A tale about a comedian
A man whose humanity has been elevated and tested at the most extreme
This is an excerpt of the book "The Divine Comedian: Ukraine's journey through hell, purgatory and paradise", written by me and released in the last day of March. The book is available for download here in my blog as well as at amazon.com.
In my blog, the book is available in two formats (PDF and EPUB(Kindle)) and download here is free of charge.
This chapter below is the 8th of 9 chapters, it's basically a tribute to our president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Thank you for reading, for sharing and for supporting my writing journey.
Chapter 8 - A tale about a comedian – Driving the road of peace and pride
THROUGHOUT HIS JOURNEY, Dante experiences a sense of awe and wonder at the perfection of God's creation, filling him with a deep sense of love and gratitude. On this course through heaven to explore the nature of grace after sin and regret, he emphasizes the importance of faith and the need to live a virtuous life to attain salvation. As we reach here the point of Paradiso when we need to talk about faith, and after delineating so much about love, courage, resilience, loyalty, endurance, and justice, it's time to make a fair citation to a single Ukrainian who did not only personally incorporates all these qualities, but also borrowed a particularity of his life to inspire the name of this book.
Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy was largely dishonored and even insulted in 2018 when announced his decision to start his political career mostly because of his background as an actor and comedian, hence our choice for 'Divine Comedian' in an association with Dante's Divine Comedy. It's not an attempt to build a cult of personality towards him by attributing god-like features. Rather, it's an approach designed to offer a deserved tribute to a man whose humanity has been elevated and tested at the most extreme in the last months by being in charge of this usurped nation and acting as a conductor of a very complex orchestra on which no instrument can play in the slightest wrong tone.
Being a young person and a former comedian, instead of affecting his self-confidence or his political ability, it probably provided him a mental power that very few if any would have handled in such an effective and recognized way and under such dire circumstances. His divinity consists of his very human qualities that brought him an instant international recognition of resilience and courage. He is not divine because he is comparable to a God. Being from the artistic world where he acted as a comedian is something that only makes him extremely human. Zelenskyy remembers us that we never have the right to preconceive ideas based on appearances or impressions in the place of real commitment to virtuous values.
This is one reason he hardly ever wears formal clothes, for example, in an effort to remember every Ukrainian that he or she is an equal among millions, but only happened to be in charge of the nation and will do whatever he can to ensure victory because the things that motivate him are perfectly the same that motivates the collective of the Ukrainian society. His adoption of an informal or simple military outfit goes in the opposite direction of leaders from today and from the past, who are used to reaffirm their power towards populations by the means of some of the most expensive suits or high-ranking uniforms full of medals made of gold and gemstones. Zelenskyy, in his turn, uses the same simple fleece anyone can find for a couple of dollars in any discount store.
* * *
IF LOVE CONSISTS IN A FUNDAMENTAL FORCE to the really important accomplishments of life, it's perfectly fair to say that our divine comedian is conducting his duty as president with the most strict standards of love a head of state could ever devote. Love for his people, love for his nation, and love for respect, justice, and freedom.
Nothing is perfect except God, but the highest point in the direction of perfect love which is achievable by humans is probably something close to this combination, something well reasonable to a man who is respected in every corner of the democratic world and is frequently said to be the man of the year, the decade and even of the century. A man who is respected and is every day more respected by representatives of all sides of political activity, being invited to parliaments, to palaces, and having his pledges considered by the most important authorities of today's world.
Ukraine, an undeniable object of Zelenskyy's love, certainly retributes this sentiment to the same extent and strength. This suffered population, for centuries prepared for hardships involving the possibility of hungry, death, and deportation, never really trusted politicians would propose definitely new methods of administration which contemplate the needs of the bulk of the society and manages in a way to foster a better quality of life. Corruption and looting of the public inventory were the rule even after our independence in 1991, so we were very skeptical about the young comedian who announced that coming outside from classic political activity, he would take a better look at our country. Our normal expectation, before Zelenskyy, was for candidates who emulated their interest for the public only to persuade their voting choices, while under the table, they were only working for the construction or maintenance of their business empires at the expense of the Ukrainian taxpayer.
We had nothing to do except proceeding to choose the lesser evil at any election, which was always a moment of deep disappointment for most Ukrainians. Engagement in elections were falling dramatically as we simply lost interest in that game of same players, but then Volodymyr came to remember us that there's possible to have someone occupying the highest position of the country and at the same time remain looking at the nation from the point of view of integrity and care. For the first time in history, we really feel represented by the figure of our president.
This respect, such a high respect that I would even risk saying it borders a certain notion of love, is not that blind kind of love sometimes persons or societies develop for their abusing figures of authority. This is a completely different kind of love for a leader.
Maybe it's something new because it's based on a very objective, free, and democratic perception that this man is offering his life to defend this land that belongs to him and his fellow millions of compatriots.
Proving that his leadership carries democracy as a core value, despite the wide and large approval of his governmental term, our divine comedian is not unanimous among Ukrainians. But anyway, it's out of discussion his great level of compromise with the defense and security of Ukraine. This is universal.
* * *
IN THE MIDDLE OF CHAOS, it's hard to contemplate how different could be the current scenarios if one or other factor of destiny would not be presented on the table today. For example, how would be Ukraine now if Zelenskyy would not be elected four years ago? It's a hard exercise to do, particularly if we consider that Russia's vocation for cruelty would not be contained no matter the person in charge of our presidency. But even considering the destructive dynamics that always characterized Russian activity in the region and the consistency regarding the immoral behavior of our invaders, we could assume the country would be in a different situation without our divine comedian.
The most likely scenario with some president other than Volodymyr would be the ready and easy capitulation to Russia's interests in the Ukrainian territory, spreading poverty and chaos all over Ukraine and ensuring excessive financial gains to both Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs next to Putin and strategically allied with a newly established puppet-government. These delegates of Moscow, again, composed of Russians and some bad Ukrainians, were well established in the Ukrainian political structure like a cancer that insisted to resist the strongest of immunotherapies. These are the kind of people who make increased profits every time when crisis and despair take place. These people, this shameful part of the Ukrainian citizenry, fortunately, a very small part, was the first one to flee the country and today are enjoying expensive lives in the fancy districts of every European capital.
Another scenario, once Putin declared Ukraine was an artificial invention and had no right to exist, in an attempt to rewrite history, it could be perfectly possible that another puppet govt imposed by Moscow would not proceed with the military invasion, but employ strategies to 'deukranize' the territory and erase every aspect that defines Ukraine as Ukrainian. It would certainly include a wide ban on the Ukrainian language and since it has a character of conquest and search for historical reparation, everyone speaking Ukrainian would be considered an enemy of the state. Ukraine probably wouldn't exist anymore as a national entity, but even if it survived on the map, it would be dead from the inside: We the Ukrainians would be prohibited to be Ukrainians and would need to actively adopt Russian customs and attitudes.
The regions characterized by more distinctive cultural aspects such as the western areas like Lviv, Ternopil, Rivne, and Zakarpattia, would suffer large displacement of people who mostly speak the Ukrainian language and don't observe the Orthodox Church's customs. The religious element has a deep influence on Moscow's ruling class and it's a pillar of their projection of power among the Russian population, so it's reasonable to think they would charge for a chunk of leverage in the protectorate Russians would build in today's Ukraine. Everywhere we look, everything we imagine, every hypothesis of alternative would be horrific.
The divine comedian, in this way, represents salvation for us.
Not a God-like salvation, because he is not God and never proposed to be anything regarding a mystical figure: he understands, and knows how to make Ukrainians feel honesty and sincerity from his actions, that he occupies a mere temporary position with the objective of bringing true respect, ultimate fulfillment, and the highest spiritual state for a whole population which is freedom from suffering and desire of peace. In Divine Comedy, a human must have an unwavering faith to achieve salvation, which is a perfect allegory of the faith of the Ukrainian people towards our president, and from him to us. We trust him because he earned our trust. He earned the trust of every important leader from the democratic and free world. In the middle of a catastrophic and destructive war, he elevates the name of Ukraine to a level that never made us so proud to be Ukrainians.