‘I hope I am the last to endure this’: Alexei Navalny’s devastating prison letters to Russian dissident Natan Sharansky who spent nine years locked up in same gulag isolation cells

Dear esteemed Aleksei,

I experienced a kind of shock receiving a letter from you. The thought itself that it came directly from SHIZO, where you have already spent 128 days, excites in a way that an old man would be excited, receiving a letter from his “alma mater,” the university where he spent many years of his youth.

I respond to you not only as an “author to reader,” but also as your admirer.

As an “author to reader”:

When I was writing my book “Fear No Evil” right after my release in February 1986, almost all of my friends and comrades-in-arms were either incarcerated in gulags or in a battle. So I envisioned this book not only as a memoir, but also a sort of textbook or manual for how to behave in a confrontation with the KGB. But by the time it was published in Russian, the USSR was already collapsing. Therefore, over the years, the book was interpreted more and more as a historical novel about the dark middle ages. And now—“the idiot’s dream has come true!”

First Volodya Kara-Murza7 and now you have written to me about how this book “works” in a Russian prison today. My misfortune has brought about this silver lining.

And now—as an admirer:

Aleksei, you are not just a dissident—you are a dissident “with a style”! My horror over your poisoning changed to amazement and exhilaration when you started your own independent investigation.

I was very angered by the question of a certain European correspondent the day after your return to Russia. “Why did he return? We all knew that he would be arrested in the airport—does he not understand such simple things?” My answer was pretty rude: “You’re the one who doesn’t understand something. If you think that his goal is survival—then you are right. But his true concern is the fate of his people—and he is telling them: ‘I am not afraid and you should not be afraid either.’ ”

I wish to you—no matter how hard it may be physically—to maintain your inner freedom.

In prison I discovered that in addition to the law of universal gravitation of particles there is also a law of universal gravitation of souls. By remaining a free person in prison, you, Aleksei, influence the souls of millions of people worldwide.

Aleksei, it is truly sad that the past can return so quickly and so easily. Volodya Bukovsky once insisted, after the fall of the USSR, that communism must be put on trial. But there were few who supported this idea—after all, the free world won “without a bullet being fired”—why return to the past?

I hope now, after all these shots have been fired, it is clear why that was necessary then, and why it will be necessary tomorrow.

X X X

By the way, I write to you the day before Passover—the celebration of the liberation of the Jews from Egyptian slavery 3,500 years ago. That is the start of our freedom and our history as a people. On this evening, Jews from around the world sit at the holiday table and read the words: “Today we are slaves—tomorrow, free people. Today we are here—next year, in Jerusalem.”

On this day I am sitting at the celebratory meal wearing a kippah, which was made 40 years ago, out of my footcloth, by my cellmate—a Ukrainian inmate in the Chistopol prison. That’s how twisted everything in this world is! I wish to you, Aleksei, and to all of Russia, an Exodus as soon as possible.

Hugs,

Natan Sharansky