Legendary Sevastopol
Legendary Sevastopol or Great Sevastopol is the municipal anthem of Sevastopol. Approved by the decision of the I session of the City Council of the XXII convocation dated July 29, 1994. It was composed by Vano Muradeli, with lyrics created by Pyotr Gradov.
History
Georgian composer Vano Muradeli undertook to write the anthem at the request of Vice Admiral Nikolai Kulakov, at that time a member of the military council of the Black Sea Fleet. For poetry, Muradeli turned to the poet Alexander Zharov. Poems were written, but Muradeli considered them unsuitable and turned to the poet Pyotr Gradov, whose poems formed the basis of the anthem.For the first time, the song was officially performed in the House of Fleet Officers by the Song and Dance Ensemble of the Black Sea Fleet on the eve of the Day of the Soviet Navy for representatives of the command, the Political Directorate, the Military Council of the Fleet, military units, ships, city party bodies, deputies of the City Council.
Ukrainian lanaguage version
The song "Great Sevastopol" was written by Myroslav Mamchak in 2000 as a Ukrainian-language version of the Sevastopol Anthem in Russian. According to an interview in the newspaper Sevastopolskaya Gazeta, it was the idea of Oleksandr Ivanov, an employee of the TV and Radio Center of the Ukrainian Navy, to perform the song in Ukrainian. In the chorus, the words "pride of Russian sailors" were changed to "the capital of Ukrainian sailors." It was performed for the first time in 2001 by Oleksandr Ivanov.After the annexation of Crimea to Russia, the deputies of the Legislative Assembly of Sevastopol in 2015 banned the performance of the anthem in Ukrainian.