Ukrainians have just elected a Jewish comedian as their president. Is this a joke — or a sign of maturity?

The most remarkable fact about Volodymyr Zelensky, who won the Ukrainian presidency by a landslide on Sunday, is not that he is a comedian. It is that he is Jewish. So is the Prime Minister, Volodymyr Groysman. Elsewhere, this has only ever happened in Israel.

Why does this matter? Because more than a million Jews were murdered in Ukraine during the Holocaust. The majority were killed at the hands of Nazi Einsatzgruppen or regular Wehrmacht units; the massacre at Babi Yar in 1941, near the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, has been commemorated in the 13th Symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich, which sets a poem about Babi Yar by Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

But many Jews also fell victim to Ukrainian collaborators. Anti-Semitism was a political fact of life in Eastern Europe before the war, during the Nazi occupation and subsequently under the Soviet Union; Ukraine was no exception.

Anti-Semitism has also been used a propaganda weapon by supporters of Vladimir Putin against the Ukrainian revolution that overthrew the pro-Russian regime in 2014 after the Maidan Square protests ended in violence. Russian media have fed the idea that Ukraine is controlled by far-Right movements with an anti-Semitic agenda.

So the election of President Zelensky is to be welcomed as a demonstration that most Ukrainians no longer harbour any such prejudices. The conduct of the election was accepted by all sides as fair — a rare thing in former Soviet countries. The choice of a political novice has attracted ridicule from some quarters, but more significant is the smooth handover of power from one head of state to another. Such transitions may be taken for granted in the West, but elsewhere in the world they are not. The graceful way in which the incumbent President Poroshenko has relinquished office is a sign of Ukraine’s political maturity.

The task for Zelensky is, as everyone acknowledges, a formidable one. He must deal with the challenge of Russia, which has occupied Crimea and controls the eastern regions of Ukraine with Kremlin-funded militias. Ukraine is neither a member of Nato, nor of the EU, but both have a strong interest in their eastern neighbour’s peace and stability.

Zelensky will doubtless devote himself to a new diplomatic effort to win over the West. Theresa May should be generous in supporting him. Britain, along with the US, was among the signatories to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum that guaranteed Ukraine’s security in return for the latter’s renunciation of nuclear weapons after the collapse of the USSR. That assurance proved to be a dead letter when Putin invaded Crimea. The British and the Americans owe Ukraine a debt of honour.

But the new President will have his work cut out reviving the economy and fighting corruption. If he can boost growth, which has recovered to around 3 per cent since the crisis of 2013-15, and also cut the unemployment rate of 9 per cent, Zelensky may yet succeed where the businessman Poroshenko was seen to have failed.

Above all, however, the President-elect ought to focus on restoring the pride and morale of his compatriots. Ukraine has enjoyed independence for less than 30 years and has survived an undeclared war and other destabilising measures by Moscow. It is hardly surprising that this courageous young nation needs cheering up. Volodymyr Zelensky sounds like just the man for the job.