So, that's how my trial is going, with jokes and laughter. We'll laugh at all the nonsense that the investigators stuffed into the case files, they'll give me 15-20 years, and then we'll go our separate ways.

– Alexei Navalny, Twitter

Alexei Anatolievich Navalny, in case you don't know, is a Russian lawyer, anti-corruption activist, and sometime political candidate who is the bête noire of Vladimir Putin. True to form for paranoid movie villains, Putin refuses to speak Navalny's name and persecutes his better-liked (and much better-looking) opponent in every way possible. Putin tried to poison Navalny, and when that didn't work he threw him in jail.

Navalny, unbelievably, still tweets on Twitter, cataloging every petty humiliation at the hands of his countrymen with a dry humour one can only gasp at. His threads are like chapters of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich played out in real time. I checked anxiously during the whole 'Wagner coup' business, hoping on the one hand they'd spring him, worried on the other something worse might happen – only to find out they'd gone on lockdown and he'd known nothing about it.

Once the coup (or whatever it was) was over the Russian authorities went back to what they were doing before, which was putting Navalny on trial again for various made-up offences. It's a farce. They know it; Navalny knows it and he knows they know it; they know Navalny knows they know it…you get the idea. It's like reading Kafka with edibles.

Today Navalny tweeted, 'Let me tell you how I realized my idée fixe thanks to the court and also answer the frequent question, "What's going on at your trial?"'

Navalny goes on to explain that he and his friend Daniel Kholodny, with whom he's on trial for 'extremism', are fans of the film Iron Man 2. And there's a particularly cool line from that film that Navalny's always wanted to be able to say. The line goes, 'Yo, Goldstein. Give me a phat beat to beat my buddy's ass to.' The rest of today's thread was a setup to explain how the Russian kangaroo court handed Navalny that opportunity.

Now, I'll get to that, don't worry. But I need to tell you ahead of time that I am not a pop culture expert, neither in the US nor in Russia. I have never even seen an Iron Man film and couldn't tell you anything about Tony Stark, although I vaguely recognise the name. I am also not a fan of rap or hiphop. I do not say this in a belligerent way, nor am I apologetic about it. We do what we can here. But figuring out what Navalny was talking about took me some serious research using Google, detective work, and my subfluent Russian, and I want credit. Here's the rest of the story.

Navalny says, 'I really like this scene, and I wanted to use that phrase somewhere. But where in my boring life could there be a good time to ask for a fat beat?' (He meant to type 'phat'. I know that much.)

'But then they brought me copies of the evidence that would put me and my partner in crime Daniel Kholodny in jail for many, many years for extremism. I opened one of the folders, saw this key piece of evidence, and realized where I would utter this phrase. On the first day of the trial, speaking about my attitude toward the indictment - during the first formal speech of the defendants.

'I stood up and said: "In order for you to understand how I feel about your bogus charges, I'll just read one line from the document about my extremist activities. Volume 44, sheet 220. The sheet has three stamps and signatures of the investigator of special cases.'

Here comes the setup: 'Then I turned to Daniel and said: "Yo, Kholodny. Give me a phat beat to read the case files to, and please include "Hey, grrrra!" I mean, that's a pretty solid evidence that I, as the prosecution says, planned to overthrow Vladimir Putin by violent means.'

And Navalny appends a photo of the 'document'. It's the transcript of the lyrics to 'Navalny Lyokha', a song by the Russian rap singer Morgenshtern. It took me some digging to find it, but here's a translation of part of it. I won't give you the original because I don't know how we stand with the Russian Federation on publishing their documents and GuideML will reproduce Greek but not Cyrillic, darn them, so here it is in English with the bad words bleeped out.

Lyokha's a detective, Lyokha's great, Lyokha is the best

You can't hide your expensive palace from him

Lyokha will punish all who laundered money

They won’t let us vote, but it doesn’t matter

I don’t give a about politics, but Lyokha is on my agenda

This is the young people’s era, Lyokha is on my ballot

I don’t support Gnoyny, and Sobchak is a fool
, this is Lyokha Gang, this is young Russia, ay!

Oh, 'Lyokha' is the nickname for Alexei. The point is, the 'documentation' for what a big threat Alexei Navalny is to law and order in Russia includes the damning fact that the Russian equivalent of Weird Al Yankovic thinks the opposition leader is cool as dirt.

Navalny goes on, 'My reward was the look on the judge's face the second I started reading it. The first to realize what this was and laugh was the secretary, then the bailiffs followed her. When we got to the "Alex Navalny, hey" part, so did the judge.'

'So,' he says, 'that's how my trial is going, with jokes and laughter. We'll laugh at all the nonsense that the investigators stuffed into the case files, they'll give me 15-20 years, and then we'll go our separate ways.'

I took three things away from this account. One: I continue to admire Alexei Navalny's aplomb in the face of this kind of persecution. The saints in the Bible never did better. Two: although the world isn't becoming worse (it's always been this bad), it is becoming more surreal than usual, which is an ill omen. Three: American-made pop culture has gone out into all the world. It sometimes requires the skill and patience of a literary researcher (I am a literary researcher) to tease out all the forms its influence takes.

Folks, Iron Man 2 isn't only about whatever the Marvel Studio executives think it's about. (Which is probably x-million dollars.) It isn't only about whatever Awix and the other cinema critics think it's about. It's also about whatever the audiences in St Petersburg think it's about. Or in the outdoor cinema in Athens on a balmy summer night (I remember those). Or somewhere in Djakarta or Bangalore or Rio…

We're all on this spinning ball together. And somehow, we've got to keep the crazies from knocking us even further out of kilter. So hang in there, Alexei Navalny. Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world, as the man said. And use whatever weapon you find to hand to fight the darkness.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

17.07.23 Front Page

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