Navalny's Secret

Imagine the worst-case scenario is going to happen—then begin to feel better.

Flowers for Navalny in Amsterdam. 📷

Alexei Navalny, persecuted and imprisoned by the Russian state, kept a detailed diary of the three years he was held in a series of detention centers and penal colonies. The entries are riveting, offering something to learn from each one.¹

The astonishing thing about Navalny is that, after escaping from an assassination attempt, he willingly went back to Russia. He could have stayed in Germany, where he was treated after being poisoned, or gone to any other free country to live safely in exile. And no one would have blamed him! He’d already exposed his killers (not surprisingly, they worked for the Russian government) and it was clear he’d be a wanted man upon his return. 

But his integrity didn’t allow him to stay away from what he felt was his life’s work. He went back, was immediately detained, and ultimately sentenced to what would become a nine-year prison term.

Later in the memoir, he addresses this very subject: why in the world he returned to the country that had nearly killed him. He expresses frustration that this is the question he’s asked over and over, and that everyone seems to think there’s some sort of trick or secret answer. But as he says:

There are no secrets or twisted meanings. Everything really is that simple.

I have my country and my convictions. I don’t want to give up my country or betray it. If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary.

And, if you’re not prepared to do that, you have no convictions. You just think you do. But those are not convictions and principles; they’re only thoughts in your head. 

I mean … it’s just incredible. No wonder everyone asks him the question—I would—and his response would be hard to believe, had he not in fact lived it out in full. 

Navalny also has a remarkable sense of humor, displayed throughout the diaries as well as in his interactions with corrupt judges and prison officials. They really can’t break his spirit, it seems. As I said: truly remarkable. 

I happened to read an excerpt from his prison diaries during a week in which I was feeling sad and discouraged. Like Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, accounts like these can be a powerful antidote for our own sorrows. (I end up telling myself things like: “If people like Navalny can face such extreme treatment and remain steadfast—even weirdly cheerful—then surely I can muddle through.”) 

I’ll share some of the excerpt here without further comment. I love this “technique,” as he calls it, for dealing with extreme hardship.

You can, of course, buy and read the full book. 

***

Here are the techniques I worked out. Perhaps others may find them helpful in the future (but let’s hope they are not needed).

The first is frequently to be found in self-help books: Imagine the worst thing that can happen, and accept it. This works, even if it’s a masochistic exercise.

It’s a fairly easy exercise, because it involves a skill everyone developed in childhood. You may remember crying your eyes out in your bed and exultantly imagining you are going to die right then and there just to spite everyone. Imagine the look on the faces of your parents! How they will cry when it finally dawns on them who they have lost! Choked with tears, they’ll beg you, as you lie quiet and still in your little coffin, to get up and come and watch TV, not just until ten o’clock but until eleven, if only you would be alive. But it is too late, you are dead, which means you are unrelenting and deaf to their pleas.

Well, mine is much the same idea.

Get into your prison bunk and wait to hear “Lights out.” The lights are switched off. You invite yourself to imagine, as realistically as possible, the worst thing that could happen. And then, as I said, accept it (skipping the stages of denial, anger, and bargaining).

I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here. There will not be anybody to say goodbye to. Or, while I am still in prison, people I know outside will die and I won’t be able to say goodbye to them. I will miss graduations from school and college. Tasselled mortarboards will be tossed in the air in my absence. All anniversaries will be celebrated without me. I’ll never see my grandchildren. I won’t be the subject of any family stories. I’ll be missing from all the photos.

You need to think about this seriously, and your cruel imagination will whisk you through your fears so swiftly that you will arrive at your “eyes filled with tears” destination in next to no time. The important thing is not to torment yourself with anger, hatred, fantasies of revenge, but to move instantly to acceptance. That can be hard.

I remember having to stop one of my first sessions at the idea that I will die here, forgotten by everybody, and be buried in an unmarked grave. My family will be informed that “in accordance with the law the burial site cannot be disclosed.” I had difficulty resisting an urge to start furiously smashing everything around me, overturning bunks and bedside tables and yelling, You bastards! You have no right to bury me in an unmarked grave. It’s against the law! It isn’t fair! I actually wanted to shout that out.

Instead of yelling, you need to think about the situation calmly. So what if that comes to pass? Worse things happen.

There is, of course, a hint of trickery and self-deception in all this. You have accepted the worst-case scenario, but there is an inner voice you can’t stifle: Come off it, the worst is never going to happen. Even as you tell yourself your direst fate is unavoidable, you’re hoping against hope that someone will change your mind for you.

The process going on in your head is by no means straightforward, but if you find yourself in a bad situation, you should try this. It works, as long as you think everything through seriously.

***

Alexei Navalny died in prison on February 16th, 2024, effectively murdered by the Putin regime. Among the many lessons we might take from his courageous example, there’s also a reminder in the title of his memoir: Patriot.

The word is often misused today, but in Navalny’s case, it reflects a profound, unyielding love for his country—despite everything it cost him.

1. So far I’ve only read an excerpt from the New Yorker, but I’m planning to read the whole book.