The Oscars and "Navalny"
I just realized that me and Evgenia covered not just one but two Oscar hits on our podcast: Everything Everywhere All at Once and Navalny, which won best documentary. Yesterday I reposted our ep on Everything Everywhere. So it’s only proper that I mention Navalny, too. We recorded it in early February 2022 — a few weeks before Putin decided to invade Ukraine with a genius plan to capture Kiev in a lightning strike.
To be honest, I was a little surprised by the win. Navalny, normally a darling of American Empire-adjacent structures, has been getting dragged by some of these very same structures ever since the war broke out. The Ukrainian side in particular has been lashing out at Navalny for being a Russian nationalist and imperialist. Many of them think he’s at his core not very different than Putin.
But judging by the win it looks like Hollywood didn’t get the memo that Navalny’s been canceled. And Ukrainian political influencers are not happy about it at all.
What’s interesting is that the bit about Navalny being a Russian nationalist is not wrong. Navalny got into politics as a Russian nationalist and was very much involved in Russia’s far-right “Russia for Russians” political scene. It’s a past from which he had never distanced himself, despite plenty of opportunities, and which continued to influence his political positions well into his good liberal phase. But until very recently the American press has squelched any discussion of this side to Navalny’s politics. From Masha Gessen to NATO’s privatized thinktank experts — all sorts of serious people who matter have pitched in to convince us that Navalny’s nationalism was a-ok. But the war’s opened up space for…ah, shall we say, other voices to be heard.
Anyway, check out the ep. We talk about Navalny, the Russian opposition, and lot of the local political context that the doc does not show.
—Yasha
Want to know more? Check out previous episodes of The Russians.