Above average height, with fair hair and a cheerful face

"Above average height, with fair hair and a cheerful face, with a smile of white teeth and dreamy gray eyes," - this is how his daughter Oksana remembered this Ukrainian artist. - Neatness was his characteristic feature: starting from the manuscripts and the well-organized selected library and ending with the impeccability of his clothes - aesthetic taste was felt in everything."

He knew 19 foreign languages. His diligence and inspiration were enough for successful work in several leading educational institutions of the time. And even when the doors of all institutions were closed to him after the first arrest, he found salvation in literary creativity. Although these works remained lying on his desk…

We remember Mykhailo Drai-Khmara – a scholar-philologist, literary critic, neoclassical poet, translator, destroyed by the Soviet authorities – today in the column “Know yours, yours and ours”.

Based on the materials of the website of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance.