The death of Alexei Navalny unites the Russian resistance in a powerful act of collective grief
Prelude
The third of March, Boston Common, gloomy afternoon. I stand in front of the memorial clutching four yellow carnations, my eyes wet with tears. A redheaded woman with a bouquet of scarlet carnations approaches me, smiling timidly. She speaks with a heavy accent:
“Do you speak Russian?”
“Да.” [Yes.]
“Можно вас обнять?” [Can I hug you?]
We hug and cry together. Clutched in the arms of a stranger, weeping, I let out all the grief and anger that have been choking me. A stoic face glances at us from endless photos, posters, and TIME Magazine covers.
It has been 16 days since the death of Alexei Navalny.
Nature mourns for Navalny
Past: All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men
For many Russians, especially members of generations who have only ever lived under Putin’s regime, Navalny sparked an interest in domestic politics. In sixth grade, we were blissfully unaware of our country rapidly plunging into the gaping maw of authoritarianism, the annexation of Crimea, or the Bolotnaya protests—notorious for unprecedented levels of police brutality. Our only knowledge of politics came from our parents’ dinner table discussions. Still too young to grasp the significance of political terms or remember the names of politicians, we participated by singing to the motif of “The Winged Swing,” a popular Russian children’s song:
Soaring above Putin
Without knowing any barriers
The winged Navalny
Flies, flies, flies
We did not know who Navalny was. All we knew was that in the upcoming presidential race, he had a chance of winning against Vladimir Putin—the only president we had known since birth.
Then Navalny was disqualified from the 2018 presidential election on trumped-up criminal charges—solidifying the fundament of his crusade against Putin and the dominant United Russia party. Undeterred by this setback, Navalny’s nationwide organization, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, only intensified its activism. It began releasing YouTube investigations condemning corrupt politicians and spearheaded the “Smart Voting” program, which mobilized oppositional voters during county elections by suggesting alternative candidates to Putin’s marionettes. Despite alleged user database leaks facilitated by the Russian government, the initiative often succeeded in introducing opposition politicians to the arena, challenging United Russia’s monopoly on the electoral mandate.
Navalny’s democratic activism was probably one of many factors that led to his poisoning in August 2020, an act allegedly committed by Russian special forces using Putin’s “signature” chemical weapon, Novichok. Hanging by a thread, Navalny was evacuated to Germany, where he stayed until early January 2021. Upon his return to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, he was arrested for probation violations and led into the avtozak (police wagon) with a crowd around the airport chanting his name. By that time, I had started forming my own political opinions about what was happening in my country. I watched that event live, feeling rage boiling beneath my skin. I was rather young, yes. But even as young as I was, I had enough sense to comprehend the blatant injustice of what was happening.
I wanted to go to the protests, but I did not—even children in Russia know that all protesting gets you is a good beating by the police. Even if I was lucky enough not to become permanently disabled, my parents could lose custody of me, and I did not want to cause them that hardship. Instead, I roamed the streets with “Do You Hear The People Sing?” in my headphones, hopeful for what tomorrow would bring. It was the first protest happening within my politically conscious lifespan, and back then, I still maintained the illusion that if hoards of people came out to the streets and demanded change, it would come eventually.
The nationwide protests following Navalny’s arrest did not impact the conscience of the authorities. On February 2, 2021, Navalny was sentenced to almost three years in a penal colony, where he suffered torture, isolation, and inhumane conditions “devised to break the human spirit,” according to concurrently imprisoned Russians.
Navalny was not an icon—not to me, at least. He was a questionable figure at times and did plenty that was unworthy of praise, including stoking conflicts with other members of the Russian opposition, associating with far-right radical nationalists, and espousing xenophobic sentiments early in his career. All the good he did notwithstanding, he was a politician, and politics is never a sterile ideological competition; it is an amoral, cold business for people who are not afraid to get neck-deep in the dirt for their own gain. But still, Navalny was one of the few people who was not afraid to criticize the authorities, and his bravery and ability to appeal to younger Russians made him a beacon of hope for change. As noted by the Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann, “He really didn’t just believe in the ‘wonderful Russia of the future.’ It was as if he lived there and from it, he extended his hand to everyone else.”
Present: Flowers Are Better Than Bullets
On February 16, 2024, Navalny was pronounced dead by the penal colony’s authorities. His cause of death was deemed “natural” by the state-provided mortician who performed the autopsy.
The grim circus into which Russian authorities have turned Navalny’s death only amplifies their inhumanity. Government officials refused to return Navalny’s body to his mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, per the law, instead threatening that they would “do something to the body” unless she agreed to a secret, private funeral. It was only after a massive outcry from top-tier anti-war celebrities and petitions amassing hundreds of thousands of signatures that Russian authorities finally relinquished Navalny’s body and authorized a public funeral.
Navalny’s death sent both the Russian general public and the rather scattered opposition into a frenzy, only intensifying popular contempt about related political events: the government’s refusal to register anti-war presidential candidates Boris Nadezhdin and Elena Duntsova, the second anniversary of the war in Ukraine, and the upcoming anti-climactic election itself. At Navalny’s funeral on March 1, despite harsh crackdowns on protesters, tens of thousands of people—not only in Moscow but all around the world—went out on the streets to pay their respects, creating spontaneous memorials as they went. During the service, a crowd gathered around the church and chanted, “Navalny!,” “We will not forgive!,” “Putin is a murderer!,” and “No to war!,” demonstrating that Navalny’s death succeeded in both making him a martyr amongst Putin’s opposition and mobilizing traditionally complicit Russians to express their disdain about all the ways their government has let them down. The death of a leader has brought Russians out into the streets—even those who would not typically participate in overt political protest. By letting Alexei Navalny perish, Putin’s regime has rallied the passive stratum of the population, turning them against the authorities and their despotism.
The collective grief of the Russian opposition and dissenting citizens has torn off the veil of preference falsification—the practice of concealing dissenting beliefs from oppressive authoritarian governments for the sake of safety. Finally, those opposing Putin’s regime and the war can see that they are not alone in this fight. Prominent figures of the opposition (including the rejected anti-war election candidates), along with people from all walks of life, attended gatherings of remembrance to support each other during the time of tragedy that they collectively had to face. It felt like a global crossover episode for the Russian resistance: anti-war and anti-Putin musicians, comedians, activists, influencers, politicians, and ordinary citizens coming together to pay their respects all over the world and stand shoulder-to-shoulder in an act of protest against Putin’s vicious rule.
The last gift Navalny gave us was visibility. We saw that we are not alone in our anger, outroar, and mourning and that there is much more hope for Russia than one could glean from governmental reports, which describe an overwhelming majority of the population as supportive of the war. The unity that collective grief has brought to the people, in a way, overcame the devastating and demoralizing blow that Navalny’s death wrought.
Navalny was more than a man. He was a symbol—the person who challenged Putin numerous times, cheated death, survived, and never lost his courage—and from the day of his death, Russians have in turn created symbols of their collective mourning. People all over the country placed flowers, candles, and photos on various memorials devoted to the victims of political repression, with hour-long lines to the most popular locations. The despotism of police forces led to more than a hundred arrests for misdeeds as arbitrary as walking around with flowers. The crackdown on protesters became so severe that the Russian artist community reacted with the phrase: “Putin is afraid of flowers.”
Artists reflecting on the symbolism of flowers in the recent protests
This outpouring of symbolism culminated long after Navalny’s funeral. Days later, a line hundreds of meters long still led to Navalny’s grave. The tall cross on his tombstone has been buried under a gigantic pile of flowers.
Navalny’s grave buried under a pile of flowers
Spontaneous memorials all around the world are also covered with flowers. For the Russian resistance, flowers have become a symbol of recognition—you are one of us, and we mourn together.
Boston Common. Another woman walks up to the memorial, followed by her husband and two kids. She is clutching a bouquet. She addresses us in Russian without even asking if we are speakers:
“Я тоже вот принесла…” [I also brought something…]
She pulls out a printed card with Navalny’s photo and a few lines of text: “The hero of our time! The fearless fighter for our freedom!”
Future: The King Is Dead, Long Live the Queen
Whether the social mobilization stemming from Navalny’s death will carry on to inspire further anti-authoritarian movements in Russia remains unclear. However, even with the death of the man who, for many, embodied the potential for a Russia without Putin, a descendant of his movement has arisen to fill the void. Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, released a video vowing to continue her husband’s work. In a statement of incredible power, Navalnaya deemed her husband’s death a murder by Putin himself: “By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart, and half of my soul. But I still have the other half. And it tells me that I have no right to give up.”
Yulia, in a way, has become the face of grief in the name of her husband, leading the whole world by example. Her voice shaking yet stoic, Navalnaya’s assertive words communicate a clear message to those who cannot pick themselves up in the face of the tragic loss: What happened is atrocious, but there is no time to drown in tears—Alexei’s death must become a driving force for change and action rather than plunge his supporters into despair. The image of Navalnaya as a widow, forced by the horrendous circumstances to take the lead instead of her husband, has turned into a source of noble rage for the Russian resistance, empowering her as an emerging political force through the emotional resonance of her grief.
Since her husband’s passing, Navalnaya has spoken out at several international summits, including the European Parliament. There, she emphasized that “in this fight [against Putin] you have reliable allies—there are tens of millions of Russians who are against Putin, against the war, against the evil he brings.” This is a novel development for the Russian post-war resistance, which, up to this point, had no speaker to protect the interests of anti-war Russians around the world through diplomacy with international leaders. Ekaterina Schulmann notes that the current vision is to turn Navalnaya into the embodiment of anti-war Russia, representing both people who were forced to leave the country and those who remain within and lack the freedom to express their opinions.
Alexei himself jokingly characterized Yulia as more radical than he was. While Navalnaya has not yet had the chance to fully exert her political strategy, the immediate transition from the role of the wife of the leader of Russian opposition to his widow, and just as quickly, a Russian resistance leader herself, has put her in the spotlight—only time will tell how well she will handle this sudden, bitter fame.
Epilogue
The abyss of grief, anger, and anxiety that has descended upon the Russian resistance might be called “one of the darkest and most turbulent times in its history.” The void left by Alexei Navalny will not be filled completely, and February 16 will go down in Russian history as a mournful day of remembrance and regret.
But the death of someone who was hopeful for a brighter future is not the death of hope itself. The Russians will not forget. They will not forgive. With the preference falsification masks torn away, collective grief has made the Russian resistance stronger by uniting it. The mountain of flowers burying his tombstone speaks for itself: By becoming a political martyr, Alexei Navalny has contributed to the fight against Putin’s regime one last time.
In the Oscar-winning documentary Navalny (2022), Navalny delivered a message to his followers in case of his death:
Listen, I’ve got something very obvious to tell you. You’re not allowed to give up. If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. We need to utilize this power to not give up, to remember we are a huge power that is being oppressed by these bad dudes. We don’t realize how strong we actually are.
I say goodbye to the two strangers—my partners in grief, anger, and loss. All of us are a part of something bigger—a grieving, outraged, and devastated entity whose united cries of mourning echo all across the globe.
I put the four yellow carnations beside the portrait of Alexei Navalny.
I walk out of Boston Common smiling at my timid feeling of hope.
Everything will be alright someday
