The interest in

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

n legends started at the end of the 19th century. The legends were published with a purpose of attraction of attracting tourism. Field work and publications of Crimean folklore were mostly done by non-professional folklorists. Therefore, it often happens that principles of classification of collected material are not known, and national origins of legends are not differentiated either. Legends specifically of the

Crimean Tatars , flag = Flag of the Crimean Tatar people.svg , flag_caption = Flag of Crimean Tatars , image = Love, Peace, Traditions.jpg , caption = Crimean Tatars in traditional clothing in front of the Khan's Palace ...

were published in 1937, others are attributed to

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

, and

Crimean Karaites The Crimean Karaites or Krymkaraylar (Crimean Karaim: Кърымкъарайлар, ''Qrımqaraylar'', singular къарай, ''qaray''; Trakai dialect: ''karajlar'', singular ''karaj''; he, קראי מזרח אירופה; crh, Qaraylar; ), a ...

. Most legends were collected in their original language, and were translated into

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

for publication. The nature of legend texts was influenced by translators/collectors’ professions and their cultural environment. The most scientific approach for collecting legends was shown in the 1920s and 1930s, when scientific expeditions were supported by

Communist party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

, which had just come to power and started to support cultural development of national minorities. However, after Stalin’s repressions and

deportation of Crimean Tatars The deportation of the Crimean Tatars ( crh, Qırımtatar halqınıñ sürgünligi, Cyrillic: Къырымтатар халкъынынъ сюргюнлиги) or the Sürgünlik ('exile') was the ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide of a ...

, folklore became a subject for editing according to ideological demands of that time. It made the Soviet-era treatment of folklore a specific phenomenon in its own right, which is worthy of separate research. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Crimean legends continued to be published commercially.Barskaya, Tatyana. (1999). Legendi i predaniya Krima. Yalta: Krimpress. Apart from such publications for the popular market, national societies also took to publishing collections of legends.

See also

References

Further reading