Volodymyr Zelensky’s appointment as president of Ukraine in May 2019 briefly raised eyebrows abroad: a comedian had been put in charge of the government. Fast forward three years and Zelensky is a household name around the world. People in London, New York and Tokyo will recognise the ubiquitous wartime khaki t-shirt—but may also wonder how he came to be president in the first place, and indeed what he stands for.
This new biography of Zelensky by Ukrainian journalist Serhii Rudenko offers a preliminary sketch. Rudenko charts Zelensky’s unexpected rise from actor to president—before being elected, he starred in a TV series called Servant of the People, in which he played a history teacher who becomes president of Ukraine. Although the biography was written before the war, the English edition contains the author’s thoughts on Zelensky’s transformation into a wartime leader. “Prior to the war, almost every one of Zelensky’s public addresses was reminiscent of his acting past,” writes Rudenko, for whom there was “too much theatricality and artificiality.” Yet all this showiness melted away when Russia invaded Ukraine, as staged appearances by the president gave way to intimate communiqués filmed at his office in Kyiv.
Rudenko has written a succinct political biography that plunges readers right into the middle of the Ukrainian political scene, but with not much to guide them. Written for a Ukrainian audience familiar with the nation’s quirks and personalities, there is little context for the general reader on Ukraine’s history, regions and social makeup.
Anyone eager to learn more about the country will have to look elsewhere, such as Serhii Plokhy’s The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (2015), which offers a longer-term perspective on Kyiv’s troubled relations with Moscow. As for Zelensky: he has made his mark on Ukraine’s history, but a fuller assessment of his role is yet to come.
