Oe knows it, Volodymyr Zelensky was first an actor before being elected to the presidency of the Ukrainian Republic. In the series servant of the people (Слуга народу in original version), he plays a high school teacher from Kiev who finds himself, overnight, propelled to the head of his country by an unlikely combination of circumstances. His character is named Vasily Petrovich Goloborodko. He teaches history in second and seems to be going through a bad patch. Forced to return to live with his parents after a divorce that we guess is difficult, he struggles to motivate himself in the morning to go to work and carries around a chronic bad mood.
One morning, one of his students films him without his knowledge when, between two lessons, the teacher confides in one of his colleagues about his fed up with the corruption of the local political class. This video, posted on social networks, is going viral. Everything gets carried away then for the one whom his family affectionately nicknames Vassia. His anti-system speech seems to have seduced Internet users. To such an extent that his students register him, without his knowing it, for the presidential election. And are mobilizing to launch, via a crowdfunding site, his campaign. Here he is embarked against his will in the electoral battle.
The tone is that of a sitcom. Vassia’s family is omnipresent in the first season. His father, a taxi driver, has trouble digesting his son’s sudden change in status. While his mother, a former neurologist who we guess has fallen after treating Nikita Khrushchev, enjoys this return to favor more. Just like his sister and his niece. The atmosphere is light. Far from the agonizing atmosphere that weighs on the country today.
READ ALSOVolodymyr Zelensky, hero of freedom
Curious comedy
Stuffed with gags, sometimes a little expected, the scenarios (written under the direction of Zelensky himself, who co-produced the series) weave, episode after episode, on the same leitmotif: the Ukrainian elite is corrupt; the country is rich (it is the second world producer of sunflower oil and the first of bread). And it would take nothing for the population to live better. Can we therefore reform a state that has been cut off by mafia groups since the fall of the iron curtain? Such is the dramatic challenge of this curious comedy where the International Monetary Fund and former leaders will be called to the rescue in the following seasons. But where the Russian threat will never be openly mentioned.
The realization, signed Aleksey Kiryushchenko, highlights sets supposed to illustrate the luxury in which the country’s politicians would live. The presidential administration is bloated. Sometimes two ministers occupy the same portfolio. Vassili has a doppelganger intended to save him from being killed by possible snipers. It must be said that the apprentice president does not only make friends by restoring order in the management of the State. The hero will set an example by adopting a frugal lifestyle, even going so far as to give up his company car to join the presidency by bicycle.
READ ALSOBHL – Zelensky or Putin, that is now the question
A bit populist, the series was a mega hit when it was released in 2015. During its first season, the program gathered more than 20% market share on certain evenings. The soap opera, which has 51 episodes over three years, has also become the most watched show in the history of Ukrainian television (with 20 million viewers for a country of just over 44 million inhabitants). ). This success put Volodymyr Zelensky into orbit, who ended up getting caught up in the game and creating a political party bearing the name of the program. We know the rest.
Arte has acquired the broadcasting rights for the first 23 episodes, via its German hub, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandeburg (RBB). The Franco-German channel began broadcasting it, in the original version with subtitles, on its Internet platform on November 19. They will remain available there until May 18. In three and a half months, the series has been viewed 1.8 million times. Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the counters are panicking, accumulating up to 250,000 new viewings on certain days.
When burlesque piques the Russians
The soap opera meets the same success everywhere. From Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, to ANT 1 in Greece, via PRO TV in Romania or even MBC in the Middle East, viewers flock to this program to discover, in a joyful light, the one who is currently standing up to Vladimir Poutine. Several passages present pikes intended for the Russian president who we look at differently today. Like this scene from the first episode where, about to take office, Vasily Petrovitch Goloborodko is offered luxury watches, the brands of which are listed for him.
Turning to his adviser, he asks him who wears such clockwork jewelry. Answer from his right arm: “Putin! And Zelensky then adopted a mocking pout. Broadcast on December 11, 2019 on a Russian cable channel, the pilot of servant of the people had seen this scene censored by the management of the TNT channel. The programming of the series was interrupted after Muscovite sites had mentioned the fact that many Russians had gone to look for the missing sequence on the Web.Other episodes presenting Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian ally Alexander Lukashenko as idiots had something to offend the Kremlin. Several episodes depict dreams where the Ukrainian president exchanges with Plutarch and Herodotus or fights the historical figure of Ivan the Terrible. As if to remind viewers that Kiev feels closer to Europe than to Russia.