Beauty, Peace, and Poetry in The Ukraine

a tribute to courage and peace

Ukrainian Memories

Today my heart goes out to the Ukrainian people to Kiev where I once stood a traveler, a tourist admiring the beauty enjoying the spirit of the place in 1985 on a journey across the Soviet Union

Photo by Ilya Cher on Unsplash

Ukrainian Peace in Russian

A word of peace a moment without guns and tanks Мир “Mir” or “Myr” the same in Ukrainian or Ruthenian spoken in the Ukraine the same as the Russian Мир

Photo by Deniz Altindas on Unsplash

Vlax Romani in The Ukraine

Not Russian, Not Ukrainian Vlax Romani a simple language of Ukraine Years ago a travelling people came living in peace “tihima” or “тихима” calm and peace in Vlax Romani “štylypén” or штылыпэн also calm and peace for the Romani people

Harkening back to Europe and beyond to India “tihima” means “meek” in Slovinian and the equivalent to “blago krotkima” or meek in Serbo-Croatian “tihima” is quiet or silence in Bosnian while the perhaps related word Tihamah in Arabic means severe heat and lack of wind

A Romani minority first documented in early 14th century Ukraine struggling to maintain folkways reacting to anti-Romani attitudes

We adopted the language and faith of dominant societies Orthodox in most of Ukraine Catholic in Western Ukraine and Zakarpattia Oblast, and Muslim in Crimea

Travelers quietly seeking peace among the Ukrainians

Yiddish Peace Among Ashkenazi Jews In Ukraine

Peace in Yiddish the language of Ashkenazi Jews פֿרידן‎ (fridn) and שלום‎ (sholem) from Hebrew שָׁלוֹם‎ (shalóm) or שלום (sholem) and שלום עליכם‎ (sholem aleykhem) peace be with you and the male name שלמה‎ (shloyme) in a language spoken by an unknown few or many

A wide range of estimates on the Jewish population in Ukraine 49,000 to 400,000

Three Jews in Ukrainian History

The founder of Hasidism, Rabbi Israel Ben Eliezer the Baal Shem Tov was born and died in Ukraine birthplace of the Hasidic movement the 18th century a spiritual revival movement with a focus on mysticism in opposition to formal and scholarly approach

The Baal Shem Tov commentary on “seek peace and pursue it” (Psalms 34:15) the means of making peace and establishing harmony between the material world and the G‑dly life-force that vitalizes it

Menachem Mendel Schneerson “The Rebbe” to members of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement born on April 5, 1902 in the Black Sea port of Mykolaiv, Ukraine

The Rebbe often quotes Rambam “Jews must realize that the world is suspended in a state of equilibrium between good and evil that the commandment that a person can perform is capable of tipping the scales to the side of good this enormous individual responsibility for the fate of the entire world must guide each Jew in his everyday life”

Famous writer Sholem Aleichem “Fiddler on the Roof” born in the shtetl of Pereiaslav, south of Kyiv likely modeled the musical after shtetl life the real name of this “Jewish Mark Twain” Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich his pen name Sholem Aleichem literally means “peace be with you”

Kimberly Burnham, Author of Awakenings, Peace Dictionary, Language and the Mind, A Daily Brain Health Program https://amzn.to/30hchpr