A patrician in a fashionable beret. On October, 17, 1936 Ivan Drach, known poet and public man, national deputy of Ukraine of the Verkhovna Rada of the first, second and fourth convocations, Hero of Ukraine was born.

“Now, being a communist, I understand that my acts impartially… are contrary to my status of a communist and I condemn them with all rigidity” (from the explanatory letter, given to the Party Committee of the Union of writers of Ukraine in May, 1966).
“I… I will do everything to make the Movement live, be and exist. Because to a greater extent it is my child” (from the interview on August, 21, 2001). The quoted words belong to one man. His name is Ivan Drach.

Mykola SLAVYNSKYI