After finishing secondary school Ivan Drach did military service, after which from 1959 – 1963 he studied at the language and literature faculty of Kyiv University. At this time Drach visited popular in Kyiv the "Klub tvorchoyi molodi" . Drach took part in literary evenings where innovative poems were read. The creative way started in the period of Khrushchev thaw. He made his debut in 1961, when his poem-tragedy "Knife in the Sun" was published in the Kyiv literary newspaper. Ivan Drach worked in the newspapers "Literary Ukraine" and "Fatherland", as well as in the film studio O. P. Dovzhenko. After the start of Perestroika resumed contacts in dissident circles.Together with Vyacheslav Chornovil, Mykhailo Horyn and a number of other Ukrainian activists Ivan Drach created in 1989, the People's Movement of Ukraine, first official Ukrainian pro-reform organization. Ivan Drach was the first chairman of Rukh - September 8, 1989 to February 28, 1992. From February 28 to December 4, 1992, he was co-chairman of the NRU with Vyacheslav Chornovil and Mykhailo Horyn. In the spring of 1990, Ivan Drach was elected to the Verkhovna Rada from Artemivsk constituency. For it voted 66.38% of voters. After retiring from his high office in the NRU in late 1992, Ivan Drach finally retired from politics in 1994. Drach has promoted the use of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine and whilst serving as the Ukraine's minister of communication proposed wide-ranging measures including setting quotas for Ukrainian-language broadcasts and tax breaks for Ukrainian publishing. At the last 29 March1998 elections to the Verkhovna Rada member Ivan Drach NRU ran for parliament from Ternopil constituency and voting results, the second time he was elected to Parliament. In the parliamentary elections of March 2002 Ivan Drach appeared in the Our Ukraine party at number 31. Thus, the third time he became a deputy. After a long dispute with the party leadership NRU Ivan Drach in March 2005 left the party and joined the Ukrainian People's PartyYuri Kostenko. In the parliamentary elections of March 26, 2006, he was number 14 on the electoral list "Ukrainian National Bloc of Kostenko and the Ivy". But the bloc lost the election, and Ivan Drach was not elected to Parliament. From August 1992 to May 19, 2000 Ivan Drach was the head of the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council. Drach's other positions have included the chairmanship of the Ukrainian Intelligentsia Congress and heading the Writers' Union. In 2006 Drach was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine. Ivan Drach died 19 June 2018 in Feofania Hospital, Kiev after a serious illness. Drach has requested to be buried next to the grave of his son Maksym in his native village of Telizhyntsi.
