. . . “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Dylan Thomas wrote those lines as he contemplated the inevitability of his aging father’s death. And the words themselves have become immortal . . . words of advice for all of us to heed.

One man who clearly believed, as Thomas did, that his only choice in life was to fight — to rage — against that finality was Alexei Navalny. But death was inevitable to him as it is to all of us. For him, though, it came far too soon, brought about by the evil of a regime that could not bear his honesty, his courage, or his raging.

He was the victim of the very sort of injustice against which he had fought so long and so honorably in life. Wrongfully charged, poisoned, imprisoned, tortured . . . yet he still could not be silenced. So he was murdered; and even after death, forced to suffer the further indignity of his body’s being held hostage as his killers sought to prevent any public show of grief and support. They arrested hundreds of those who laid flowers at makeshift memorials to him, and finally tried to coerce his family into keeping his funeral “secret.”

But his family showed that they, too, are made of sterner stuff, and began making proper funeral arrangements for him . . . only to run headlong into a blockade erected by those very same killers when church after church, burial ground after burial ground, were closed to him, some confessing that they had been “forbidden” by the authorities to accept him. Arrangements were finally made at a location near his former home in the outskirts of Moscow; burial is scheduled for tomorrow, Friday, March 1, 2024. In a show of defiance, the public has been invited by Navalny’s family and colleagues to attend, and have been urged to “come early.”

There is little doubt that attendance will be great . . . and accompanied by an equally great police presence. Whether Alexei Navalny’s final farewell will be peaceful, as he would have wished, remains to be seen.

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In a final twist of the metaphorical knife, one of Navalny’s team, Maria Pevchikh, has said that, just before his sudden death, negotiations had been underway for his release and that of two (unnamed) U.S. citizens being held hostage in different prisons, in exchange for “a Russian hitman serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 assassination of a former Chechen fighter in Berlin.” [Anna Chernova, et al., CNN, Feb. 27, 2024.]

As of the time of reporting, CNN had been unable to independently verify Ms. Pevchikh’s claims, and the German government had declined to comment. An unnamed Western official told CNN that there had been “early discussions about a prisoner swap involving Navalny and US citizens, but no formal offer had been made prior to his death.” [Id.] But Ms. Pevchikh alleges that “because Putin could not tolerate the thought of Navalny being free, he instead decided to ‘get rid of the bargaining chip.’” [Id.]

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s typical response was that the accusations were “absurd,” that the Kremlin “has nothing to do with the case” and therefore “cannot exert pressure.” [Id.]

Okay, sure — I buy that. And I also believe the moon really is made of blue cheese.

*. *. *

Whatever may be the truth of any behind-the-scenes prisoner “swap” negotiations, it is time now to give Alexei Navalny and his family the rest and the closure they deserve. Let’s hope he is at last allowed to “go gentle into that dark night.”

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/29/24