A little less than two hours before the official start of Alexei Navalny's funeral ceremony, Friday March 1 at 2:30 p.m. (Moscow time), no one knew if the body of the famous opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin would be in the coffin or not.
All morning, funeral directors in Moscow announced that they refused to transport the remains of the deceased, who died in prison on February 16.
“They all received calls from unidentified individuals who threatened them in order to dissuade them from bringing the body to us,” said Kira Yarmysh, spokesperson for Alexeï Navalny, interviewed by the English-speaking daily Moscow Times.
A dead man who haunts power
Ultimately, the family was handed over the remains just an hour before the ceremony began.
The funeral was then able to take place at the Borissovo cemetery, located in the south-east of the capital, with thousands of people coming to show their respect to the man who had been defying the master of the Kremlin for several years.
These latest funeral mishaps for the relatives of the most famous Russian opponent demonstrate to what extent he continues to haunt power even after his death.
The Kremlin has, in fact, increased the administrative harassment surrounding the body of Alexeï Navalny.
“Навальный!”
pic.twitter.com/LYDIJMRzid
— Команда Навального (@teamnavalny) March 1, 2024
The family had to wait eight days before even having the right to see the remains.
Lyudmila Navalnaya, Alexei Navalny's mother, recorded a video addressed directly to Vladimir Putin begging him to hand over the body.
She explained that the prison administration refused to even tell her where her son's remains were and when and if she would ever be able to see them.
The Kremlin then pushed for a secret burial.
“They told me that if I did not agree to bury him in secret, they would do something with my son's body,” Lyudmila Navalnaya said in another video.
The authorities would have threatened to bury him directly in the penal colony in the Arctic where he died, Ivan Zhdanov, one of Alexeï Navalny's main advisers, later clarified on Telegram.
Yulia Navalnaïa, the opponent's widow, also complained about the traces of mistreatment that her husband's remains showed.
She even accused Vladimir Putin of having her late husband's body “tortured”, describing the Russian president's behavior as “demonic”.
The mystery surrounding his death remains unsolved
These delays and hesitations in getting the body to the family “may give the impression that the Kremlin has something to hide,” recognizes Oleg Kozlovsky, Russia specialist at Amnesty International.
It must be said that the mystery surrounding the death of Alexeï Navalny remains unsolved.
“The official mention of 'natural causes' of death is not very credible and tells us nothing concrete about the circumstances of the death,” adds this expert.
These administrative hassles can also be seen as a foretaste of what awaits the family, who would like a thorough investigation into what happened in the very distant penal colony.
This would be a way of suggesting that if recovering the body was already complicated, getting answers will be even more difficult.
Also watch Yulia Navalnaïa, wife of Alexei Navalny, new target of pro-Russian propaganda
This battle over the remains until their burial is also part of “the continuity of the systematic administrative harassment of which Navalny was the victim during his lifetime”, notes Jeff Hawn, specialist in Russia at the London School of Economics.
“It’s as if there was a reflex in the Russian administration when it comes to Navalny.
You have to pose problems to your loved ones, whether they are alive or dead,” notes Oleg Kozlovsky.
This is all the more important since “the burial of the physical remains of the deceased represents a crucial aspect in the Orthodox religion,” emphasizes Jeff Hawn.
This is why the coffin remains open during the ceremony to allow the living to see and pay their last respects to the deceased.
The remains of Alexei Navalny can thus “become an important political symbol for the opposition in Russia and his grave can serve as a place of pilgrimage,” adds Jeff Hawn.
Navalny is harder to denigrate dead than alive
In some ways, the body may become an even more painful thorn in Putin's side than when Alexei Navalny was alive.
The government fears that the funerals attended by thousands of Russians - kept at a distance by the police - will contribute to “creating a political martyrdom a few weeks before the presidential election”, underlines Joanna Szostek, specialist in Russian propaganda at the University of Glasgow.
And a martyr “does not have the faults that a living person could have.
In other words, it is much more difficult for the Kremlin to denigrate the memory of an idealized Alexeï Navalny,” underlines Jeff Hawn.
The body of the ex-activist can embody this “martyr” version of the opponent.
But all these efforts to hide this body that the Kremlin does not want to see “ultimately represents a classic case of the Streisand effect”, estimates Jeff Hawn.
It's a media phenomenon - named after the famous singer Barbra Streisand - that occurs when efforts to conceal information have the opposite effect and only amplify the revelations.
In the case of Alexeï Navalny, the obstacles put in the way of the family to recover the body and organize a burial worthy of the name allowed the mother and the wife to broadcast very critical messages towards the power which made big noise.
“All international media picked them up and widely distributed them,” notes Oleg Kozlovsky.
The only positive point for the Kremlin: the Borisovo cemetery is more than an hour from the center of Moscow.
It is certainly a logical choice since it is located in the district where Alexeï Navalny lived, but for the government “if the tomb becomes a place of pilgrimage, it is better that it is on the outskirts rather than in the middle heart of the capital,” concludes Oleg Kozlovsky.
Still, the numerous images and videos circulating on social networks of the crowds present are all the more impressive when we know how out of the way the cemetery is.
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