ABSTRACT
Verka Serdiuchka is the stage persona of the mainly Russian-speaking Ukrainian2 performer Andrei Danilko (b. 2 October 1973). Until Danilko appeared as himself alongside a (pre-recorded) Verka on Channel One Russia in 2006, he had much less chance than his creation of being recognized – either on stage or in public. In the twenty years since inventing the Verka act, Danilko has achieved wealth and popularity, and in this chapter I plan to show that while he has been unable to avoid the probes into his private life that inevitably accompany a spot in the limelight, he has managed to use Verka as something of a distancing device, achieving celebrity elevation through performance (both on and off stage Danilko maintains media interest through the scandalous behavior of his foil), while his act comments ironically on the very process of celebrification itself. The Verka phenomenon illustrates a number of related issues in post-Soviet popular culture: the rapid process of the rise to celebrity status that is often accompanied by the conscious masking of modest social origins; the importance of maintaining media interest through “scandal”;
and the difficulty on the part of audiences, media, and performers alike of resisting a constructed version of the media “personality.”
