Perspective: How Soviet game shows explain the popularity of Ukraine’s new president
President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky leaves after meeting with leaders of some parliament factions in Kiev, Ukraine, on May 4, 2019. By Christine Evans Christine Evans is associate professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is the author of"Between Truth and Time: A History of Soviet Television." May 13 at 6:00 AM The election of Volodymyr Zelensky as the next president of Ukraine presents journalists and commentators with a challenge.
There is, however, one central aspect of Zelensky’s background that most English-language commentators have ignored, and that offers another way to understand the sources of his appeal: His show business career began as a competitor on a Soviet and now post-Soviet television game show, “KVN,” that promoted the idea that the intelligentsia was better equipped to rule than existing political leaders.
In comedic games and skits broadcast across the country from the 1960s through the early 1970s, the show’s elite technocratic players were encouraged to imagine themselves in power, taking on playful tasks such as building a student city on the moon or running the Ministry of Higher Education for a day. Their youthful satire often had political overtones, and frequently led to rebukes from Soviet Central Television’s political leadership.
From the beginning, but especially since the end of the Soviet Union, the influence of these “intellectual games” has gone far beyond the television screen, becoming a forum for aspiring young elites in technical fields, business and law to demonstrate their intellectual prowess. Professional “KVN” teams now tour and compete regularly, and prominent players of both games earn money performing at business conferences and running corporate training programs.
Thus, while Zelensky’s path from TV to the presidency does connect him to Trump, each man also reflects the different kind of candidate desired by alienated voters in each country.
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