What Is Ukrainian about Ukraine's Pop Culture?: The Strange Case of Verka Serduchka

Abstract

The Ukrainian cross-dressing and language-mixing pop star Verka Serduchka (played by male actor Andrii Danylko) is the most controversial product of Ukrainian post-Soviet mass culture. Ukrainian nationalists reject Serduchka as a parody of their nation, while Russians took umbrage at her 2007 Eurovision entry, which allegedly contained the words “Russia goodbye.” This article interprets the character of Serduchka as a jester, who makes audiences laugh at their own cultural stereotypes and prejudices, and at the same time as a representative of Ukraine's living folk culture reflecting an ambiguous national identity of this essentially bilingual country.

The Modern Fairy Tale : Nation Branding, National Identity and the Eurovision Song Contest in Estonia

“…The song which features traditional drums and the Hutsul alpine horn, the trembita, immediately connects with Ukrainian tradition; the various incantations in the song carries associations with Hutsul culture and the Carpathian region of Ukraine (Pavlyshyn, 2006, p. 475). However, what is perceived by audiences as Hutsul may, in fact, be references to a more generic European folk sound (Yekelchyk, 2010). Transferred to the Eurovision stage, this essentialised depiction of a local, western Ukrainian, culture comes to be seen not as a local representation but as a national one; speaking on behalf of Ukraine as a whole.…”

“…Wild Dances can be seen as a product of a small elite circle that decided and disseminated understandings of what constitutes national culture in Ukraine, and promoted that message to the rest of Europe. Wild Dances ultimately had little to do with folk traditions of east-central Ukraine, by far the most populous area of the country (Yekelchyk, 2010). Thus, the constructed nature of national identity in Ukraine and the underlying power relations behind it are revealed.…”

What Was Soviet and Ukrainian About Soviet Ukrainian Culture? Mykola Kulish’sMyna Mazailoon the Soviet Stage

“…One might think of the many comic sketches, for example, in the variety show Vechernyi kvartal , which also plays on knowledge of Ukrainian and Russian, such as an oft-quoted sketch where Kyiv and Moscow are in marriage counseling. One might think of the pop icon Verka Serdiuchka, analyzed neatly by Serhy Yekelchyk as an example of quintessential surzhyk and contemporary Ukrainian culture (Yekelchyk 2010). 3…”