Oleksandr Dzygar (26.08.1916 - 31.08.2002, Moscow) was a violinist and public figure.
He was born in Harbin (Manchuria, a historical region in the north-east of China) in a family of immigrants from the Berdychiv district of the Kyiv province.
Since 1933, he has been a member of the Ukrainian Youth Union in Harbin, an active participant in Ukrainian cultural life, and a promoter of Ukrainian musical culture.
In December 1936, he was elected head of the Ukrainian Far Eastern Sich, a youth nationalist organisation.
In 1936, he graduated from the Higher Music School named after O. Glazunov in Harbin, majoring in violin. 1938-43 - soloist of the Yamato Hotel Ensemble (Mukden, now Shenyang, China), winner of two international competitions, actively toured China (including Manchuria) and Japan. 1943-45 - soloist of the Harbin Symphony Orchestra.
On 31 August 1945, after the Red Army (see Soviet Army) entered Harbin, he was arrested and taken to the USSR. He was tried in the same case as Yurii Roy, Ihor Shlendyk, and Mykola Samarskyi. In August 1946, he was convicted of membership in Ukrainian organisations. Until January 1953, he was imprisoned in Kolyma (a region in the north-east of the Asian part of the Russian Federation), and until April 1956 - in exile.
During the 1950s and 1970s, he was a soloist, concertmaster, conductor, artistic director of the Magadan Music and Drama Theatre, and conductor of an amateur theatre in Magadan (now a city in the Russian Federation).
Since 1976 he has lived in Moscow. In the early 1990s, he took part in the cultural life of the Ukrainian community.
