Kyiv has a chronicling tradition that spans more than a thousand years. I resolved to continue this tradition: between 2019 and 2024, I published numerous columns and articles on the Wilson Center’s platforms, Focus Ukraine and Kennan Cable, about Ukraine—its politics, society, and leaders. Now, all these articles have been compiled into a book, From Servant to Leader: Chronicles of Ukraine under the Zelensky Presidency, 2019–2024. 

As history has shown, a chronicle records history in terms of its rulers. This book documents Ukraine’s history during Volodymyr Zelensky’s presidency. This dazzlingly flashy, extraordinarily optimistic, and profoundly tragic period will be long remembered by Ukrainians and their neighbors. Historians will also discuss it, attempting to distill the chaotic events, inconsistent processes, and ambiguous perceptions of its participants and witnesses into a single structured narrative. 

Historians, political scholars, and journalists in the United States, Britain, and Europe have already published books about Zelensky and Ukraine under his presidency, ranging from the scholarly The Zelensky Effect by Olga Onuch and Henry E. Hale (Hurst, 2022) to the nonfiction bestseller The Showman by Simon Shuster (HarperCollins, 2024) and the children’s book Brave Volodymyr by Linda Elovitz Marshall (HarperCollins, 2023). This growing body of publications constitutes a new subgenre: the “Zelensky legend.” This subgenre may soon overshadow the “Young Mazeppa legend,” which was widely popular in European Romanticism [1]. Some of these books on Zelensky and Ukraine will be read and reread by future generations, while others will soon be forgotten—either for being too emotionally involved or for misreading the facts. Yet together, they have established the narrative foundation for the study and portrayal of Zelensky’s Ukraine.

I joined these narrative constructions with some hesitation. My chronicle was written while President Zelensky was still in power, so this remains an open-ended story of an unfinished presidency. How does one write about a period whose outcomes are still uncertain? This uncertainty was precisely why I overcame my doubts and accepted the offer of Andreas Umland, a longtime colleague, scholar, and editor of the ibidem Verlag series “Ukrainian Voices.” A chronicle is usually a non-finalized account of ongoing occurrences. It is a collection of testimonies that capture a series of events alongside participants’ and witnesses’ first reactions, both emotional and analytical. In this way, a chronicle aligns much closer to reality than any well-structured narrative found in a scholarly, historical volume. This characteristic of a chronicle was precisely why I compiled my book.

The 52 essays that comprise this chronicle were published online. This method of information and analysis sharing allows for a much wider reach and significantly faster dissemination than any printed publication. The series also allowed me to link my factual or analytical statements to various online sources and in-depth materials for those who wanted to learn more about Ukraine, its people, and its culture. However, while revising the essays as chapters for this book, I realized how unreliable some online resources can be: about 25 percent of the links and references were no longer accessible, even though they pertained to events from just five years ago. I had to find new sources and update my references for this printed publication.

My chronicle covers Ukraine in three distinct phases, during which Zelensky presented himself in markedly different ways. The first phase was the last year of the Ukrainian “Behemoth.” Thomas Hobbes used two biblical monsters—Leviathan and Behemoth—as symbols of political entities. The first, Leviathan, represented “the peacekeeping state” under one almighty sovereign, while the second, Behemoth, symbolized a state of permanent civil conflict [2]. If Leviathan is a “human-made god” and a superrational political machine, Behemoth embodies emotional politics, characterized by shortsighted, conflicting parties. In Ukraine, Behemoth-like processes began in the wake of the post-Soviet color revolutions and evolved between 2004 and 2019. A grand master of public emotion management, Zelensky won the elections with the promise to end all conflicts. In this phase, Zelensky positioned himself as a servant (to the supportive majority of the Ukrainian people), a winner (in an election where all the established institutions opposed him), and a reformer (committed to fulfilling his electoral promises). 

The second phase occurred during the social disarray caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the mounting threats from Putin’s Russia. During this time, Zelensky and his team lost their reformist zeal and encountered the harsh reality of the Donbas war, socioeconomic hardships, and dysfunctional government. The Ukrainian Behemoth refused to yield, and the Russian Leviathan prepared to strike. Under pressure from both inside and outside the country, Zelensky evolved into a leader who ruled with less and less support from both citizens and elites.

The third phase began with the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Longstanding quarrels among Ukrainians were forgotten, and Zelensky reinvented himself as a wartime leader who used his showmanship to build global charisma and secure unprecedented support for his country. The Ukrainian state and society entered a new era under the conditions of a prolonged and unrelenting war. 

Following Zelensky’s changing political roles, this chronicle is organized around five periods, as suggested in the title From Servant to Leader. Its chapters were written during or immediately after the events described, capturing the opinions and perceptions of those moments. I have not corrected these perspectives in the final text of this book. Yes, looking back at them now, many of my impressions and judgments seem open to debate; I could have been much more foresighted and measured. But the fluidity of participants’ and witnesses’ perceptions is itself history, just as much as the history of events. This book, therefore, combines all the advantages and disadvantages of a chronicle. I hope readers will accept this characteristic with understanding.