![]() ![]() ![]() It’s about what everyone thinks is going on behind the scenes, but no one can actually prove 100%.” “It’s an important release for people there, to realise they’re not alone in thinking that everything is out of whack,” she tells BBC Culture. The success of Servant of the People and Zelensky’s subsequent victory reflected Ukrainians’ exhaustion with oligarchy-as-usual, according to the journalist Katherine Jacobsen, who has covered Russia and Ukraine and written about the series for Foreign Policy. (Even as of 2016, it had topped 9 million views, well before it became a matter of international political interest.) In 2018, its plot took a real-life twist when the Servant of the People political party was formed its candidate, Zelensky, won the presidency in 2019. It was a hit in Ukraine, and its first episode has now amassed 13.7 million views on YouTube. The show ran for three seasons on the country’s 1+1 channel and is now available on Netflix in some countries as well as on YouTube. Servant of the People premiered in Ukraine in 2015, starring Zelensky – then known as a comic actor – as a regular guy-turned-president named Vasyl Petrovych Holoborodko. Since becoming an independent state in 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has fomented a political environment in which a request like Trump’s is just another day at the office – although most of the time, such requests come from oligarchs much closer to home. In fact, watching Servant of the People sheds some light on the other side of the call that has the potential to take down a US president. The president of the United States is on the line. Watching the absurdly funny sedative sequence now, it’s not hard to imagine the next scene of the television series going something like this: the office phone rings. Now that he’s given a few of them some of the most powerful positions in the country, all they can do is complain. You can’t blame him: after his surprise election to the highest office in Ukraine, this former history teacher has had to contend with friends, relatives and acquaintances begging him for jobs and special favours. He gets the sedative treatment, too.īy the time a friend-turned-fourth minister arrives, the president has had it: “What the hell do you want from me?” he snaps. Finally, his friend and minister of international relations charges in after botching a press conference on a Ugandan uprising. He offers her a swig of sedative and sends her on her way. Soon, his newly appointed finance minister – who is also his ex-wife – marches in, complaining about the problem she’s facing: a bank has gone under, and she can’t decide whether to give the patrons their money back. As he screams about contending with the generals he’s now in charge of, the president calmly offers him a swig of sedative and sends him on his way. The Ukrainian president’s office has become a comedy of errors: in marches his newly appointed defence minister, who is an old friend in over his head and hysterical under the pressure of having to cut the military budget.
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