WSJ reporter Gershkovich details year in Russian prison in new memoir

Lefortovo diary copies mailed to lawyers for safekeeping

WSJ Editor in Chief Emma Tucker wrote about “This Cursed Beautiful Land” ahead of its release, recounting how her correspondent kept a diary throughout more than a year in Moscow’s infamous Lefortovo prison and mailed copies to his lawyers for safekeeping. The book gives Gershkovich’s own account of an experience Tucker said brought him closer to the people he had been covering for years.

Gershkovich was the first American journalist charged with espionage in Russia since the Cold War. Tucker wrote that, in sitting down with her ahead of the book’s release, Gershkovich described the “pure fear” of his arrest by Russian security forces in 2023. He spent more than a year in Moscow’s infamous Lefortovo prison.

Even while detained, Gershkovich continued doing what he had been sent to Russia to do. In a diary he kept throughout his imprisonment, Gershkovich documented his life inside Russia’s vast prison system. He preserved his writing by making copies and mailing them out to his lawyers for safekeeping.

The effort to bring home Gershkovich unfolded on three continents. Tucker wrote that the effort involved spy agencies, billionaires, and political power players, and that Gershkovich’s fate rested not just on messages ferried by diplomats and spies but on years of secret interventions drawn from “the ranks of prime-time TV hosts, Silicon Valley billionaires and Russian oligarchs.”

Tucker Carlson and Hillary Clinton, an unlikely duo, each played “walk-on roles” to propel the talks forward, according to Tucker.

Even in his lowest moments, Tucker wrote, Gershkovich’s humor and instincts never wavered. After his release and return to the United States, he landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. On the tarmac, he joked with Tucker about handing her “quite the challenge” just a few weeks into her tenure as editor in chief.

In a video interview accompanying the column, Gershkovich speaks candidly about how his experience changed his perspective on modern journalism and on what Tucker called “the vital, increasingly dangerous work of reporters around the world.”

Gershkovich is preparing to return to the foreign correspondent role at the Journal. Tucker said he “will soon be back in the saddle,” and she recommended the book to readers as “incisive” and “deeply human.”