Look servant of the people when Ukraine has just been invaded by the Russian army is a strange experience to say the least. While Volodymyr Zelensky acquired in a few days the stature of a hero at the head of a country at war, he is only in the first season of the series available on Arte.tv than a troublemaker, at the crossroads of a Mister Bean and a Borat. In this fiction produced by Kvartal 95 Studio, founded by Volodymyr Zelensky, the actor, then aged 37, embodies a kind of loser magnificent named Vassili Goloborodko, an honest history teacher, divorced father forced, following his separation, to move back in with his parents in Kiev.
A sweet, clumsy dreamer
If he spends his nights dreaming of Plutarch, he appears in the first sequences as a teenager incapable of preparing breakfast or ironing his shirt. At the high school in which he works, he perpetually attracts the wrath of the headmistress. If the character of a slightly awkward and naive sweet dreamer is similar to Mister Beanthe family scenes, which borrow the codes of the family sitcom, are a bit outdated.
Vasily Goloborodko flourishes only in the classroom where his students watch him with boundless admiration as he spouts idealistic discourses on democracy and humanism. While he virulently criticizes the government plagued by a corrupt elite, he is filmed without his knowledge by his students.
An antihero propelled president of Ukraine
The video goes viral on social media, racking up millions of views. The teacher gets the money needed to register for the presidential elections of Ukraine thanks to a campaign of crowdfunding led by his students. His anti-system speech won over the voters, and against expectations, he was elected president in the first minutes of the first episode. “I didn’t think I would say that one day: I’m proud of you my son,” his father told him, extremely surprised.
The arrival of this antihero in business delights the corrupt oligarchs in place, who hope to make their puppet. The discovery of the mysteries of power by this simple professor of history propelled overnight to the top of the State evokes the character of Borat.
This idealist, inspired by dreamlike visits by historical figures such as Lincoln, Louis XVI or Ivan the Terrible, will gradually try to break with presidential pomp and impose his style of servant of the people. Combining absurd humor and acid satire, the scenes showing the crooked oligarchs offer the most scathing replies. “An uncontrollable democracy, I had not had such a rush of adrenaline for a long time”, revels for example one of them. Vassili Goloborodko will undertake to clean up the political class in place.
A huge success, taken off the air in Russia
Broadcast from 2015 to 2019 in Ukraine, servant of the people, a satirical comedy in three seasons, triumphed over 1+1, the second most important channel in the country behind Inter. The fiction, posted free on YouTube, is to date the most successful television series in Ukraine with more than 20 million cumulative viewers.
In Russia, on the other hand, servant of the people breaks the record for the shortest broadcast on television, after three episodes broadcast in a single evening. One of the broadcast episodes contains a play on words, difficult to translate, which associates the Hublot brand and Vladimir Poutine, which makes Russian speakers laugh. The satire also makes fun of Ukraine’s geopolitical position. Is Vasili Goloborodko “a man of the West or of the Kremlin”, asks one of the Ukrainian politicians for example as he comes to power. The series is removed from the antenna.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian production is a hit to the point that Netflix is buying the rights for certain territories. In France, only the first season of 23 episodes has been available on Arte.tv since last November.
A success that propels Volodymyr Zelensky to the head of the Ukrainian state
France almost elected Coluche, the United States elected Ronald Reagan, from reality to fiction, there is only one step! In 2018, Volodymyr Zelensky, relying on the notoriety of this premonitory role, entered the Ukrainian political arena within the Servant of the People party, a name borrowed from the television series. Ivan Bakanov, lawyer and CEO of the Kvartal 95 studio, which produces fiction, takes over the management.
The series gives Volodymyr Zelensky the image of a politician with integrity. His team makes no mistake about it and cheerfully mixes real images and the series during his presidential campaign where he embraces the same themes as his alter ego of fiction: the fight against corruption, anti-elite discourse. So much so that the third season, which aired just before the election, sparked intense discussion about whether the series should be considered a part of the campaign or not.
In 2019, the very popular producer, presenter, actor and humorist Volodymyr Zelensky won the presidential election against the outgoing head of state, Petro Poroshenko. While the fictional character won the election with 67% of the vote, Volodymyr Zelensky was elected with 73.2% of the vote. The “clown” now takes the leading role, in a drama, alas, very real.