turns 40
Forty years ago this month, a group of pop stars gathered at a west London studio to record a single that would raise millions, inspire further starry projects, and ultimately change charity fundraising in the UK.
Deaths shine spotlight on risks of drinking on party trail
Vang Vieng is an unlikely party hub. Surrounded by striking limestone mountains and caves in central Laos, it morphed from a small farming town to a hedonistic tourist destination in the early 2000s.
Different strokes My strange and emotional week with an AI pet
Moflin can develop a personality and build a rapport with its owner - and doesn't need food or exercise. But is it comforting or alienating?
Strike zone Waking up to the rising threat of lightning
When the Barbados National Archives, home to one of the world's most significant collections of documents from the transatlantic slave trade, reported in June that it had been struck by lightning, it received sympathy and offers of support locally and internationally.
Cheap pints and sticky carpets: the old-school pub is back
In the Palm Tree pub, east London, barman Alf is taking only cash at the rattling 1960s till.
Brain gain Can a radical tax scheme convince the country's brightest to stay?
In the autumn of 2018, I moved to Lisbon for a month-long course at the Universidade .de Lisboa.
Fear and sympathy in small town divided over asylum camp
A year after anti-immigration riots, a site for asylum seekers faces hostility while some locals try to help new arrivals
