The rebellious Ivan Drach
Ivan Drach, a gifted and talented personality, can be called a living classic and conscience of the nation. Poetry, cinema, politics, and public activities have always been closely intertwined in Drach’s destiny. The event in the House of Cinema was not just an author’s soiree but a dialogue about time.
The master recounted stories about the people who made an impact on his life. Guests recited the verses that Drach dedicated to his friends of the “1960s generation” (shistdesiatnyky) — both to those still living and those who have departed this life, such as Ivan Dziuba and the late Viacheslav Chornovil, Ivan Svitlychny, and Mykola Vinhranovsky. Clips were also shown from the legendary movie A Well for the Thirsty.
“Ivan Drach celebrated his birthday in his native village of Telizhyntsi,” Mykola Zhulynsky, member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, told The Day. “The poet’s relatives and fellow villagers gathered near a small church. They congratulated him not only on his 70th birthday but also on being awarded the great title of Hero of Ukraine. I paid special attention to the warmth and inspiration with which Drach listened to children reciting his poems. I thought perhaps that the celebration had sparked the warmest and happiest feelings in him. Then he recounted his difficult life, recalling some interesting facts from his childhood and youth.
“Incidentally, Ivan was always rebellious — he never accepted Soviet power. Where did he get this character, this infernal and unquenchable thirst for revolt, and such profound concern for Ukraine’s destiny? Ivan Drach is an eternal rebel, both in politics and in poetry. A brilliant illustration of this is his poem A Knife in the Sun, which appeared when Drach was 25, and the first collection of his verses,
The Sunflower, published in Literaturna Ukraina. Everyone who feels poetry understands that Drach broke the ideological coded circle of regimented poetry that was dictated by the norms and methods of socialism. In the 1960s, Ukrainian literature exploded with wonderful metaphors, unrestrained spirit, and fantasy. An innovator, who introduced new images, symbols, and generalizations, entered poetry. With his hyperbolized generalizations the poet Ivan Drach was able to ascend to such heights to which Ukrainian poetry of the time had not even come close. Ivan is constantly searching: this is the Ukrainian people’s unflagging energy, which is capable of renewing itself and flouting all kinds of canons and prescriptions.”
THE DAY’S REFERENCE
Ivan Drach was born on Oct. 17, 1936, in the village of Telizhyntsi, Kyiv oblast. In 1964 he graduated from the Higher Script-Writing Courses of the USSR State Committee for Cinema (Hryhorii Chukhrai’s studio). He wrote scripts for the films A Well for the Thirsty, The Stone Cross, Coming Back to You, The Lost Decree, The Left-Flank Forward’s Granddad, And in Sounds Will Memory Ring Out, My Dear and Beloved Mother, The Zone, Wedded to Death, and others. He is also one of the founders of the Popular Movement of Ukraine (Rukh), chairman of the Ukraine Society, winner of the Shevchenko Prize, and Hero of Ukraine. He is the author of numerous poetry collections, including The Sunflower, Poems, The Root and the Crown, To the Sources, Kyiv Sky, Telizhyntsi, Fire from Ashes, Dramatic Poems, A Letter to a Guelder-Rose, and In the Kingdom of Rex.
