67 pages • 2 hours read
Alexei NavalnyPatriot
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Near Death”
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
Patriot opens with a critical incident experienced by the narrator, Alexei Navalny, a prominent Russian opposition leader, during a flight from Tomsk to Moscow, Russia, in August 2020. Navalny begins by reflecting on his political work in Siberia, where he and his team from the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) were preparing for regional elections in his “authoritarian” home country (6). Despite being banned from running for office and facing constant government repression, they aimed to weaken the ruling United Russia Party by exposing corruption through investigative videos posted on YouTube. These videos, watched by millions, showcased the luxurious lifestyles of government officials, contrasting them with the poverty experienced by ordinary Russians.
Navalny recounts the systematic efforts by the Russian state to impede his political activities. His political party had been repeatedly denied registration, and numerous fabricated criminal charges were levied against him to restrict his movements. Despite these obstacles, Navalny and his team conducted investigations, gathered evidence, and produced compelling videos designed to mobilize voters against Putin’s regime. Their work often triggered aggressive state responses, including raids on ACF offices and the confiscation of equipment.
The narrative then shifts to the morning of August 20, 2020. Navalny details his routine as he prepared to leave his hotel in Tomsk. After packing and meeting his colleagues, they headed to the airport, where Navalny was recognized by several people and took selfies with them. He describes the ordinary pre-flight activities. He was in good spirits, looking forward to relaxing during the flight and watching an episode of the animated series Rick and Morty, as per his usual routine.
Shortly after takeoff, Navalny began feeling unwell. He experienced cold sweats and an overwhelming sense of physical failure unlike anything he had felt before. Seeking comfort, he asked his press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, to talk to him but soon found himself unable to process her words. Feeling increasingly disoriented, Navalny decided to go to the airplane bathroom to splash water on his face. He struggled to perform even basic tasks like locking the bathroom door and turning on the faucet. He realized with growing certainty that he was dying. Despite his effort to compose himself, his condition worsened rapidly. His mind raced, but he remained unable to articulate what was happening.
Navalny managed to leave the bathroom but could no longer communicate effectively. As he stood in the airplane aisle, he made one final attempt to seek help from a flight attendant, telling him, “I have been poisoned and am about to die” (15). The flight attendant initially reacted with confusion, but Navalny soon collapsed on the floor.
Lying on his side, Navalny lost all sense of embarrassment or fear. He heard voices around him, including a woman asking if he was having a heart attack, but he was unable to respond coherently. Contrary to the popular notion that one’s life flashes before their eyes at the moment of death, Navalny experienced nothing but the sight of a wall and the indistinct sound of people urging him to stay awake. His consciousness faded, and he believed that he had died. Navalny points out that, despite his near-death experience, he ultimately survived.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
Navalny emerged from a coma after being poisoned. He dispels the misconception that waking from a coma is sudden, describing a slow, disorienting process filled with “very unpleasant and persistent visions” (16). Navalny recalls fragmented memories, including moments when hospital staff urged him to speak or write, which he initially found impossible due to cognitive and motor impairments. One recurring hallucination involved a compassionate Japanese neurosurgeon whose personal tragedy deeply affected Navalny. He later learned that this doctor never existed, a realization that left him stunned. His eventual reconnection with reality was aided by his wife, Yulia Borisovna Navalnaya, whose presence comforted him even when he could not fully recognize her.
Navalny describes his gradual physical and cognitive recovery. Early attempts at communication were difficult; he struggled to recall words and perform simple tasks like writing. As he improved, hospital staff encouraged exercises to rebuild his motor skills, including transferring water between cups with a spoon, a task he found exhausting but transformative. A significant milestone in Navalny’s recovery came when he saw his children, Dasha and Zakhar. Though their reunion was constrained by medical equipment, their visit made him “blissfully happy” (22). His rehabilitation continued with intense physical therapy, where he learned to walk again and perform basic movements. Despite his condition, Navalny remained focused on Russian politics, eagerly asking about election results and communicating with his team.
Navalny recounts the moment he fully grasped the attempt on his life, particularly after learning that he was poisoned with Novichok, a chemical nerve agent linked to Russian state operatives. This realization coincided with his growing awareness of his surroundings and memories of the poisoning incident aboard the plane. Navalny also highlights a surprise visit from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who played a pivotal role in securing his medical evacuation to Germany. Navalny describes their in-depth conversation about Russian politics and her impressive knowledge of his anti-corruption work.
Navalny’s recovery was marked by emotional highs and lows. He reflects on his relationship with Yulia, attributing his survival to her unwavering love and presence. Her daily visits during his coma provided comfort and became a symbol of hope and healing. He concludes with a heartfelt acknowledgment that love played a crucial role in his recovery, asserting that it should be recognized alongside medical and scientific explanations. In spite of the suffering he endured, seemingly at the hands of the Russian government, he was intent on returning to Moscow as quickly as possible.
Part 1 Analysis
Patriot begins with the dramatic retelling of the near death of Alexei Navalny, introducing the personal risks he faced in The Battle Against Authoritarianism. As per Navalny himself, the retelling has all “the conventions of a detective story” (8), in which a mysterious crime is committed and the perpetrator must be brought to justice. Navalny may never explicitly solve the crime—he does not make a direct accusation against any one individual—but he does not need to. Navalny begins his book with this incident because it establishes the stakes at play in his campaign to bring reform to the corrupt, authoritarian Russian state. Navalny is so effective, the incident suggests, that the Russian government is trying to kill him.
Navalny presents his near-death experience to establish his credentials as a serious opponent of the corrupt, decadent, and ineffective Russian state. At the same time, however, many of those in the audience will be aware that this book is published posthumously. As well as playing on the dramatic irony of the audience by assuring them that he survived this incident, Navalny cannot know that he would not survive the years-long stint in prison that followed his return to Russia. His wry comic reveal of his survival takes on a more tragic implication following his death: Navalny survived this assassination attempt and refused to stop his work, but he was not so fortunate later.
Even while describing the drama and intrigue of his near-death experience, Navalny reveals his political priorities. Through his conversations and the structuring of his story, he shows that political reform in Russia is his foremost priority. When he woke up from his coma, his first thought was about the elections in remote parts of Russia. He implies that he cares less about his own well-being than the well-being of the Russian political system. At the same time, his duties as the narrator indicate a similar ranking of his priorities. He begins telling the story of his near-death experience from a personal perspective, but he gets swept up in political discourse and diatribes against the ruling party. Navalny cares so much about reform that he will always rather talk about politics than himself, even when they are fundamentally connected. By establishing this early in the book, he reveals the level of sacrifice that he is willing to make to drive corruption out of Russia.
After waking up from the coma, Navalny endured a tough recovery process. He describes this in meticulous detail, giving the reader a real insight into how it feels to learn to walk, eat, and communicate after a near-death experience. This allows Navalny to illustrate the brutality of the Russian government, who seem willing to destroy something as fundamentally human and familiar as speech.
At the same time, however, Navalny’s story of how he rebuilt himself is a metaphorical model for his political ambitions and The Enduring Hope for Democratic Reform in Russia. Like Navalny, Russia itself must undergo a difficult recovery. The Russian pubic must relearn the forgotten techniques of political resistance, even though society has become inured to the corruption and decay that now seem permanent. Russian society must relearn to walk, and Navalny, having taught himself to walk again, is the man needed to help them through this difficult process.
