The Thinking Behind the Zelensky Speech to Congress - James Fallows
December 26, 2022
Five days ago, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky made his eloquent and powerful speech to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress and to a live audience of many millions.
Three days ago I explained why I thought the speech was so skillfully crafted and effective. One of the things I said was, “Zelensky and his team knew what allusions to make, what chords to strike, what historical and cultural parallels to draw… Zelensky has someone who is good, and is good in English, working with him.”
Today I have been in electronic touch with one of those “someones”—one of the people involved in creating Zelensky’s sequence of exceptional wartime addresses. This is Dmytro Lytvyn, whose title is advisor to the Head of the Office of the President.1 I am extremely grateful that he took the time to answer my questions today, with everything else that is going on.
Lytvyn emphasized, as effective writers for political leaders always should, that responsibility for a speech’s quality, good or bad, ultimately rests with the leader rather than the staff. This is the person who chooses the writers, who decides what themes to stress or avoid, who conveys a tone when speaking to a camera or a crowd.2
Posted below are a series of questions I sent by direct message to Lytvyn, and the answers he sent back. As you’ll see, my questions mainly concern craft: how a team based in Kyiv manages linguistic and cultural divides in explaining their case to the world.
I present both questions and answers without comment, and with very minor copy editing. On both sides we were typing quickly, with resulting shortcuts, but of course I had the benefit of operating in my native language.
Questions for a member of the Zelensky team.
1. How to think about speeches written in Ukrainian, which much of the world will hear in English.
4. The decision to speak to the Congress in English.
Question: Was it a difficult decision to have the president *deliver* the Congressional speech in English?
Answer: He wanted to speak in English. The main thing of that speech in Congress was to thank to all Americans, and it would only be right to say such words in English.
5. What is different about political rhetoric.
6. The beginning of Zelensky’s leadership through social media.
Question: I wrote, at the time, that President Zelensky’s very early “we are here” video had enormous, history-changing effect. Was that appearance “written” in any way? Or was it in the moment?
Answer: That is him.
The President just went to the street, to the place which every Ukrainian knows, and said what he thought was needed. He often does such things. He feels it.
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