Lev Drobyazko's father, Yevgeny Drobyazko.

My father, Yevgeny Drobyazko. He was born in 1898 in Kiev. This photo was taken in 1918 in Kiev. When I was born, my father, Yevgeny Drobyazko, a famous Ukrainian writer and translator, was 35 years old; my mother, Leah Vaisblat, had just turned 32. I was their firstborn. My parents had known each other for a very long time, approximately 10 years before their wedding, but the problem was my mother's father. He was famous Rabbi Nukhim Vaisblat, and he was very much against his daughter's marriage to a Russian Orthodox man. So, their wedding could take place only after the rabbi's death. It is also worth nothing that my father's father, Anton Drobyazko, never opposed their wedding. So, when I was born, I combined two different cultures and two family lines, each of which is interesting. It is peculiar that in my memories of my father, I never remember him sleeping. I usually saw him working, or sitting in an armchair with a pencil and a piece of paper in his hand, reading. He was member of the Writers' Union, an author and a translator. He knew eight European and all the Slavic languages. He translated classical European poetry into Ukrainian. The main work of his life was the first translation into Ukrainian of Dante. He also translated many other authors. He learned all these languages in school and on his own. He graduated from the Law Department of Kiev University and from the Department of Film Producers of the Kiev Theatrical Institute. Both prior to and after the Second World War, up to his death in 1981 (at the age of 83), my father translated poetry, edited and published texts, and staged plays in Kiev theaters. All his life my father was a pioneer in work and in society. He was an atheist.