In a piece posted on December 30, 2023, I named the late Russian dissident, Alexei Navalny, “Follower of the Year.” (He died in February.) In part I wrote, “No single individual is so strikingly lacking in power, authority, and influence as is Navalny – and is nevertheless leaving such a significant imprint. Navalny’s years-long resistance to Russia’s dictator president, Vladimir Putin, is destined forever to linger.” (A link to the post is below.)
Some eight months earlier, I had posted another piece, this one about another Russian dissident, titled “Vladimir Kara-Murza – a Diehard.” In my book Followership I identified five different types of followers, one of which is a Diehard. Diehards are, as their name implies, [followers] prepared to die if necessary for their cause, whether an individual, or an idea, or both. Diehards are deeply devoted to their leaders; or, in contrast, they are ready to remove them from their positions of power… by any means necessary. Diehards are defined by their dedication, including their willingness to risk life and limb. Being a Diehard is all-consuming. It is who you are. It determines what you do. (A link to this post is also below.)
Kara-Murza willingness to endure pain and risk death to poke, to provoke, Putin, rivals Navalny’s. For his troubles Kara-Murza is currently serving time in prison, specifically the first year of a singularly severe, twenty-five-year, sentence. (It is the longest jail term given to a Russian dissident in post-Soviet Russia.) He is, for now at least, Navalny’s most prominent, most eminent, and esteemed successor. Like Navalny, Kara-Murza is a Diehard, willing to sacrifice everything, even to pay the ultimate price, to resist the Russian dictator.
Two days ago, Vladimir Kara-Murza was awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. This was in recognition of seven columns he wrote for the Washington Post, all published in 2023. The Pulitzer judges pointed to his “passionate columns written under great personal risk from his prison cell, warning of the consequences of dissent in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and insisting on a democratic future for his country.”
A splendid acknowledgement of among the bravest of men. I could not help but notice, though, the absence of evidence that he is able to continue to publish.