Михайло Драй-Хмара

Mykhailo Drai-Khmara (1889-1939) was a Ukrainian poet, linguist, scholar and academic and one of the many major authors who died during the Soviet state's genocide of Ukraine in the 1930's. He was also a prolific translator, who recast Dante's "Inferno" into Ukrainian along with works by many other major European authors. However his sonnet Swans (1928), which celebrated Ukraine's five leading neoclassical poets, challenged the Soviet state's attempt to destroy Ukrainian culture. This beautiful poem initiated his fight against the authorities and was the beginning of the path that led to his death in a labour camp in Kolyma in 1939. It is believed that he laid down his life to save that of another prisoner.