NEW FACTS FOR OKSANA DRAI-KHMARA ASHER’S BIOGRAPHY

The paper reconstructs the biography of Oksana Drai-Khmara Asher, the daughter of Mykhailo Drai-Khmara and a literary critic, poet, translator, and pianist. The research is based on documents recently transferred to the Department of Manuscripts and Textual Studies of Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, as well as the memoirs of her contemporaries. Oksana Drai-Khmara’s documents provide different dates and places of her birth. According to the archival sources, the researcher established that the actual date of birth was March 20, 1923. From July 1937 to the summer of 1938, Oksana Drai-Khmara, along with her mother, was exiled to Belebei, Bashkiria. In October 1942, she moved to Prague, where she studied at the Higher School of the Institute of Music. The German period of her life lasted from June 1945 to September 1946 when Oksana Drai-Khmara changed several places of residence (Lichtenhaag, Munich, and Hanover). After moving to Belgium, she studied at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. Emigration to the United States of America took place on May 23, 1951. From 1952 to 1956, Oksana studied at the Slavic Department of Columbia University, where she obtained her master’s degree. In 1964–1967, Asher studied at the Sorbonne University in Paris, where she defended her PhD thesis. On her return to America, Drai-Khmara taught Russian language and literature at Long Island University and the Polytechnic Institute of New York and was actively involved in the Ukrainian diaspora’s life in the USA. In addition to documenting Oksana Drai-Khmara’s educational and career path, the author of the paper revealed unknown details of her first marriage to the historian Ihor Shevchenko and provided information about her second spouse Peter Asher.