The Improbable Rise and Endless Heroism of Volodymir Zelensky

[babylonsister]

The Improbable Rise and Endless Heroism of Volodymir Zelensky
How the comedian turned Ukrainian president gained control of something no army can wrest away: the narrative.
By Michael Idov
February 27, 2022


As I write this, Volodymyr Zelensky, the most improbable national leader in the world, just might be the world’s most popular. By now everyone knows his life story’s surreal outline: a comedian who rose to fame with a portrayal of a president becomes the real thing, then transcends it.

The erstwhile Ukrainian voice of Paddington Bear, the star of a dozen shitty comedies and one decent one, he first stared down Trump over their “perfect” phone call—if you recall, 45 tried making aid to Ukraine conditional on a “small favor,” i.e. a sham investigation into the Bidens, and got impeached for his troubles—and is now staring down Putin on the streets of his besieged capital.

A huge part of Zelensky’s global resonance is that he seems to fit a type everyone knows the world over, because, thanks to millennia of persecution, the type exists the world over: a Jewish wiseacre. The idea of one of those (of us, I should say), becoming a wartime icon is in itself a perfect Jewish joke. It’s Woody Allen in Bananas, it’s Dustin Hoffman in Ishtar, it’s Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder. Except in real life. Risking real death.


snip//

Zelensky’s landslide 2019 victory against the incumbent Petro Poroshenko seemed like the wildest plot twist imaginable. In fact, things could have been crazier still: Running alongside him in the same election was one of Ukraine’s best rock singers, Slava Vakarchuk of the band Okean Elzy, who unlike Zelensky never performed in Russian. Vakarchuk was not just a plausible candidate but the first choice for a large swath of progressive youth, who viewed Zelensky’s feel-good centrism as a barely acceptable Plan B. The fear was—ironically—that he would get too cozy with Russia.

snip//

Two days later, Russia invaded.

Suddenly, the right gestures were not just welcome but essential. Mere hours into the war, it was blindingly obvious that, while the Russians might overpower Ukraine militarily, the Ukrainians had grabbed firm control over something no army could wrest away: the narrative. In other words, they achieved unsurpassable meme superiority. The phrase “Put some seeds in your pockets” barely requires explanation any more. Random dudes interrupting live broadcasts become viral stars. The Ukrainian brand of defiant, fatalistic, healthily filthy humor, harkening back to the shtetl and to the Cossacks both, has taken over the world. There seems to be a straight line from the Zaporozhians’ mythical 1676 reply to the Turkish sultan (“By land and by sea we will battle with thee. Fuck thy mother”) to “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.” And at the top of it all stands Zelensky himself. No man has gone from joke to legend faster.

more...

https://www.gq.com/story/improbable-rise-endless-heroism-volodymyr-zelensky?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[crickets]

1. This is a really good piece.

There's the proper balance of admiration and reality check. Best of all, there's humor: I almost choked on a saltine laughing at the 'random dude' clip.

Let this man live.

[Hekate]

2. 🌻🌻🌻❤️🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻❤️🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻❤️🌻🌻

[Demovictory9]

3. kick

[amcgrath]

4. People would do well to keep this moment in mind

Unfortunately, should Zelensky succeed and survive, don’t expect his image to go unassailed. Depending on how things end, the western world may choose to bolster Ukraine as a bulwark against further Russian aggression. - or Russia may be so depleted, that this isn’t needed.

Western leaders want to attach themselves to his image right now, but should he prevail, he becomes an embarrassment to them. A leader who fought and resisted corruption, then went on to stay and fight with his people is not an image they are likely to appreciate. His decency and resolve holds a very harsh mirror up to their behaviour.

Leaders who indulged themselves on the kremlins purse, created legal loopholes to make corruption possible and sold out their own countrymen for personal gain, find people like Zelensky difficult to have around. Post war, western leaders will regard him as a threat to their positions. He will likely be maligned, he may find his efforts to rebuild by western countries who fear his example threatens their way of doing things