ROLE OF TAFAL LANDSCAPE IN FORMING THE IDENTITY OF JEWS IN BALTA

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of Jewish cemeteries in the city of Balta, Podilsky district, Odesa region. Typologies of gravestones by shape, types of dec­ oration and epitaphs. The study also attempted to determine the role of the land­scape in shaping the identity of the city's Jewish community. The formation of Jewish identity and its maintenance in a multicultural en­vironment is a rather complex systemic process. It also needs detailed study as an important component of self-identification. In historiography, the topic, espe­cially at the regional and even more so at the local level, is understudied, despite the presence of various sources. Thanks to its location directly on the trade route in the border zone of the Ottoman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Common­wealth, the city has formed a multicultural population. According to the 1897 census, Jews were the largest national minority, with their own culture, which is also reflected in the Tafal landscape. As a complex of funeral rites, it reflected the ethnic consciousness of the Jews through funeral rites, the content and style of epitaphs, and the decoration of grave monuments. Unfortunately, in the scientific literature, the study of Jewish cemeteries, es­pecially in the city of Balta, and their role as an ethno-identifying marker of the Jewish community, is at an initial stage. Therefore, the specified topic is relevant today and requires the participation of ethnologists, cultural experts, and reli­gious scholars. The purpose of the study is to determine the role of the tafal landscape of the city of Balta as a factor in the formation of the identity of the local Jewish com­munity.