Legends about Ukraine by Taisiya Popova 11B Ukraine is the country of folklore and legends. The central place in the Ukrainian legends is occupied by a willow and a guelder-rose symbolizing power and poetry of the state, its national spirit and traditions. Ukraine is the country of folklore and legends. The central place in the Ukrainian legends is occupied by a willow and a guelder-rose symbolizing power and poetry of the state, its national spirit and traditions. Not without reason one of the most popular and ancient sayings says «Without a willow and the guelder-rose is no Ukraine». There is a set of legends and stories, in which image of a guelder-rose and willow identifiedwith image of the beautiful Ukrainian girl who has appeared in certain vital circumstances. «The girl the Guelder-rose picked berries in the wood and suddenly saw that enemies - Tatars go to the village. She ran to the village and warned fellows villager. Cossacks safely fought, but was enemies many times more - burned the village, and the Guelder-rose - the girl beauty in captivity took. That warned the village, beheaded it, and the wonderful bush grew on that place, in honor of a name of the girl the Guelder-rose named. People love and remember the Guelder-rose, and the guelder-rose became a peculiar instruction about the native earth, oberegy Ukrainian.» Since emergence of pioneer settlements ceremonies, traditions register in territories of modern Ukraine and beliefs of the civilizations which have gone to centuries. They tell us about how our ancestors saw this world that them disturbed and that attracted that pleased, and that a scarecrow. And though it is impossible to call legends the authentic description of the history, many things described in them, give us a bright picture of the past
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Old Slavic Cemetery Since late 18th century Chufut-Qaleh used to draw attention of many travelers. It was an outstanding Karaite collector of antiquities Abraham Firkowicz (1787 – 1874) who started regular investigations of the cemetery. As early as the autumn of the year 1839, after generalgovernor of Novorossia M.S. Vorontsov demanded information on the origins of Crimean Karaites, the local community sent Firkowicz and a young Karaite scholar ShlomoBeym to the first archaeographic expedition across the Crimea. Firkowicz suggested discovering proofs to the history of Karaites in ancient manuscripts which could be preserved in the genizot of Karaite and Rabbanite synagogues and at the old cemeteries of Chufut-Qaleh, Mangup, Theodosia and Eupatoria.
During the expedition they found 51 manuscripts and fragments and made copies of 58 tombstones inscriptions of Chufut-Qaleh and Mangup cemeteries. The most ancient tomb found Firkowicz dated to 640 C. E. According to him, one of the tombs was that of Isaak Sangari (8th cent. C. E.) who, according to the later Jewish tradition, converted the KhazarianKhagan to Judaism. The name of Sangari appeared first in Nahmanides’ commentary on the book Kuzari by the great Jewish poet and philosopher Jehuda ha-Levi. A lot of manuscripts discovered by Firkowicz had colophons which contain information on the life of the Karaite communities during the first millennium of C. E.
JudgingbytheageoftheexistinggravesSimferopol,
thehistoryoftheCrimeancapitalcanstartonlyfromthemiddleofthe XX century.
Throughtheeffortsoftheformercityofficialsherehavesurvivedonly a fewdozengravesofourancestorsdatingbacktothe XIX andearly XX century: neartheChurchofAllSaints, onthehilloftheareaofSports, onthestreet ... YesStarozenitnoyseveralfraternalnameless - theoldmilitarycemetery, intheupperreachesofPeterbeams. Now, theancientgraves - housesandschools, kindergartensandsportsfacilities. Andthousandsofpeopleactuallyliveonthegraves, notevenknowingaboutit. CrimeanKaraitesandKrymchaksaremostinterestingamongsubethnicgroupsstillpresentinthearea. Thereis a lotoflegendsontheirorigins (especiallyconcerningKaraites) appearedmostlyduringthelasttwocenturies. ManyoftheselegendswerebasedontheepigraphicsourcesoftheKaraitecemeteries. ThelargestofthemissituatednearthecavetownofChufutQaleh, closetoBakhchisaraycity. ItiscalledJosafathvalley (aswellasthenecropolisneartheOldCityofJerusalem). In 1840, thematerialsweredeliveredbyFirkowicztotheOdessaSocietyofHistoryandAntiquiti es. Itwasatthesametimethatfirstdoubtsraisedonthereliabilityoftombstonesinscriptionsc opiesmadebyFirkowicz. R. ShlomoRappoportsuggestedthattheinscriptionofSangariwasforged. InordertoremovedoubtsBezalelStern, a célèbremanofJewishEnlightmentanddirectorofJewishschool, wassentbytheOdessaSocietytotheCrimea. HefoundcopiesbyFirkowiczcorrectanddiscovered 7 moreinscriptionsdatedbyhimto 598 – 1509, amongthemthestonewiththeinscription “Sangarit” (accordingtoStern, itwasthenameofIsaakSangari’swife). Firkowiczcontinuedhisresearch. In 1840 -1841 hevisitedNorthCaucasuswherehediscoveredmanyancientmanuscriptsincludingthefa mousMajalisDocument – a longcolophonon a BiblicalmanuscriptdiscoveredinMajalisvillagenearDerbent. Thisdocumentbecame a cornerstoneoftheconceptbyFirkowiczwhichwasprovedbyothercolophonsonthemanuscr iptsandepitaphsfoundbyhim. AccordingtoFirkowicz, CrimeanKaraites’
ancestorssettledintheCrimeamorethan 500 yearsbefore C.E. and, therefore,
theywerenotresponsibleforthecrucifixionofJesus. DuetotheconceptbyFirkowicz, RussianKaraitesinhislifetimeweregrantedequalrightsasothersubjectsofRussianE mpire.