How do we talk about Olena Zelenska, the comedy writer turned reluctant president’s wife, who has emerged as a figure of defiant patriotism as bombs fall over Ukraine?
“Today I will not have panic and tears. I will be calm and confident,” Zelenska, 44, wrote on Instagram the last Thursday of February, the day Russia launched an unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “My children are looking at me,” she went on. “I will be next to them. And next to my husband. And with you.”
Zelenska is married to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In 2019 the couple became the youngest president and first lady in the country’s history. They have two children—Oleksandra, a teenager, and Cyril, who is under 10. Zelenska is a professional comedy writer. As first lady, she has championed women’s safety, children’s health, and disability access. She and her children have remained in the country, the president said last week, despite reports from Ukrainian intelligence that “the enemy has marked me as target number one, my family as target number two.”
How do we talk about Olena Zelenska? How do we talk about a woman who is highly accomplished and fascinating in her own right, without reducing her to a powerful man’s wife? How do we talk about the reserves of courage Zelenska must be accessing to stay in Ukraine with her husband and children, without suggesting that her total worth as an individual comes from being a wife and mother? How do we acknowledge what Zelenska obviously is—a smart, successful, very conventionally beautiful woman—without applying a girlboss gloss to a war?
The Russian attack on Ukraine has been a reminder that the world’s appetite for entertainment and beauty is voracious even in a time of violence. The president has been heralded in publications around the world as a sex symbol, with global conversations about his looks, his masculinity, and who should play him in a movie. Misinformation posts have gone viral, inaccurately identifying a woman in red lipstick and fatigues as Zelenska. Zelenska, for her part, has used her social media to share images of actual Ukrainian woman soldiers. “Our current resistance has a particularly female face,” she captioned her post, showing reverence for her “incredible compatriots.”
How Do We Talk About Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s First Lady?
Pinas Flash Report
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