Комикът среща трагедията
The Comedian Meets Tragedy

Summary/Abstract: The focus of this article is the development of Volodymyr Zelensky as an actor with a career spanning over 20 years, mainly concentrated in the field of comedy genres, before he was elected President of Ukraine. As a key to the understanding of Zelensky’s performance style, Mikhail Chekhov’s theory of acting is drawn, insofar as, on the one hand, it is particularly relevant in the context of the post-Soviet artistic scene, and on the other hand, it offers tools for building a stage and screen image, whose effects are visible precisely in the realm of comedy. Zelensky’s on-screen presence from the end of the 1990s and the evolution of his team from Studio Kvartal 95 are traced in the context of the question of whether the TV shows and the series „Servant of the People“ can be commented on as a political project, especially after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The role of satire in the process of forming civic consciousness in the audience and even in the process of forming national identity is considered. Ultimately, the observations stress the political functionality of the image of the actor-comedian, who will eventually face the tragedy of war.

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