1. Introduction
On 16 February 2024, the death of the most prominent contemporary Russian opposition figure, Alexey Navalny, in a high-security prison in a remote northern settlement of Kharp was officially reported. This led to the spontaneous emergence of memorials, with candles placed before the politician’s photographs in cities worldwide. While these largely secular memorials arose, narratives portraying Navalny’s death as a sanctified event with Christian overtones also emerged, including iconographic images and calls for his canonization. A year later, the authors examine the development of this martyrdom narrative within the Russian opposition, analyzing the strategic use of religious discourse to create a unifying symbol of opposition to the Russian regime amidst escalating ideological conflict.
2. Materials and Methods
This article utilizes discourse analysis of media narratives surrounding the death of Alexey Navalny, examined through the lens of the martyrdom paradigm. A distinction between political, or secular, and religious martyrdom is not drawn here, as both are considered narratives rather than objective realities (Middleton 2014). Moreover, even ostensibly secular accounts of martyrdom utilize the archetypal structures of religious myth (Zygmont 2021). Therefore, the analysis focuses on the narrative itself, not the characteristics and motives of the purported martyr. Martyrdom is posited as a powerful tool for group self-identification and mobilization (Moss 2013).
Our study analyzes media and social media texts (O’Keeffe 2006), primarily focusing on statements by members of the opposition movement concerning the politician’s death. The analysis also incorporates anonymous examples of Navalny’s sacralization, including verbal expressions in social media comments and material objects of veneration. Selected, resonant statements from official propaganda and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) are also considered. Employing qualitative rather than quantitative methods, the analysis aims to identify and describe the circulating and constructed martyrdom narrative surrounding the opposition figure.
3. The Death and the Emergence of Spontaneous Veneration
The politician’s death in a high-security prison beyond the Arctic Circle, preceded by 3 years of severe imprisonment and followed by a prolonged refusal to release the body to the relatives, culminated in a public funeral in Moscow. This funeral became a spontaneous mass demonstration: “The people standing in the multi-thousand-strong funeral line, which stretched for at least 6 kilometers, … endlessly created and recreated spontaneous protest memorials: crafting angels, placing flowers on an overturned fence, hanging placards on trees, chanting Alexei Navalny’s name, and quoting from his speeches” (Arkhipova and Lapshin 2024).
The interment of the politician was conducted according to Orthodox Christian tradition at a church on the outskirts of Moscow. The spontaneous chanting of Orthodox prayers like “Holy God” (Svyaty Bozhe) and “Eternal Memory” (Vechnaya Pamyat’), captured on social media, demonstrated the significant and unexpectedly overt presence of Orthodox Christians at the funeral under the watchful presence of Russian security forces and the hours spent waiting in the cold (Sobakyan 2024). In subsequent social media postings within closed groups, Orthodox priests in Russia discussed numerous requests they received for memorial services for the “slain Alexey”.
The outpouring of public mourning for the deceased politician, who had died in prison, manifested spontaneously across various geographical locations and was not exclusively associated with religious symbolism. Memorials and obituaries dedicated to him emerged internationally. In Russia, where overt expressions of grief were fraught with risk, numerous symbolic gestures implicitly conveyed solidarity (Arkhipova and Lapshin 2024). Nevertheless, ritualistic symbols, including candles, crosses, and impromptu prayers, were widely observed.
The politician’s grave, continuously decorated with flowers, served as the principal site of symbolic commemoration following his burial. The enduring nature of popular veneration nine months after his death is supported by evidence of ongoing memorial maintenance and the circulation of a newly commissioned iconographic portrait and accompanying prayers in both digital and print formats (Christians Against War 2024).
4. Navalny and His Religious Image
The politician himself, through repeated public affirmations of his faith from the 2010s onward, arguably laid the groundwork for the subsequent interpretation of his actions within a Christian framework. Until this period, both Navalny and the movement he represented were predominantly secular, focusing on anti-corruption efforts and democratic reforms without invoking religious themes. However, in a 2012 interview with the renowned writer and historian Boris Akunin, Navalny stated that he “enjoyed being a Christian and Orthodox … feeling part of something large and common” (Akunin 2012). This marked a notable shift, as religious references became more present in his public discourse. The politician later recalled that his colleagues at the Anti-Corruption Foundation, FBK, were quite skeptical, if not outright negative, towards his Christian beliefs, highlighting the tension between his personal faith and the largely secular orientation of his movement.
The politician’s writings exhibited a gradual increase in the incorporation of religious discourse. This is notably exemplified by his Easter message of April 2014, which explicitly drew parallels between Christ’s Passion and the experiences of contemporary political activists: “What was He fighting? Lies, slavery, injustice, usurpation of power and swindlers with thieves—everything so disgusting to us … He had no support, rallies were banned, OMON shaking spears around, the media seized by the Pharisees, villains with overseas estate in power. Every twelfth in the organizing committee of his party—a paid provocateur and traitor … The disciples were forced to renounce. He was tortured and killed. Everything was destroyed and lost in darkness”. He concluded by asserting the eventual triumph of Good, referencing the Resurrection as a personal and potent symbol of this belief, and addressing both believers and non-believers (Navalny 2014).
His 2021 trial testimony extensively referenced the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, specifically focusing on “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Mat. 5:6). This, in the same way as his other texts, reflects an attempt to synthesize his political activities with a Christian worldview. For him, this Beatitude constituted, above all, “the central political doctrine in modern Russia”, and his political work was presented as an effort to fulfill this precept (Rights in Russia 2021). Such a tight entanglement of politics and religion left almost no space for drawing a line between them and gave fertile ground for further speculations on the politician’s martyrdom. The speech finishes with aspirations for the future, which seems much like an eschatological view of heaven on earth.
This trial testimony, uncommon within the post-Soviet political discourse, can also be interpreted as the politician’s personal response to the public debate surrounding his return to Russia after his 2020 poisoning. This decision elicited criticism not only from Navalny’s opponents, who accused him of ties to Western intelligence agencies (Akopov 2021), but also bewilderment among his supporters, many of whom viewed return as a perilously unwise move. His subsequent explanation, framed within a religious discourse, was unconventional and unexpected within the largely secular context of Russian opposition politics.
In his later posts from prison, the politician frequently invoked the Gospel. For instance, when a prisoner with poor hygiene was placed in his punishment cell as a provocation, Navalny reflected in his Telegram channel, asking, “What would Jesus do?” in his situation (Navalny 2022). Such a shift from anticlerical secularism to proclaiming the Gospel as a moral compass is consistent with the historical pattern of spiritual searching within the Russian intelligentsia.
Despite the consistent appeal to Christianity in his statements (Glebov 2024), Navalny did not possess a theological foundation, nor a fully developed Christian worldview or doctrinal framework. He did not seek to institutionalize his religious choices by joining any Christian community or establishing a Christian political party; rather, he appeared to deliberately distance himself from religious institutions and subcultures, especially the ROC. Nevertheless, the choice of an Orthodox funeral service suggests a decision by the politician’s family to dissociate Orthodoxy in general, and specific parishes of the ROC, from the ruling regime and its supportive church leadership.
5. Navalny’s Death in Orthodox Opposition Media
Navalny’s death immediately attracted the attention of church figures. On 17th February, Orthodox priests held memorial services for Alexey, referring to him as “innocently slain Alexey”, first in Düsseldorf and later in Vilnius. These priests, to varying degrees, emphasized Navalny’s suffering. Priest Vladimir Selyavko from Vilnus, for example, declared Navalny a saint to the opposition media Sota. Archpriest Andrey Kordochkin also highlighted Navalny’s Christian stance. Other Orthodox priest-bloggers and media influencers similarly expressed varying degrees of certainty regarding Navalny’s martyrdom. An overview of the initial stages of the discussion is available on the portal “Christians Against War” (Rozhkov 2024).
One of the first to articulate the religious dimension of Navalny’s death was priest Nikolai Platonov, who had fled Russia after the beginning of its war in Ukraine. On 24 March 2024, Novaya Gazeta Europe, a secular Russian opposition media outlet, published his interview, headlined “I am absolutely certain that, sooner or later, Navalny will be canonized”. Platonov clearly situated the request for Navalny’s canonization within a political context, drawing a comparison with Tsar Nicholas II. Platonov referred to the deceased politician as a “peacemaker” and urged his audience to “ask Alexey for whatever you need”, suggesting that “we will know through miracles whether Alexey is worthy of canonization or not” (Furman 2024).
A quintessential example of the Orthodox argument for the politician’s canonization was a post of the blog “Coffee with Sr. Vassa”, pointedly titled “Alexey Navalny—a martyr?”. In this video, American Orthodox Sister Vassa (Larina) begins by highlighting Navalny’s faith and the Christian nature of his political activity: “Alexey was Orthodox in the best sense of the word”; “he saw his struggle, his political struggle … in a Christian way”. This initial argument is supplemented by two further comparisons to Christ: the voluntary acceptance of undeserved suffering—“Christ also decided to appear in Jerusalem of his own accord”—and the posthumous mistreatment of his body—“they wanted to hide his suffering body, not releasing it to his mother for nine days”. Finally, the blogger cites the symbolic significance of the date of death—the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord—arguing it foreshadows a swift meeting with God. In comparing Navalny’s actions to Christ’s, Sister Vassa goes further, even equating his political opponent to the devil. This video garnered over 1500 comments, indicating the impact of the blogger’s rhetoric. One commenter, @zulfiraakhmetvalieva8402, wrote, “Although I was born into the Islamic faith, Alexey’s suffering over these years greatly troubled me; for some reason, I always thought that Alexey, like Christ, consciously went to Golgotha for all of us” (Larina 2024).
The emergence of figures within Orthodox Russian-language media who sacralize the opposition politician is noteworthy. In their case, Navalny’s sacralization, manifested in prayers for the “innocently slain” and expressions of solidarity, has culminated in calls for his canonization, the feasibility of which warrants further investigation.
The Russian Orthodox Church’s canonization process, relevant to discussions concerning Navalny, comprises two principal models: the legitimization of pre-existing popular piety and the Church’s proactive initiation of veneration. Although these models frequently interact in practice, a discernible historical shift towards the latter, originating with the Synodal period, has established “top-down” canonization as the dominant paradigm (Emelyanov 2005, pp. 29–30). Such canonization of Navalny is politically impossible within the current ROC Moscow Patriarchate, as he is not only disregarded but actively ignored by the Church leadership. The Patriarch’s pronouncements offer only oblique criticisms of Navalny’s political actions (Nezavisimaya Gazeta 2021). This silence is mirrored by other officially recognized Christian denominations in Russia, largely supportive of the regime and its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine (Beliakova and Kliueva 2023).
While individual members of foreign Orthodox churches have expressed support for the deceased politician (Elpidophoros 2024), no official calls for his canonization have emerged. Although the potential canonization of a Russian opposition figure could be interpreted as another move in the ongoing canonical dispute between the ROC and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, such a step would likely prove highly unpopular not only with ROC leadership but also with a significant portion of its congregants. As an opposition journalist aptly observes, foreign Orthodox churches clearly recognize that “this is not a goal worth pursuing when deciding on the glorification of someone among the saints” (Montegru 2024).
So, who are these Orthodox influencers advocating for the politician’s canonization, and what motivates them? This relatively small group of media figures promoting this narrative is easily identifiable. First, they include several priests who left the ROC due to their opposition to the war in Ukraine. Publicly opposing the war made them political opponents of the regime, leading to their rejection by the official Church. Having been defrocked or barred from service within the ROC (Christians Against War 2023), they have recently been accepted into the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Against this backdrop, the figure of Vassa (Larina), a nun of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), stands out. Sr. Vassa plays a significant role within the unified ROC-ROCOR: since October 2014, by decision of the Holy Synod of the ROC, she has been a member of the Inter-Council Commission, serving on the commission for church law and the commission for divine services and church art. Initially, her blog, “Coffee with Sr. Vassa”, was positioned as a representative of ROCOR and, until 2022, was exclusively Anglophone, accessible only via paid subscriptions. However, with the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Sr. Vassa felt the need to address a Russian-speaking audience, which clearly suggests her political motivations.
The blogger’s martyr narrative with hagiographic overtones is a direct allusion to the political rhetoric of ROCOR during the Cold War. It was in this context, amidst escalating geopolitical tensions, that ROCOR’s November 1981 synod canonized the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, led by “Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II”. The Tsar, murdered by the Bolsheviks, became a publicly sacralized symbol of an alternative, non-Soviet Russia, a political ideal championed by a segment of the Russian émigré community. Now, a new “martyr of the regime” is perceived as a potential leader of a non-Putin Russia. This is likely why priest Platonov, in the abovementioned interview, compared Navalny to the Tsar-Martyr, asking, “why is Alexey’s heroism less significant than Tsar Nicholas II’s?” (Furman 2024). Such creation of “regime martyr” cults by emigre opposition groups is a phenomenon documented from the early Soviet period, receiving significant support from foreign churches in the context of political confrontation (Roulin 2014).
But what is the intended audience of this martyr narrative by Orthodox influencers? The internally divided ROCOR, largely supportive of ROC MP and the unification of Russian Orthodoxy, can hardly embrace it. The Russian political opposition is the more likely intended recipient of this message.
6. Martyr Narrative in Russian Opposition Media
Isolated instances of the martyr narrative appeared in Russian opposition media even before February 2024, following the political assassinations of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist and human rights activist, and Boris Nemtsov, a prominent opposition politician, which were met with popular veneration in the form of spontaneous memorials. The potential of this narrative in the ideological struggle against the ruling regime is primarily evidenced by the regime’s obsessive phobia of opposition martyrs, embodied in the specific term “sacred sacrifice”, or the more precise “sacred victim” (sakral’naya zhertva). This term was repeatedly used by Russian and Belarusian politicians, as well as official propaganda outlets, in the 2010s and was reactivated after Navalny’s attempted poisoning in 2020 (Zygmont 2020). However, the opposition itself only rarely and selectively employed the martyr narrative at that period.
After the politician’s death in February 2024, however, religious discourse became a distinctive bon ton to talk about his fate. Thus, on 19th February, the issue of the canonical representation of Navalny’s martyrdom was raised by Elvira Vikhareva, an opposition politician evidently not affiliated with the Church. “Alexey is at least a martyr. Don’t you think, it is time we raised the issue officially? If memorials are destroyed—icons remain” (Vikhareva 2024).
But one of the brightest examples of such a sudden transition to religious discourse is the speech of the renowned political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann, who had previously emphasized her atheistic stance on numerous occasions (Schulmann 2023). Her first reaction to the death of the oppositionist was dramatic but absolutely secular. She analyzed Yulia Navalnaya’s speech as the representation of the archetype of a revengeful widow embodied in Russian history by Princess Olga. However, 10 days later she switched suddenly to religious rhetoric, consistently comparing the oppositionist to Jesus Christ (Schulmann 2024, March 6). Let us focus on that speech to see this rhetoric in detail.
Ekaterina Schulmann starts talking about Alexey Navalny’s funeral, pointing out that “somewhat unprecedented, nevertheless, well-expected has happened”. Then, she lists obstacles, including an absence of the proper place to farewell, restrictions for the presence of followers, and shameful convictions. Even the days of being in the grave were counted as three, though by the moment of the speech there were already five days passed. Then, the political scientist begins quoting the Gospel: “It gives us, people who do not belong to any denomination, the opportunity to see what is «trampling down death by death». What is «except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit» (John 12:24). What does it mean to say, «death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?» (1 Cor. 15:55) That’s what it must look like”.
These quotations are extraordinary, as liberal media ignored the politician’s personal shift towards Christianity, evident in his blog and 2014 Easter message. Following Navalny’s return to Russia, his Christian narrative was only perceived by analysts sensitive to religious connotations. For example, Aleksandr Morozov, whose media career in Moscow was affiliated with Orthodox media before relocating to Prague (to work for Zhanna Nemtsova’s opposition fund), compared Navalny’s return to Russia to the prophet Jonah in the belly of the Russian political Leviathan (Morozov 2021). Likewise, Fedor Lyudogovskiy, a former ROC priest and philologist residing in Bratislava, compared him to Christ descending into hell (Lyudogovskiy 2021). In the same year, Andrey Shishkov, a contender in the development of a liberal Orthodox political theology and an associate of Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) and his project of Orthodox church postgraduate and doctoral programs, found in these politico-biblical parallels the nascent symptoms of Orthodox political outlook (Shishkov 2021).
However, these isolated references to religious discourse only highlight the Russian liberal opposition’s characteristic attitude towards religion. For the past decade, it has radically ignored the diverse religious landscape of Russia, particularly exhibiting a critical stance towards the institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church. The ROC was approached by Russian alternative mass media unwillingly, only on scandalous occasions; for example, in the context of anti-vaccination prejudices, controversy over the transfer of valuable museum antiquities, or various crimes committed by clergy. Mainly, those three topics were presented on a popular alternative news website, “Meduza”, in the years 2020–2021. Since the case of “Pussy Riot”, opposition media have paid special attention to public statements by church officials as representations of ROC’s ideological support for the regime. Its public endorsement of the “special military operation” in Ukraine merely served as further confirmation of this established stereotype. However, this estrangement between the Russian opposition and Church structures did not originate with the Ukraine conflict, having far deeper historical roots, and it requires special analysis.
Nevertheless, despite the public presence of criticism of religion and the Church from the Russian liberal opposition, its anti-clericalism is underestimated. Noting that contemporary Russian civil anti-clericalism is precisely of a “liberal nature”, political scientist Alexey Makarkin explains this by the fact that “the ROC’s expansion has been aggravated by the demonstrative alignment of the Church and state” (Lipman 2019). Significantly, the Church is viewed here not as a community of believers, but as a political actor, and exclusively in the form of its official governing structure. Therefore, the opposition’s relationship with this institution is entirely determined by its relationship with the official authorities.
Given the entrenched and predictable estrangement of the Russian opposition from the Church and religion—a dynamic predicated on the Church’s increasingly close alignment with the state and its consequent “condemnation by the progressive mainstream” (Mitrokhin 2024, p. 10)—the opposition’s recourse to religious discourse surrounding Alexey Navalny’s death initially appears paradoxical. However, closer examination of the martyr narrative’s constituent elements reveals its inherent logic.
7. Political Martyrdom
The idea of martyrdom is typically associated with Christianity in Western culture, yet it is, in fact, much older than Christianity itself. Since any belief and any community sharing it can have its own martyrology, a natural question arises: what, then, is the phenomenon of martyrdom? Christian thought, starting from the early centuries of persecution, defines true martyrdom through its opposition to the false one, i.e., martyrdom that is not for Christ (Cyprian of Carthage 1958, p. 109). A number of scholars follow this path as well, identifying the necessary conditions that allow one’s death to be classified as martyrdom—religious or secular, depending on the martyr’s motivations (Droge and Tabor 1992). From this perspective, at the core of the idea of martyrdom are the beliefs of the one who suffers and the suffering itself.
This understanding of martyrdom is also shared by the bearers of the martyr narrative themselves. In the case of Alexei Navalny, discussions about the martyrological nature of his demise are dominated by arguments concerning the presence or absence of religious motives in his voluntary suffering and life in general (Selyavko 2024). For example, sophisticated commentators versed in Orthodox hagiography argue that the politician should not be considered a martyr but a passion-bearer (strastoterpets), in the manner of Princes Boris and Gleb and later, the last Tsarist family (Montegru 2024). A distinction is drawn between martyrs and passion-bearers: the former die for their faith, while the latter voluntarily accept suffering to avoid participating in a struggle unworthy of a Christian.
Other scholars tend to view martyrdom as a “a narrative that creates or maintains group identity, by holding up an ideal representative of the community, who chose to or is made to die for its values” (Middleton 2014, p. 130). According to this concept, martyrdom does not arise at the moment of death, but at the point of its interpretation by another bearer of the same values. To oversimplify, martyrdom is not so much the death for one’s beliefs as it is the glorification of that death by the community. In this case, when attempting to define the phenomenon, the research focus shifts from the martyr’s motives to the motives of those who construct the narrative around his death. In considering the possible motives behind such sacralization, the scholar inevitably encounters the problem of the exploitation of martyrdom and, more broadly, the religious narrative for ideological purposes.
The modern West, despite its secular nature, functions ideologically as a “sacred project where power and the sacred are identical” (Prodi and Campbell 2023, p. 100), making the martyr narrative a potent tool for social group construction. Candida Moss demonstrates how Christianity’s martyr narrative evolved from individual acts of faith into a collective call to action, transforming the martyrs’ blood into a demand for both divine retribution (Rev. 6:10) and continued commitment from the faithful. This ultimately portrays martyrdom, in its extreme form, as a holy war (Gaddis 2005, p. 336), with the rhetoric of persecution justifying retaliatory violence (Moss 2013, p. 6). Paradoxically, this sacrificial death, instead of resolving conflict, intensifies social divisions and escalates violence, reversing its initially pacifying role (Girard 1977).
This dynamic is evident historically. During the Cold War, the suffering of martyrs of the Soviet Union served to consolidate anti-communist forces. Conversely, figures such as Che Guevara, portrayed as victims of “aggressive imperialism”, became iconic symbols for left-wing movements. The martyr narrative, therefore, transcends specific religious contexts, demonstrating its enduring capacity to shape ideological struggles and mobilize social groups through the powerful symbolism of sacrifice and righteous suffering.
Significantly, the martyr narrative is actively exploited by nationalist groups (Zygmont 2019) to mobilize members for struggle. It is also utilized by contemporary Russian propaganda. For example, at the outset of hostilities in Donbas, a fake story of a boy allegedly crucified by Ukrainian nationalists was employed as a symbol of the suffering of the Orthodox population (Tolstoj 2023). Following the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a common refrain among pro-government speakers became the question: “Where have you been these eight years?” By this, they claimed that the suffering of the Russian people in the Donbas legitimated the suffering of the Ukrainians. While those asked were bound to continue the struggle for the sake of the dead.
The martyr narrative is particularly evident in Russian militaristic art. A July 2023 production at the Tula Young Spectator Theatre, based on the works of Zakhar Prilepin, exemplifies this. Prilepin, a nationalist writer, glorifies war and sacrifice in his works, blending patriotism with themes of martyrdom and Russian identity. The play presented the war as a necessary act of liberation, asserting that “Ukraine must be liberated not only for the sake of the living, but also for the glory of all the fallen. This is a liturgy”. The play further equated any attempt to escape this cycle of violence with betrayal of all fallen ancestors, from ancient Rus’ to World War II soldiers—an “endless table of kin, whose faces stretch to the horizon” (Montegru 2023). This martyr narrative appeals to national identity (Minkova 2018, p. 140), making the living hostiles of the fallen martyrs. The Moscow Patriarchate’s active promotion of the “Russian World” concept further incorporates Orthodox religious identity into this framework. Thus, religion, by sacralizing the war, serves as a powerful ideological weapon in official Russian propaganda (Tolstoj 2023).
Following Navalny’s death and the surge in spontaneous public veneration, the political opposition attempted to utilize the same ideological tool of sacralization. The fragmented and conflict-ridden Russian opposition needs unifying and mobilizing figures, and the prominent dissident who died in prison has the potential to fill this role.
This is clearly demonstrated by his widow’s use of religious narrative in her speech. After her husband died, Yulia Navalnaya addressed his followers with words of encouragement for further fighting. Her eloquently perfect speech (Navalnaya 2024) starts with certification that “all these years she had been always by Alexei’s side”. The latter note is extremely important for constructing a martyr narrative, as its author has to be a trusted representative of the martyr. Then, the speaker states that the politician had “died in prison after being tortured and tormented for three years”. The widow names patriotism as the cause of his death: “Alexei loved Russia more than anything else in the world. He loved our country, he loved you”. That is how this value, the martyr had died for, is proclaimed crucial for the whole group of his followers.
However, the main part of the speech is devoted to the consequences of Navalny’s death—the necessity to continue his work, as “his great love is enough for us to continue”. And the core of this work is the struggle: “to keep fighting, harder, more desperately and more fiercely than before”. Political resistance to the authorities, therefore, attains the religious meaning of holy anger: “I ask you to share this anger with me. Anger, rage, hatred for those who have dared to destroy our future”. The speaker gives the audience no other way except fighting, because the “immeasurable sacrifice he [Alexey Navalny] had made can not be in vain” (Navalnaya 2024). The rhetorical ethos of the speech is the necessity not to betray the martyr’s sacrifice and defeat his persecutors or, simpler, the revenge.
As Ekaterina Schulmann previously noted, this precisely aligns with the archetype of the avenging widow, represented in Russian culture by the increasingly popular Princess Olga, a canonized Orthodox saint. The immediate appearance of memes featuring her image alongside Yulia Navalnaya’s words confirms its effectiveness (Schulmann 2024, February 21). The image of the wise ruler, the widow of a murdered politician, clearly reveals a desire to establish a cohesive ideological framework that draws upon glorious figures from the nation’s past, figures moreover deeply connected to Orthodoxy.
This attempt by the Russian opposition to appropriate religious discourse did not go unnoticed by the group primarily employing it for ideological purposes: the media spokespeople of the ROC. Just six weeks after the politician’s death, Igor Petrovsky, press secretary for the Donskoy Metropolitan and host of a program on the Orthodox pro-Kremlin TV channel “Spas”, criticized the sacralization of the politician’s death. Significantly, Petrovsky’s particular ire was directed at what he termed the attempt by “Russophobes”—meaning the liberal intelligentsia—to create a “new religion” around the dissident’s death (Petrovsky 2024). He viewed this as an infringement on the shared ideological space of the Russian government and the ROC—an attempt by the opposition to fight fire with fire.
8. Conclusions
Alexey Navalny’s death established a significant precedent: the contemporary Russian opposition’s strategic deployment of symbolic religious discourse, a method previously utilized in ideological wars with the Soviet regime. The internally conflicted and fragmented opposition, lacking a cohesive ideology, tries to adopt the deceased politician’s image as a unifying martyr figure. The spontaneous popular veneration surrounding Navalny’s death enabled the opposition to apply for a martyr narrative—with its imperative to continue the martyr’s struggle, thereby maintaining membership within the significant social group—for consolidating and mobilizing the followers.
This adoption of a martyrdom narrative and the sacralization through traditional Christian symbolism pose a direct challenge to the Russian authorities’ entrenched monopoly on religious discourse. Moreover, the strategic use of biblical allusions offers a framework to reinterpret Navalny’s perceived political suicide in voluntarily returning to imprisonment in Russia. Finally, the involvement of Orthodox opposition activists in constructing Navalny’s cult offered them an opportunity to amplify their voices, previously suppressed for years by the Russian liberal media.
