Book Talk with Mikhail Fishman — The Successor: Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Putin, and the Decline of Modern Russia

About

When did Russia lose its chance of freedom? 1990: As a new openness sweeps Russia, a talented young physicist, Boris Nemtsov, begins his career in politics. Charismatic, confident, liberal and vehemently opposed to corruption, he swiftly rises to prominence. For the first time, another future seems possible. 2015: Putin holds the country in the grip of tyranny once more. Nemtsov, now his fiercest and most unrelenting opponent, is assassinated on a Moscow bridge. This is the story of how a nation's dreams of democracy died. Drawing on buried archives and off-the-record interviews, exiled journalist Mikhail Fishman gives a gripping insider account of the tragedy of modern Russia, told through many lives of Boris Nemtsov — activist, playboy, leader-in-waiting, dissident and, finally, victim. From the economic reforms under Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Putin's oligarchy, through two wars in Chechnya and the invasion of Ukraine, this is the story of a man fired by the belief that Russia could, still, have another future.

SPEAKERS

Mikhail Fishman is one of Russia’s leading political journalists. Active since the late 1990s, he has chronicled Russia’s dramatic political life. He served as editor-in-chief of Russian Newsweek and The Moscow Times, as well as hosting the Friday night news round-up at independent news network TV Rain. In 2017, Fishman and Vera Krichevskaya released The Man Who Was Too Free, a documentary feature on Boris Nemtsov. It was the highest-grossing documentary in Russia in at least a decade and laid the groundwork for this book, which was an instant bestseller on Russian publication in 2022. Fishman faced increasing intimidation and suppression from the state; when Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he left for Amsterdam, where he now lives in exile with his family.

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Satre Family Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and teaches in the Department of Political Science, the Program on International Relations, and the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.