(22 Oct 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Berlin, Germany – 22 October 2024
1. Pan of memoir by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny with title reading (German) “Alexey Navalny, Patriot, My Story”
2. Bookshop worker pushing cart carrying copies of Navalny’s memoir
3. Various of bookshop worker putting books on display table
4. Wide of customer Jorg Carlsson looking at Navalny’s memoir
5. SOUNDBITE (German) Jorg Carlsson, bookshop customer:
“For me, this man is a real contemporary hero. And that’s why I’d like to read what he has to say, what he has to write.”
6. Various of books on display
7. SOUNDBITE (German) Elke Ottoschinski, bookshop customer:
“It’s on the news, I’ve heard it twice and I’ve spoken to my friend about it, so there’s no better call to read this book. It’s definitely a wake-up call and of course we must never forget him, even now in view of the war situation. Absolutely important to read, for sure. But I don’t know if I can handle it at the moment.”
8. Pan from Russian embassy to makeshift Navalny memorial
9. Various of Navalny pictures and tributes at memorial
10. Berlin television tower
STORYLINE:
Customers at a Berlin bookstore wasted no time in picking up copies of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s posthumous memoir when it was released on Tuesday.
In the book, which hit the shelves eight months after he died in prison, Navalny never loses faith that his cause is worth suffering for, while also acknowledging he wished he could have written a very different book.
One customer buying a copy in Berlin described Navalny as a "contemporary hero."
"That’s why I’d like to read what he has to say, what he has to write,” said Jorg Carlsson.
The final 200 pages of Navalny’s 479-page book does, in some ways, have the characteristics of other prison diaries or of such classic Russian literature as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.”
He tracks the boredom, isolation, exhaustion, suffering and absurdity of prison life, while working in asides about everything from 19th century French literature to Billie Eilish.
But “Patriot” also reads as a testament to a famed dissident’s extraordinary battle against despair as the Russian authorities gradually turn the heat up in their crackdown against him, and even shares advice on how to confront the worst and still not lose hope.
In recent years, Navalny had become an international symbol of resistance.
A lawyer by training, he started out as an anti-corruption campaigner, but soon turned into a politician with aspirations for public office and eventually became the main challenger to Russia’s longtime president, Vladimir Putin.
During the first section of his book, Navalny reflects on the fall of the Soviet Union, his disenchantment with 1990s Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, his early crusades against corruption, his entry into public life and his discovery that he did needed to look far for a politician “who would undertake all sorts of needed, interesting projects and cooperate directly with the Russian people.”
“I wanted and waited, and one day I realized I could be that person myself," he wrote.
His vision of a “beautiful Russia of the future,” where leaders are freely and fairly elected, official corruption is tamed, and democratic institutions work – as well as his strong charisma and sardonic humor – also earned him widespread support across Russia’s 11 time zones.
The authorities responded to Navalny’s growing popularity by levying multiple charges against him, his allies and even family members.
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