Told through the tumultuous life and brutal assassination of Boris Nemtsov (1959-2015), a work of political history detailing the decline of modern Russia, taking us right up to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Searching, propulsive ... In the end, The Successor justifies its sweeping treatment of a relatively minor figure because it offers a glimpse of the open, pluralist Russia that almost was — and may yet be. Unable to ignore the world as it is, Fishman struggles to conjure his brighter counterfactual, even as a fantasy. Still, he was right before ... The seeds Nemtsov and Navalny planted may yet mature, in their own time.
Makes a powerful argument for the significance of Nemtsov’s assassination and his 25-year career of dramatic highs and lows in Russian politics ... Fishman has found new details that will shock even those familiar with the squalid story of Yeltsin’s Moscow ... Fishman’s book is a valuable reminder of one of Russia’s important martyrs for freedom.
The Successor, published in Russia two weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, is much more than a biography. Translated by Michele A. Berdy, and with an extra chapter dealing with the death of Alexei Navalny, it is a fascinating insider account of Russia’s descent from imitation democracy to fully-fledged tyranny, with Nemtsov’s life as a connecting thread.
