How did Russia lose its chance of freedom? When did the hopes for a democratic future vanish? Could things have turned out differently? These are just some of the questions posed by Mikhail Fishman in his book The Successor: Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Putin and the Decline of Modern Russia. Please join Fishman for a conversation with Arkady Ostrovsky about The Successor, which tells a story of modern Russia through the many lives of Boris Nemtsov.
As a new openness swept Russia in the late 1980s, a young physicist, Boris Nemtsov, began his career in politics. Charismatic, confident, liberal and vehemently opposed to corruption, he swiftly rose to prominence. Two decades later Russia was ruled by Vladimir Putin, with Nemtsov as his most vocal opponent. In February 2015, he was assassinated on a bridge opposite the Kremlin.
Mikhail Fishman’s sweeping political biography draws on buried archives and hundreds of interviews, tracing all the landmark events that shaped Russia – from the first free elections to the Bolotnaya protests of 2011–2012, from two wars in Chechnya to the invasion of Ukraine – and the man who participated in and witnessed them, and whose life and fate reflect the trajectory of freedom and democracy in Russia. The book has been updated since its original publication in Russian: for the English language edition, Fishman has added several new chapters, and it now concludes in 2022, with the invasion of Ukraine.
Image credit: Mark Kohn
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 TV Rain, Russia’s leading independent news network. 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 his book Преемник. История Бориса Немцова и страны, в которой он не стал президентом, which was an instant bestseller on Russian publication in 2022. When Putin initiated the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Fishman left Russia, and now lives and works in Amsterdam with his family. The book was translated into English by Michele Berdy, and will be published as The Successor by Pushkin Press in January 2026.
Arkady Ostrovsky is an award-winning author and journalist who is Russia and Eastern Europe Editor for The Economist, and leads its coverage of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Prior to this, he was The Economist’s Moscow Bureau Chief; he joined The Economist in 2007 after 10 years with The Financial Times. He has three decades of experience reporting and analysing domestic and foreign affairs in Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union. His cover stories and special reports have helped to shape Western policy and thinking about the region. Ostrovsky holds a doctorate degree from Cambridge University in English Literature. He is the author of The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev's Freedom to Putin's War, winner of the 2016 Orwell Prize.
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