Delivered. Biographies have their genre: historical or contemporary, authorized or unauthorized, depending on whether or not the subject participates with the author in the story of his life. Here is a new one, the biography prevented. And for good reason: imprisoned, behind bars since January, Alexeï Navalny, who has become in a few years the most famous Russian political figure, after Vladimir Putin, does not have the leisure to lend himself to the exercise. Three researchers, three Europeans, all specialists in Russian political life, therefore set about retracing the career of this young man, born in 1976, in a hamlet in the Moscow region, whom nothing, apparently, predisposed to the role first opponent.
The Novichok poisoning attempt against him in August 2020 – a powerful innervating gas of Soviet origin already used in another resounding 2018 poisoning attempt in the UK against the former Double agent Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia – gave him international stature. Back in his country, after being treated in a Berlin hospital, he knew he would not escape immediate arrest, the images of which traveled the world. But who is he really?
An outstanding forum on the Internet, a staunch defender of the fight against corruption, Alexeï Navalny has spoken a lot. On social networks. Excluded from Russian state media, where, like the head of the Kremlin, until recently no television had ventured to utter even his name, he also gave very few interviews, preferring to speak live to his audience – which has grown steadily since his beginnings as a humble blogger. It was therefore necessary to start from these scraps, and assemble them, here, in three main parts, “the anti-corruption militant”, “the politician”, and “the protester”. Lack of direct access to a character “Complex”, personal elements are still missing.
“For a radical liberalism”
Son of an officer of the Red Army, who listened to the public radio and television Voice of America, and of an accountant mother, Alexeï Navalny was 15 years old during the collapse of the USSR, without illusions about ideals already assimilated to a system of “Pretenses and shenanigans”. It leans then, write the authors, “For a radical liberalism”. An average student, he took law courses before obtaining a second diploma specializing in securities transactions and real estate values. At the time, like so many others in Russia, he launched into “business”. But it is especially the young wolves having access to the team of Boris Yeltsin, first president of Russia, who get richer. “Alexeï Navalny’s generation arrives too late to take part in the celebration. “
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