Amidst the raging war in Ukraine, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has gained much well-deserved recognition as a war hero. But before being elected president of Ukraine, Zelenskyy was acclaimed for something else—his acting and comedy work. -- Callista Frederick, 7th grade
Amidst the raging war in Ukraine, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has gained much well-deserved recognition as a war hero. But before being elected president of Ukraine, Zelenskyy was acclaimed for something else—his acting and comedy work. While, to the average American, this may be unfamiliar, Zelenskyy has long been a successful and well-known comedian and comedic actor in Ukraine and surrounding countries, and in fact it’s one of the reasons he is president today.
This brings us back to November 16, 2015, when a show called Servant of the People premiered on Ukrainian television. Servant of the People is about a history teacher, Vasyl Petrovych Holoborodko, played by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is secretly filmed by a student going on a profane rant about the state of Ukrainian politics to a fellow teacher. The student posts that video on YouTube, where it then goes viral, and an outpouring of support for Holoborodko’s (then nonexistent) presidential campaign follows in the comments. Holoborodko’s students start a crowdfunding campaign to raise enough money for him to run, and he ends up winning the presidential election by a landslide.
Watching Servant of the People now, in a world where Zelenskyy is a strong leader in the thick of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, is an extremely surreal experience. There are many eerily ironic scenes throughout the series. “In a clip that made the rounds on social media, Vasyl gets a call accepting his country into the European Union, and the camera spins in euphoria—until the caller reveals that she dialed the wrong number,” writes Courtney Sender of The Atlantic.
In another episode of Servant where a meteorite is allegedly on course to wipe Ukraine off the face of the earth, Holoborodko’s foreign minister asks “You’re still here? I thought you’d fled the country.” Holoborodko confusedly responds “Where to?”, bringing to mind Zelenskyy’s renowned quote “I need ammunition, not a ride,” in response to an offer of evacuation from the US. The show also occasionally quips at Vladimir Putin, and Holoborodko’s signature move for calming down a noisy room is to shout “Putin has been deposed!”
As different as the world in which Holoborodko addresses the room with this joke (although it is, of course, underlyingly heavy) seems to the world we live in right now, in which bedraggled, army green t-shirted Zelenskyy solemnly addresses the world from the streets of Kyiv, there are fundamental similarities present between Zelenskyy’s character and Zelenskyy himself.
A chief characteristic that both Zelenskyy and Holoborodko share is humility. Holoborodko was a schoolteacher still living in his parents’ apartment before becoming president and he tries his best to reject the luxuries that come with his new job. His story projects, to his people, the message, “I am one of you.” This is the exact message that Zelenskyy’s is projecting with his image in the war, by wearing t-shirts instead of suits to press conferences and addressing the public in intimate, sincere videos filmed with his phone’s camera.
This carefully crafted image is an example of how good of a president Zelenskyy truly is, although, given his unorthodox background, many thought he wouldn’t be able to handle the presidency or the war. But, from press conferences to the front lines of battle, Zelenskyy has been an incredibly steadfast leader and proven his skeptics wrong.
This brings us back to November 16, 2015, when a show called Servant of the People premiered on Ukrainian television. Servant of the People is about a history teacher, Vasyl Petrovych Holoborodko, played by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is secretly filmed by a student going on a profane rant about the state of Ukrainian politics to a fellow teacher. The student posts that video on YouTube, where it then goes viral, and an outpouring of support for Holoborodko’s (then nonexistent) presidential campaign follows in the comments. Holoborodko’s students start a crowdfunding campaign to raise enough money for him to run, and he ends up winning the presidential election by a landslide.
Watching Servant of the People now, in a world where Zelenskyy is a strong leader in the thick of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, is an extremely surreal experience. There are many eerily ironic scenes throughout the series. “In a clip that made the rounds on social media, Vasyl gets a call accepting his country into the European Union, and the camera spins in euphoria—until the caller reveals that she dialed the wrong number,” writes Courtney Sender of The Atlantic.
In another episode of Servant where a meteorite is allegedly on course to wipe Ukraine off the face of the earth, Holoborodko’s foreign minister asks “You’re still here? I thought you’d fled the country.” Holoborodko confusedly responds “Where to?”, bringing to mind Zelenskyy’s renowned quote “I need ammunition, not a ride,” in response to an offer of evacuation from the US. The show also occasionally quips at Vladimir Putin, and Holoborodko’s signature move for calming down a noisy room is to shout “Putin has been deposed!”
As different as the world in which Holoborodko addresses the room with this joke (although it is, of course, underlyingly heavy) seems to the world we live in right now, in which bedraggled, army green t-shirted Zelenskyy solemnly addresses the world from the streets of Kyiv, there are fundamental similarities present between Zelenskyy’s character and Zelenskyy himself.
A chief characteristic that both Zelenskyy and Holoborodko share is humility. Holoborodko was a schoolteacher still living in his parents’ apartment before becoming president and he tries his best to reject the luxuries that come with his new job. His story projects, to his people, the message, “I am one of you.” This is the exact message that Zelenskyy’s is projecting with his image in the war, by wearing t-shirts instead of suits to press conferences and addressing the public in intimate, sincere videos filmed with his phone’s camera.
This carefully crafted image is an example of how good of a president Zelenskyy truly is, although, given his unorthodox background, many thought he wouldn’t be able to handle the presidency or the war. But, from press conferences to the front lines of battle, Zelenskyy has been an incredibly steadfast leader and proven his skeptics wrong.