Rebel Russia: Dissent and Protest from the Tsars to Navalny

Navalny. Lenin. Pugachev. The Russian rebel - in his epic battle against the Leviathan of the Russian state - has enthralled readers and writers for decades. The rebel’s story is almost always a sad one that ends in exile, imprisonment, or martyrdom, leaving but a seed for the future reform of the Leviathan which he or she had taken on.

Why do revolts - from the Decembrist uprising to the Snow Revolution that brought Alexei Navalny to the forefront of contemporary Russian politics - seem to end up failing or producing an even worse form of despotism? In reality, the brave words and deeds of dissidents have shaped the course of Russian history more often than we might think. Through the stories of prominent rebels from the time of Ivan the Terrible to the present day, as well as her own experiences reporting on her country’s decent into authoritarianism, Russian-American journalist Anna Arutunyan explores how the rebel and the Tsar defined each other through a centuries-long dance of dissent and repression. These characters and their lives not only reveal the true nature of the Russian state, they also offer hope for a future Russian democracy.

Anna Arutunyan is a Russian-American journalist, analyst and author. Born in Moscow, she was raised and educated in the United States before returning to Russia where she covered two decades of Russian politics, first as reporter and editor at The Moscow News, then as an independent journalist writing for USA Today, Foreign Affairs, and other publications around the world. She served as senior Russia analyst for the International Crisis Group before leaving Russia in 2022 and is the author of five books about the country, its politics, society and its wars. She is currently a Global Fellow at the Kennan Institute and lives in England.