See Ivan Drach Poet, screenwriter, and political leader. Drach studied at Kyiv University (1958–61) and completed advanced scriptwriting courses in Moscow in 1964. He worked for a few years in the script department of the Kyiv Artistic Film Studio and on the editorial staff of Literaturna Ukraïna and Vitchyzna. His works have appeared in print since 1959. He has published the following collections of poetry: Soniashnyk (The Sunflower, 1962), Protuberantsi sertsia (Protuberances of the Heart, 1965), Poeziï (Poems, 1967), Balady budniv (Everyday Ballads, 1967), Do dzherel (To the Sources, 1972), Korin’ i krona (The Root and the Crown, 1974), Kyïvs’ke nebo (The Kyivan Sky, 1976), Duma pro vchytelia (Duma about the Teacher, 1977), Soniashnyi feniks (The Solar Phoenix, 1978), Sontse i slovo (The Sun and the Word, 1979), Amerykans’kyi zoshyt (American Notebook, 1980), Shablia i khustyna (The Saber and the Kerchief, 1981), Dramatychni poemy (Dramatic Poems, 1982), Kyïvs’kyi oberih (A Kyivan Amulet, 1983), Telizhentsi (1985), Khram sontsia (A Temple of the Sun, 1988), Lyst do kalyny (A Letter to a Viburnum Tree, 1990), and Vohon’ iz popelu (Fire from the Ashes, 1995). He has also written several scripts that have been used for films, including Krynytsia dlia sprahlykh (A Well for the Thirsty, 1967), Kaminnyi khrest (The Stone Cross), based on a short story by Vasyl Stefanyk, and Idu do tebe (I Am Coming to You) about the life of Lesia Ukrainka. Drach is also a recognized literary critic. Drach stood at the forefront of the Ukrainian literary revival initiated by the shistdesiatnyky (the ‘Sixtiers’). His poetry is noted for its originality, fresh imagery, complex metaphors, philosophical meditation, neologisms, and varied rhythm. Drach was criticized sharply for his departure from the canons of socialist realism, especially in the poem ‘Nizh u sontsi’ (Knife in the Sun, 1961), and for the satirical poem ‘Oda chesnomu boiahuzevi’ (Ode to an Honest Coward, 1963). He compromised with the regime in the late 1960s, and this proved detrimental to the quality of his later work. In the 1970s and 1980s he traveled abroad as an official Soviet cultural emissary. In the late 1980s Drach emerged as a prominent political activist in Ukraine. As head of the Kyiv organization of the Writers' Union of Ukraine he was instrumental in forging the coalition that created the Popular Movement of Ukraine (Rukh). He then headed Rukh: solely from 1989 to 1992 and then jointly in 1992. He was elected as a People's Deputy in 1990 and again in 1998 and 2002 and became the head of the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council at its founding convention in 1992. His works were printed in a two-volume collection in 1986 and studies of his life and work were written by Mykola Ilnytsky (1986) and Anatolii Tkachenko (1988 and 2000). A collection of speeches, essays, and addresses by Drach as well as interviews with him—all from the 1990s—appeared in 1997 as Polityka (Politics).

Ukrainian profile: Іван Драч Ivan Drach was a Ukrainian poet, screenwriter, literary critic, politician, and political activist. Ivan Drach was born 17 October 1936, in Telizhyntsi, Kyiv Oblast, Ukrainian SSR. After finishing high school, Ivan Drach complied with military service, after which he studied in the Faculty of Language and Literature of Kyiv University from 1959-1963. At this time Drach visited the popular "Klub tvorchoyi molodi" ["Club for Creative Young People" (CCY)] and took part in literary evenings with reading of innovative poems. This creative way started in the period of Khrushchev thaw. Drach made his debut in 1961 with the publication of his poem-tragedy Knife in the Sun in the Kyiv literary newspaper. He worked in the newspapers "Literary Ukraine" and "Fatherland", as well as in the film studio O.P. Dovzhenko. In 1976, he won the USSR State Prize for his work, The Root and the Crown. In the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Drach was involved in a growing movement of Ukrainian dissident intellectuals that demanded larger cultural autonomy for Ukraine and an honest conversation in the Soviet Union about the stalinist government's actions in Ukraine, particularly the Holodomor. After the beginning of Perestroika, he resumed contacts with dissident circles. Together with Vyacheslav Chornovil, Mykhailo Horyn, and a number of other Ukrainian activists, in 1989 he created Rukh or People's Movement of Ukraine, first official Ukrainian pro-reform organization. Ivan Drach was the first chairman of Rukh from September 8, 1989 to February 28, 1992. He was co-chairman of the NRU with Chornovil and Horyn from February 28 to December 4, 1992. In the spring of 1990, Ivan Drach was elected to the Verkhovna Rada from Artemivsk (№ 259) constituency by the 66.38% of voters. After retiring from his office in the NRU in late 1992, Ivan Drach retired from politics in 1994. He promoted the use of the Ukrainian language and whilst serving as Ukraine's minister of communication, he proposed wide-ranging measures, including setting quotas for Ukrainian-language broadcasts and tax breaks for Ukrainian publishing. At the 29 March 1998 elections to the Verkhovna Rada member Drach (NRU party) ran for parliament from Ternopil (№ 167) constituency and voting results (21.04% of the vote), the second time he was elected to Parliament. In the parliamentary elections of March 2002, Drach appeared in the Our Ukraine party at number 31. Thus, the third time he became a deputy. After a long dispute with the party leadership NRU, Drach in March 2005 left the party and joined the Ukrainian People's Party Yuri Kostenko. In the parliamentary elections of March 26, 2006, he was number 14 on the electoral list "Ukrainian National Bloc of Kostenko and the Ivy". But the bloc lost the election and Drach was not elected to Parliament. From August 1992 to May 19, 2000, he headed the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council. Other positions included the chairmanship of the Ukrainian Intelligentsia Congress and heading the Writers' Union.In 2006, he was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine. Ivan Drach died 19 June 2018 in Feofania Hospital, Kyiv, following an undisclosed illness. Drach requested to be buried next to the grave of his son Maksym in his native Telizhyntsi.