Learn Hardcore Russian: В голосовании за жанр недели победил вариант «семейная драма». - In the vote for the genre of the week the option “family drama” won.

In В голосовании за жанр недели победил вариант «семейная драма», what is the grammatical subject? It feels like голосовании or семейная драма could be the subject.

The grammatical subject is вариант.

Word-by-word structure:

В голосовании за жанр недели – a prepositional phrase: in the voting for the genre of the week
победил – past tense verb, masculine singular: won / was victorious
вариант «семейная драма» – subject phrase: the option “family drama”

Russian often starts a sentence with context-setting phrases (time, place, circumstance), and only later gives the subject. So the basic core is:

победил вариант – the option won.

Голосовании is in the prepositional case after в, so it cannot be the subject.
Семейная драма is in nominative, but here it’s an apposition (a label/name) explaining which вариант we mean.

Why is the verb победил masculine singular? Could we say победила?

Победил agrees with вариант, which is masculine singular:

вариант – masculine, singular → победил

If you change the subject to семейная драма, then you must use feminine singular:

В голосовании за жанр недели победила семейная драма.
In the voting for the genre of the week, family drama won.

Both sentences are grammatically correct, but the focus changes:

победил вариант «семейная драма» – focuses on the option as an item on a list.
победила семейная драма – focuses directly on the family drama genre itself.

Why is голосовании in the prepositional case (в голосовании) and not in the accusative, like в голосование?

The preposition в can take either:

Accusative – direction, movement into something:
в голосование – into the vote (almost never used like this; sounds unnatural here).
Prepositional – location or participation in something:
в голосовании – in the voting / in the vote (the process).

In this sentence we’re talking about the context or setting (within which the option won), so we use в + prepositional:

в голосовании – in the voting (as an event/process), not into the voting.

Why is жанр недели in the genitive (недели) and not жанр неделя or something else?

Жанр недели is a typical “X of Y” structure:

жанр – genre (nominative)
недели – of the week (genitive singular)

Russian uses the genitive to express many relationships that English expresses with of:

жанр недели – genre of the week
книга брата – brother’s book / the book of (my) brother
цена билета – ticket price (literally price of the ticket)

So недели is genitive because it depends on жанр and tells us of what genre we are speaking.

Why is семейная драма in the nominative, not in some other case like семейной драмы after вариант?

Here семейная драма is in the nominative because it is an apposition – a name/label of the option:

вариант «семейная драма» – the option “family drama”

Think of it like:

город Москва – the city (of) Moscow
река Волга – the river Volga
фильм «Титаник» – the film Titanic

In these patterns, the thing and its name both stand in the nominative in normal citation form:

вариант (nom.) «семейная драма» (nom.)

If you declined вариант, the apposition would often stay as-is (especially a title), or follow context-dependent rules, but in this straightforward sentence both are nominative.

Why is за used in в голосовании за жанр недели? What does за mean here?

Here за expresses the idea of “for, in favor of” when voting:

голосовать за кого/что – to vote for someone/something
- голосовать за жанр – to vote for a genre
- голосовать за кандидата – to vote for a candidate

So:

в голосовании за жанр недели – in the voting for the genre of the week

Pattern:

голосование за + accusative
- за жанр – for the genre
- за жанр недели – for the genre of the week (here жанр is accusative, but it looks like nominative because it’s masculine inanimate; недели is genitive tied to жанр)

Could we say на голосовании instead of в голосовании? What is the difference between в and на here?

Both в голосовании and на голосовании are possible but have different nuances:

в голосовании – in the voting
Emphasizes participation in the process or what happened within this event.
→ Fits well with победил вариант: the option won in the voting.
на голосовании – literally at the vote / at the voting
Emphasizes the event as a place/occasion.
→ More like at the vote (session/meeting), the option won.

In this context, в голосовании sounds more standard and natural when talking about the result of an online poll or a vote as a process.

What is the nuance of победил here compared to выиграл? Could we say выиграл вариант «семейная драма»?

Both verbs can be used in similar contexts but have slightly different flavors:

победить (сов.) – to defeat, to be victorious
Often highlights victory over competitors.
- В голосовании победил вариант ... – the option won / was victorious in the vote.
выиграть (сов.) – to win (a contest, prize, game)
Often highlights winning something:
- выиграть соревнование – to win a competition
- выиграть приз – to win a prize

You can say:

В голосовании за жанр недели выиграл вариант «семейная драма».

It’s understandable and acceptable, but in descriptions of poll results, победил is a bit more idiomatic and common. Выиграл slightly shifts the feel toward “won a contest/prize.”

Why is вариант used at all? Could we just say победила семейная драма?

Yes, you could say:

В голосовании за жанр недели победила семейная драма.

This is natural and correct. The difference:

победил вариант «семейная драма»
– Puts focus on the option as an item on a list of options (maybe on a website poll, questionnaire, etc.).
победила семейная драма
– Puts focus on the genre itself as the winner.

Using вариант sounds a bit more formal/technical, like talking about poll data or options in a survey.

What aspect is победил? How would the meaning change with побеждал?

победил – past tense, perfective aspect of побеждать/победить.
It presents the action as a completed result: (option) won.
побеждал – past tense, imperfective.
It usually implies a repeated/ongoing process or was winning at some stage.

In this context:

В голосовании ... победил вариант ... – the final result: the option ended up winning.
В голосовании ... побеждал вариант ... – would sound like:
- at some point this option was (in the lead / winning),
- but it doesn’t clearly say it was the final winner. You’d expect more context after that.

So победил is the normal choice to state the final outcome.

Why are there guillemets « » around семейная драма? Is that just like quotation marks in English?

Yes. Russian typically uses « » (called ёлочки) as quotation marks in print:

To mark titles, names of options, quotes, slogans, etc.
Here, «семейная драма» is the text of the option as it appeared in the vote.

So:

вариант «семейная драма» ≈ the option “Family drama” in English.

In informal online writing, people also use " " or even skip quotes, but « » is the standard typographical style.

Why is недели singular, not plural like недель? Doesn’t “week” here feel like a period?

The phrase is жанр недели – literally genre of the week:

недели here is genitive singular of неделя (week).

It refers to one specific week (this week’s featured genre), not weeks in general. Compare:

жанр недели – genre of the week (this week)
жанр месяца – genre of the month (this month)

Недель (genitive plural) would mean of weeks, and does not fit the fixed expression “of the week” used for regular weekly categories, rubrics, specials, etc.

Can the word order be different, like Вариант «семейная драма» победил в голосовании за жанр недели? Is that still correct?

Yes, that is completely correct:

Вариант «семейная драма» победил в голосовании за жанр недели.

Differences:

Original: В голосовании за жанр недели победил вариант «семейная драма».
Starts with context (in the vote for genre of the week), then gives the result.
Alternative: Вариант «семейная драма» победил в голосовании за жанр недели.
Starts with the subject (the “family drama” option), then specifies where it won.

Both are natural. Russian word order is relatively flexible; positioning mostly affects focus and style, not basic grammar.