Cossack Cross 32, Kuialnyk cemetery, Odesa, Ukraine

Year of burial: 1791 (1771) Name and surname: Ioan (Ioan) Inscription: ZDS Pogrebn Rab Bozhy In Xs Mldents Ioan Roku Bozhiya 1791 Type of form: Cossack or Korsun cross. Description: The oldest preserved dated tombstone in the cemetery and on the territory of Odessa. The cross with a shell shape belongs to the Cossack crosses, namely to the claw (widened) or Korsun. Crosses of this shape are present in Cossack cemeteries in central Ukraine, in particular, in Trakhtemyrov (Cherkasy region), Busha (Vinnytsia region), etc. This indicates the preservation of the traditions of the funeral rites of their ancestors by the Cossack descendants in the suburbs of Hadzhibey (Odessa). According to Roman Shuvalov's 1992 publication, the cross bore the inscription: "ЗДСЪ ПОГРЕБЪ РАБЪ БОЖЫЙ ИН ХС МЛДЭНЦЪ ИОАНЪ РОКУ БОЖИЯ 1791". ИН ХС means, apparently, "Jesus of Nazareth Christ". "Року Божия" was traditionally written until the end of the 18th century in order to indicate that the date is not from the "creation of the world", but from the Nativity of Christ. After the publication of R. Shuvalov, the cross was damaged and some authors read the date on it as 1771, in particular, Igor Sapozhnikov (publication 1999). If the first date is (1791), the grave may belong to the period of settlement of the region by the Cossacks of the Black Sea Cossack Army (former Zaporozhians), who in April 1790 were semi-officially “gifted” by the Russian military leader Grigory Potemkin with lands between the Southern Bug and Dniester rivers (formally they still belonged to the Ottoman Empire). Later (1792), the Black Sea Cossacks were resettled by the Russian Empress Catherine II to the lands along the Kuban River, but a significant part of them legally and illegally remained on the lands around Hadzhibey (Odessa). If the second date is (1771), the burial may be associated with the settlement of the lands of the Ottoman Empire (Yedisan Horde of the Crimean Khanate) in the 18th century by Ukrainians (including former Cossacks), which took place with the permission of the official authorities. Because of this, the specified territory was called "Khan's Ukraine" (the first known mention of this name was in 1738). No information about the specified burial has been found in the surviving church registry books.