Ethnic Origin of the Karaites by Non-Karaites
This chapter begins with a discussion of the historical background and preconditions for the beginning of the Karaite national movement (which developed later into a national movement) in the Russian Empire based on earlier research. The chapter chronologically starts from the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 1783 by the Russian Empire and ends with the Russian Revolution in 1917.
The second part of the chapter presents a collection of sources regarding early research on the ethnic origin of the Crimean Karaites. The research was inspired by new material on early Karaite history in the Crimean Peninsula. The material was discovered by a Karaite scholar named Abraham Firkovich. I dedicate a significant part of my study to a discussion of the ethnic origin of the Karaites by non-Karaites in scholarly research because outside opinions had a great impact on the construction of Karaite identity. This can be found in the following chapter dedicated to the Karaite reaction to scholarly research on the ethnic origin of the Karaites.
Historical Preconditions for the Karaite National Movement
I begin the study of Karaite national movement during the Russian Imperial period of the 18th century because attempts by the Karaites to separate themselves juridically from other Jews did not start before the partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795), the annexation of Crimea (1783) and the transition of lands populated by Karaites to the Russian crown. Moreover, we cannot speak about Karaite ethnic nationalism before national theories and notions of the ‘nation’ and
‘nationalism’ had appeared in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries (Kizilov 2011: 131; see also Kizilov 2014: 377). The Karaites proposed an ethnic definition for their group later when the rise of European nationalism and the struggle for civil rights brought other ethnic and nationalistic issues to their attention (Harviainen 2003a: 642). Before that period, we can speak only of the religious difference between Karaites and other Jews. Ph. Miller has the following to say:
None of the alleged heretics had ever claimed to be anything but Jewish. Indeed, each faction claimed to represent the most authentic manifestation of Judaism. Through the Middle Ages, the Karaites considered theirs the oldest and truest and hence the only correct interpretation of Pentateuch, despite the attacks of Rabbanite scholars, who branded them heretics, though they did not cease to consider them Jews. (Miller 1993: xv)
At the time, Karaites called themselves yehudim (Hebrew: םי ִדּוהְי — Jews) or yehudim karaim (םיארק םי ִדּוהְי — Karaite Jews).
In 1774, a Karaite named Itzko Salomonowicz appealed to the state chancellery of Austrian Galicia with a petition asking for a reduction in taxes. In that petition, he pointed out that he was not a Jew, but a peasant (Rabbinite Jews usually did not practice farming). The Empress Maria Theresa approved the petition (Kizilov 2011: 131). It was the first known precedent for a juridical distinction between Karaites and Rabbanites on a governmental level in Europe (Kizilov 2009;
Kizilov 2011: 132–133; Harviainen 2003: 648). Nathan Schur has even suggested that this precedent constitutes the starting point of the Karaite ‘National Movement’, but Mikhail Kizilov has dismissed the idea of a Karaite ‘National Movement’ at this early period of time and called the event instead ‘the earliest manifestation of Karaite national feelings’ (Schur 1995: 36–37, 194–195, 215–216).23 I consider this event the first attempt at a Karaite emancipation from the Rabbanites.
Later, in 1795, Karaites in the Russian Empire did not fail to mention the precedent (Harviainen 2003a: 648). As Kizilov has showed, the reason for the approval of the first petition was that in 1772, after the first partition of Poland, a Karaite population in Galicia (Halicz, Kokizow and some other small villages) passed under Austrian rule. He notes:
Talmudic Jews, alien to agriculture produced an unpleasant impression to the Austrian Emperor Kaiser Joseph II which he had never seen before. The only exception were Karaites.
Count Johann Anton von Pergen, a governor of Galicia in 1772–1774, provided the Emperor with a very favourable report on the hard-working Karaites, exemplary farmers and honest peasants, who, in addition, rejected the Talmud. (Kizilov 2009)24
Kizilov was of the opinion that the Austrian state administration had hoped to use the Karaites as a good example for other Jews and as a tool of anti-Rabbanite propaganda. That was why, in his view, the Karaites were excluded when the empress Maria Theresia introduced the 'Judengesetze' (Jewish statutes) in 1776. Moreover, in 1789 she equated the Karaite population with Christians rather than Jews in fiscal and civic matters (Freund 1991: 63).
The next incident occurred in Polish Lutsk when the Karaites attempted to ‘exclude themselves from the list of Jewish subjects of Poland’. Kizilov referred to a Karaite memorandum to the Jewish Commission of the Great Sejm (Parliament) in Poland in 1790, in which Karaites pointed to their difference from other Jews (Kizilov 2011: 134):
We dress as Poles. We make use of the Hebrew for religious purposes only. We maintain separate cemeteries. In other words, we differ from Jews in everything. Any measures aimed at equating us with Jews would be considered by us as a most severe punishment and, to our immense sorrow, force us to move to the Turkish lands, whence our forefathers were once brought.25 (my italics)
23 Kizilov criticised Schur’s notion of the existence of ‘a Karaite National Movement’ in the 19th century because the Karaites were never organised into anything that can be called a ‘National Movement’ (Kizilov 2011: 135, ref. 12).
In his other article, Kizilov also used the term national movement, but to refer to a later period of time (Kizilov 2007: 337).
24 See more in Karniel 1985: 291; Schur 1992: 112
25 The passage has been translated into English; see Freund 1991: 60.
The full text of the petition in the Polish language was re-published with some slight inaccuracies; see Balaban
As Kizilov did not have any evidence on how the Sejm reacted, he wrote that the petition failed because of ‘rapid political changes’ resulting in the second partition of Poland and the annexation of Lutsk, Troki, Wilno and other Polish territories with Karaite communities by the Russian Empire. He pointed out the interesting facts that, firstly, Lutsk Karaites declared their complete difference from Jews (except in using Hebrew for religious purposes) and, secondly, they warned the government that if the petition was not favourably accepted, they would immigrate to the homeland of their forefathers, the Turkish lands, i.e. apparently to Turkey in the Ottoman Empire (Kizilov 2011: 134). To my knowledge, this reference to Turkey as the homeland of their forefathers might have been considered as a first attempt by the Lutsk Karaites to differentiate themselves from Rabbinical Jews on a basis other than religious or occupational. Moreover, it was also an attempt to distance themselves from the Jewish homeland, Israel. However, I agree with Kizilov that the reason for the petition was economic and political rather than nationalistic (his term) (Kizilov 2011: 135) or identity-based (my term). He concluded that the Karaites were trying to avoid being associated with the Jewish community: in 1790, a special Jewish commission was created in the Polish Sejm and anti-Jewish laws were passed (Kizilov 2011: 134).
It is probably too early to identify the beginnings of a Karaite ‘National Movement’ as a result of the first three petitions (1774 in Habsburg, Austria; 1790 in Poland; 1795 in the Russian Empire), as Nathan Shur has done (Schur 1995: 36–37, 194–195, 215–216). However, petitions could definitely be understood as an effort by the Karaites to emancipate from Rabbinical Jews and as one of the first signs of an inceptive Karaite proto-national movement. In this study, I will use the term National Movement (see the Theory part of this study on the terms nation and nationalism).
The term is used to refer to the Karaite demands for the right to have their own culture and be accepted as a particular group. To be precise, the Karaite movement shall instead be called a ‘proto-national movement’ because the Karaites did not demand any political rights. However, I will mostly use the term ‘national movement’ to mean a proto-national movement.
Roman Freund also uses the term ‘emancipation’. He specified that the emancipation or de-Judification of Karaites from Jewishness in Tsarist Russia went on almost simultaneously with, albeit separately from, the emancipation patterns in Austria (Schur 1995: 64).
Crimean Karaite communities also began a process of emancipation from the Rabbanite Jews after the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by the Russian Empire at the end of 1783 (Miller 1993: xvi). As Miller has noted, the reasons were the same as those in the Western parts of the Russian Empire, i.e. economic and political (Miller 1993: xvi). One of the reasons for the emancipation sentiments had to do with the government's anti-Semitic policies (Miller 1993: 5) as well as a prejudicial and even hostile attitude of Russian officials towards Jewish people. One should bear in mind that there were no Jewish communities in Russia for a long period before the end of the 18th century, when the Russian Empire acquired more than 500,000 Jews after the Second
and the Third Partitions of Poland in 1793 and 1795 (Pipes 1975: 3–20). The Russian authorities established a pale, imposed a double-taxation system on the Jewish population in 1794 throughout the Empire and, in general, had a negative attitude towards them. Karaite communities were better treated by the Russian authorities than the Rabbanites. There was precedent for such treatment.
They had previously received numerous favours from Tatar, Lithuanian and Polish rulers before becoming a part of the Russian Empire.26 In contrast, the Russian administration did not distinguish between Rabbanite and Karaite Jews.
As for the economic reasons for the Karaite emancipation, Dan Shapira and Nathan Schur have indicated that Karaites in the Ottoman Crimea became wealthier than Rabbanites by historical accident. Namely, at the end of the 18th century, prior to the Russian annexation, the Crimean Karaites profited from the lands of Greeks and Armenians who had migrated from Crimea to Russia during the Crimean Civil War during the reign of Sahin-Girey. Then, after the Russian annexation, Karaites profited from the lands of Tatars migrating to the Ottoman Empire. At the beginning of the 19th century, the cities of Gözleve and Odessa became flourishing ports and many Crimean Karaites succeeded in those places as traders and became wealthy (Shapira 2003a: 5; see also Shapira 2002b:
283–294).27
Schur notes about Karaites in Crimea that:
While Rabbanites were mainly artisans and peddlers, many Karaites were wealthy landowners, owning tobacco plantations, orchards and salt mines. Their relations with the authorities were on equal social footing. (Schur 1992: 114)
Additionally, the Crimean Karaites controlled 60% of the tobacco trade in the Russian Empire (Kizilov 2014: 379). That is why Philip Miller cited their economic status as one of the main reasons for the Karaites’ success in Tsarist Russia (Miller 1993: 33–34).
As John Klier has pointed out, the Crimean Karaites were so interested in separating themselves from the Rabbanites more than other Karaite communities in order to safeguard their economic advantage. So, it was reasonable for a small Karaite community to resist a merger with the Rabbinic Jewish majority from the former Polish lands. The Karaites argued that they differed from Rabbinic Jews because they cultivated the soil and had not been spoiled by the Talmud (a book hated by the Russian authorities) (Klier 1995: 53).
In the winter of 1795, the Karaites sent a delegation to the Russian authorities with a petition to grant them exemption from the double taxation. They were successful. In June 1795, Catherine issued a decree exempting ‘Crimean Jews called Karaites’ from the double taxation
26 In 1441, Grand Duke Casimir Jagello (later Kazimierz/Casimir IV, King of Poland) granted Karaites the same status as the Gentile municipalities in Vilnius, Trakai and Kaunas (Kowno). This and other charters issued by the Lithuanian and Polish authorities assured personal, religious, jurisdictional and commercial freedom for the Karaites (Harviainen 2003a: 645–646).
In Crimea, Khans, starting from Hacı I Giray (Geray) in 1459, issued beneficial yarlyks, granting Karaite Jews protection and exemption from taxation as well as fixing their rights to property (See Firkovich, Z.A. 1890).
27 See also a discussion on the history of their wealth accumulation in Miller (1993): Introduction and especially 15–
(Polnoe Sobranie Zakonov 1900: 340); their rights to their landed properties were also assured (Harviainen 2003a: 648). Miller highlights the fact that:
Although the Karaites were still regarded as Jews, they had received, for the first time [in the Russian Empire], official governmental recognition of an identity and status that was distinct from those of the Rabbanites. (Miller 1993: 13–14)
It is assumed that the exemption granted by Catherine to the Crimean Karaites was also extended to the Karaites of Polish Volhynia (present Ukraine) and Lithuania (Miller 1993: 14).
In Kizilov’s view, both the Habsburg and Russian Empires favoured the first Karaite petitions as part of an effort to make them into ‘exemplary Jews’ and use them as a tool of their anti-Talmudic (i.e. anti-Rabbanite) policies (Kizilov 2011: 135):
Karaites became an anti-Rabbinical tool for European and especially Russian administrations at the end of 18–19th centuries. Thus, Russian officials were saying to the Rabbanites: ‘Forget about the Talmud, and you will be treated by the state as favourably as your non-Talmudic brethren, the Karaites’. Echoes of anti-Rabbinical propaganda can be found in descriptions of travellers of the 18th-19th centuries, which were based on the contrast between 'good Jews-Karaites' who did not participate in Christ’s crucifixion, and 'bad Rabbinical Jews', spoiled by the Talmud. (Kizilov 2007: 332)
Miller and Kizilov mention three reasons for the success of Karaites’ petitions in securing particular rights in Tsarist Russia. The first had to do with the personal influence of the head of the petition expedition to St. Petersburg, Solomon Babovich, the leader of the Evpatorian community.
He was a well-established and wealthy merchant who had successfully established contacts among high officials of the military and the provincial government (Miller 1993: 15–17, 33–34). The second reason had to do with the good economic position of the Crimean Karaites in general, especially of those from Evpatoriya. Miller here cites Mary Holderness, who stayed in Evpatoriya:
‘The Karaites are commonly wealthy and are on all accounts, the most respectable’ (Holderness 1823: 179). The third reason was that the non-Talmudic successful Karaites might have served as a good example for a correction policy for spoiled Rabbanite Jews (a tool of Talmudic, i.e. anti-Rabbanite, policy) (Kizilov 2011: 135).
Kizilov has convincingly argued that the Karaite movement for a better legal status in the Russian Empire also led to the revival of a Karaite interest in their own ethnic past (Kizilov 2007:
335). Before that time, the Karaites had mainly produced religious literature, not historical accounts (Kizilov 2007: 335). They wrote in the petition of 1795 to the governor-general of Ekaterinoslavl and Taurida Platon Zubov the following:
Our Community called Karaites is ancient Jewish, settled in Crimea apparently about 450 years ago. (Firkovich 1890: XX–XXI; Belyi 1994: 31–32) (my italics and translation)
It is important to note that at this stage, the Karaites considered themselves to be Jewish.
Moreover, the source seems to testify to the fact that before the period of Firkovich's finds (the 1840s), the Karaites had a certain oral tradition about the time of their settlement on the peninsula (around 1350) (see below).
In the next petition, of 1825, to the Russian Emperor Alexander I, the Karaites stated similarly:
We all Karaites are descendants of one ancient Jewish tribe, which settled in Crimea more than four hundred centuries ago, and with other Crimean peoples became subjects of the blessed state of Your Imperial Highness. (For the text of the petition, see Belyi 1994: 32–33) (my italics and translation)
If the previous petition was unclear on the question of whether the Karaites were referring to their religious or ethnic origin, the petition of 1825 seemed to refer explicitly to their ethnic origin tracing back to a particular Jewish tribe.
We can consider both petitions as a source of Karaite self-identification at that time.
In 1827, the Karaite petition succeeded again and they were granted exemption from military service in return for the payment of an exemption fee (Miller 1993: 29–31). The next year Lithuanian and Volhynian Karaites were granted the same right (Harviainen 2003a: 649). However, Karaites were still considered Jews under Russian law (Miller argues that Russian law recognised the Karaites as a separate nationality only in 1863; 1993: xvi). In 1835, they voluntarily abandoned part of their Jewish identity, officially changing their name from ‘Jews-Karaites’ to ‘Russian Karaites of Old Testamentary Religion’, and later to just ‘Karaites’.28 It was not until 1863, though, that the tsar formally recognised Karaism as a particular nationality (Miller's term; 1993: xvi).
Scholars consider the establishment of the Karaite Spiritual Authority (Karaimskoe Duhovnoe Pravlenie – note that the word ‘Jewish’ is not included in the name) in 1837 to also be an important milestone in the Karaite emancipation movement from Jewishness (see Miller 1993: xvi;
Harviainen 2003: 649; Kizilov 2014: 379–380). Another Council for the Karaites in the Western Provinces was established in Trakai in 1850. Miller (1993: xv) views this event as cause for an unprecedented split in Judaism. Harviainen highlights the fact that from the viewpoint of European nationalism, there is no doubt that the Kipchak-Turkic native language, the Karaite creed and numerous inherited habits and customs pertaining to both spiritual and material culture were sufficient factors for delineating the Karaites as representative of an independent ethnic or national group (Harviainen 2003a: 649).
That is why, in his view, the establishment of an independent Karaite Spiritual Consistory set the Karaites apart from the administrative bodies of the Jews from the standpoint of European nationalism (Harviainen 2003a: 649). Kizilov also regards this event as very important for the emancipation of the Karaites:
Now, when the Karaites had their own board of spiritual administration and were not included in the Rabbanite Kahal system, the Russian authorities stopped considering the Karaites as part of the Jewish religious community. (Kizilov 2014: 379–380)
28 In a letter to a high-ranking official (Governor-General Vilenski), the Troki Karaites asked that the name Jews not be used to refer to them, but to call them instead ‘Russian Karaites of Old Testamental Religion’. He received a positive answer (See O proiskhozhdenii sekty 1856: 10, 13).
And as Kizilov suggests (2014: 379–380), at this point the Karaites apparently also stopped regarding themselves as part of the Jewish people.
Thus, we can probably consider the year 1837 as a reference point of the beginning of a Karaite ‘National Movement’, though such a movement was the result (not an inception) of the emancipation and national revival, which had started earlier.
In 1863, the Karaites were granted the same rights as Russian Christians (Smirnov 1890:
xxviii–xxix). In contrast, the Russian Rabbanite Jews achieved the same status only after the 1917 Revolution (Harviainen 2003a: 649). As Phillip Miller (1993: xvi; 2000: 335) has pointed out, at least the law of 1863 formally recognised the Karaites as a separate nationality.
But before the most beneficial law for Karaites was issued in 1863, the state administration of Tsarist Russia decided it had to be sure that the Karaites deserved such a distinguished position (Kizilov 2011: 135). In 1839, a governor-general of Novorossiya, Count Mikhail Vorontsov, sent an official inquiry (Smirnov 1890: VII–VIII)29 to the Karaite Spiritual Authority requesting well-grounded answers to questions about the origin of the Karaites, the time of their arrival in Crimea, peculiarities about their religion and, most importantly, the reasons for their separation from the Rabbanite Jews (Kizilov 2011: 138–139). The answers were to serve as a legal explanation of the Karaite request to separate themselves from the Rabbanite Jews. To their own surprise, the Karaite communities found that they had almost no historical documents on the matter, and thus, they were not even able to answer simple questions about when and why they had come to Crimea (Firkovich 1911: 83).30 So, they entrusted a respectable Karaite scholar, Abraham Firkovich (1786–1874),31 with the task of finding historical materials that would be able to provide answers to the questions listed above. Firkovich is one of the most well-known of Karaite names, whose fame spread far beyond the Karaite community. Tyszkiewicz has called him a ‘sort of Karaite Schliemann’
But before the most beneficial law for Karaites was issued in 1863, the state administration of Tsarist Russia decided it had to be sure that the Karaites deserved such a distinguished position (Kizilov 2011: 135). In 1839, a governor-general of Novorossiya, Count Mikhail Vorontsov, sent an official inquiry (Smirnov 1890: VII–VIII)29 to the Karaite Spiritual Authority requesting well-grounded answers to questions about the origin of the Karaites, the time of their arrival in Crimea, peculiarities about their religion and, most importantly, the reasons for their separation from the Rabbanite Jews (Kizilov 2011: 138–139). The answers were to serve as a legal explanation of the Karaite request to separate themselves from the Rabbanite Jews. To their own surprise, the Karaite communities found that they had almost no historical documents on the matter, and thus, they were not even able to answer simple questions about when and why they had come to Crimea (Firkovich 1911: 83).30 So, they entrusted a respectable Karaite scholar, Abraham Firkovich (1786–1874),31 with the task of finding historical materials that would be able to provide answers to the questions listed above. Firkovich is one of the most well-known of Karaite names, whose fame spread far beyond the Karaite community. Tyszkiewicz has called him a ‘sort of Karaite Schliemann’