KARAITES
Background
The Karaites (also known as Karaims) are a Jewish sect that came into being at the beginning of the eighth century. Their doctrinal distinction from other Jews was based primarily on a denial of the talmudic-rabbinical tradition and, instead, recognition of the scriptures as the sole and direct source of religious law.
Their name, Karaite, is an abbreviated form for Kara'im Ba’alei-Mikra, which means the people of the scriptures.The Karaites were known to have already inhabited the Crimea in the twelfth century. Popular tradition ascribes their arrival in Poland-Lithuania to the activity of Grand Duke Vytautas (reigned 1392-1430) who, after defeating the Tatars in 1398, brought back many prisoners, among them Karaites, whom he settled in Trakai (Troki), near Vilnius. From Trakai, some Karaites than migrated south to Luts’k in Volhynia and to Halych in Galicia.
Modern scholarship has proved that Karaites came directly to Galicia from the Crimea during the reign of Prince Danylo in 1246. The Karaites were granted commercial privileges like the Jews and Armenians, and they had their own community and places to worship in L’viv and Halych. After 1475, the remaining Karaites in L’viv moved to Halych, which remained the center of the community in Galicia. In 1578, they received from the Polish king the rights and privileges that were accorded “other Jews.” Karaite autonomy was recognized by the Austrians as well.
The Karaite community in Galicia at no time numbered more than several hundred. The largest settlement, in Halych, had only 160 persons in 1921 and 100 in 1939. Despite their minuscule size, the Karaites have been able to maintain their own Turkic language-the Galician branch together with those living in Luts’k speak a southern dialect as opposed to those in Troki near Vilnius who speak a northern dialect. They also experienced a cultural revival during the interwar years in Poland, when Karaite journals and other popular works appeared in Vilnius and Luts’k."
The rise of interest in the Karaite past during the interwar period was accompanied by a fierce debate regarding the Jewish or Turkic origins of the group.
This proved to have more than purely academic consequences, because the racially oriented Nazi German government became intensely interested in the problem. Finally, in 1939, the German Ministry of Interior ruled that the Karaites were not racially Jewish; as a result, the few remaining residents in Galicia were spared the fate of their Jewish brethren.[655] [656]General surveys
The best introduction to the problem of the Karaites in Poland is found in general surveys by Bohdan Janusz and the Karaite scholar Ananiasz Zajgczkowski. Both have provided a concise discussion of the history, language, folklore, and culture, as well as an extensive bibliography of the group in historic Poland, which includes the settlements in Trakai (near Vilnius), Luts’k (Volhynia), and Halych (Galicia).[657] Another Karaite scholar, Simon Szyszman, has written a solid historical account from earliest times to the present that focuses on the various controversies concerning the origins of the group.102 The Karaite language, including the linguistic peculiarities of the Halych group, is described by Omeljan Pritsak and in several works by the French-born Polish scholar Tadeusz Kowalski and by Ananiasz Zaj^czkowski.103
Scholars began to turn their attention to the Karaites in the seventeenth century. 104 One of the first studies to treat the group in Galicia was published in 1862 by the Austrian scholar J.V. Goehlert.105 Subsequent writings on Karaites in Galicia before World War I were generally limited to short essays106 or to more literary descriptions, as in the work of Reuben Fahn.107 It was not really until the interwar period that more extensive scholarship was undertaken, and several works were published by both Jewish and Karaite scholars. Most of the attention focuses on the origins of the group. Jewish writers like Meir Balaban, J. Brutzkus, and Gedo Hecht argued that the Karaites were of Jewish origin;108 the Karaites
102 Simon Szyszman, “Die Karäer in Ost-Mitteleuropa,” Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, VI, 1 (Marburg 1957), pp.
24-54.103 Omeljan Pritsak, “Das Karai'mische,” Philologiae Turcicae fundamenta, I (Wiesbaden 1959), pp. 318-340. A complete bibliography of Kowalski’s many works on Karaites is found in WIodzimierz Zajjczkowski, “Bibliografia Tadeusza Kowalskiego,” Rocznik Orientalistyczny, XVII (Cracow 1953), pp. xvii-xxxvi. Zajjczkowski’s works on the Karaite language are listed in the bibliography to his book; see n. 101 above. For a general bibliography on Karaite language, see W. Zajjczkowski, “Die bibliographischen Materiale zur Erforschung der karaimischen Sprache und Volkskunde,” Folia Orientalia, I, 2 (Cracow 1968), pp. 338-346.
104 For a survey of the earliest scholarship on Karaites in general, see Aleksander Dubinski, “Poczjtki zaintcrcsowari j^zykiem ł literature karaimske w nauce europejskiej do konca XIX wieku,” Przeglqd Orientalistyczny, XII, 2 (Warsaw 1959), pp. 135-144.
105 J.V. Goehlert, “Die Karaiten und Mennoniten in Galizien,” Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Klasse der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, XXXVIII (Vienna 1862), pp. 596-603.
106 G. Smolski, “U Karaimow w Haliczu,” Naokolo swiata, (Warsaw 1903); W. Schreiber- Luczyriski, “Zur Anthropologie der Karaimkinder Galiziens,” Archiv für Anthropologie. IX, 1-2 (Braunschweig 1910); Μ. Balaban, “Do dziejow karaickich (okruchy historyczne),” Na Ziemi Naszej, II, 10 (L’viv 1910), pp. 76-77; Bohdan Janusz, “Gmina karaicka w Haliczu,” Na Ziemt Naszej, III, 5 (L’viv 1911), pp. 5-7.
107 Reuben Fahn, Mihaje ha-Karaim: Ňóđó ł szkice z zycia Karaitow (Drohobych 1908), translated into German as “Aus dem Leben der Karaiten,” Ost und West, XII, 1 and 2 (Berlin 1912), pp. 66-70 and 135-144; R. Fahn, Legenden der Karaiten (Vienna 1921).
108 Majer Balaban, “Karaici w Polsce,” NoweZycie, I (Warsaw 1924), pp. 1-23, 166-176, 323-340 and II (1924), pp. 14-31, 192-206, reprinted in his Studia historyczne (Warsaw: M.J. Fried 1927), pp. 1-92; Μ. Balaban, “Sk^d ł kiedy przybyli Zydzi do Polski,” Miesi^cznik Zydowski, I (Warsaw 1924), pp.
1-12, 112-121; J. Brutzkus, “Di opshtamung fun di Karayimer in Lite un in Poyln,” Yivo Bieter, XIII (Vilna 1938), pp. 109-123, reprinted in Wachstein Bukh (Vilna: YIVO 1939), pp. 109-124; Gedo Hecht, Karaimi ‘Synowie Zakonu' (Warsaw and L’viv: Warszawski Instytut Wydawniczy 1938).Ananiasz Zaj^czkowski, Aleksander Mardkowicz, Szymon Firkowicz, Aleksander Szyszman, and H. Seraja Szapszal countered that the group descended from the Khazars and as such was of Turko-Mongolian origin.[658]
With regard to specific developments among the Karaites in Galicia, the greatest controversy has surrounded their initial settlement. A recent study by Jaroslav Dashkevych, which compares historical data from a Karaite manuscript of 1700 with other sources, has proved that the Karaites first settled in Galicia in 1246, not in the late fourteenth century as local tradition and previous scholarly writings had for so long argued.[659]