The Boston Globe - 05.19.2019

OCTOBER 5, 2019 5

By Max Jungreis
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
It must have been a surreal
week for President Volodymyr
ZelenskyofUkraine,who
found himself fielding ques-
tions about his phone call with
President Trump and whether
he felt pressured to investigate
Trump’sDemocraticpolitical
rival Joe Biden and his son,
Hunter.
Yet Zelensky remained
poised and quippy throughout
the press conference — as one
might expect of a professional
comedian.
Like Trump, Zelensky has a
past as an entertainer: Before
running for office, he was best
known for his starring role in
the TV show “Servant of the
People,” in which he played a
lovable goofball teacher acci-
dentally elected the president
of Ukraine.
By some strange twist of
fate, I actually watched the first
season of his show before he
started his campaign. And after
the firestorm of the past several
days, I decided to give it a sec-
ond look.
In “Servant of the People,”
Zelensky plays a man on a mis-
sion to drain the swamp in his
own country. Initially a humble
history teacher, Zelensky’s Vasi-
ly Goloborodko becomes a viral
sensation after a student fur-
tively films him delivering a
profanity-laden rant to a col-
league on the blatant corrup-
tion present in Ukrainian poli-
tics.
“If I could have just one
week in office, if at all possible,
I would show them!” he yells.
“[Expletive] the motorcades,
[expletive] the perks, [exple-
tive] the weekend chalets!...
Have a simple teacher live like
a president, and a president

live like a teacher!”

The clip’s online success

prompts his students to kick-

start funds for a presidential

campaign, which Goloborodko

waves off as a joke. He finds it

less funny the morning after

the election, when he emerges

from his bathroom to find

Prime Minister Yuri Chuiko of

Ukraine (played by Stanislav

Boklan), flanked by security

guards, standing in his hallway.

“Good morning, Mr. Presi-

dent,” Chuiko says.

Clinton-era political adviser

Paul Begala liked to say that

politics is “show business for

ugly people,” an ethos the show

cynically embraces. Chuiko, a

figure reminiscent of Littlefin-

ger on “Game of Thrones” who

believes he can manipulate the

humble schoolteacher, sets

about grooming him for the

spotlight. He guides Golo-

borodko through a bizarre

makeover, complete with flashy

watches, odorous colognes,

and a tailor of Goloborodko’s

choosing from a major Europe-

an fashion house.

“You look fantastic,” the

prime minister tells a dazed

Goloborodko after a day of

hairstyling, artificial tanning,

and too-rough massages.

“You’ll outshine everyone.

Even Michelle Obama.”

In one scene, the history

teacher realizes the inaugura-

tion speech he’s practicing is

lifted from the Gettysburg Ad-

dress.

“Nobody here will notice it,

and Lincoln’s homeland will

praise it,” Chuiko tells him.

“You’ll have to ask them for

money.”

Soon enough Goloborodko

becomes disgusted with the op-

ulent lifestyle being pushed up-

on him. He pushes back, reject-

ing the gilded trappings that he

sees other Ukrainian bureau-

crats accept as a matter of

course. He eschews rehearsed

speeches, instead preferring to

speak plainly and from the

heart.

And as the series progresses,

he begins rooting out the cor-

ruption shot through Ukraine’s

bureaucracy. He pares back the

staff of wasteful parliamentari-

ans, consolidating their extrav-

agant offices into the same

building he works out of. Try-

ing to build a cabinet free of

corruption, he recruits his own

friends and acquaintances as

ministers.

Goloborodko cuts a humble

but ethical figure. True to his

word, he ditches the compli-

mentary presidential limo, pre-

ferring to carpool in his body-

guard’s pickup truck. He refus-

es the official presidential

residence — filmed in an or-

nate mansion that one of Zel-

ensky’s predecessors lived in —

preferring to remain in the run-

down apartment he shares

with his parents, sister, and

niece.

Much like Trump, Zelensky

capitalized on the image made

popular by his TV show to over-

turn the political establish-

ment. After months of specula-

tion, Zelensky announced on

New Year’s Eve 2018 he would

run against incumbent Presi-

dent Petro Poroshenko. That

same day, his production com-

pany registered a new political

party: Servant of the People.

In April 2019, Zelensky won

with 73 percent of the vote, sur-

passing the 67 percent his char-

acter received on the TV show.

Also like Trump, Zelensky

has an oppositional relation-

ship with journalists. He ran

his campaign almost entirely

separately from his country’s

traditional news outlets, pre-

ferring to communicate direct-

ly with voters through social

media. He was expected finally

to hold a press conference after

his first 100 days in office in

August, but he instead opted to

do an “interview” filmed by his

production company, taking

softball questions lobbed to

him by the actor who played

Chuiko, the prime minister.

Clips from “Servant of the Peo-

ple” were edited together with

his answers, blurring the line

between Zelensky and Golo-

borodko.

Though the parallels be-

tween Zelensky and Trump are

numerous, the images they

project are in many ways oppo-

site. Trump describes himself

and everything he does in su-

perlatives. Zelensky emphasiz-

es his humble origins. Trump

used his TV show to showcase

his lavish properties. On his

show, Zelensky’s Goloborodko

slept on a Kyiv park bench after

having an argument with his

family. Trump is known for try-

ing to project toughness. Zel-

ensky once mimed playing a pi-

ano duet with his genitals.

But when Trump spoke with

Zelensky on July 25 to congrat-

ulate him on the electoral suc-

cess of his Servant of the People

party — a week after Trump

suspended $400 million in mil-

itary aid to Ukraine — any dif-

ferences were muted.

“We wanted to drain the

swamp here in our country,”

Zelensky said, according to a

rough transcript released by

the White House. “We brought

in many, many new people...

we want to have a new format

and a new type of government.

You are a great teacher for us

and in that.”

Max Jungreis can be reached

on Twitter @MaxJungreis.

The president of Ukraine used to be a TV star

“SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE”/NETFLIX

An image and promotional poster from “Servant of the People,” starring Volodymyr Zelensky.

Black book lovers are not a
new phenomenon. Egerton
says the surge in general indie
bookstore support comes in re-
sponse to fallen brick-and-mor-
tar stores and Amazon dis-
counts.
But for black businesses,
particularly black bookstores,
there’s a cultural factor, too.
“With the passing of so
many greats, Maya Angelou
and Nelson Mandela and more
recently Toni Morrison, we
don’t want our greats to be
lost,” she says. “We also want to
recognize our talent beyond the
most notable. There’s a new
generation of talent coming
through that hasn’t always
been celebrated. With the rise
of Black Lives Matter, there’s a
resurgence of this need and
want to buy and support black.
Black people are showing up
and showing out and gathering
around their love of literature.
It’s about community and to-
getherness.”
Too often in America, people
of color and marginalized peo-
ple are left out of books. Our
histories and memories manip-
ulated, scant, and distorted.
For us, it is a mix of histori-
cal research and narrative,
memoir and fiction, that so of-
ten fuels the archive of the
black American experience. We
count on the likes of James
Baldwin and Toni Morrison
and Frederick Douglass and Oc-
tavia Butler to capture our his-
tories and inform our futures.
Schools don’t always get the
job done. Mainstream book-
stores often relegate us to a
small section. And then, there’s
the hurdle of access and en-
gagement.
Print Ain’t Dead aims to cre-
ate connections between read-
ers of color and LGBTQ+ read-
ers through books centered on
their experiences.
Founded a year ago by Ari-
elle Gray and Cierra Peters,
Print Ain’t Dead is a pop-up
shop appearing in a bike store,
galleries, museums, and at fes-
tivals. The two buy books, new
and old, and sell them for $2 to
$10 to ensure everyone has ac-
cess to books for people of col-
or.
They source from thrift
stores and their own collection.
Papercuts in Jamaica Plain
gives them uncorrected proofs
and old books, too. The selec-

uBOOKS
Continued from Page 1

tions include titles like

“Queenie” by Candice Carty-

Williams and Ntozake Shange’s

“Liliane.”

Last month, they opened a

reading lounge and bookstore

in the Castledrone art galleries

and studios in Hyde Park. Open

noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays, the

point is to create a space for in-

tentional weekly engagement.

“We want to invite people of

color in with no pressure to buy

and offer a space to reflect,

think, and interact with the

works outside of a transactional

experience,” says Gray, 28, a

writer and artist.

The space is intimate and

ethereal with natural light and

leafy plants. There’s a rattan

chair, a staircase, and puff pil-

lows to sit on. Under the stairs,

a cozy reading seat is the per-

fect spot to get lost in pages.

Sure, you can read for free at

the library. But you can’t mark

up the books or have lively con-

versations. Carving out a com-

munal space isn’t easy.

“Space is hard in Boston,”

says Peters, 26, an interdisci-

plinary artist. “We want to

build relationships and have

conversations. Some of these

books are literally our books

that we’ve lived with in our

homes and have sentimental

connection [to]. Some of these

books are books people

wouldn’t necessarily have ac-

cess to outside of academia. A

deep part of the curation is who

is having these conversations.”

Print Ain’t Dead aims to

start holding events and din-

ners around black literature

and art. They are in the process

of building a digital library

cloud and public art compo-

nent and potentially collabo-

rate with The Free Black Wom-

en’s Library, an interactive

black feminist mobile trading

library that started in New York

in 2015. Now it’s in Los Ange-

les, Chicago, and Atlanta.

Another collaborator: Jo-

vonna Jones. Last May, she

launched the Black Studies

Reading Room.

Every month, dozens of

black lit and art lovers meet her

upstairs at Trident Booksellers.

Print Ain’t Dead is a regular.

The collective started with

2019 MacArthur Fellow and

scholar Saidiya Hartman’s

“Wayward Lives, Beautiful Ex-

periments.” Hartman builds

narratives around deep histori-

cal research in a method she

calls critical fabulation to ex-

plore black American life that

has been omitted from the ar-

chive.

For Jones, filling in those

blanks is what is driving black

readers to come together in

love.

“From 2012 to now, every-

thing has felt so violent, so ur-

gent, and so overwhelming,”

says Jones, 26, a PhD candidate

in African and African-Ameri-

can studies at Harvard. “Some-

thing about reading right now

and reading together forces us

to be slow and deliberate and

tender. It’s something I need

and I crave. Sharing with other

people is hard to come by right

now, and these reading spaces

are sacred.”

Jones is not alone in her

hunger.

In New York, Glory Edim

started Well-Read Black Girl as

a digital community centering

the stories of black female and

nonbinary writers. The Insta-

gram account has more than

250,000 followers. Now there

are physical book club meet-

ings, a published anthology,

chapters across the country,

and next month, the third an-

nual festival.

Earlier this summer, Chica-

go rapper and poet Noname

launched a book club to high-

light writers of color and writ-

ers within the LGBTQ+ com-

munity. On Twitter, there are al-

ready 45,000 followers.

Reading is a community ex-

ercise, whether the community

is on Twitter, Instagram — or at

a bar.

Last year, when District 7

Tavern opened in Roxbury, co-

owner Arianna Waldron knew

they were inheriting a commu-

nity gem. It’s the site of the his-

toric Sonny Walker’s, one of the

first black-owned taverns in

Boston. But how would they

start new traditions?

It started with a book nook

— a take a book, leave a book

deal. And by January, a few reg-

ulars asked to start a District 7

book club, and it’s been on ever

since.

Lanelle Sneed, along with

Latoya Sanderon, are the cus-

tomers who started the club.

For them, it was about sis-

terhood, buying black (they get

their books at Frugal), and be-

ing able to drink and think over

the likes of Michelle Obama’s

“Becoming.”

“It’s different to do it at a

bar,” Sneed, 35, says. “It destig-

matizes bars. Why can’t we

have a cocktail and enjoy read-

ing? It’s a safe space, and it’s

grown into this amazing group

of women, and we all added our

own piece to it and made it our

own.”

Waldron says there is power

in the reading, but also in those

who see the club together.

“There is something differ-

ent when you see yourself in

what you’re reading,” says Wal-

dron, 34. “We are taking up this

space and it’s permeating more

into our consciousness.”

As black folk come together

in public spaces and gather

around books, they don’t just

grow themselves. They push

the American narrative for-

ward.

“The jump is done by the

power of the story,” Harriet says

of Coates’s “The Water Dancer.”

“It pulls from our particular

histories, on each of our loves

and all of our losses. All of that

feeling is called up, and on the

strength of our remembrances,

we are moved.”

For far too long, we’ve ac-

cepted the half-told stories pub-

lic schools tell us about our-

selves. Not all of us were en-

couraged to dig beyond the one

or two shelves of black books.

We’re telling our stories,

now. We’re finding them. We’re

sharing them. Through the

power of the story, we don’t see

only a suffering slave. We see

our black, brilliant, and beauti-

ful selves.

Jeneé Osterheldt can be reached

at [email protected].

Follow her on Twitter

@sincerelyjenee.

Black booklovers remix notion of the book club

ARAM BOGHOSIAN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

Books on display

at Print Ain’t

Dead where

cofounder Arielle

Gray says, “We

want to invite

people of color in

with no pressure

to buy and offer a

space to reflect,

think, and

interact with the

works outside of

a transactional

experience.”

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