![]() It traces his early career as a blogger and activist to his present status, as Putin’s globally recognised arch enemy and biggest headache. The book convincingly argues that Navalny is the most interesting and significant figure to emerge from the post-communist period. ![]() Its subtitle asks: “Putin’s nemesis, Russia’s future?” No one quite knows if Navalny is indeed Russia’s destiny or a tragic national footnote, fated to be finished off by the same bungling FSB spy agency team that last summer tried to kill him in Siberia, poisoning his underpants. Superbly media‑savvy, Navalny is funny too, his humour a cudgel used to bash his enemies The three non-Russian academics – Jan Matti Dollbaum, Morvan Lallouet and Ben Noble – have written an engaging and timely book about Navalny the man, the politician and the protester. With alarming speed, Russia is edging towards what the authors of a new study call “full-blown dictatorship”. They have shut down Russia’s few remaining independent media outlets as well, branding them “foreign agents” and “undesirable”. Over the space of a few months, the authorities have rolled up Navalny’s formidable anti-corruption movement, banning his countrywide network of local campaign offices. Dissent, the message goes, has nasty consequences. Security forces have quelled the street protests for now using time-honoured tactics: brutal force, mass arrests and enhanced persecution for a few. While Navalny sits in jail, Putin appears ready to carry on as president well into his 80s. But this not-quite revolution never really threatened Putin’s two-decade rule or dented his control. Demonstrators took to the squares of 180 towns and cities, from occupied Crimea to Vladivostok. ![]() Was Navalny’s decision to face down Vladimir Putin an act of supreme courage, a modern-day echo of the doomed revolt by the Decembrists against autocratic rule? Or was it suicidal folly? After all, Navalny embodies the best chance for democratic change inside Russia since the crumbling of the USSR.Īs Navalny had gambled, his arrest in Moscow sparked big protests against the Kremlin. ![]()
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