3 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory
3.1 General State of the Karaite Communities in Poland and Lithuania in the Interwar Period
The First World War and the October Revolution divided the East European Karaite community among several newly emerged states: Crimean and Russian Karaites became citizens of the Soviet Union, the Halicz Karaites finally joined their Polish brethren, whereas northern communities (Poniewież and other) became part of the First Republic of Lithuania (Lith. Lietuvos Respublika, Pol. Litwa Kowieńska). In general, most publications on the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites refer to the existence of the four most important Karaite communities of the region, those of Troki, Wilno, Łuck, and Halicz. Nevertheless, one should undoubtedly add to this list the fifth, less known, but still very important community, that of Poniewież. This town was the centre for several other small northern communities.485 Traditionally, the communities were divided into two main divisions: northern (Wilno, Troki, Poniewież) and south-western (Galician and Volhynian) communities. Each of the communities, however, had its own specific features. First, there were strong linguistic differences between southern and northern dialects of the Karaim language. Second, in terms of cultural and liturgical traditions, the south-western Karaites seemed to be more prone to the Rabbanite influence than those of the north. Third, there also were state, economic, and political borders which divided them. After 1919 northern Karaite communities (Poniewież, Nowe Miasto, Birża, Upity, Poswol, Kowno, Kiejdany, and some other smaller ones) were included into the territory of independent Lithuania and separated from their brethren in Troki and Wilno. These communities were thus exposed to the Lithuanian cultural influence. The Karaites of
485 Archival sources also mention the existence of a certain damaged Karaite “chapel” (Pol. kaplica) in the village of Kiorklu Sała (district of Nowe Troki) (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1464, fol. 30; no. 1463, fol. 502). In fact, however, Kiorklu Sała (TrKar. “beautiful village”) or Malowanka in Polish, was but a large estate with a considerable plot of land which had originally belonged to the Karaite community. Later it was apparently privatized by Szapszał for his own use. In 1938 the estate built there was officially presented as the “ḥakhan’s house” (S.F. [Szymon Firkowicz?], “Poświęcenie domu J.E. Hachana,” MK 12 (1938): 150). In 1940 it was occupied by the Soviets (see the description of the night visit of the commissars to the estate (A. Pilecki to S. Szapszał, 20.02.1940, Russian, MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1002, fol. 6v)). Later Szapszał tried to obtain both from the German and Soviet administration the right to return the estate, but apparently without any success. There are a number of archival documents dedicated to this estate and the problem of its return (MS LMAB F. 143, nos. 536; 1044; 1002; 1237; 1056, fol. 13; no. 1063 (for the description of the conflict between Sz. Firkowicz and S. Szapszał with regard to this estate, see fols. 4-5)). There Szapszał often accepted important visitors, e.g. T. Kowalski with his family (ibid., no. 1237).
© 2015 Mikhail Kizilov This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. 110 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory
Troki, mostly petty farmers, strict in their religious views, were quite different from the wealthy, well-educated and Europeanized Karaites of the capital city of Wilno in terms of their social status and religiosity. These two communities, together with the Łuck Karaites, whilst living on the territory of the Russian empire, were rather Russified than Polonized. The comparatively small community of Halicz, which was until 1918 the part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, turned out to be probably the most unique of them. This small community, being cut off from their religious brethren, seemed to preserve their religious traditions in much more conservative way than all the others. Of great interest are their ambivalent relations with Ashkenazic neighbours with whom the Halicz Karaites had to co-exist within the limits of their small town.486 Speaking about the self-identification of the local Karaites, it seems highly interesting to refer here to the testimony of one Halicz Karaite emigrant to Israel who mentioned that in the 1920s local Karaite children were taught that they were Jews, but whilst on the street they were supposed to manifest themselves as the “Turks”.487 After the end of the First World War the Karaites of Łuck and Halicz found themselves to be inhabitants of the so-called “Kresy” – eastern Polish territories bordering the Soviet Union. These regions, which were inhabited by a considerable amount of non-Polish ethnic minorities (Jews, Karaites, Russians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Armenians, Gypsies, Lemki to mention some of them),488 had often been considered by the Polish officials as “disputed territories”, hosting a not-too-patriotic population. Especially unwelcome were the pro-Russian tendencies of some inhabitants of “Kresy”. Despite their previous active acculturation into the Russian society, after 1919 the local Karaites started emphasizing their patriotic feelings towards the Polish government. Their pro-Polish tendencies immediately evoked attention of Polish officials who constantly stressed political importance of the Karaites as inhabitants of “Kresy” who were loyal to Poland.489
486 The Rabbanite quarter of Halicz was located next to that of the Karaites; moreover, many Rabbanites rented flats in houses of their Karaite neighbours. 487 Shapira, “The Turkic Languages and Literatures,” 688. 488 E.g. J.B., “Staroobrzędowcy, Musułmanie i Karaimi w Polsce,” Orędownik Wrzesiński 12 (1.02.1930), 1. 489 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1461, fol. 85. General State of the Karaite Communities in Poland and Lithuania in the Interwar Period 111
In general, about one third of Poland’s population in the 1920s consisted of ethnic minorities whose legal status sometimes was not clearly defined.490 Polish and Karaite statistical data which stated that there were as many as 1,500 Karaites in interwar Poland undoubtedly considerably overestimated the real number of Karaite population.491 According to the official estimates of 1919 there were approximately 150 Karaites living in the towns of Halicz and Lwów, and adjacent villages of Załukiew, Żyrawa and Bóbrka. The Karaite community of Łuck was considerably less numerous than all other Karaite communities: according to statistics of 1922-1925, the community consisted of only 12 families (65 persons).492 According to the official data, there were 203 Karaites living in Troki on 15.03.1922. The Wilno Karaite community consisted of 127 people on 15.03.1922.493 The Poniewież community comprised about a hundred persons in the 1920s, and 155 in the 1930s.494 Even if one takes into consideration the fact that some Karaites had continued to gradually return from the Russian evacuation, the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite community could hardly exceed 900-1,000 inhabitants, with only 700-800 of them living within the limits of Poland. According to S. Saggese, in 1931 there were 724-729 Karaites living in Poland and independent Lithuania (215 in Troki, 193 in Wilno, 71 in Łuck, 145-150 in Halicz).495 The Karaites themselves were undoubtedly aware of insignificance of their numbers. The Wilno Karaite, Emanuel Kobecki, emphasized that the Karaite in fact represented “the linguistic and confessional minority.... we are so scarce in numbers that we cannot have any ambitions to be recognized as a national minority”.496 According to one interwar author, the main reason for the demographic decline of the community was the Karaite motto: “It is impossible to become a Karaite; one needs to be born a Karaite.”497
490 Michał Tymowski, Jan Kieniewicz, Jerzy Holzer, Historia Polski (Warsaw, 1990), 282, 286. In interbellum Poland there were about 11,792,200 representatives of non-Polish ethnicity (i.e. 36% of the whole population), whereas in contemporary Poland their number is estimated to 1, 487, 600 – 2,141, 800 (around 3.5%-5.5% only) (Gabriele Simoncini, “National Minorities of Poland at the End of the Twentieth Century,” Polish Review 43:2 (1998): 173-193). On the Jews in interwar Poland, see Jerzy Tomaszewski, Zarys dziejów Żydów w Polsce w latach 1918-1939 (Warsaw, 1990); on the state of local ethnic minorities between the two world wars, see Polska-Polacy-mniejszości narodowe (Wrocław, 1992); Georg W. Strobel, Minderheiten in der Volksrepublik Polen (Cologne, 1964); Jerzy Tomaszewski, Ojczyzna nie tylko Polaków (Warsaw, 1985); idem, Rzeczpospolita wielu narodów (Warsaw, 1985). 491 E.g. Szapszał’s letter to MWRiOP of 29.11.1928 (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1464, fol. 30). 492 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fol. 118. 493 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 166-168. Cf. the list of the Karaite landowners in Troki in the 1920s (61 individuals altogether: “Wykaz Karaimów właścicieli ziemi,” MS LMAB F. 301, no. 10, fols. 226r-227r). 494 Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, ix. 495 S. Saggese, “I Caraimi di Polonia e Lituania,” Genus 23 (1967): 61. 496 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1461, fol. 298. 497 Hepke, Wilno, 70-71. 112 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory
Linguistic publications of Tadeusz Kowalski, who visited all Polish-Lithuanian Karaite qehilot498 during his field trips of 1925-1928, provide much important information on the general state of the Karaite community in the 1920s and 1930s. Especially interesting is the introduction to his most important publication, the monograph Karaimische Texte im Dialekt von Troki (Kraków, 1929) which he wrote in German. In general, Kowalski found the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite community to be “pious and conservative, however, without any fanatic tendencies.” In his opinion, this feature could explain why the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites had better relations with their Christian or Muslim neighbours, than with the Rabbanite Jews. The scholar claimed that the Karaite anthropological type was much more homogenous than that of the Rabbanites: “the Karaites are in general of average height, with small heads, broad faces, with black hair.” In his view this happened most likely as a result of the ban on mixed marriages.499 In his articles, in addition to valuable linguistic data, Kowalski provides important data on Karaite ethnography. One can find there detailed descriptions of such Karaite religious holidays as chydży maccałarnyn (TrKar. for Heb. ḥag ha-maṣot or Pesaḥ),500 rite of circumcision, marriage and engagement in Troki and Halicz.501 One can even find a precise recipe for the Passover maṣah – the way it was prepared by the Troki Karaites in the 1920s, and how the Karaites cultivated their famous Troki cucumbers.502 In the 1930s, Halicz and Troki were visited by the Jewish author, Gedo Hecht, who had demonstrated his interest in the Karaite history even earlier, before the First
498 Apart from the community of Poniewież which was at that time located in independent Lithuania. In the Polish dedication to his Karaimische Texte im Dialekt von Troki (the rest of the book was written in German) Kowalski express his gratitude to the following Karaite figures: Troki ḥazzan Szymon Firkowicz, Izaak Charczenko, N.R. Jutkiewicz (Warsaw), Seraja Szapszał, Pinachas/ Feliks Malecki (Wilno), Izaak Zajączkowski (Wilno), Rafał Abkowicz, Aleksander Mardkowicz (Łuck), Zacharjasz Nowachowicz and Nowach Szulimowicz (both Halicz), Ananiasz Zajączkowski (Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, iv-v). Kowalski was also engaged in constant correspondence with many other members of the Karaite communities (e.g. AN PAN, Spuścizna K III-4. Tadeusz Kowalski, no. 156). Archival documents kept in AN PAN testify that a considerable amount of Halicz Karaim texts was sent to him by Z. Zarachowicz (see Karaim translations of agiographa sent to Kowalski by Z. Zarachowicz: AN PAN, Spuścizna K III-4. Tadeusz Kowalski, nos. 122:1 and 2). 499 Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, x-xi. 500 Tadeusz Kowalski, “Przyczynki do etnografji i dialektologji karaimskiej,” RO 5 (1927): 202-212, 221-229. 501 Kowalski Tadeusz. “Pieśni obrzędowe w narzeczu Karaimów z Trok.” RO III (1925): 216-254; one can compare the Troki rite of circumcision with that of Halicz (Grzegorzewski, “Caraimica. Język Łach- Karaitów,” 294-296). 502 Kowalski, “Przyczynki do etnografji,” 202-229. General State of the Karaite Communities in Poland and Lithuania in the Interwar Period 113
World War.503 In spite of the fact that Hecht’s reports contain a number of serious mistakes,504 the author had been observant enough to notice, on the one hand, the Judaic character of Karaite religion, and, on the other, a gradual supplanting of their Jewish traditions with the Turkic liturgy and self-identification:
Karaite religious authorities, as well as intelligentsia, are adamant and constant in their insistence that they are not Jews and that they do not have anything in common with Judaism… Most recently, influenced by an awakening of nationalistic feelings, today’s “Sons of Scripture” are governed by the tendency to rid themselves of anything connecting them to Judaism and Jews.505
Israel Cohen, another Jewish visitor to Troki and Wilno, also noticed the general decline of Karaite religious tradition in interwar Poland. He explained this phenomenon in quite a theological way. In his opinion the indifference of the local Karaites “even to biblical prohibitions seemed to have resulted from declining contact with the traditional form of the Law of Moses, for the scroll [of the Torah] was for the most part kept safe in its repository and was not brought to light except on special occasions.”506 The other aftermath of the interwar dejudaization of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite community was the renaissance of the Turkic Karaim language. It was in this period that Karaim stopped being just an Umgangssprache or the language of targumim. It became a literary language, a language of secular poetry, fiction and press. The Karaite leaders of the 1930s (Seraja Szapszał, Szemaja Firkowicz, Aleksander Mardkowicz, Józef Łobanos and some others) ventured to undertake a linguistic reform similar to that of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Turkey. In order to restore “real” Turkic Karaim language, they decided to “cleanse” it from numerous Slavic, Hebrew, and Lithuanian loanwords. Results of these reforms were indeed impressive – the efforts of the Karaite leaders indeed allowed the creation of a literary type of Karaim. Rashid Kaplanov,
503 The author published several articles on the history of the Karaites: Gedo Hecht, “Dawna żydowska twierdza na Krymie,” Jedność 1 (3.01.1908); idem, “Karaici i Fałasze,” Jedność (3.01.1908, 10.03.1911); idem, “O Chazarach, szczepie fińskim, wyznającym judaizm od VII do XI wieku,” Jedność 43 (4.10.1910); idem, “Oaza najmniejszej mniejszości narodowej w Polsce,” Nasz Przegląd (29.09.1936); idem, “U ‘Synow Zakonu’ w Trokach,” Chwilia 6624 (28.08.1937); idem, “Wymierająca sekta żydowska. Karaimi – ‘Synowie Zakonu’,” Krajoznawstwo 10: 3 (29) (1938): 1-4. Later these essays formed a leaflet Hecht, Karaimi: “Synowie zakonu.” 504 E.g. the author states that the Karaite “form in every country ‘zerety’ (ghetto)” (Hecht, Karaimi: “Synowie zakonu”, 5). In fact the Karaim term ziyaret/zeret/zieriat’ means… a cemetery (cf. Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, 280). 505 Hecht, Karaimi: “Synowie zakonu”, 26-28, 29. 506 Israel Cohen, Vilna (Philadelphia, 1943), 467. 114 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory
one of the earliest students of the Karaim literature in the former USSR, defined the literary Karaim used in the interbellum period as a “literary micro-language”.507 Obtaining official recognition of the legal status of the Karaites as a separate religious entity in the Polish Republic was one of the most important tasks for the Karaite community of the 1920s-1930s. An appreciation of the significance of this task can be enhanced, first of all, by understanding the danger associated with being placed on the same legal footing as the Rabbanite Jews, who were officially discriminated against and oppressed. Furthermore, it was dangerous to retain the legal status that had been given to the Karaite community by the Tsarist authorities in the general anti-Russian atmosphere of interwar Poland. The legal status of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in the 1920s, in fact, possessed both dangerous tendencies: the status of the Karaites of Wilno, Troki, and Łuck was defined by the Russian laws (Collection of Russian laws, 1896, vol. 9, pt. 4, §1261-1298), whereas the Karaites of Halicz were considered a Jewish community by the Austrian legislation (statute of 21.03.1890, Nr.57).508 The head of the Polish-Lithuanian interwar community, ḥakham Seraja Szapszał, who clearly understood all this, already in 1928 wrote that “the Autonomous Karaite Church509 in Poland is now governed by still irrevocable regulation of the former Russian Empire; hence comes the utter necessity of reviewing and changing the statute of Karaite religious affairs according to the state rights, spirit of age and present position of the Karaites.”510 The earliest of Szapszał’s projects regarding the status of Karaite religious community in Poland dates back to 1928.511 However, the final version of the legal statute of Karaimski Związek Religijny w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (Pol. “Karaite Religious Union in Polish Republic”) was accepted and affirmed only eight years later, in April 1936.512 On 26.04.1936, in solemn atmosphere, the minister MWRiOP, W. Świętosławski, handed to Muslim mufti and to S. Szapszał copies of the
507 Rashid Kaplanov, “K istorii karaimskogo literaturnogo iazyka,” in Malye i dispersnye etnicheskie gruppy v evropeiskoi chasti SSSR (Moscow, 1985), 104. 508 Stanisław Piekarski, Wyznania religijne w Polsce (Warsaw, 1927), 91. 509 One of the officials quite strictly pointed out to Szapszał that the term “kośćioł” (church) is used in Poland only with the regard to Christian denomination; from that moment Szapszał had to use only the term “wyznanie” (confession) (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1462, fol. 9). 510 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1464, fol. 131. 511 Practically two thick folders (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1462 and no. 1463) are dedicated to drafts and corrected versions of the statute; they date back to 1928-1936. 512 For the final version of the statute on luxurious paper with wax seal, officially signed by Szapszał, see AAN MWRiOP, no. 1463, fols. 578-587; cf. its version printed for the session of the Sejm in ibid., fols. 499-504; cf. Szymon Pilecki, “Karaimskie życie rodzinne, społeczne i religijne okresu międzywojennego, czas wojny, decyzje o przyjeździe do Polski,” in Karaimi, ed. B. Machul-Telus (Warsaw, 2012), 38-41. Halicz 115
statutes of their religious unions in Poland.513 As one of the later observers pointed out, statute of the Karaite religious union was a “twin sister of Muslim statute”.514 Having surveyed the general state of the interwar Polish-Lithuanian Karaite community, it is worthwhile examining each community separately.
3.2 Halicz
3.2.1 General State of the Community During the Interwar Period
The Karaite community of Halicz seems to suffer most of all other communities in the course of the World War I. Its houses were especially heavily damaged during the turbulent events and conflagrations which frequented the town at that period; massive and beautiful tombstones of the cemetery were often used for military purposes or simply thrown into the Dniester, whereas the lavishly-decorated synagogue (kenesa) attracted too much attention of the marauders. In general, it seems that the community prospered during the interwar period. The local Karaites again established contacts with their Volhynian and Northern brethren, the young Karaites started to attend Polish schools, colleges and universities.515 According to later Karaite authors, it appears that the social structure of the community also changed for the better: many Karaites started their career as civil workers, while others had been working at the local railroad station. Practically all of the community members had large plots of land at their disposal.516 After the annexation of Galicia by Poland in 1919-1920, Galicia was officially called Małopolska Wschodnia (Eastern Little Poland). It was divided into three województwo (administrative districts/voivodships), those of Lwów, Stanisławów, and Tarnopol. These were further divided into 55 powiaty (counties).517 Interwar Halicz, with its five thousand inhabitants, remained the second largest town in the Stanisławowskie województwo.518 Nevertheless, in the period of the Second Polish Republic, Halicz certainly became even less significant than in Austrian times. Approximately half of the interwar population of Halicz was Ruthenian/Ukrainian (2,300 persons, ca. 50%); the second largest group were the Talmudic Jews (1,060 persons, ca.
513 “Uroczystość wręczenia odznaczeń najwyższym duchownym: karaimskiemu i muzułmańskiemu,” MK 11 (1936): 123-125. 514 Izaak Zajączkowski, “Akty Ustawodawcze o Karaimskim Związku Religijnym w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej,” MK 12 (1938): 75. 515 Abrahamowicz, “Dzieje Karaimów w Haliczu,” 15. 516 Eszwowicz, “Halyts’ka karaїms’ka hromada,” 6-7. 517 Volodymyr Kubijovyč, Etnichni hrupy pivdennozakhidn’oї Ukraїny (Halychyny) na 1.1.1939/Ethnic Groups of the South-Western Ukraine (Halyčyna-Galicia) 1.1.1939 (Wiesbaden, 1983), xx. 518 Ibid., 82. The population of Stanisławów, the centre of the district, was 64,000. 116 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory
20%). The Poles (300 persons, i.e. ca. 6% of the population) were in the minority. Linguistically, however, when grouped together with the Polish-speaking Karaites and the Latynnyky (Polonized Ukrainians/Ruthenians), the Poles also constituted an important part of the town’s population.519 Zarach Zarachowicz estimated that, for various reasons, from 1915 to 1920 about 25% of the Karaite population of Halicz died.520 According to the official estimates of 1919, there were about 150 Karaites living in the towns of Halicz and Lwów, and in the adjacent villages of Załukiew, Żyrawa and Bóbrka.521 These data were corroborated by Corrado Gini’s expedition, which found about 145-150 Karaites in Halicz in 1934.522 The Karaites (about 3% of the town’s population) were the smallest ethnic minority of Halicz. Thus, in the interwar period, the Karaite community of Halicz became even smaller than before. Furthermore, the community continued shrinking because of natural decrease, emigration, and conversion to Christianity. According to a Jewish journalist who visited Halicz in 1937, there were apparent traces of physical degradation among members of the community.523 An interwar report on the Karaite community of Troki in Lithuania provided similar information.524 Both of these accounts, however, possess a certain anti-Karaite bias and cannot be fully trusted. Some other observers testified that in the 1920s the tendency toward physical degradation was not very noticeable.525 In general, however, it seems that in many respects the everyday and spiritual life of the community became much better off than during the Austrian period. The Galicians re-established close contacts with their Volhynian and Lithuanian brethren; younger Karaites began attending Polish schools, colleges, and universities.526 In contrast to the local Rabbanite Jews, who continued suffering from both public and state-sanctioned anti-Semitism, the Karaites were treated by the interwar Polish government on the same legal footing as Christian citizens of the Rzeczpospolita, without any ethnic or religious limitations. During Polish times, many Halicz Karaites
519 This is according to the official statistics of 1939 (ibid.). These statistical data do not mention anything about a few other minor sectarian groups that supposedly lived in Halicz between the two wars (cf. Wachsmann, “Halitsch,” 13). 520 Zarachowicz, “Listy z Halicza,” 27-28. 44 Karaites died from 1915 to 1920, which indeed seems to represent about a quarter of the community (Z. Z., “Ze statystyki,” 32-33). 521 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1461, fols. 1-2. 522 Gini, “I Caraimi,” 25. 523 Wachsmann, “Halitsch,” 13. 524 M. Blum, “Ha-Qara started their careers as clerks and lawyers.527 In addition to their official jobs, most Karaites maintained large plots of land under their ownership.528 Many Karaites worked on the railway. According to a Jewish traveller of the 1930s, it was often the case that the trains running in the vicinity of Halicz were staffed exclusively with Karaites. The traveller even quoted a local Galician adage (perhaps in his translation from Polish): “Wenn ein Karäer zur Welt kommt, wird er gleich in das Eisenbahnerregister eingetragen” (When a Karaite comes into the world, he is immediately registered as a railroad man).529 Indeed, in total, 14 Karaites worked at the railroad station. Moreover, one of them, Szymon Ickowicz, was the stationmaster.530 Nevertheless, most Karaites remained agricultural workers; many were artisans; some worked in the public sphere. Three worked as lawyers, one of whom (Zarach Zarachowicz) was a secretary to the local court of justice; five had the title of “Ribbi,” and thus were allowed to fulfil the duties of the ḥazzan.531 According to Zarach Zarachowicz, the Karaite peasants of Załukiew possessed more land and agricultural equipment than their Slavic neighbours.532 *** In 1919, consistent with the modernization of Karaite society, the local community elected a board of administration which, for the first time, consisted of secular and not spiritual authorities. Its members were: Józef Eszwowicz (chairman), Abraham Leonowicz (vice-chairman), Leon Szulimowicz, David Abrahamowicz, Zarach Zarachowicz, and Ezua (Yeshuah) Leonowicz.533 In 1923 a new board was elected, while Józef Eszwowicz remained its head. Nevertheless, because of the conflict between Eszwowicz and ḥazzan Samuel Mordkowicz, other members of the board resigned from their duties.534 A new board of administration was elected in 1925, and its head was Ezua Leonowicz.535 527 E.g. Józef Samuelowicz (1868-1929), who was a circuit judge (sędzia okręgowy); Zachariah Nowachowicz, a lawyer; Isaac b. Judah Eszwowicz (1862-1904), an official in the state court of justice (Yurchenko et al., Karaїms’ke kladovyshche, 29, 47, 51, 83). 528 Eszwowicz, “Halyts’ka karaїms’ka hromada,” 6-7. 529 Wachsmann, “Halitsch,” 13. 530 Eszwowicz, “Halyts’ka karaїms’ka hromada,” 6. 531 Ibid., 6-7. Ribbi (rarely: erbi) is the Karaim term for rabbi; in this case it is used to designate the teacher of religion and language. 532 Zarachowicz, “Listy z Halicza,” 26. 533 Elected on 5 Apr. 1919 (Zarachowicz, “Listy z Halicza,” 28). 534 J. Eszwowicz to the starostwo in Stanisławów, Autumn 1923, Polish (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1461, fols. 111, 114). 535 Apparently, only until 1930 (?). See his letter to S. Szapszał, 1928-1930 (Polish) (LMAB F. 143, no. 428, esp. fol. 9r-v). 118 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory In spite of its small number, in the1920s, before the arrival of Seraja Szapszał, the role of the Galician community in the life of the Karaite communities of Poland was very significant. The leader of the Galician community, Zachariah Nowachowicz, was the chairman of the all-Karaite conference that took place in Wilno on 30 February 1924.536 During the official assembly of representatives of the Karaite communities of the Rzeczpospolita on 28 December 1923, the Galician community showed itself to be perhaps the most conservative Karaite qehilah in Eastern Europe. On that day the Karaites of Halicz rejected the projects of other communities for the establishment of a Karaite Religious Union in Poland on the grounds that, in their view, Karaite spiritual authorities should hold their positions permanently, until death, and not for some temporary period as was suggested by other communities.537 In spite of the fact that other Polish communities (those of Troki, Wilno, and Łuck) composed a unified statute for the Karaite Religious Union of Poland, the Galician Karaites did not accept it until 1925. Only in May 1925, when the Polish administration started becoming anxious about the situation and suggested that the Galicians develop their own independent statute, did the Halicz Karaites decided to join the project proposed by the other communities.538 Evidently, however, that the Halicz community joined Związek Gmin Karaimskich w Polsce even later, in May 1927.539 Soon after this, Halicz became the meeting place of representatives from all the Karaite communities in Poland, on 11 and 12 June 1927.540 According to Szymon Pilecki, the present chairman of the Karaite Religious Union in Poland, the main problem in the formation of a unified statute was of a legal and not a religious character: it was necessary to incorporate elements of the former Austrian code of law together with the Russian legal system, which was valid in Poland even in the 1930s.541 Another problem that remained unresolved during the meetings of representatives of the Karaite communities in the 1920s was that of women’s electoral rights. Karaite modernists (and ḥakham Szapszał) were inclined to grant women the right to vote,542 whereas traditional believers (especially those of Troki) were against it. Nevertheless, in spite of the modernisation of the Karaite community in the interwar period, in 1936 Karaite women were denied this right. Some authors suggest that this 536 Szymon Pilecki, “Rol’ karaimov Galicha v ustanovlenii yuridicheskogo statusa karaimskikh obshchin v 1920-30 gody,” in Karaїmy Halycha, 96. 537 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1461, fols. 30, 47-48; cf. ibid., fol. 288. 538 Z. Z. [Zarach Zarachowicz], “Organizacja gminy,” MK 1:3 (1926): 26. 539 Sz. Firkowicz to the wojewoda (palatine) of Wilno district, 1927 (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1465, fol. 110); Pilecki, “Rol’ karaimov,” 97. 540 “Konferencja w Haliczu,” MK 2:1 (1929): 48; LMAB F. 301, no. 27. 541 Pilecki, “Rol’ karaimov,” 97, 100. 542 By the way, giving women the right to vote was a part of Ataturk’s reforms. This might be another example of numerous parallels between Szapszał’s and Ataturk’s reformist activity. Halicz 119 “undemocratic” decision was taken under the influence of the not very democratic Polish constitution of 1935.543 In the interwar period, most Karaite children attended Polish schools. Thus, there was an obvious need to teach the younger Karaites Hebrew, Karaim, and religion, as these subjects were, of course, not studied in Polish schools. Leon Eszwowicz fulfilled the duties of teacher of the Karaim language and religion in the local public school from 1924 to 1926.544 It seems that the enthusiastic report by Zarach Zarachowicz about the opening of a Karaite religious school in Halicz on 19 April 1925545 was not really true: letters of Izaak Abrahamowicz and other archival documents show that there were still major problems with teaching the Hebrew language and Karaite religion in the Halicz community in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1927, members of the community started worrying about a proper education for their children, and asked the government for additional subsidies. Unfortunately, the representative of the Ministry for Religious Confessions and Public Education, who investigated the situation on the spot, came to the conclusion that because of the presence of only seven children of school age, “there are no conditions either for establishing [the office] of a teacher of the Karaite religion in Halicz, or for carrying out religious study for this confession at the [state] school at all.”546 Therefore, the Karaites had to rely on their own means to maintain the religious education of children on the proper level. In his letter of 11 June 1929, the local ḥazzan, Izaak Abrahamowicz, informed Seraja Szapszał that he had started to teach children (2 boys and 7 girls) in the house of Zarach Zarachowicz. Later, in 1933, he informed Szapszał that 11 children were taught by the shammash Moses Szulimowicz upon the latter’s election to the office of teacher (melammed).547 *** Until the end of the 1920s, i.e. before the arrival of Seraja Szapszał in Poland, the Galician community was perhaps the most traditional and conservative of all Karaite communities in Eastern Europe. Its elders still took an active part in the religious life of the community, read Karaite and Rabbinic literature, and maintained close contacts with their Talmudic neighbours. A few verses, composed, most likely, by Zarach Zarachowicz for Karaite children in the late 1920s, attest to the fact that the Galician Karaites still maintained their Jewish (or “Israelite”) identity within the community: 543 Ibid., 99. 544 Z. Z. [Zarach Zarachowicz], “Nauczanie religii karaimskiej,” MK 1:2 (1925): 41-42. 545 Z. Z. [Zarach Zarachowicz], “Otwarcie szkoły parafjalnej,” MK 1:3 (1926): 26. 546 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fol. 102. 547 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 172a, fols. 23, 40. 120 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory Biz ułanłar We are children, Kici Karajłar Little Karaites, Jisraeł ilisi A part of Israel, Onca ułusu. A chosen nation. [...] […] Karyndasłar biz biz We are brethren, Dostłar barymyz We are all friends. Ribbi-atamyz The Ribbi is our father, Midrasz-jiwimiz. The midrash is our house […] […] Anda jiwrenebiz There we study, Anłajbiz, biłebiz Understand and perceive Ki Adonaj Tenrimiz That the Lord is our God Adonaj birdi. The Lord is One.548 An important role in the internal life of the community was played by Zachariasz Nowachowicz (5.03.1883-25.03.1960), the son of the late ḥazzan, Shalom Nowachowicz. Nowachowicz took an active part in the general renaissance of Karaite spiritual life in Poland after the First World War.549 He was nicknamed “Maecenas Nowachowicz” because of his active financial support of many community projects and events. He was also the friend, host, and guide of the famous Polish Orientalist Tadeusz Kowalski (1889-1948) during his visits to Halicz in 1925 and 1937.550 In spite of his secular position in society, he seems to have been very knowledgeable in religious matters and possessed many valuable Hebrew and Karaim manuscripts.551 Zarach Zarachowicz (alias Zerach Zerachowicz/Zoruchowicz or Zarach, son of Moses and Ester Zarachowicz (21.12.1890–11.12.1952))552 was perhaps the most learned member of the community in the interwar period. Being well-versed in Polish, Russian, 548 Halicz, 1929 (?) (the Yurchenko MSS). I may cautiously suggest that this verse was used as a greeting for S. Szapszał in 1929. There is no doubt that this verse was composed by Zarach Zarachowicz as a verbatim translation of the Hebrew verse for children >ivrim anaḥnu (We are the Jews). The Karaim text represent the exact translation of this verse save that the word “>ivrim” is replaced with the word “Karajłar”. The full text of >ivrim anaḥnu can be found in the textbook of the Hebrew language which was used by Z. Zarachowicz as a textbook in the Karaite midrasz in Halicz; it contains Zarachowicz’s handwritten notes and a most interesting Hebrew-GVKar. glossary (Zvi Sharfsten, Rafael Soferman, Sfatenu. Sefer limud ha-safah ha->ivrit >al fi ha-shitah ha-tiv>it, pt. 1 (Przemyśl, 1910), esp. 124; the Yurchenko MSS). 549 Zacharjasz Nowachowicz, “Zagadnienie chwili obecnej,” MK 1:2 (1925): 1-4. 550 Anna Sulimowicz, “Znaczenie Halickich Karaimów dla rozwoju Polskiej turkologii,” in Karaїmy Halycha, 41. 551 Kowalski, “Zu den türkischen Monatsnamen,” 8. 552 See his tombstone inscription in Yurchenko et al., Karaїms’ke kladovyshche, 229, no. 140; El- Kodsi, Karaite Communities, 32. Halicz 121 Karaim, and Hebrew, Zarachowicz composed articles in the first three of these languages. In addition, he copied many important Hebrew manuscripts and translated some of them into Karaim.553 In the 1920s and 1930s, Zarachowicz was actively engaged in the publishing activity of Myśl Karaimska, for which he provided important data on the current state of the Halicz community. Around 1930, he helped Aleksander Mardkowicz to edit his famous “Zemerłer” – one of the best collections of Karaim poetry to date.554 In 1927, together with Nowach Szulimowicz,555 he prepared for publication a translation of the biblical book of Jeremiah in the Galician-Volhynian dialect of Karaim.556 According to Ananiasz Zajączkowski, Zarachowicz also composed literary works in Karaim.557 Unfortunately, apart from a few short verses for children, which have been composed by Zarachowicz, we do not possess any other samples of his literary oeuvre. As a traditional Karaite believer, Zarachowicz apparently did not accept any of Szapszał’s dejudaization reforms. Though never opposing them publicly, in all of his publications Zarachowicz praised and supported traditional Karaite values and customs, without a hint of the Turkic identity popularized by Szapszał in the 1930s. Both before and after the war, Zarachowicz maintained correspondence with Boris Kokenai, A. Zajączkowski, T. Kowalski, A. Mardkowicz, Szemaja Firkowicz, Pinachas Malecki, Abraham Szyszman, Seraja Szapszał, and many other important scholars and Karaite leaders.558 553 Shapira, “Turkic Languages,” 688. Eilon Moreh (Ben-Zvi Institute, Karaite collection, no. 77) copied by Zarachowicz in 1931 is the only extant copy of the eighteenth-century pedagogical treatise by Simcha Isaac Łucki (now published by Golda Akhiezer, Daniel Lasker, “‘Sefer Eilon Moreh’: Qatekhisis le-ḥinukh Qarai me-ha-me In accord with the Zeitgeist of modernity, the local community also founded a few civic organizations, such as the Union of Karaite Women (Koło pań Karaimskich) with Sabina (Deborah) Nowachowicz (20.01.1885–16.01.1960, the wife of Zachariah Nowachowicz) as its head.559 The young Karaites formed an association called Koło Młodych Karaimów, which was responsible mainly for dramatic performances and similar presentations.560 Originally this union was called “Płomień” (Flame) in Polish, but later this name was not used. Its first chairman was Zarach Zarachowicz.561 In 1937 the Union of the Young Karaites organized a series of cultural events dedicated to the enlightening activity of the greatest interwar champion of the Karaim language and editor of the periodical Karaj Awazy, Aleksander Mardkowicz. On 5 May 1937, Mardkowicz himself arrived in Halicz and read his poem “Halic,” which was dedicated to the local community and its role in the history of the East European Karaites.562 The Karaites of Halicz preserved memories of their abandoned settlement in Kukizów. In the 1930s, they organized a few expeditions to the Karaite cemetery of the town. One of these, undertaken on 25.10.1932 under the aegis of the ḥazzan Izaak Abrahamowicz, was crowned with an important archaeological and epigraphic discovery. In the course of this expedition, the Karaites found the earliest tomb in the cemetery, dated to 1711.563 Another excursion to the cemetery was organized by the ḥazzan Marek (Mordecai) Leonowicz in September 1938.564 Before the beginning of World War II, there were 122 Karaites living in Halicz (59 men, 53 women, 10 children). Fourteen families lived in their ancestral home, the quarter on Karaite Street, eight families in other parts of Halicz, and eight in Załukiew.565 According to Zygmunt Abrahamowicz their numbers were even fewer: 102 souls.566 Official statistics of 1939 provided the number of 140 Karaites in Halicz.567 559 See more on its activity in Zarach Zarachowicz, “Koło pań Karaimskich,” MK 11 (1936): 119; “Wycieczka z Halicza,” MK 10 (1934): 121 (a report on the trip made by fifteen members of Koło pań Karaimskich to Łuck in 1933). 560 MK 12 (1938): 148. The Yurchenko manuscript collection has preserved a copy of an invitation to one such Karaite evening that took place in Halicz on 17 Apr. 1938. The event consisted of a lecture on the role of theatre by Z. Nowachowicz and a recitation of Karaite poetry in Karaim (verses by Z. Abrahamowicz, Sz. Kobecki, and A. Mardkowicz) by members of the Union. Cf. J.S. [Józef Sulimowicz], “Karaimski teatr amatorski,” MK 12 (1939): 148. 561 AN PAN, Spuścizna K III-4, no. 122:2, fol. 83. 562 This poem was published in Łuck in 1937. Cf. J.S. [Józef Sulimowicz], “Aleksander Mardkowicz członkiem honorowym gminy karaimskiej,” MK 12 (1939): 148; Zarach Zarachowicz, “Jały ułus- iścinin,” KA 10 (1936): 22-28. 563 ([Alexander Mardkowicz], “Zeretłerinde Kukizownun,” KA 5 (1932), 12. 564 J.S. [Józef Sulimowicz], “Pielgrzymka na cmentarz karaimski w Kukizówie,” MK 12 (1939): 149. 565 This is according to Eszwowicz, “Halyts’ka karaїms’ka hromada,” 6; cf. Janina Eszwowicz, Natalia Yurchenko, and Ivan Yurchenko, “Halyts’ki karaїmy,” Dnistrova Khvylia 38 (151) (17.09.1998): 7. 566 Abrahamowicz, “Dzieje,” 16. 567 Kubijovyč, Etnichni hrupy, 82. Halicz 123 Illustration 4: The exterior of the Halicz kenesa (prayer house) in the 1930s (source: the Yurchenko MSS). 3.2.2 Interwar ḥazzanim, Izaak Abrahamowicz, and the Conflicts of the 1920s and Early 1930s The internal state of the community after the end of World War I might be best illustrated by the highly ambivalent figure of the ḥazzan, Izaak Abrahamowicz, and a few conflicts developed partly because of his somewhat unscrupulous activities and partly because of the modernisation of Karaite society in the interwar period. The first serious conflict took place from 1923 to 1924. In this period the whole community became divided between the followers of the acting ḥazzan, Samuel Mordkowicz, together with the official head of the community, Józef Eszwowicz, on one side, and Izaak Abrahamowicz, who was also nominated ḥazzan, together with 124 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory his numerous relatives, on the other. The conflict unfolded in the following way: From 1900 to 1922 the duties of the local ḥazzan were fulfilled by Shalom Nowachowicz. In 1922, however, a short while before his death, Nowachowicz resigned from his office, and Izaak Abrahamowicz was elected deputy ḥazzan, or acting ḥazzan. Zarach Zarachowicz wrote that the Galician community had “great hopes regarding this new ḥazzan because he had just arrived from overseas [i.e. from America]; he seemed to be independent, energetic, and properly educated in religious matters.”568 In 1923, though, for reasons which Zarachowicz did not want to discuss in his article, Abrahamowicz left his office and a new ḥazzan, Samuel ben Mordecai-Shalom Mordkowicz, was elected.569 While examining community registers of births, Józef Eszwowicz, the administrative head of the community, discovered that during his tenure as deputy ḥazzan, Abrahamowicz had registered three questionable marriages and one questionable child. He allegedly did so because of bribes that had been given to him. The new ḥazzan, Samuel Mordkowicz, as well as Józef Eszwowicz, decided to consider these marriages unlawful.570 On the holiday of Shavu>ot, Izaak Ickowicz (one of the persons who had allegedly paid a bribe to Abrahamowicz, and whose marriage was declared to be illegal) entered the synagogue during the prayers and swore at the ḥazzan (i.e. Mordkowicz), shouting: “Kusz ty nie jesteś rabinym” (dialectal Polish: “Shut your mouth, you are not a rabbi”). According to Eszwowicz, Ickowicz “was squealing so shrilly that people were asking whether or not there was a fight in the shrine [i.e. synagogue].”571 Eszwowicz suggested punishing Abrahamowicz and Ickowicz for their unlawful actions, but the community’s board of administration, which according to Eszwowicz consisted mostly of Abrahamowicz’s relatives, refused to do so. Moreover, scandalous behaviour involving Eszwowicz, ḥazzan Mordkowicz and Abrahamowicz’s followers continued to occur during other sessions of the board, thus making it impossible to approve a new legal statute for the community. In his letters to the regional government in Stanisławów, Eszwowicz asked the officials to settle this matter so that 568 Zarachowicz, “Listy z Halicza,” 29. 569 M. Bałaban incorrectly stated that Abrahamowicz left Halicz for good and the office of the ḥazzan remained unoccupied (Bałaban, “Karaici,” 23). Samuel Mordkowicz was the shammash during G. Smólski’s visit to Halicz in 1903. It was he who provided Smólski with important data about the state of the community, and translated some of the Karaite prayers and proverbs for him (Smólski, “U Karaimów,” 538 and passim). During the fire of 1913, Mordkowicz saved from the flames a few important MSS kept in the local synagogue. According to the same source, at that time he was 80 years old (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1334, fol. 2). This would mean that in 1923 he was about 90. 570 J. Eszwowicz to the regional government in Stanisławów, 3 Feb. 1924, Polish (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1461, fol. 120). Eszwowicz mentioned that I. Abrahamowicz received the sum of 500,000 Prussian marks as a bribe (ibid.). 571 J. Eszwowicz to the regional government in Stanisławów, ca. 1923, Polish (ibid., fols. 113-114). Halicz 125 “other people would not make a laughing stock of the Karaite religious community.”572 However, it seems that the government was not really interested in untangling this knot of internal controversies and, most likely, was on the side of Izaak Abrahamowicz and his party.573 The official statute of the community was signed by the community’s board of administration on 10 July 1925, but Eszwowicz was not listed among its members. Moreover, from 1925 to 1933, the duties of ḥazzan were fulfilled by Izaak Abrahamowicz, whose lobby apparently had won this battle. *** According to official Karaite documents (in which there is no mention of this conflict and Mordkowicz’s tenure in the ḥazzan’s office from 1923 to 1925), Izaak (Isaac ben Moses) Abrahamowicz (27.11.1868 – 21.12.1946574) fulfilled the duties of the community’s ḥazzan from 20 July 1922 to 28 May 1934.575 A few words should be said about this individual’s biography and personal qualities. Eszwowicz characterized Abrahamowicz as a most irresponsible person: In spite of his repeated resignation from the [office of the] ḥazzan, [Abrahamowicz] appeared whenever there was any sort of financial matter, and after settling it, did not care about the fact that the shrine [i.e. synagogue/kenesa] stood closed throughout the whole week because there was nobody to read prayers in the morning and in the evening, as is our custom; he was also not concerned that children were growing up without any religious education.576 Bohdan Janusz sarcastically remarked that Abrahamowicz, who had spent many years in America, was “a frequenter of society, [who] did not fit in with the somewhat old-fashioned and perhaps too modest Galicians.”577 Indeed, his traditional upbringing notwithstanding, Izaak Abrahamowicz apparently was not the easiest person to deal with. His correspondence and some other sources attest that he often preferred his own (usually purely pragmatic) interests to religious matters. Unfortunately, the sources provide virtually no information on 572 See his letters to the regional government in Stanisławów in ibid., fols. 111-122. 573 A Polish police officer from Halicz reported to AAN MWRiOP that Eszwowicz’s letters did not reflect the real situation in the community (ibid., fol. 118). 574 Yurchenko et al., Karaїms’ke kladovyshche, 234, no. 210. 575 In fact, he had resigned from his duties already in Dec. 1933. 576 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1461, fol. 113. 577 Janusz, Karaici, 101-102. 126 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory Abrahamowicz’s stay in America.578 While the exact reasons for his voyage to that country remain unclear, one should bear in mind that the beginning of the twentieth century was a time of mass emigration of Russian Jews to America. Abrahamowicz probably stayed there with his Karaite emigrant relatives while being engaged, most likely, in some business activity. According to oral reports gathered by me in Halicz in May 2002, he was a quite well-educated and rather well-to-do person. One of my informants mentioned to me that while in America, Abrahamowicz “became too Jewish.” According to Zygmunt Abrahamowicz, Izaak Abrahamowicz’s nephew, his uncle “was inclined to [accept] certain reforms in the religious sphere similar to those that he had seen in Jewish communities of New York.”579 Paradoxically enough, more reliable archival data attest that Abrahamowicz, on the contrary, wanted to abolish some local practices which he found to be too Rabbanite. He appeared to be especially concerned about the “cult of the dead,” i.e. noisy and ceremonious funeral repasts. His attempts to abolish this tradition, which by that time had become extremely popular, caused much animosity on the part of ordinary members of the community towards Abrahamowicz.580 It is very likely that this fact, together with Abrahamowicz’s constant anxiety concerning his salary and his tendency to be involved in conflicts, forced Seraja Szapszał, the official head of the interwar Polish-Lithuanian community, to dismiss Abrahamowicz from the office of ḥazzan in 1933. The development of the quarrel between Abrahamowicz and Szapszał may be best observed through the correspondence between these two community leaders from 1928 to 1933.581 In his letters to Szapszał, Abrahamowicz constantly complained about his lack of money and his poverty.582 He also criticized the local community for its irreverent and irresponsible behaviour: 578 While delivering the paper, “The History of the Karaite Community of Halicz in the Interwar Period,” to the conference The Halych Karaims: History and Culture (Halicz, 4.09-6.09.2002), I was informed by Anna Sulimowicz that Abrahamowicz travelled to America a few times, beginning from 1903 to 1905 and that he spent the whole of WWI in America. 579 Abrahamowicz, “Dzieje,” 15. It is highly probable that because of the absence of Karaite houses of worship in America, Abrahamowicz could have visited Rabbanite synagogues there. 580 This is according to T. Kowalski’s personal observations (AN PAN, K III-4, no. 122:1, fol. 28). 581 This correspondence is kept in Szapszał’s archival collection in Vilnius (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 172a). 582 These complaints of his contradict information from oral reports collected by me in Halicz. According to these reports, Abrahamowicz was comparatively well off. Moreover, members of the local Karaite community informed Szapszał that Abrahamowicz had some savings in America; Abrahamowicz stated that these rumours were false (I. Abrahamowicz to S. Szapszał, 24 June 1929: MS LMAB F. 143, no. 172a, fol. 9). It is known that he owned a shop (Eszwowicz, “Halyts’ka karaїms’ka hromada,” 6), but according to his own account, he was working in the fields as well (I. Abrahamowicz to S. Szapszał, 8 Oct. 1929: MS LMAB F. 143, no. 172a, fol. 12). Halicz 127 Our Karaites do not want to pay anything, they refuse to be blessed, and do not even pay money for the Torah scroll and chazanłyk.583 I teach children and [they] also do not pay me for this. They owe me [payment] for two and three months; I remind them, but this does not help. Is it at all possible for me to do everything gratis and work for the community for free [?].584 In his letter of 4 February 1929 Abrahamowicz added: “Our Karaites say the following: ‘The government pays for the maintenance of the ḥazzanim, therefore we will not pay.’ Is it at all possible...?”585 The small amount of money paid him by Szapszał made Abrahamowicz demand the following: “I am asking His Excellency [i.e. Szapszał] to esteem me and to treat me properly as a human being, as other ḥazzanim, because I am not worse than they...”586 It seems that after 1929 the financial situation improved, and Abrahamowicz started receiving his ḥazzan’s salary more regularly. In the same year, 1929, after Szapszał’s visit to the community, most likely in order to show the latter his skill and proficiency as ḥazzan, Abrahamowicz sent a letter in which he described in detail the marriage of Zarach Zarachowicz.587 To date, I have been able to locate only one letter from Szapszał to Abrahamowicz (August 1933; in fact, a draft of a letter: the original letter sent to Abrahamowicz has not survived). This letter demonstrates that about this time there was another major conflict between Abrahamowicz and the local Karaites.588 The community complained about Abrahamowicz’s behaviour and his constant cursing of them with foul language.589 Abrahamowicz, in response, accused practically the whole community of being intriguers and wrongdoers. Szapszał sarcastically noted that Abrahamowicz “scrupulously mentions the surnames of each member of the community apart from his relatives. How is that possible?”590 At some point, for personal reasons, Abrahamowicz decided to move to Załukiew. At the same time, his duties as ḥazzan required him to stay in Halicz, at the centre of Karaite life. It needed the arrival of Szemaja Firkowicz in August 1933 to persuade 583 Apparently, GVKar term to denote the “office of the ḥazzan” (cf. Heb. ḥazzanut). This word is absent in KRPS. 584 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 172a, fol. 4. 585 Ibid., fol. 21v. 586 Ibid., fol. 21. 587 Ibid., fols. 14-15. 588 This conflict is also mentioned in the letters by Z. Nowachowicz to S. Szapszał (LMAB F. 143, no. 511, fols. 1v, 4v-5r). 589 Szapszał sarcastically said: “There is no qelalah [Heb. “curse”] in our prayer-books, only berakhah [Heb. “blessing”] for the believers.” He also rebuked Abrahamowicz for his constant references to later sifrei ha-miṣvot (Heb. “books of precepts”) instead of quoting the TaNaKh (S. Szapszał, letters and drafts from 1925 to 1953: MS LMAB F. 143, no. 149, fol. 22). 590 Ibid. 128 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory Abrahamowicz to move back to Halicz.591 Nevertheless, soon afterwards he resigned from the office of ḥazzan. The exact circumstances of Abrahamowicz’s resignation remain unclear. Some sources suggest that the public (and, certainly, Szapszał) disapproved of his attempts to introduce elements of Rabbanite practice into the Karaite liturgy.592 Some of the aforementioned factors (his scandalous character, frequent conflicts, and unwillingness to follow Szapszał’s dejudaization reforms) undoubtedly played their role as well. It is unknown, though, whether he resigned his duties voluntarily or was forced to do so at Szapszał’s directive. Whatever the case may be, none of the later Karaite authors (apart from his nephew, Zygmunt Abrahamowicz) mention Abrahamowicz’s name after 1933, and only a few archival documents document his activity in the late 1930s. In 1938 Szapszał requested that he come to Łuck for the celebration of Ḥag ha-Shavu>ot (Pentecost). However, Abrahamowicz did not accept the invitation, under the pretext of not having enough money to undertake such a journey.593 In 1939 Szapszał sent him another letter, also from Łuck.594 This shows that at least in the late 1930s there was no open conflict between Szapszał and Abrahamowicz, the former religious head of the Halicz community. On 10 December 1933, a general assembly of the community elected Marek (Mordecai) Leonowicz to the office of ḥazzan.595 He began his duties only on 28 May 1934.596 In the meantime, after Abrahamowicz’s resignation in 1933 and until May 1934, the duties of the ḥazzan were temporarily carried out by Zarach Zarachowicz. Szapszał’s archival collection in Vilnius contains several letters in Polish and Karaim which were sent by Leonowicz to Szapszał from 1934 to 1939. They provide some 591 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 172a, fols. 36-37. During his visit to Halicz in 1933, Firkowicz collected a number of important Hebrew and Karaite manuscripts of Galician provenance, currently kept in his personal archival collection in Vilnius (LMAB, F. 305, no. 102 (nineteenth-century collection of sermons, hymns, and prayers in Heb. and GVKar.; donated by Yeshua b. Levi Leonowicz to Sz. Firkowicz in 1933); no. 103 (donated by Izaak Abrahamowicz in 1933)). Other manuscripts of Galician provenance (nos. 51, 101, 104, 105, 134, 139) could have been collected by Firkowicz in 1933 or later, during his visit to Halicz in 1960. 592 Abrahamowicz, “Dzieje,” 15; Wachsmann, “Halitsch,” 13. 593 Or perhaps he really did not have money for travel? (I. Abrahamowicz to R. Abkowicz, 8.05.1938, Karaim: MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1023, fol. 268). The language of this letter is highly interesting (GVKar. with a few Hebrew and Slavic loanwords). 594 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1529, fol. 121. 595 “Wybory kandydata na wakujące stanowisko hazzana,” MK 10 (1934): 120. His full name was Mordecai b. Abraham-Zachariah Leonowicz (1885 (or 1894?)–1940). He was apparently another scion of Abraham Leonowicz’s clan. In 1914, “młody rebbi Mardocheusz Leonowicz” (Pol. “the young Rabbi Mordecai Leonowicz”) provided important linguistic and ethnographic information to Jan Grzegorzewski (Grzegorzewski, “Caraimica,” 288; Kowalski, “Materjały karaimskie,” 28). In 1914 he was recruited into the army (Zarachowicz, “Listy z Halicza,” 29). 596 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1464, fol. 30. Halicz 129 details regarding the internal life of the local community, which, after the dismissal of Abrahamowicz, seemed to go rather smoothly, without any major conflicts and problems.597 In addition to the duties of the ḥazzan, Leonowicz was also an instructor of religion and Hebrew grammar in the local religious school (midrasz). 3.2.3 The Halicz Karaites, the Poles, and the Ukrainians In the interwar period, a few significant changes occurred in the relations between the local Karaites and their Slavic neighbours. These changes were caused, on the one hand, by objective factors: first of all by the resurrection of an independent Polish state in 1918 and the growing Polonization of Galicia. On the other hand, the local Karaite community was ready to react to these changes and reconsider its own position with regard to the local Poles, Ruthenians/Ukrainians, and Ashkenazic Jews. In the interwar period, the tiny Karaite community again became a pawn in the political game – this time, however, played by the Polish government. Like the Austrian officials who had tried to use the Karaites as an example to be imitated by other Jews, the Polish administration endeavoured to use the Karaites in ideological combat against anti-Polish sentiments in Galicia. Indeed, after the disintegration of Austro-Hungary in 1818, the local Ukrainian nationalists established the so-called “West Ukrainian People’s Republic” (Ukr. Zakhidno-Ukraїns’ka Narodna Respublyka), a short-lived republic that existed in late 1918 and early 1919 in eastern Galicia, Bukovina, and Transcarpathia. In the summer of 1919 the Polish army under the command of Józef Piłsudski managed to reconquer Galicia and most of Volhynia. In this Ukrainian–Polish conflict the Karaites, who were very Polonized and, moreover, as part of the Jewish population, had no sympathy for militant Ukrainian nationalism with its anti-Semitic agenda, joined the stronger, Polish side. As one interwar Rabbanite journalist sarcastically remarked, the Karaites dienten den Oesterreichern so treu, wie sie heute gute ‘Polen karäischer Nationalität’ sind (Germ. “served the Austrians as faithfully as they [serve the Poles] today as good ‘Poles of Karaite origin’”).598 As may be observed from official archival data, the local Karaites had the reputation of being good citizens in the eyes of the Polish administration, mostly because of the fact that “during the Ukrainian invasion their behaviour was immaculate.”599 In return for their exemplary behaviour, the Polish administration often rewarded distinguished Karaite leaders and financially supported their endeavours.600 Having settled her problems with the Ukrainian nationalists in Galicia and Volhynia, Poland 597 MS LMAB F. 143, nos. 424, 425, 425a. 598 Wachsmann, “Halitsch,” 13. 599 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 28-29. 600 E.g. J. S. [Józef Sulimowicz], “Odznaczenia,” MK 12 (1939): 148. 130 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory also had to deal with the issue of the emergence of an independent Lithuania. In 1921 Poland suggested conducting a plebiscite on the future of Lithuania. In order to emphasize their loyalty to Poland, in 1922 the Karaites of Halicz composed an official appeal to their “Karaite brothers and sisters in the north, especially in Troki and Wilno.” In this document they expressed the hope that during the forthcoming plebiscite the northern Karaites would vote for the union between Lithuania and Poland. Moreover, they also mentioned that even Kowno Lithuania (Pol. Litwa Kowieńska) would also join Poland “as it was in the days of old.”601 The Polish mass media enthusiastically accepted this manifestation of patriotism on the part of a non- Polish ethnic group.602 These manifestations of pro-Polish patriotism on the part of the Polish Karaites stand in utter dissonance to the scepticism of the local Rabbanites with regard to the reborn Polish state. Their general attitude to the re-emergence of Poland may be best described by the words of a Polish Zionist newspaper from 1919: “Poland, we who are about to die salute you”.603 Such negative tendencies among the Rabbanites are to be explained by a number of pogroms perpetrated by Polish soldiers and peasants, and the general anti-Jewish violence from 1918 to 1920.604 Because of the Polonization of Galicia, there was a marked growth of Karaite integration into Polish society. In the interwar period the Galician Karaites started attending local Polish schools. As a consequence, those who were born and received their education during those years usually had a native command of both Karaim and Polish. The former was normally used within the family, the latter – outside the community.605 The Nowachowicz cousins took an active part in the Polish patriotic movement during World War I and even became members of Polish armed organizations.606 As a consequence of the Karaites’ growing assimilation into Polish society, a few Halicz Karaites converted to Catholicism and left their community.607 The Poles also showed more interest in the Karaites than before. As was mentioned above, in spite of resistance by religious traditionalists, in the interwar period at least 601 The full text of the document is published in Janusz, Karaici, 102-103. 602 Ibid.; Grzegorzewski, “Karaimi haliccy a plebiscyt litewski,” Wiek nowy 6185 (Lwów 1922). 603 Ezra Mendelson, The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars (Bloomington, 1987), 40. 604 The first major pogrom took place in Nov. 1918 in Lwów, i.e. in the immediate neighbourhood of Halicz (ibid.). 605 This is according to the late Ms. Janina Eszwowicz, who was born in Halicz in 1931 (private communication, Halicz, Sep. 2003). 606 Abrahamowicz, “Dzieje,” 15. 607 According to one of the interwar reports, Karaite converts to Christianity had the audacity to invite their relatives to be witnesses at their baptism in a church (Wachsmann, “Halitsch,” 13). Nevertheless, this information, which contradicts many other testimonies concerning the preservation of Karaite religious traditions in interwar Halicz, can hardly be trusted. Ms. Janina Eszwowicz informed me that even in the interwar period Karaite children and adults were not allowed to enter Christian churches at all, whatever the reason might be (Halicz, May 2002). Halicz 131 two Polish women converted to Karaism and were thus accepted into the Karaite community. The Karaites made great efforts to present themselves to the local administration as faithful patriots of Poland. On 28 May 1929, for example, the local community arranged a special solemn service in the synagogue dedicated to the “thriving of the homeland.” This liturgical service was attended by such important representatives of the Polish government as Tadeusz Chowaniec, the mayor of Halicz, Bronisław Nakoniecznikow-Kulikowski, the governor of the Stanisławów district, and General Łukowski, the commander of the district garrison.608 On many occasions the Karaites demonstrated their loyalty to the memory of famous Polish rulers, such as Stefan Batory, Vitold, and Jan III Sobieski.609 It is also highly significant that, during the interwar period, the local Karaites completely ignored the “Daniel” version of their settlement in Galicia (so popular in their community in Austrian times). As early as 1919 – immediately after the annexation of Galicia by Poland – the Halicz Karaites, in their petition to the Polish govenment, stated that they had been settled in the region by Vitold.610 They changed their historical views for the simple reason that in the Polish period it became rather inexpedient to be associated with Daniel, the champion of the local Ruthenian and Ukrainian population. Vitold, perceived as one of the most valorous Polish rulers, was a much more politically correct person to be associated with.611 The pro-Polish sentiments of the Galician Karaites are also evident in their attitude towards the term “Karait.” In the 1920s the Karaites of Halicz preferred the forms “Karait” (sg.), “Karaici” (pl.), and the adjectives “karaicki/karaitski” instead of the traditional Polish “Karaim(i)” and “karaimski.” As we have shown before, in all other communities, however, the form “Karait” was considered to be pejorative.612 This unusual Galician linguistic preference is to be explained by the specific local issue directly related to the Polish–Ukrainian controversy. As one of the official documents has it, “in Małopolska Polish people apply the name ‘Karaimi’ to the Ukrainians, who are fiercely hostile to Poland; they also consider this word to be offensive.”613 Because of this local attitude to the word “Karaim,” on the early seal of the community one can 608 “Historyczne dni w Haliczu,” MK 2:2 (1929): 42-44. 609 E.g. [Szulimowicz], “Karaimi Haliccy,” 118-120. 610 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 48-49. 611 The “Daniel” version reappeared again after the end of the war, when Galicia became a part of Soviet Ukraine, and Daniel started to be construed as a “Ukrainian” prince and hero. 612 Antoni Nowosielski [Marcinkowski], Stepy, morze i góry. Szkice i wspomnienia z podróży, vol. 2 (Wilno, 1854), 193; Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, viii; AAN MWRiOP no. 1461, fol. 17; Abrahamowicz, “Dzieje,” 14. See more in 5.2.2. The only correct form in modern Polish is “Karaim/Karaimi.” The English language, by contrast, traditionally uses the form “Karaite/Karaites,” derived most likely from Latin “Caraita/Caraiti.” 613 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1461, fol. 11. 132 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory see the inscription “Rada delegatów Karaitskiej [not karaimskiej!] gminy wyznaniowej w Haliczu.”614 Seraja Szapszał also stated that “in the eastern part of Małopolska the word ‘Karaim’ is a synonym for the Ukrainian bandit, Haidamak.”615 Thus, it is evident from all these citations that the term “Karaim” indeed had some sort of additional (and rather pejorative) meaning in Eastern Poland, the exact origins and meaning of which remain unclear.616 In our context it is much more interesting that for a while (until the beginning of the 1930s) the Galician Karaites rejected the ethnonym “Karaimi” in order not to be associated with Ukrainian nationalists. However, during the later 1930s, they started using the term “Karaimi” as the most correct form accepted in interwar Poland. As was mentioned above, the first half of the twentieth century was marked by the growth of national awareness on the part of the local Ruthenians concerning their Ukrainian national and cultural identity. This tendency was accompanied by the manifestation of their explicit separatist and anti-Polish sentiments. It was only after the decisive defeat and persecution of the Russophile movement, and also in the aftermath of the establishment of the short-lived West Ukrainian People’s Republic, that the Galician Ruthenians adopted a homogeneous and clear-cut Ukrainian self- identification. It is also only in this period that they started feeling (and calling) themselves “Ukrainians” – the term I will use to designate the Ruthenian population of Galicia in the interwar and post-war period. In 1919 Galicia was occupied by the troops of Symon/Semen Petliura (1879-1926), a Ukrainian nationalist and one of the military leaders of Ukraine’s unsuccessful 614 I.e. “The council of deputies of the Karaite religious community of Halicz” (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 20-21, 26). 615 Seraja Szapszał, “Nauchnyi obzor predmetov material’noi kul’tury, khraniashchikhsia v karaimskom otdele Istoriko-Etnograficheskogo muzeia AN Litovskoi SSR” (1953) (MS LMAB, F. 143, no. 859. fol. 32). 616 Stepan Pushyk (Ivano-Frankivs’k/Stanisławów) mentioned that in his youth inhabitants of the Galician village of Komarów (Komarov) used to tease inhabitants of the adjacent village, Wiktorów (Viktorov), with the offensive term “karaimy.” The latter called them “reusy” in return (the meaning and etymology of both words is unclear, only their pejorative connotation is evident: Pushyk, “Karaїms’kyi poet,” 113). Similarly, the famous Polish Jewish scholar Mosze Altbauer mentioned that in Przemyśl (Galicia), in pre-war times, Ukrainians were called “Karaimi.” This is why local Polish youths nicknamed their Ukrainian peers with the pejorative “huki” and “karaimi” (Mosze Altbauer, Wzajemne wpływy polsko-żydowskie w dziedzinie językowej (Kraków, 2002), 93-94, ft. 1). It seems that the surname “Karaim” was often encountered by people with no relationship to the Karaite community whatsoever, as a pejorative term. E.g. while browsing through the Austrian official documentation of 1787, I found a Ukrainian Christian inhabitant of the Galician village of Ponikowica whose name was Hryts’ko Karaim (Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv; Staatskanzlei, Provinzen: Galizien 1, Konv. D., 1787, fol. 181r). The American author Reed Karaim is another example (I am indebted to Leonard Fox for this reference). In Riga before the Second World War there was an Ashkenazic family with the surname “Karaimskii” (Караимский) (Maks Kaufman, Hurbn Letland. Unichtozhenie evreev v Latvii (Riga, 2013), 131, 365). Łuck 133 fight for independence after the Russian revolution of 1917. In the course of Petliura’s military activity, his troops massacred an estimated 100,000 Jews.617 In 1919 the Karaite quarter of Halicz was sacked by Petliura’s pogromists; fortunately, they did not kill anyone.618 The invasion by Ukrainian nationalists considerably worsened the attitude of the Karaites to their Ukrainian-speaking neighbours. Their Polish patriotism, it seems, also contributed to the deterioration of their relations with the Ukrainians. According to one interwar Karaite respondent, in the 1930s the Karaites had much better relations with the Poles than with the Ukrainians.619 *** To conclude, the Halicz community remained one of the most conservative Karaite qehilot in Eastern Europe. Before the arrival of Seraja Szapszał its intellectual leaders (first of all, Z. Zarachowicz, N. Szulimowicz, and Z. Nowachowicz) played important role in the life of the Karaites in Poland. In the 1930s their activity was reduced to a minimum. In this period the community managed to overcome internal difficulties caused first of all by the controversial figure of the ḥazzan Izaak Abrahamowicz. In contrast to other communities, in the 1930s the Halicz Karaites did not have their own periodical which could express interests and opinions of the local community. 3.3 Łuck 3.3.1 General State of the Community The Karaite community of Łuck seems to be considerably less numerous than all other Karaite communities: according to official data of 1922/1925, based on trustworthy reports of local observes, community consisted of only 12 families or 65 persons. Such small number is explained in one of the reports by the fact that “in 1915 larger part of the Karaites was resettled by the Russian government to Crimea whence they are now gradually returning.” According to information from community members, approximately one third of the community got killed or evacuated during the World war; the community itself consisted mostly of intelligentsia, state officials and civil 617 In 1926 Petliura was assassinated by the Jewish anarchist Sholom Schwartzbard, whose family had perished in Petliura’s pogroms (see Henry Abramson, A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917-1920 (Cambridge, Mass., 1999)). 618 Jan Grzegorzewski to MWRiOP, Halicz, 5 Nov. 1921 (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1461, fol. 39); Zarachowicz, “Listy z Halicza,” 28. Zarachowicz’s information concerning Petliura’s invasion was also corroborated by one of the elderly Halicz Karaites (private communication of 5 May 2002). 619 Trevisan Semi, Gli ebrei Caraiti, 73. 134 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory workers.620 In 1934 the community consisted of 68 persons in 26 families,621 and in 1939, a short while before the beginning of the Second World War – of 61 persons. From roughly 1900/1905 and until 1935 Aleksander ben Samuel Firkowicz (ca. 1875- 1935) served as the administrative head of the community.622 From 1936 function of the head of the community were fulfilled by Zacharjasz Szpakowski.623 In the 1920s the functions of the local ḥazzan had been temporarily fulfilled by Romuald Robaczewski and Jakób Eszwowicz.624 As well as the Halicz Karaites, those of Łuck had been considered the element in the “Kresy” which was loyal to Poland. One Polish official, who was sent to Łuck to investigate the situation on a spot, mentioned that state orders must be directed at favouring and attracting Karaites on the side of the Polish government because of the importance of finding loyal citizens in Volhynian region. Having received his information most likely from the local Karaite, Józef Firkowicz, the official characterized the Karaites as “resolved enemies of the Jews and Bolsheviks... they are loyal towards Polish Republic.”625 Even Ignacy Mościcki, the president of Poland, who visited the community in 1929, highly evaluated moral qualities of the local Karaites: “The Łuck Karaites represent an example for other ethnic groups, from the moral standpoint as well as from the political.”626 The Łuck Karaite community, as well as all other Polish-Lithuanian Karaites communities of that period, considerably suffered from the events of the First World War. The leaders of the community complained to the Volhynian wojewoda in their “Memorjał”: World war and forced evacuation left its most painful marks and unrecoverable losses. They decreased the number of the community members by one third and destroying its comparatively flourishing state. Some of our brethren had fallen on the battlefield, others became victims of famine and typhus in exile. Only some of them returned to the ashes of their houses, and those who returned were entirely ruined. The Karaite temple was damaged and completely devastated by the occupants. Eve- rything that was valuable in it: old pająki627 from Gdańsk, crystal chandelier, bronze, silver decorations of the Torah scrolls, very rare editions of the Bible – everything that was gathe- 620 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 118, 142, 145. Cf. Karol Wolf, “Tragiczne niedobitki wielkiej ongi gminy Karaimów,” Ilustrowany Kurjer Codzienny 208 (30.07.1931). 621 MS LMAB, F. 301, no. 419. Imienny spis Karaimów, zamieszkałych w Łucku (28.08.1934), fols. 1v-2r. 622 Shabarovs’kyi, Karaїmy, 87-88; “Z karty żałobnej,” MK 12 (1938): 144-145; See also Sergjusz Rudkowski, “Aleksander Firkowicz (sahyncłar),” KA 9 (1936): 22. His Hebrew name appears to have been Sarshalom ben Samuel. 623 “Nowy zarząd gminy,” MK 12 (1938): 145. 624 MK 3 (1926): 27. 625 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 118-119. 626 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fol. 140. 627 Pająk (Polish “Spider”) was a kind of chandelier widespread in Poland in that time. Łuck 135 red in the temple since the times immemorial, was sacked just in a couple of days, packed, and, most likely, taken to Austria.628 Communal house... near the Karaite cemetery was destroyed during the war by Russian troops, and its construction materials were stolen.”629 “Stowarzyszenie wyznaniowe karaimskie w Łucku” (Karaite religious union in Łuck) that was created around 1925 was located on Trynitarska Street 1a. Its heads were Józef Firkowicz and Aleksander Mardkowicz.630 Tadeusz Kowalski, who visited Łuck between 1925 and 1928, found the community almost extinct. There were no regular religious services in the kenesa and many youngsters did not speak Karaim.631 The situation had soon been changed through the efforts of Szapszał who provided the community with the new ḥazzan and organized proper religious life there. The knowledge of the Karaim language in its Volhynian dialect was soon improved due to the activity of Aleksander Mardkowicz. On 01.05.1929 Szapszał, who clearly wanted to have religious services in all the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite communities performed by his younger followers, placed Rafał Abkowicz to function as the community ḥazzan.632 Before 1929, as the representatives of the Łuck community had complained, they had to invite ḥazzanim from Halicz or Troki to perform liturgies during important religious festivities.633 After the appointment, there appeared a necessity to find proper housing for the new ḥazzan. In order to solve this problem the local Karaites composed the “Memorjał” for 628 According to Aleksander Mardkowicz, two Karaite women were witnesses of how Austrian soldiers packed their booty on the military carts and took it away (Aleksander Mardkowicz, Synowie zakonu (Kilka słów o Karaimach) (Łuck, 1930), 19). 629 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fol. 142. 630 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fol. 134. 631 Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, vii. 632 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1464, fol. 30; “Ribbiłer, kajsyłar hazzanłyk ettiłer Łuckada basłap burunhu jaryhymdan XIX izjilnyn,” KA 5 (1932): 16. Rafał (Rafael) ben Abraham Szemuel Abkowicz (b. Troki, 16.03.1896 – d. Wrocław, 12.09.1992); on 1.01.1927 he was appointed the secretary in the magistrate of Troki; he was the ḥazzan in Łuck from 01.05.1929; moved to Wilno in 1938; after 1945 – ḥazzan in Wrocław, the last (and the only) ḥazzan in Poland after the war (regarding his biography, see [Owadjusz Pilecki], “Janhy orun/Naznachenie,” Sahyszymyz 1 (1927): 5; “Wspomnienie,” ed. Mariola Abkowicz, Awazymyz 1 (2) (1999): 4-5; M. Boltryk, “Ostatni Hazzan,” Kontrasty 5 (1986): 6-9; Mariola Abkowicz, “Karaimskie życie społeczne w Polsce po 1945 roku,” in Karaimi, 190-199; his letters to S. Szapszał in Russian, Karaim, and Polish (dated from 1929 to 1958) are kept in MS LMAB, F. 143, no. 161; for more information, see 6.1.2). To our knowledge, his only publications were the articles about the new Turkic Karaite calendar introduced by Szapszał: Rafael Abkowicz, “Ne anłatadłar biźnin moedłerimiz da eźge ajryksy kinłerimiz,” in Łuwachłar dert jiłha (5693-5696), ed. Aleksander Mardkowicz (Łuck, 1932): 8-9; idem, “Karaj łuchotłary jiłha 5691 jaratyłmysyndan dunjanyn (1930-31),” KA 1 (1931): 31-32. He also composed several interwar Karaite calendars (e.g. Karaj łuwachłar jyłha 5699/5700, comp. Refael Abkowicz (Wilno, 1939) (a brochure with the Karaite calendar for 1939/1940)). 633 See “Memorjał” for the Volhynian wojewoda in AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fol. 145. 136 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory the Volhynian wojewoda where they sought a grant 24,700 zł for the construction of the house for Abkowicz.634 In addition to this plea the authors of the “Memorjał” added a short historical survey of the community history. Paradoxically they seem to be unaware of the existence of the theory about the arrival of the Karaites to Poland during Vitold’s times. As well as the Halicz Karaites they dated this event to the thirteenth century, i.e. to the times of Prince Daniel of Halicz. According to the “Memorjał” the local Karaites had originally been settled on the left bank of the Styr river, in the territory called “Pola Karaimskie” (Karaite fields). At the beginning of the sixteenth century, however, because of frequent Tatar and haidamak raids, they received a permission to settle down of the right bank under the guard of the royal castle. Of interest is a reference to the fact that a Karaite ḥazzan took part in festivities related to the assembly of several kings and princes which took place in Łuck in 1429.635 At the beginning of the 1930s Abkowicz complained to Szapszał about not too friendly relations with the community. In his letter to Szapszał Abkowicz stated that members of the community often applied to him such offensive Russian words as zhandarm (gendarme), desiatnik (ganger), and gorodovoi (policeman).636 For a while Abkowicz lived on Karaimska Street 26; later he had to rent a flat at the house of a local Rabbanite because, in his own words, “[Aleksander] Mardkowicz almost sold his house”.637 It seems that there was some sort of conflict (or misunderstanding) between these two leaders of the community. According to Abkowicz, all the Karaite children used to come to his place, instead of to Mardkowicz’s, to study religion because the latter “does not recognize this learning.”638 In September 1938 Abkowicz left Łuck because of the financial problems and the conflict with the local community.639 He was subsequently appointed ḥazzan in Wilno. On 27.11.1938 Abkowicz swore an official oath to fulfil the duties of the local ḥazzan.640 Józef Łobanos, the former ḥazzan of the Wilno community, was appointed ḥazzan of Łuck on 18.03.1939.641 It seems that Łobanos fulfilled the duties of the ḥazzan until the end of World War II. 634 For the text of “Memorjał” and ground plan of the house (composed by A. Firkowicz and A. Greczny on 3.07.1929), see AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 141-146. 635 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 141-142. This interesting information is not corroborated by other historical sources. 636 R. Abkowicz to S. Szapszał, Polish, 1931 (MS LMAB, F. 143, no. 1023, fol. 1). All these words have rather negative connotation in Russian in the sense of “policeman, controller, oppressor”. 637 LMAB F. 143, no. 161, fol. 4, 9r. 638 Ibid., fol. 12r. 639 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1064/1, fols. 1r, 5r-v. 640 See the text of the oath in LMAB F. 143, no. 1023, fol. 373r (Wilno, 27.11.1938, Polish). 641 Z.S., “Zmiana na stanowisku hazzana,” MK 12 (1939): 147. Łuck 137 3.3.2 Al-Mar: Poet, Writer, Journalist, Editor and Translator Aleksander Mardkowicz (1875–1944) The most important role in the cultural life of the interwar Łuck community, undoubtedly, played the prolific writer, poet, journalist, translator, and editor, Aleksander Mardkowicz (penname Al-Mar; b. Łuck, 24.02.1875, son of Marek-Samuel (Mordekhay-Shemuel) Mardkowicz and Anna (Hannah) Łokszyńska – d. Łuck, 5.04.1944).642 Born in Łuck in 1875, in 1901 Mardkowicz left the town for Brest, and then for Yekaterinoslav (Russia). He received education of a lawyer and worked as a notary. It comes as quite a surprise that this outstanding Karaite patriot, nationalist and man of letters was married to a Rabbanite woman, Rozalia Sandomirska (1886- 1959),643 and encountered problems in registering his own son as Karaite. According to Mardkowicz’s own letter to TOKDP, in 1910 he registered in Russian Poland644 a marriage with a Rabbanite woman although such marriages were not allowed by the Karaite authorities of that time. For obvious reasons Mardkowicz preferred not to inform TOKDP about this fact until 1917, when his son Anatol was born in Yekaterinoslav.645 The local community did not feel competent enough to solve the problem of registering Mardkowicz’s son. This is why in 1917 Mardkowicz sent a letter to Samuel ben Moses Neiman (1844–1916), who, for a time, fulfilled the duties of the Taurida and Odessa ḥakham, and had asked permission to register his son as Karaite. Alas, the answer of the conservatively inclined Crimean Karaite authorities was negative. According to Neiman, “the question of [permissibility of] marriages 642 For more information about his biography, see Aleksander Dubiński, “Fragmenty korespondencji prof. T. Kowalskiego z A. Mardkowiczem,” CPK, 91-98; Anna Sulimowicz, “A. Mardkowicz – działacz społeczny, pisarz i wydawca,” Awazymyz 2 (3) (1999): 3-4; eadem, “Listy do Łucka. Aleksander Mardkowicz jako adresat korespondencji Ananiasza Zajączkowskiego,” AK, 37-60. For the critical evaluation of his poems, see Tadeusz Kowalski, “Nowe utwory poetyckie A. Mardkowicza (Kokizowa),” MK 12 (1938): 121-126. In passing, it is worthwhile noticing that it is very unlikely, being born as early as 1875, that Mardkowicz could have received the non-Hebrew name “Aleksander” on his birth certificate. Nevertheless, his original Hebrew name remains uncertain. His sister had the double name Aleksandra-Sara. 643 Włodzimierz Zajączkowski, “Mardkowicz, Aleksander,” PSB 19 (1974): 617-618. 644 The document says that this event happened “в Илжецком округе Варшавской губернии” (Iłża circuit of the Warsaw gouvernement). To our knowledge, however, today the town of Iłża is located in the Masovian Voivodship in Poland. 645 According to Anna Sulimowicz, Mardkowicz’s first child, daughter Tamara was born in 1911, son Anatol in 1917, and son Marek in 1921 (Sulimowicz, “Listy do Łucka,” 40). It is important to note that Sulimowicz managed to personally contact Tamara Mardkowicz in 1987. 138 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory between the Karaites and [Rabbanite] Jews had been decided against as early as the VIIIth century A.D. [sic!]”.646 The answer that Mardkowicz received from Neiman was certainly very formal and even historically inaccurate. Numerous mixed Karaite-Rabbanite were registered in Egypt at least until the beginning of the thirteenth century, i.e. much later than the eighth century A.D. Dissatisfied Mardkowicz wrote to TOKDP: As a father and a human being, I cannot reconcile my conscience with that callous formalism which, as clutches, chains the spiritual life of a Karaite. With a pain in my soul, I see that our spiritual leaders apply all their strength and authority not to freeing us – a pitiful handful […] from that everyday deadlock into which we came, owing to our small number, but, on the contrary, to drive us into this dreary deadlock ever more deeply.647 Furthermore, in 1911 he even wrote an indignant letter to the periodical “Karaimskaia Zhizn’” where he suggested changing the attitude towards mixed marriages. In the letter Mardkowicz stated that “the national idea is valuable as long as it does not become a blank wall, closing ways to happiness.” He also asked leaders of the Karaite community “to think about the live people and their sufferings” and expressed the opinion that children born as a result of mixed marriages, should be recognized Karaites.648 Furthermore, in 1912 Mardkowicz published a bitter poem in prose entitled “To the Sister.” It was dedicated to the unhappy, in his opinion, destiny of Karaite maids.649 Thus, it seems that his offspring was after all not registered officially as Karaite. In spite of this negative episode in his personal life, he continued living with his Rabbanite wife.650 646 GAARK F. 241, op. 2, doc. 23, fols. 1-5 as cited in Dmitrii Prokhorov, “Religiozno-pravovye aspekty brachno-semeinykh otnoshenii i demograficheskaia statistika v karaimskikh obshchinakh Rossiiskoi imperii vo vtoroi polovine XIX – nachale XX v.,” in Materialy XIX Mezhdunarodnoi Konferentsii po Iudaike, vol. 3 (Moscow, 2012): 316-317. 647 Совесть моя, как отца и человека, не может мириться с тем бездушным формализмом, которым, как тисками, скована духовная жизнь караима. С болью в душе я убеждаюсь в том, что наши духовные вожди прилагают все свои силы и авторитет не к тому, чтобы нас, жалкую горсть… вывести из того житейского тупика, в котором мы очутились вследствие нашей малочисленности, на широкий путь жизни, а наоборот, к тому, чтобы поглубже загнать нас в этот безотрадный тупик. 648 A.M. [Aleksander Mardkowicz], “Chto delat’?” KZh 7 (1911): 84, 85. The author of this letter, who for obvious reasons decided to conceal his name under the initials “A.M.”, lived in Yekaterinoslav and should certainly be identified as Mardkowicz. 649 Aleksander Mardkowicz, “Sestre,” KZh 8-9 (1912): 37. 650 R. Mardkowicz [Sandomirska] to Z. Zarachowicz; Łuck, 4 Sep. 1944; Polish; the Yurchenko MSS Disc 6. In 1948 Rozalia Mardkowicz, after the death of her husband, sold the remaining books and publications to KZR in Poland (Mariola Abkowicz, “Karaimskie życie społeczne w Polsce po 1945 roku,” in Karaimi, 189). Łuck 139 Mardkowicz’s first publications, which appeared in print in “Karaimskaia Zhizn’”, were published in Russian. In 1912 he published one more poem in Russian dedicated to the eighteenth-century Haidamak massacre of the Volhynian Karaites.651 In 1921 Mardkowicz had to return from Yekaterinoslav to his native Łuck where he took active part in cultural and administrative life of the local community. In 1936 he was dismissed from his position of the deputy of the notary Wysocki under the pretext of using his personal connections in improper manner. Nevertheless, by the decision of the local court, Mardkowicz was allowed to continue fulfilling his duties in 1937.652 From 1931 to 1939 he was the main editor of the periodical “Karaj Awazy”. Furthermore, he himself was the author of perhaps, from 30-40 up to 80-90% of contributions to each issue of the periodical, where he published his articles also under various pennames. Some of his leaflets and articles were signed with the double surname, Mardkowicz-Kokizow. He also used a penname Al-Mar. In the period from 1930 to 1939, in addition to numerous articles in “Karaj Awazy” and other Karaite periodicals,653 he published 16 (!) separate brochures, 11 of them in Karaim. Among these brochures were such prose fairy-tales as the “Adventures of Elijahu,” “Holy stone,” “A seed of Heaven;” poems “Halic”, “Scattered Corn,” “Shełomit,” and many other plays and poems.654 Each of these was known practically to every Karaite who was brought up in interwar Galicia and Volynia. Until the publication of Karaimsko-russko-pol’skii slovar’ in 1974, Mardkowicz’s Karaim-Polish- German dictionary was the only existing dictionary of the Karaim language.655 He was also instrumental in dissemination of a new calendar system, which was introduced by Szapszał in the 1930s. According to this new calendar all Hebrew names of the months and religious holidays were substituted with their Turkic equivalents.656 In 1936, however, he was seriously thinking about abandoning his publishing activity and emigrating from Poland, most likely to join his friend Toviyah Levi-Babovich, then the Karaite ḥazzan in Cairo.657 In March, 1937, he visited Halicz where the local 651 Aleksander Mardkowicz, “Nabeg Gonty (predanie volynskikh karaimov),” KZh 10-11 (1912): 3-4. 652 Sulimowicz, “Listy do Łucka,” 53-54. 653 E.g. Aleksander Mardkowicz, “Okruchy ze stołu ojców,” MK 12 (1938): 105-108 (on Karaite proverbs). 654 In Karaim: Aleksander Mardkowicz, Elijahunun ucuru (jomak) (Łuck 1932); idem, Birtihi kekłernin (Łuck, 1931); idem, Szełomit (jiry ułłu siwerliknin) (Łuck, 1938); idem, Tozdurhan birtik (bary icin – dert surada) (Łuck, 1939); Aj jaryhynda (Łuck, 1933); idem, Halic (Łuck, 1932); idem, Janhy jirłar (Łuck, 1932); idem, Aziz Tas (Łuck, 1934). 655 Karaj sez-bitigi. Słownik karaimski. Karaimisches Wörterbuch, ed. Aleksander Mardkowicz (Łuck, 1935). 656 See the edited by Mardkowicz calendar for 1932-1936: Łuwachłar dert jiłha (5693-5696), ed. Aleksander Mardkowicz (Łuck, 1932). 657 S. Szapszał to A. Mardkowicz (draft of the letter, 1936) (MS LMAB, F. 143, no. 125, fol. 1). 140 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory community prepared a hearty and solemn welcome on this occasion. Moreover, he received an honourary award as a national poet and public figure.658 In general, Mardkowicz’s standpoint with regard to the history and culture of the Karaites in Eastern Europe represented a paradoxical mixture of traditional Judeo-Karaite values with the militant Turkicness popularized by Szapszał. In spite of being a great champion and patriot of the Karaim language, Mardkowicz was criticized by Szapszał for introducing too many Hebrew loanwords into his Karaim- Polish-German dictionary.659 While being a pious believer, in 1928 he suggested a religious reform, which even Szapszał, with all his reformative radicalism, considered far too advanced.660 While considering Ereṣ Yisra 658 For the report about Mardkowicz’s visitation to Halicz, see Zarach Zarachowicz “Jały ułus- iscinin,” KA 10 (1936): 22-28. 659 Correspondence between Szapszał and Mardkowicz (1934) (MS LMAB, F. 143, no. 468, fols. 3-4). 660 In short, Mardkowicz suggested the following steps to be taken (most of them, undoubtedly, were borrowed by Mardkowicz from… the traditions of his Catholic neighbours): 1. all liturgical services should be conducted only in Karaim, without Hebrew; 2. sermons in Karaim with the Polish translation should be introduced; 3. there should be choir singing and church music with the piano or organ; 4. censers should be used; holiday should fall on Sunday and not on Saturday; believers should enter the house of prayer without a head cover (for the project of these reforms, see Mardkowicz’s letter to S. Szapszał (1928): MS LMAB, F. 143, no. 466, fols. 6-9). 661 MS LMAB, F. 143, no. 466, fols. 8v-9r; Al-Mar [Aleksander Mardkowicz], “Awazłary ojowłaryn,” KA 3 (5) (1932): 26-29. 662 He bitterly mocked this idea in his verse “Ebgeler,” KA 11 (1937): 20. 663 He discusses this problem in his response to a letter from one of the readers of KA (in Polish): “Bitik da karuw,” KA 12 (1938): 9-12a. Łuck 141 the book was to introduce the Karaites to the general Polish audience.664 The author saw in the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites the descendants of Crimean Karaites, who, in their turn, should be understood as a mixture of the Israelite colonists of Crimea and the autochthonic local population (Khazars et alia), both adhering to the same sort of monotheistic Karaite belief.665 Undoubtedly, a lengthy quotation from Julius Fürst, which emphasized the favourable attitude of Anan ben David, the founder of Karaism, towards Jesus, was also directed at the Polish catholic audience.666 Several other quotations from the nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors were used to demonstrate the difference between the Karaites and the Rabbinic Jews.667 Finally, the quotation from Tadeusz Kowalski was used by Mardkowicz to stress the necessity of protecting the Karaites as one of the most unique ethnic groups of Poland.668 A few years later Mardkowicz’s brochure was translated into Lithuanian and published in the periodical of the Poniewież Karaites.669 In the same year (1930) Mardkowicz published the brochure Zemerłer (GVKar. “Songs”), an important collection of the genuine Karaim religious and secular poetry. It is very likely that this collection was prepared by the author long before he began his contacts with Szapszał. This collection does not have a single trace of dejudaization tendencies that are so evident in many other Mardkowicz’s publications. The poems and songs included into “Zemerłer” represent precious samples of the early modern poetry in the Karaim language written by various East European Karaite authors. Many of the poems published there had been available to Mardkowicz in a manuscript form and were later lost. Among them were such as “Oh, Jerusalem, a perfect city” (E Jeruszłem, tigiel sahar), “Today on the Sinai mount” (Bigin Synaj tawga), “Torah is sweeter than manna and honey” (Tatłyraktyr Tora mandan da cijbałdan) – all of them testifying to the fact that at least until the end of the nineteenth century the Karaites preserved traditional Jewish values. Moreover, in his commentaries to the poems Mardkowicz seldom used the GVKar. terms Karaj/Karajłar (Karaites) substituting them with common for the pre-Szapszałian period Israeł-el/israeł-kisi/israeł-dzan – i.e. “Israelites.” The general atmosphere of this collection, the texts of the poems published there, and Mardkowicz’s commentaries stay in utter dissonance with most of Mardkowicz’s publications in Polish.670 Moreover, in his main literary project – “Karaj Awazy” – one can find poems, stories and articles expressing the same traditional Judeo-Karaite values. One may ask whether it was Mardkowicz’s conscious position – to present Turko-Karaite part of his identity to the Polish audience – and 664 Aleksander Mardkowicz, Synowie zakonu (Kilka słów o Karaimach) (Łuck, 1930), 4. 665 Ibid., 12. 666 Ibid., 8-10. 667 Ibid., 6, 14. 668 Ibid., 16. 669 Aleksander Mardkovič, “Įstatymo sūnūs,” Onarmach 1 (1934): 8-16. 670 Zemerłer (Karaj sezinde) (Łuck, 1930). 142 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory to express his Judeo-Karaite traditionalist views in his publications in the Karaim language? He also published a few other leaflets in Polish. One of them was dedicated to the biography of Eljasz (Iljasz) Karaimowicz, the seventeenth-century Cossack who was considered a Karaite hero by many twentieth-century Karaite authors.671 Others were dedicated to the general history of the four main Karaite communities in Rzeczpospolita (Łuck, Halicz, Wilno, Troki) and analysis of the Karaim proverbs.672 In addition to the publication of the separate brochures analyzed above, Mardkowicz also contributed to the activity of the periodical “Karaj Awazy” which was edited by him from 1931 to 1939. Among them were belletristic novels, fairy- tales, verses and poems673 dedicated to various events of the Karaite past in Eastern Europe.674 He also composed several articles which have doubtless scholarly value. His “On the memory of Babiniec” is an impressive sample of Mardkowicz’s emotional memoirs dedicated to his child years in Łuck (babiniec is the Polish for ezrat nashim – women’s gallery in a synagogue). Especially important are several interesting nineteenth-century manuscript documents in Karaim and Hebrew found by Mardkowicz in the genizah of the local synagogue-kenesa and published as an attachment to this article.675 The article “Origin of the Karaite names” chronologically was perhaps the first attempt to analyze personal names of the East European Karaites. In this article Mardkowicz mentioned a strong influence of Rabbanite scholars on the Volhynian Karaite tradition – the fact which seldom recognized in the twentieth-century Karaite scholarship.676 One article was dedicated to the analysis of the Karaite proverbs. Unlike most of the post-war collections of the Karaite sayings,677 671 In fact, he was apparently of the Armenian descent and did not have any relation to the Karaite community (for more information about the historical Karaimowicz, see Mikhail Kizilov, “Il’iash Karaimovich i Timofei Khmel’nitskii: krovnaia mest’, kotoroi ne bylo,” Karadeniz Araştırmaları 6: 22 (2009): 43-74). 672 Aleksander Mardkowicz, Ogniska karaimskie (Łuck, Halicz, Wilno, Troki) (Łuck, 1932); idem, Karaim, jego życie i zwyczaje w przysłowiach ludowych (Łuck, 1935). In 2003 I found among the Yurchenko MSS a typewritten article in Polish (7 fols., without a title) which was apparently composed also by Mardkowicz in the 1930s; its content is similar to that of his Ogniska karaimskie. 673 The largest and, perhaps, the most interesting of Mardkowicz’s poems was “Hadzy-Baba,” KA 11 (1937): 1-18 (poetic biography of Abraham Firkowicz). 674 Aleksander Mardkowicz, “Jahałarynda Galwenin da Mełarnyn,” KA 2 (1931): 3-13 (a novel about the eighteenth-century Karaite author, Solomon ben Aharon); idem, “Kacan atałarymyz jigit edler,” KA 1 (3) (1932): 3-10 (“When our fathers were young” – a novel about the community of Łuck and destruction of the Volhynian Karaite communities by the Ukrainian Haidamaks); idem, “Burunhu konarłyk Łuckada,” KA 2 (4) (1932): 7-14 (“The first night in Łuck” – a novel about the first Karaite settlers in Łuck); idem, “Aziz Tas,” KA 7 (1934): 1-18; idem, “Taw Garizim,” KA 8 (1935): 9-13 (on the Karaites and Samaritans). Most of these articles were published under the penname “Al-Mar.” 675 Idem, “Sahyncyna Babinecnin,” KA 6 (1933): 1-10. 676 Idem, “Uruw adłary karajłarnyn,” KA 7 (1934): 21-24. 677 E.g. IU.A. Polkanov, Poslovitsy i pogovorki krymskikh karaimov (Bakhchisarai, 1995). Łuck 143 this article presents to the readers real world of the Karaite proverbs which were often related to religious matters and communal life.678 Quite interesting are several polemic articles published by Mardkowicz on the pages of “Karaj Awazy” in the 1930s. Most of them were dedicated to different aspects of controversial issues related to the Karaite-Rabbanite relations in interwar Poland. I.a., Mardkowicz discussed there the problem of the prohibition of the Rabbanite ritual slaughter by the Polish government and polemicized with Polish Rabbanite newspapers.679 In one article Mardkowicz polemicized with his friend, Toviyah Levi-Babovich of Cairo, concerning the role of the Hebrew language and importance of Ereṣ Yisra 678 Aleksander Mardkowicz, “Kart da kartajmahan sezler,” KA 8 (1935): 2-7. 679 Idem, “Taslar Karaj bachcasyna,” KA 9 (1936): 23-24; See idem, “Kari biz, ari ałar,” KA 12 (1938): 2-3; “Turałmahy” Karajłarnyn,” KA 12 (1938): 3–4. For more information regarding this polemic, see 4.8.2. 680 Aleksander Mardkowicz, “Awazłary ojowłaryn,” KA 3 (5) (1932): 26-29. 681 Idem, “Szkice karaimskie,” KA 10 (1936): 11-15. 682 Idem, “Z dziejów rozwoju gminy karaimskiej w Łucku,” KA 10 (1936): 16-19. 683 Idem, “Bitik da karuw,” KA 12 (1938): 9-12a. 144 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory to Warsaw. His younger son (himself half-Rabbanite!) surprisingly, married (in 1944) the daughter of a Łuck lawyer, apparently of German ethnicity. The newly-married couple emigrated to Łódź where a number of ethnic Germans had gathered in fear of the approaching Soviet army.684 Mardkowicz finished his days in Łuck in April 1944, when the town was bombarded by the Nazis in their attempt to recapture it from the Soviet Army. His death began the final chapter in the history of the Karaite community of Łuck, whose last sorrowful pages were finished with the post-war emigration of the local Karaites to Poland, destruction of the local kenesa and cemetery, and, lastly, the complete disappearance of the community. The Łuck cemetery, where his tomb had been initially located, had been quickly destroyed. A symbolic grave bearing his name was erected by his family in Sopot.685 He remains as one of the most prolific Karaite man of letters of the twentieth century, a prominent Karaite nationalist, and enthusiast of the Karaim language. It is largely due to his self-sacrificing activity that Karaim indeed became a high language suitable for any genre of literary activity. Although being a faithful follower of Szapszał’s Turkic doctrine, he nevertheless did much to preserve the traditional Judeo-Karaite culture and identity. For more details about Mardkowicz’s periodical “Karaj Awazy”, see below. 3.3.3 Karaj Awazy: The Voice of a Karaite “Karaj Awazy” – “The Voice of a Karaite” (or “Karaite Voice”) – the periodical published by its editor-in-chief Aleksander Mardkowicz in Łuck in the Southern (a.k.a. Galician-Volynian) dialect of the Karaim language, represented a type of moderate and traditionally-oriented opposition to the more-radically Turkicized “Myśl Karaimska.”686 “Karaj Awazy,” now hardly accessible in any state library in Eastern Europe, once had been present in almost every Karaite house in Poland and Lithuania.687 “Karaj Awazy” – widely read by the Karaite audience as the only periodical in their native Karaim language – functioned both as a literary and popular work, containing community news, stories, scholarly articles, poems, and fairy tales. Moreover, in Troki it functioned as a form of textbook for the study of the Karaim language.688 Originally Mardkowicz wanted to call his periodical “Biźnin Jołumuz” (GVKar. “Our way”). In his letter to Tadeusz Kowalski, Mardkowicz wrote: 684 A. Zajączkowski to T. Kowalski, 27.03.1944 (UO, 197-198). 685 Sulimowicz, “Listy do Łucka,” 48. 686 Shapira, “The Turkic Languages and Literatures,” 689. 687 Today it is available online ( The objectives of “Myśl Karaimska” and “Biźnin Jołumuz”, which is planned by me, do not cross each other, but go in parallel: “Myśl Karaimska” presents Karaite culture to the outside [na zewnątrz], while “Biźnin Jołumuz” has the aim to promulgate the native language among the countrymen and wider analyze internal matters.689 Nevertheless, Mardkowicz later changed the name of the periodical to “Karaj Awazy”. In the period from 1931 to 1938 Mardkowicz published twelve issues of the periodical. “Karaj Awazy” was indeed the voice of the East European Karaite community of that time. In spite of its being published in the Galician-Volynian dialect of Karaim, “Karaj Awazy”was open for all Karaite authors from all parts of Eastern Europe. One may find there numerous writings of the Halicz, Łuck, Troki, Crimean and even Egyptian Karaite authors. These included secular and religious poetry, fairy tales, short stories, community news, comic sketches, historical essays, archival documents, and translations of classical Karaite authors of the preceding centuries. Many articles represented quite a curious mixture of Szapszał’s Khazar doctrine alongside traditional Karaite values. In spite of the fact that the main emphasis of the periodical was on Turkic Karaite traditions and language, there were many submissions by contemporary and classical Karaite authors, such as Toviyah Levi-Babovich, Yosef ben Yeshuah, Zeraḥ ben Natan, Moses Dar‘ī, and Zacharjasz Abrahamowicz. All of them wrote about the respectful attitude towards Ereṣ Yisra 689 A. Mardkowicz to T. Kowalski (Łuck, 19.11.1930; Polish) (Aleksander Dubiński, “Fragmenty korespondencji prof. Tadeusza Kowalskiego z Aleksandrem Mardkowiczem,” PO 1 (145) (1988): 62-67; Tokarczyk, Karaimizm, 107-108). 690 Seraja Szapszał, “Kabakłarynda Aziz Saharnyn (Chadży-Aha Babowicznin ucuru),” KA 1 (1931): 3-8. 691 Cf. [Seraja Szapszał], “Prikliucheniia Gakhama Khadzhi Aga Babovicha” (Russian) (MS LMAB, F. 143, no. 836). This shows that Szapszał could not write in Karaim, only in Turkish or his native Russian and Crimean Tatar. Moreover, most of his early Polish articles for MK and other leaflets were also originally written by him in Russian and then translated into Polish (see letters of A. Zajączkowski to S. Szapszał in AK, 70, 101). It seems that it was only in the second half of the 1930s that Szapszał started writing directly in Polish by himself, without the mediation of Russian. 146 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory Furthermore, the last (the twelfth, 1938) issue of “Karaj Awazy” opened with an article dedicated to the tenth anniversary of Szapszał’s election to the ḥakham’s office.692 These two publications appear to contain the only references to Szapszał and his activity on the pages of the periodical. The tenth issue of “Karaj Awazy” (1936) was supposed to be the last one. Having complained about numerous difficulties, Mardkowicz stated that it would not be a jubilee issue, but the last one: “And these are my last words with which I turn to you from the pages of “Karaj Awazy”: believe and you will be saved!”693 However, afterwards he received such an amount of letters from numerous Karaite individuals and organisations (and, perhaps, even more importantly, some financial support) that he decided to continue and published two more issues (eleventh and twelfth, 1937-1938).694 As with the fate of other pre-war Karaite periodicals, “Karaj Awazy” ceased publication with the start of World War II in 1939. The publication was never resumed after the death of its editor-in-chief and the emigration of the local community to Poland. Today, “Karaj Awazy” remains important source on the history of the Galician-Volhynian dialect of the Karaim language. The materials published on its pages provide students of Karaism with indispensable data on the state of the Karaite community in East Europe. 3.3.4 Sergiusz Rudkowski (1873–1944) Sergiusz/Sergjusz Rudkowski (Russ. Sergei Zarakhovich/Zakharovich Rudkovskii; b. Łuck 21.11.1837 – d. Łuck 1944, son of Zachariasz (Zarach?) Rudkowski and Zara (Sara?) Sinani) was one of the most interesting twentieth-century Karaite litterateurs. His Hebrew name was apparently Simcha ben Zarach Rudyi (Rudy);695 this is why he composed some of his work under the Hebrew penname, ha-Roddi.696 In 1910 he took part in the All-Karaite Assembly in Eupatoria; in 1913 he was de facto the founder and editor of the periodical Sabakh.697 Until 1917 he worked as a secretary to the court in the town of Włodzimierz Wołyński (Russ. Vladimir Volynskii; Ukr. Volodymyr Volyn’skyi); 692 Aleksander Mardkowicz, “On jił,” KA 12 (1938): 1. 693 [Aleksander Mardkowicz], “Onuncu atłam,” KA 10 (1936), 3. 694 [Aleksander Mardkowicz], “Dostłaryna Karaj Awazynyn,” KA 11 (1937), inner side of the jacket. 695 LMAB F. 301, no. 332, fol. 22v (the community shammash A.I. Fikowicz states that Симха бен Зарах Рудый is called in Russian documents Сергей Зарич Рудковский). In 1809 in the vicinity of Łuck there lived a Karaite Мошко Зарохов сын Рудый (Shabarovs’kyi, Karaїmy, 92). He could have been an ancestor of Sergiusz Rudkowski. Shabarovs’kyi called the latter by double name Sergiusz- Szymon (Shabarovs’kyi, Karaїmy, 125). 696 Cf. the letter of A.I. Firkowicz in MS LMAB F. 301, no. 332, fol. 22v. Therefore, M. Németh’s suggestion that ha-Roddi is a derivative from Heb. ḥaredi is wrong. 697 For more information, see 2.3.4. Łuck 147 after the revolution he was evacuated to Kiev and Crimea. In 1918 he returned to Łuck. From 1919 to 1929 he registered marriages, births and deaths in the communal records; from 1922 to 1925 he was the chairman of the Board of Administration of the local community. Michał Németh, with reference to the records of Łuck Karaite community, mentioned that Rudkowski had been married to a non-Karaite woman, Tamara Majewska, of mixed Russo-Polish origin; his marriage was officially registered on 9.08.1923 by the ḥazzan Mosze Nowicki.698 This data, however, does not correspond to archival sources which record his wife’s name as Barbara Majewska with the marriage being registered in Halicz by the local ḥazzan Izaak Abrahamowicz. According to the letter of Józef Eszwowicz to the starostwo in Stanisławów, Majewska was converted to Karaism.699 Whatever the case could be, it is somewhat strange that this ardent champion of the Karaite case chose marriage to a non-Karaite. Already in the mid-1920s he was an active proponent of the Turkic theory of Karaite origin. In 1925 he paid a visit to the editorial office of Juljan Podoski, a Polish journalist working for the newspaper “Życie Wołynia.” The journalist recorded, with a touch of irony, Rudkowski’s agitated monologue: The wide steppes near the Caspian Sea, free landscapes near the Volga, Don, Crimean plains and mountains were our motherland. Our people came from Asia… Our crooked sabres many times sabred the Tatar hordes. We were the people of warriors. Here, in Łuck, we settled down with the name of the Karaites-“subbotniks” [?!] who had been brought here by the Grand Duke Vitold many centuries ago to defend the Łuck fortress… Many would like to consider us Jews [Pol. za żydowinów]. For our people this is the heaviest insult… But we hate them the same way that they hate us. We have never had a drop of Jewish blood… We were, and are still, a race of warriors. War has always been our nature. As a Khazar tribe, which was accepted into the knight’s service by the Most Bright Rzeczpospolita, similar to the detachments of the Polish Tatars, we always eagerly went to war for our homeland’s sake.700 698 Michał Németh, “Rudkowski, Sergjusz,” Awazymyz 3 (2006): 7-8. 699 J. Eszwowicz to the starostwo in Stanisławów, 1923, Polish (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1461, fol. 113). Apparently, after a conversion she could get a new name, Tamar (Tamara). One must say that Eszwowicz, the author of this letter, apparently had only heard rumours about this event: he erroneously called S. Rudkowski “M. Rutkowski”; he further stated that the name “Tamar” was given not to Barbara Majewska, but to another Polish convert, Marja Stankiewicz. For more information, see Kizilov, Karaites of Galicia, 244-245. In the 1930s T. Kowalski heard rumours that Majewska, Rudkowski’s wife, was from the sect of the Subbotniks (T. Kowalski to S. Szapszał, MS LMAB F. 143, no. 384, fol. 55). 700 Juljan Podoski, “Łuccy karaimi,” Życie Wołynia 25 (72) (21.06.1925), 5-6 (for the Ukrainian translation, see Shabarovs’kyi, Karaїmy, 190-193). Although the name of the Karaite is not mentioned in the article, we agree with Volodymyr Shabarov’skyi who identified this unnamed Karaite with S. Rudkowski. 148 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory There is perhaps no need to comment on the numerous historical mistakes in this long monologue. The most important observation is to stress Rudkowski’s Turkic identity which he possessed as early as 1925. In the list of the Łuck Karaite community of 1934 he is referred to as “Sergjusz Rudkowski, gł. rodz. biural. emer.” (Pol. “head of the family, civil worker, retired”). According to the same document, in 1934 he had two sons, Selim and Nazim (apparently, Szałom and Nissim?).701 At the beginning of the Second World War he was living in Rafałówka, 75 km north of Łuck. In order not to be sent to Siberia by the Soviets, he had to hide; in 1940 he burnt most of his manuscripts. In 1942 his son Selim was murdered by the Ukrainian Banderovtsy. In 1943 he with the rest of his family returned to Łuck where he died in 1944, about the same time as another intellectual leader of the community, Aleksander Mardkowicz.702 Rudkowski was prolific in three languages – Russian, Polish, and Karaim; his writings included journalism, polemic reports and articles, prose and poetry. Rudkowski started his literary activity at the beginning of the twentieth century as an author of a few highly sarcastic journalist articles in Russian. His elegant literary style was at the same time both elevated and bitter.703 In the 1930s he published four separate brochures in Karaim and Polish. One of them was dedicated to the settlement of the Karaites in medieval Volhynia,704 another was a play about the contemporary Karaite life (in two separate brochures).705 The most interesting was perhaps a leaflet in Polish on the destruction of the Derażnia and Kotów Karaite communities by the Ukrainian Haidamaks. This short story was, on the one hand, based on the genuine local folk-tradition; on the other, it was somewhat distorted by the author’s wish to present the Karaites as valorous warriors.706 His other publications of the 701 See “Imienny spis Karaimów, zamieszkałych w Łucku” (28.08.1934) (MS LMAB. F. 301, no. 419, fol. 2r). It seems that Rudkowski’s sons were not officially registered as Karaites (Podoski, “Łuccy karaimi,” 7). 702 For more details, see Németh, “Rudkowski,” 7-8; Aleksander Dubiński, “Rudkowski, Sergjusz,” PSB 32, 604; Shabarovs’kyi, Karaїmy, 125-127. 703 S.Z. Rudkowski, “K vyboram Gakham-bashi,” Sabakh 1 (1914): 7-11; S.Z. Rudkovskii, “V Yevpatoriiu i obratno,” KS 3-4 (1913): 5-9. 704 Rudkowski, Tutuwłanmahy Karajłarnyn. 705 Idem, “Dostlar”/“Przyjaciele”. Wesoły szkic z życia ujęty (Łuck, 1931). “’Dostlar.” Satyr kotarmkt tirlikten jizip-ałhan (Łuck, 1931); idem, “’Dostlar II.” Caja kotarmak caja ucurłaricin (Łuck, 1939). 706 Idem, Krwawe echo Humania na Wołyniu (Rzeź kotowska). Podanie (Łuck, 1932). If the statement about the warlike Karaites were true, then there arises a logical question: why was the community so easily and mercilessly destroyed by the Ukrainian pogromists? From other sources we know that the local Karaite population was engaged in trade and crafts and had never been engaged in any military activity. Troki 149 1930s were publicist articles707 and poetry.708 Michał Németh, Rudkowski’s great- grandson, had recently discovered several unknown poems by Rudkowski available only in manuscript.709 Rudkowski played important role in the literary life of the East European Karaites in the twentieth century – as a poet, journalist and man of letters. *** The Łuck qehilah was the smallest – and yet perhaps the most ambitious – Karaite community in interwar Poland. In the given period its members published the only periodical in the world in the Halicz-Łuck dialect of the Karaim language and printed a number of separate brochures and leaflets in the Polish and Karaim languages. Although its intellectual leaders (A. Mardkowicz and S. Rudkowski) were active disseminators of Szapszał’s dejudaization doctrine, they also greatly contributed to the literary renaissance of the Karaim language and, paradoxically enough, to the preservation of traditional Judeo-Karaite values. In 1939 the community was joined by another important interwar intellectual – ḥazzan, poet and translator Józef Łobanos – who unfortunately did not stay in the community long enough to make any impact on its life. 3.4 Troki 3.4.1 General State of the Community According to official data, on 15.03.1922 the Karaite community in Troki consisted of 203 people.710 Later some of the Troki Karaites, scattered around the world during the First World War, returned to their native town. As a consequence, the community grew up to 300-350 souls. The letter sent by Szemaja (Szymon) Firkowicz and Achiezer Zajączkowski to MWRiOP on 24.11.1925 describes the deplorable state of the Troki community after World War I in the following way: 707 Idem, “Nece sez bizin kutułmahymyznyn,” KA 1 (1931): 14-16; idem, “Korutkan dżuwaherłer,” KA 2 (1931): 19-20; idem, “Kart Łucka,” KA 8 (1935), 14-18; idem, “Kart Łucka,” KA 9 (1936): 12-15; idem, “Komisarjatta,” KA 2 (1931): 35 (transl. from Polish); idem, “Sormakłar da karuwłar,” KA 12 (1938): 5. 708 Especially interesting are the following verses: “Istepłer,” KA 11(1937): 21; “Ułhaj, uwłum!” KA 3(5): (1932): 22-23. For a complete list of his publications, see BK under “Rudkowski, Sergjusz.” 709 One of these verses was published in Németh, “Rudkowski.” 710 Some materials presented in this subchapter had been earlier published in Mikhail Kizilov, “Karaites in North-Eastern Europe: The Karaite Community of Troki between the Two World Wars,” in Orient als Grenzbereich? Rabbinisches und ausserrabbinisches Judentum, ed. Annelies Kuyt und Gerold Necker (Wiesbaden, 2007): 139-155. 150 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory Material property is destroyed, the land is exhausted, deficiency of houses, only desolation and ruins are all around... Decorations and valuables from the shrine [i.e. synagogue- kenesa], centuries old archives and the library of the Spiritual Consistory are taken away to Russia on the order of occupying officials… The wooden shrine [i.e. kenesa] of the Karaites in Troki, erected on the place of the [earlier one] burnt at the beginning of the nineteenth century, needs to be repaired: walls are decaying, the roof is leaking.711 Paradoxically enough, most informative descriptions of the Troki Karaite community in the 1930s were left, curiously, by Jewish visitors to the town.712 In spite of a rather biased attitude towards the Karaites, Rabbanite travellers noticed many peculiar religious and ethnographic details that had been overlooked by Christian visitors. In the summer of 1932, for example, Troki had been visited by Israel Cohen.713 The author seems to ignore all other tourist attractions of the town, while focusing his interest only on Rabbanite and Karaite monuments of Troki: The Karaites do not show any friendship towards the Jews. They are mainly vegetable gardeners, who convey their produce every morning to the market in Vilna... Most of the Karaites live in small, one-story houses of timber, on the principal street, Kowenski ulica... In appearance they differ strikingly from the Jews. Though they are mainly dark, they have the Tatar physiognomy; while some of them, especially the girls, present a fair type.714 Most members of the community survived from the produce of their farms and gardens, especially from the selling of famous Karaite Troki cucumbers (see below). During the “non-cucumber” period many were engaged in the carrier’s trade (Pol. furmanka), especially in delivery of fallen forest to storage places; some worked as teachers, one was the head of the local postal office.715 This short description will serve as an introduction to our analysis of the history of the community from 1918 to 1939. 3.4.2 Poet, Farmer and Religious Authority: ułłu ḥazzan Szemaja ben Abraham Firkowicz (1897–1982) Szemaja ben Abraham Firkowicz (b. Troki, 28.11.1897 – d. Troki, 16.04.1982) was one of the most interesting figures in the twentieth-century Karaite history. For more than 711 AAN MWRiOP 1466, fol. 155. 712 Israel Cohen, Vilna (Philadelphia, 1943), 463-464; Alexandra Sołowiejczyk, “U Karaimów Trockich,” Nasza Opinja 173 (8.01.1938), 305; H. Aizakson, “Karaimen gehen unter,” Di Idishe Shtime 5004 (03.03.1935). Two other highly interesting reports (by M. Blum and M. Piątkowski) are discussed below. 713 It seems that this was the known Zionist author, Israel Cohen (1879–1961). 714 Cohen, Vilna, 463-464. 715 Pilecki, “Karaimskie życie,” 41-43. Troki 151 60 years (from 1921 until his death in 1982) he was ḥazzan in Troki. At the same time he was the deputy of the ḥakham, the right hand of Szapszał, the person responsible for the spread of the latter’s Turkic ideology among the members of the community. Furthermore, he was one of the most prolific Karaite man of letters in the twentieth century. Firkowicz is known to posterity under a host of different names and spellings. His Hebrew name was Szemaja ben Abraham;716 in Polish he called himself Firkowicz Szymon, syn Adolfa i Zofji z Robaczewskich; in Karaim – Szemaja uwłu Awrahamnyn; in Russian – Semen Adolfovich Firkovich, and in Lithuanian – Simonas Firkovičius.717 Furthermore, he composed some of his oeuvres under the penname Szafir (from the initial letters of his name and surname). He graduated from the Karaite religious school in Pskov (Russia) in 1915. During the First World War and until 1920 he was in Eupatoria in Crimea where he for the first time met Seraja Szapszał. Firkowicz was elected Troki ḥazzan in 1920 and acting Troki ḥakham in 1922 (he stayed in this office until the election of Szapszał as the ḥakham in 1927). This means that he was only 24 when he was elected – perhaps too early an age from the standpoint of Karaite religious tradition. His own letters testify that the beginning of his duties was quite difficult for him: some elders (Pinachas Malecki) criticized him right “in the kenesa before all the believers.”718 In addition to his religious office, Firkowicz was a chairman of the agricultural union “Przyszłość” (Pol. “future”), and himself actively worked in the field of cucumber growing.719 Although he de facto fulfilled the duties of senior ḥazzan already from 1921, he was officially nominated to this office by Szapszał only in 1929.720 Firkowicz was held in great esteem for his unparalleled activity as a litterateur. He published a large number of entries in many Karaite and non-Karaite periodicals.721 As early as 1927, when the young ḥazzan was only 30 years old, his literary talent was highly appraised by Tadeusz Kowalski who published many of Firkowicz’s translations, riddles, proverbs, poems, and four plays in his Karaimische Texte im Dialekt von Troki.722 Firkowicz, his traditional education and religiosity notwithstanding, played a most significant role in the process of the dejudaization (Turkicization) of the Karaite community instigated by Seraja Szapszał. Firkowicz, who, in contrast to Szapszał, was 716 One of his articles was signed “Szemaja-bień-Awraham” (“Jarych sahyncz abajły üriatiuwczugia P. Maleckigia (1854-1928),” MK 2:1 (1929): 46-48); cf. LMAB F. 143, no. 822, fol. 166r. 717 One of his visit cards from the 1930s has the name Szymon Seweryn Firkowicz (LMAB F. 143, no. 242, fol. 23). 718 Sz. Firkowicz to S. Szapszał (1927, Russian) in MS LMAB F. 143, no. 264, fol. 5. 719 Jan Krywko, O ogórku trockim (Wilno, 1926), 8. 720 S. Sz-n [Szymon Szyszman], “Mianowanie,” MK 2:2 (1929): 41; see also Zarach Zarachowicz, “Dziesięciolecie kapłaństwa Ułłu Hazzana Szemai Firkowicza,” MK 2:3-4 (1930-1931): 77-81. 721 For a complete bibliography, see BK, 716 (index). 722 Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, 76-140. 152 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory a native speaker of Troki Karaim dialect, could carry out linguistic reforms directed at purifying the Karaim language. In 1935/6 Firkowicz published a programme article in “Myśl Karaimska” where he announced the necessity of purification of the Karaim language from numerous Slavic and Hebrew borrowings.723 Moreover, it may be largely due to the enlightening activity of Szemaja Firkowicz in Troki and Aleksander Mardkowicz in Łuck that in the 1930s Karaim became a literary and not just an everyday language of the community. Firkowicz’s literary talent had often been used by Szapszał when he needed to justify a new turn in his ideological platform. We may cautiously suppose that it was Szapszał who suggested that Firkowicz compose several treatises and translations reflecting an ideological background (e.g. Karaim translations of the “International” and the hymn of the USSR). It seems that the ḥazzan himself was too engaged in his literary activity in order to come to such radical ideological tasks by himself. In addition to the aforementioned linguistic reform, Firkowicz also created a new Turkicized tradition of Karaite folklore which, in fact, had not existed before the 1920s. Already Kowalski mentioned that many Karaite proverbs, in fact, did not have actual folk roots, but rather represented the fruits of Firkowicz’s literary activity.724 To give another example, it was Firkowicz who composed a fairy tale “Alankasar” (Giant), which, again, was not an authentic piece of Karaite folklore, as it may seem at the first glance, but a literary product of Szemaja Firkowicz.725 We may also suppose that it was Firkowicz who translated into Karaim the Christian prayer Pater Noster (Kar. “Atamyz, ki kioklardia…”) and included it into a small Karaite prayer book published by him in 1935.726 In general, this prayer book, published in Karaim in Latin 723 Szymon Firkowicz, “Przyczynek do zagadnienia wpływów obcych na język karaimski,” MK 11 (1935-36): 69-72. 724 Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, 299. 725 This fairy tale was published (without authorship, apparently to suggest its medieval or early modern origin) in KRPS, 685-687. For the roots of this tradition, see Władysław Syrokomla, Wycieczki po Litwie w promieniach od Wilna, vol. 2 (Wilno, 1857-1860), 82; A. Szyszman, “Gonets velikogo kniazia” (MS LMAB, F. 143, no. 1531, fols. 31-37v). The fact that it was composed by Firkowicz is mentioned in Aleksander Dubiński, “Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo S.A. Firkowicza,” RO 44:1 (1985): 125, ft.7; idem, “Szymona Firkowicza twórczość literacka w języku karaimskim,” PO 3-4 (1993): 206. Golda Akhiezer discovered in Abraham Firkowicz’s collection in NLR a seventeenth-century manuscript in Hebrew which contains a story similar to that published in KRPS. In this original manuscript, however, the name of the hero is Natan ben Zarach (G. Akhiezer, electronic letter to M. Kizilov, 29.07.2013). Thus, the name of Alankasar had not been mentioned in original versions of this legend and was inserted there by Szapszał and/or Szemaja Firkowicz. 726 Szymon Firkowicz, Kołtchałar. Krótkie modlitwy karaimskie (Wilno, 1935), 6-7. Paradoxically enough, the Polish part of the book (a translation of the Karaim portion) does not contain many Hebrew terms mentioned in its Karaim version. The Pater Noster in Karaim also appears in the typewritten and manuscript Karaite calendars composed by Sz. Firkowicz in Troki from 1938 to 1958 (Sz. Firkowicz, “Karaj Łuwachłari,” MS LMAB F. 143-1062, fol. 46v.). Troki 153 characters (perhaps, the first Karaite prayer book published in Latin script!) together with the Polish translation, as it seems, was supposed to demonstrate to the Polish audience a similarity between Karaite and Christian traditions. This idea was also a part of Szapszał’s doctrine of that period.727 As the community ḥazzan ha-gadol (ułłu ḥazzan), Firkowicz was responsible for the composition of religious calendars. It is of interest that in some of them, in addition to the traditional era beginning from the Creation of the world (TrKar. dunja jaratyłmahyna/jaratyłmahyna dunjanyn728), he used the era Anan bijimiźniń tuwmahyna (TrKar. “from the birth of our lord Anan”).729 This era, which began in the year 715 A.D., was suppose to begin calculation of years from the birth of Anan ben David, the founder of the anti-Talmudic Ananite movement. The last calendar from this series kept in Szapszał’s collection (1958/1959) was composed in Troki Karaim in Cyrillic script.730 To my knowledge, this chronology was not generally accepted by the Karaites. So far I have been able to find only a few documents written in accordance with this dating.731 On the other hand, despite his numerous poems and translations Firkowicz very seldom indulged in the composition of historical and ideological works. His lack of activity in this field had often been criticized by Szapszał. Nevertheless, one of the ḥazzan’s rare historical works, “On the Karaites in Poland” played an important role in rescuing the Karaites from the Nazi danger. Composed in 1938, evidently with the idea of proving to non-Karaite audiences that the Karaites were not Jews, this leaflet had later been translated by the Nazis into German and used as a textbook on Karaite history.732 This brochure does not mention the word “Judaism” at all and stresses only the Turko-Islamo-Arabic nature of the East European Karaites and their faith. The term “Karaim” is understood here as a derivative of the Arabic “Karain”, Karaite religion is treated as a product of Muslim influence, while Jesus and Mohammed are mentioned as Karaite prophets.733 Being the community ḥazzan with excellent religious education, Firkowicz could not help realizing that he was not telling his readers the truth: the Karaites, be they either of Near Eastern or East European provenance, never 727 E.g. J. Hopko, “Echa krajowe. Nowe-Troki,” Słowo (13.05.1930) (here the author emphasizes the affection with which the Karaites viewed Catholicism). 728 Karaim equivalent of the traditional Heb. li-vriyat ha->olam (“from the creation of the world”). 729 E.g. the Karaite calendar for 1949/1950 (LMAB, F. 143, no. 1062, fol. 73); this era was used by other ḥazzanim as well (e.g. Karaj łuwachłar jyłha 5699/5700, comp. Hazzan Refael Abkowicz (Wilno, 1939)). 730 Sz. Firkowicz, “Karaj Łuwachłari” (1938-1958) in MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1062. 731 E.g. the letter of J. Łobanos to S. Szapszał (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1529, fol. 19r). 732 See Szymon Firkowicz, Die Karaimen in Polen, transl. Harald Cosack (Berlin-Dahlem, 1941; Deutsche Bücherei Leipzig, call no. 1942 B 484; typescript; “nur für den Dienstgebrauch”). 733 Szymon Firkowicz, O Karaimach w Polsce (Troki, 1938), 4-5. This leaflet was heavily criticized even by the Karaites themselves, especially for the phrase which suggested the Karaites’ frequent drinking of alcohol (Wł. Zajączkowski, “Sz. Firkowicz, O Karaimach w Polsce (Troki 1938) (recenzja),” MK 12 (1939): 137). 154 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory considered Mohammed and Jesus as prophets. Another of Firkowicz’s interesting historio-ideological work, dedicated to polemics with Jewish scholars concerning the Khazar question, remained unpublished. This paper argued in favour of the Khazar origin of the East European Karaites and negated the possibility that the Ashkenazic Jews could also be the Khazars’ descendants.734 Let us come back to Firkowicz’s biography. In 1936 a Jewish visitor to Troki, Dr M. Piątkowski, met the young ḥazzan. Piątkowski described him in the following way: He is a beautiful 35-year old man of noble appearance with a face distinguished simultaneously by both importance and softness. I have often seen him on the lakes because he eagerly engages himself in fishing.735 When he is strolling with an air of importance the streets of the town, he resembles an Arabian racer. But in a boat, in his soft black hat with wide brims, overshadowing his noble face, he has something of a Polish poet… I discovered that I saw before my eyes a kind of physiocrat. He himself cultivates his forefathers’ plot of land, and would love to keep his flock on the land. He looks with anxiety on those who enter the social scene – maybe they despise the fathers’ traditions, the faith of the ancestors…736 At the end of his article, however, after the visit to the kenesa where he heard an absolutely ignorant anti-Rabbanite excursion led by the kenesa’s shammash, Piątkowski wrote disapprovingly about Firkowicz’s hypocrisy in this matter. The journalist hinted that Firkowicz, not the shammash, was the actual author of the pseudo-historical text of this excursion.737 In 1937 Firkowicz visited the Karaite communities of Paris and Berlin; about the same time Germany and France were also visited by Szapszał. Although we lack exact data concerning the circumstances that forced these two Karaite leaders undertake such a long and difficult journey beyond the borders of Rzeczpospolita, one may very cautiously suggest that the real aim of both trips was to collect the data about the state of the Karaite communities of these lands and, furthermore, gather information about the growing danger of Nazism for the East European Karaite community. Firkowicz certainly was one of the leading figures in the history of the interwar Karaite community in Poland, a poet, religious authority, language reformer and ideological leader. For more details about his life during and after the Second World war – and his literary activity – see 6.2.2. 734 Szymon Firkowicz, “Odczyt ułłu hazzana Szymona Firkowicza” (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 490, fols. 12-17). 735 One elderly inhabitant of Troki, whom I happened to meet during my first visit to the town in December 2000, told me about his frequent fishing trips with Firkowicz in the 1960s-70s. 736 M. Piątkowski, “Karaimszczyzna w oczach Żyda,” Nasza Opinja 64 (191) (01.02.1936): 6-7, part x. 737 Ibid. Troki 155 3.4.3 Poetess Lidia Poziemska (Łobanos) (20.01.1886–2.01.1952) W duszy mej smutnej brzmią lutni dzwony... (The lute strings sound in my sad soul...) Lidia Poziemska, “Mój ideał” (My ideal) Troki Karaite poetess Lidia Poziemska (b. Łobanos, Troki, 1886; returned to Troki from St. Petersburg in 1903; married to Alfred Elifas Poziemski and moved to Moscow in 1905; returned to Troki in 1917; d. Troki 1952; nom de plume – Sfinks), undoubtedly, represents interest both by her literary and social activity. Born into a family of the Troki mayor Józef Łobanos, she was an offspring of the famous Karaite clan of Łobanoss, whose representatives often had been elected Karaite wójts (the head of the community). Her brother, Jozef Łobanos, was the ḥazzan of the Wilno community in the 1920s-1930s. Having been sent in her childhood to the relatives in St. Petersburg, Lidia Poziemska received the best kind of education which the aristocratic capital of Russia could offer. Her husband, Alfred Poziemski, who spent a long time in England, from 1905 to 1917 owned a tobacco factory in Moscow. After the death of her husband, from 1930 onwards Lidia Poziemska actively participated in the cultural life of the community. The poetess tried to introduce into the provincial cultural life of Troki the same sort of aristocratic atmosphere she had experienced in St. Petersburg: organizing courses in studio theatre, piano, dancing, and “savoir vivre”. As most other educated Karaites of that time, she could easily write and read four languages, Polish, Russian, and Karaim among them. Despite her upbringing in the Russian capital, her literary talent blossomed in Polish. Szymon Firkowicz, when translating the collection of the Karaite prayers “Kołtchałar”, drew upon her linguistic Polish competence. Her poems in Polish are reminiscent of the general akmeistic and decadent atmosphere of pre-1917 Russian poetry.738 Seeing the danger of demographic decline of the community because of the severity of marriage law, the poetess suggested allowing mixed marriages – suggestion which was not been attended to.739 In 1936 the Jewish visitor to Troki, M. Piątkowski, happened to meet with the poetess, who suggested that the journalist visit the local cemetery and, in the meanwhile, listen to her poetry. Evidently because of the less-than-positive impression produced upon Piątkowski by a general sepulchral atmosphere of the 738 See a selection of her poems in Konstanty Pilecki, “Cień z przeszłości,” Awazymyz 1 (4) (2000): 5-7; Lidia Poziemska (Sfinks), “Elegia,” Awazymyz 2 (2006) (for a manuscript of the poem, see MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1573); eadem, “Wstań rycerzu,” Awazymyz 2 (2006). 739 See more details on her biography in the article by her grandson, Konstanty Pilecki (“Cień z przeszłości,” 3-7). 156 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory scenery, he noticed that “This poetry, whose remotest echoes had already wafted above the gravestones, this poetry is the same as the life of the Karaites – in shapes of the eternally stark.”740 Little is known about Lidia Poziemska’s life in Soviet Lithuania after 1945. Poziemska was perhaps the only twentieth-century female Karaite litterateur, although she carried out her literary activity not in the national vernacular (Karaim), but in the language of the state, i.e. in Polish. 3.4.4 A Periodical of Karaite Teenagers: “Friend of the Karaites” – “Przyjaciel Karaimów” (“Dostu Karajnyn”) According to Aleksander Dubiński, himself a pupil in the interwar midrasz (Karaim for “beit midrash,” i.e. religious school), two Karaite youth organizations were functioning in Troki in that time – sporting union Karaj Idman Birligi and Koło Młodzieży Karaimskiej “Bir-Baw”.741 The latter organization even published a hectographic742 periodical in Polish and Karaim entitled “Przyjaciel Karaimów/Dostu Karajnyn”. The editorial board of the periodical consisted of Zarach Firkowicz,743 Szymon Kobecki (1911–1985),744 Włodzimierz Zajączkowski (apparently, Ananiasz Zajączkowski’s nephew), and a few other young Karaites. The first issue, which was published in 1930, had a Polish title and contained materials mostly in Polish.745 Most of the materials represented attempts of young Karaites to write stories and verses in Polish and Karaim languages.746 It seems that the periodical was noticed by Szemaja Firkowicz and other Karaite elders, who, most likely, suggested changing the language of the periodical into Karaim. Furthermore, 740 Piątkowski, “Karaimszczyzna,” 6-7, part viii. (“Poetessa”). 741 Dubiński, “Z życia Karaimów trockich,” 38. For the draft of the statute of the Bir-Baw union, see LMAB F. 301, no. 238 (Polish, 1930s); cf. “Kioź sałmach tirliginia igitlarniń,” DK 2 (1932): 13-14. 742 Hectographic edition allowed printing up to a hundred copies of each page. 743 The full name of this author was Z.S. Firkowicz; he lived from 1906 to 1958, and published several poems and a novel in Karaim; he sometimes signed his publications by the acronyme Zefir (see “Aziź bijim,” DK 2 (1932): 3-4; “Galwianiń kyryinda,” DK 2 (1932): 7-8 (signed: Zefir); “Igit’ elangia,” PK 1 (1930): 5-6; “Tienry siuwiarynia bołuszad,” DK 2 (1932): 11-13 (a novel; signed: Zefir). Was it this Zarach Firkowicz that later became the ḥazzan in the Poniewież community? See more in 3.6.1. 744 He published a novel and two poems in DK (Szymon Kobecki, “Burunhu czychmach juwdian,” DK 2 (1932): 9-11; idem, “Rast dinimni…” ibid., 9; idem, “Dostłarha,” ibid., 6). 745 Przyjaciel Karaimów. Czasopismo Koła Młodzieży Karaimskiej w Trokach 1 (Troki, 1930), 16 pp. The title page has a coloured depiction of the Troki castle. The only place where I could find this rare periodical was MS VU F. 185, no. 20. 746 E. Jutkiewicz, “Nierozważny krok (Nowela),” PK 1 (1930): 7-8; E. Jutkiewicz, “Powrót do domu,” ibid., 9-10; “Kronika karaimska,” ibid., 11-14; “Sprytny kłamca (Anegdotka),” ibid., 15-16; Z. Firkowicz, “Igit’elangia,” ibid., 5-6. Troki 157 more space was supposed to be dedicated to such serious matters as religion and education. Thus, the second issue appeared under the Karaim title Dostu Karajnyn. Wydawnictwo Koła Młodzieży Karaimskiej “Bir-Baw” w Trokach 2 (Wilno, 1932). In fact only the cover of the periodical was published in the Szymanowicz’s printing house in Wilno, whereas the rest of this issue was typewritten and copied by hectograph. Its content became much more varied in comparison with the first issue. It contained novels747 and poems748 in Karaim, community news,749 riddles, puzzles, anecdotes750 and one publication in Polish – the end of E. Jutkiewicz’s novel, which was begun in the first issue of the periodical.751 Although the authors of “Dostu Karajnyn” had been following Szapszał’s Turkic calendar, the Karaim language of the periodical still contained quite a few Hebrew loanwords such as suuda, midrasz, ribbi, tałmid, sabat. The third issue of the periodical (1934) turned out to be the last one; it is unclear why its activity was not been resumed. “Przyjaciel Karaimów/Dostu Karajnyn” was the only attempt by the young Polish-Lithuanian Karaites to create their own corresponding of “serious” Karaite periodicals such as “Karaj Awazy” or “Onarmach.” Unfortunately, only three issues of the periodical appeared in print. Because of the fact that they were published in a limited number of copies, “Przyjaciel Karaimów/ Dostu Karajnyn” was accessible perhaps only to narrow circle of the Troki and Wilno Karaite youth and had virtually no circulation in other communities. 3.4.5 Monuments of History a) Kenesa The beautiful nineteenth-century Troki Karaite synagogue-kenesa, believed to have been built after 1812 on the place of the earlier one, is one of the most interesting Karaite monuments of the town.752 The monument is made partially of wood – it seems that this building is practically the only (or one of a few) wooden Lithuanian synagogues which managed to survive the flames of the Second World War. In 1894 747 E.g. M. Firkowicz, “Kiusiancz dżymatcha,” DK 2 (1932): 5-6; Szymon Kobecki, “Burunhu czychmach juwdian,” DK 2 (1932): 9-11. 748 E.g. El. Firkowiczówna, “Kieniasz,” DK 2 (1932): 9. 749 “Kioź sałmach tirliginia igitlarniń,” DK 2 (1932): 13-14. 750 “Ribbi tałmidgia,” DK 2 (1932): 15; “Midraszta,” ibid., 15-16 (the author of these two anecdotic stories was not indicated). 751 E. Jutkiewicz, “Nierozważny krok (Nowela) II,” ibid., 16-17 (I was able to find a copy of this periodical in the Yurchenko MSS). 752 A Karaite author published recently a short popular leaflet about the kenesa in four languages (Michał Zajączkowski, Karaimų kenesa Trakuose/The Karaite Kenessa in Trakai/Kieniesa karaimska w Trokach/Караимская кенеса в Тракай (N.p., n.d., no page numbers [Trakai, ca. 2002, 16 pp.])). Unfortunately, it does not provide any substantial information regarding the history of the monument. 158 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory with the money received from voluntary donations of community members the kenesa was partly rebuilt and renovated. In the course of the renovation works a small decorative tower with a Star of David was erected on the top of the roof.753 The letter written by the young ḥazzan of the synagogue-kenesa, Szemaja (Szymon) Firkowicz, and Achiezer Zajączkowski to MWRiOP on 24.11.1925 describes the deplorable state of the building after the events of the First World War in the following way: Decorations and valuables from the shrine [...] are taken away to Russia by the order of occupant officials... Wooden shrine of the Karaites in Troki, re-built on the site of the [earlier one] burnt at the beginning of the nineteenth century, needs to be repaired: walls are decayed, roof is leaking...”754 According to Israel Cohen, who visited Troki in 1932, kenesa’s “cupola was originally surmounted by a shield of David, but the removal of this emblem was ordered some ten years ago by the local Hakam [i.e. Szapszał] as smacking too much of traditional Judaism. The offending symbol, however, still remains on the iron gate, from which it could hardly be removed without causing a conspicuous blemish.”755 A similarly bitter remark concerning the removal of the Star of David from the cupola of the kenesa was left by M. Piątkowski: “The same emblem [the Star of David] until recently could have been seen on the top of the kenesa. Today reason directs one to avoid this fatal symbol...”756 Moreover, there also were miniature stars of David in the upper part of each window of the kenesa, and a Star of David above the altar,757 also removed in the 1930s. M. Blum sarcastically wrote: “Who knows, maybe on a spot of Magen David there would appear some sort of… Karaite cross.” He also noted that the sukkah (a temporary hut for Sukkot holiday), which had been standing in front of the kenesa, 753 MS LMAB F. 301, no. 332, fol. 27; ibid., no. 295, fol. 9. 754 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fol. 155. Therefore one is advised not to believe either tourist signs at the entrance to the kenesa or numerous twentieth-century publications telling that the kenesa dates back to the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Indeed, there must have been an earlier building constructed, most likely, on the same spot as this one. Nevertheless, the wooden building that one can see today was erected at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most likely, after the fire of 1812. You may find the reproduction of the only surviving depiction of the earlier Troki Karaite beit ha-knesset in Algirdas Baliulis, Stanislovas Mikulionis and Algimantas Miškinis, Trakų miestas ir pilys: istorija ir architektūra (Vilnius, 1991), 89, plate 20: “Synagoga Judeoru[m];” see also a mid-nineteenth century depiction of the building by S. Vorob’ev in ibid., 167, plate 45. 755 Cohen, Vilna, 464. 756 Piątkowski, “Karaimszczyzna,” 7. 757 Yakov Kokkei mentioned that after Szapszał’s “explanatory” efforts, the magen david above the aron ha-qodesh was substituted by the image of the rising sun (Y. Kokkei to S. Szapszał, 1950s, Russian: MS LMAB F. 143, no. 377, fol. 5). Troki 159 was relocated behind the building “so that similar features between the Karaites and Jews would not strike one’s eye.”758 The star situated at the gate of the Troki synagogue was indeed replaced by Szapszał some time after 1932 as a measure of eliminating visible similarity between the Rabbanite and Karaite houses of prayer. The traditional symbol of Judaism had been replaced by two pseudo-Turkic symbols which became part of Szapszał’s newly-invented “coat of arms”, purported to represent the East European Karaite community.759 Cohen took a photograph, in which one can clearly see the Star of David on this gate; there also was a short inscription in Hebrew within the star. On the picture published by Cohen one can also see the date of 5654/1894 in Hebrew lettering and Latinized Arabic numerals on the left and right side of the gate.760 Presently, these two inscriptions are also absent, having being substituted by the dates of 1812 and 1398: the latter to commemorate the supposed date of the legendary arrival of the Karaites to Poland together with Vitold and the former, most likely, signifies the date of the destruction of the earlier synagogue by flames during the French invasion of 1812 and the date of the construction of a new one in its place.761 Cohen continues: The interior of the synagogue is somewhat similar in plan to that of an orthodox house of prayer [the author, obviously, means here the Jewish orthodoxy], with a gallery for women, except that there is no raised platform for the cantor... A Turkish carpet covers the gangway leading to the Ark of the Torah at the upper end... The Ark is draped with a red plush curtain. Above it, on one side, are the initial words of the Ten Commandments in gilt lettering; and on the other side are twin tablets with the complete text of the Commandments in Hebrew. The Ark contains only one scroll of the Torah... the worshippers who are called to its presence are unable to decipher the unpunctuated script and read their portion from a printed Pentateuch. 758 Blum, “Ha-Qara The traveller also mentions one interesting detail: according to his information, at that time the Karaites have abandoned Anan’s traditional prescription not to kindle a light on the Sabbath, and were used to have the light, even electric light, on the Sabbath in the Troki kenesa: “They defend this innovation on the ground that the biblical prohibition – “ye shall kindle no light in your dwelling places” – does not apply their house of prayer, for this is not a dwelling place”.762 According to Aleksander Dubiński, himself a pupil in the interwar midrasz in Troki, when entering the kenesa pupils had to kiss the hand of Szapszał’s wife, Vera Egiz, which not all of them really liked.763 According to original Karaite tradition, once the floor of the synagogue-kenesa was covered with rugs. In 1944, however, the rugs were displaced with benches.764 After 1928 many details of the inner furnishing of the kenesa that could potentially point out at the Mosaic belief of the Karaites to visitors were removed from the building. Although before the 1920s there were numerous Hebrew inscriptions inside it, at the present moment (2014) one can find there only one inscription in Hebrew above the aron ha-qodesh. The tablets of the Ten Commandments, once containing inscriptions in Hebrew, are covered with white fabric so that the Hebrew letters that are behind it cannot be seen; the large slabs containing Hebrew prayers on the left and on the right from the aron ha-qodesh are substituted by prayers in Karaim written in Latin characters. Illustration 5: The exterior of the Troki kenesa (prayer house). Photo by M. Kizilov. 762 Cohen, Vilna, 464-465. 763 Dubiński, “Z życia Karaimów trockich,” 35. 764 El-Kodsi, Karaite Communities, 16. Troki 161 b) Cemetery The Troki Karaite cemetery, one of the most ancient Karaite cemeteries in Eastern Europe, is situated beyond the limits of the Troki island, on the northern shore of the lake Tataryszki, not far from the Karaimszczyzna, a Karaite quarter of Troki. It is the oldest cemetery with Hebrew inscriptions in Lithuania. At present moment it consists of three different parts reflecting chronological stages of the existence of this burial complex. The closest to the town is its most ancient part, with the earliest monuments dated to the first half of the sixteenth century. There are about 70-90 graves within the old part of the cemetery, some of them without inscriptions; many covered by earth and need to be excavated. The graves are mostly of very simple and rude form, without any decorations, with rather succinct epitaphs in Hebrew, without any eloquent Biblical allusions typical for Crimean Karaite cemeteries of that time. A little bit further on to the west is the nineteenth/first half of the twentieth century part of the cemetery, consisting mostly of costly monuments similar to those of Polish and Jewish cemeteries of the area. There one can find monuments with inscriptions in Hebrew, Russian, Polish, and Karaim (Karaim is often transcribed with Cyrillic letters). About 50 metres more to the west is the latest part of the cemetery with the post-war monuments with inscriptions in Russian, Polish, Karaim and Lithuanian. The cemetery contains the gravestones of many community leaders, such as Ezra ben Nisan,765 Izaak Boaz (Bogusław) ben Zakhariah Kapłanowski, Romiel (Romuald) Kobecki, and Szemaja Firkowicz. At the beginning of the twentieth century, because of the fact that religious proscriptions forbade the Karaites from tearing down the plants and trees growing on the grounds of the cemetery,766 the necropolis started to attract the interest of botanists. One of them, Nadzieja Rojecka (her surname suggests that she was a Karaite), published a small leaflet dedicated to rare specimens of flora growing in the cemetery. This small leaflet had been noticed and positively evaluated by Seraja Szapszał.767 In the 1920s the heated discussion related to one gravestone of the cemetery, that of Ezra ben Nisan, had unfolded between Majer Bałaban and members of the Karaite community supported by Tadeusz Kowalski.768 It seems that in the interwar period the Karaite cemetery as, undoubtedly, one of the most interesting Hebrew cemeteries 765 The only (!) non-Crimean Karaite gravestone in Firkowicz, Avne Zikkaron, 251. 766 According to some sources, there was a a Karaite tradition prohibiting the felling of trees and eradication of weeds within a cemetery, allowing the cemetery to gradually return to its original natural state (Pełczyński, Najmniejsza mniejszość, 42; Emanuela Trevisan Semi, “A Brief Survey of Present-Day Karaite Communities in Europe,” The Jewish Journal of Sociology 33:2 (1991): 102). 767 Nadzieja Rojecka, Flora starego cmentarza karaimskiego w Trokach (Wilno, 1934). 768 Mikhail Kizilov, “Ezra ben Nisan ha-Rofe of Troki (1595-1666) – A Karaite Physician in Legend and History,” Leipziger Beiträge zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur 1 (2003): 83-103. 162 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory of the area, quite often attracted the interest of Jewish visitors of Troki.769 Israel Cohen visited it in 1932, looking for medieval monuments. He managed only find his way to the nineteenth-century section of the burial ground: “many [tombs] were of black marble, with Hebrew or Russian epitaphs in gilt lettering, and there were also several family vaults with black marble columns... pious Karaites in Vilna always express a particular wish to be buried in its soil rather than in that of the great city.”770 Another Jewish visitor, the journalist M. Piątkowski, visited the cemetery in 1936 together with the Karaite poetess L. Poziemska. He described it in the following way: The older part is not different in any detail from the Kirkut:771 the same shape of gravestones, the same Hebraisms, even the same conventional style of epitaphs. On more expensive monuments, however, glitter with gold Cyrillic letters which tell the name and the paternal name of the deceased.772 The monuments erected after 1917, however, are immortalised with lamentations in Polish. The older stones are furnished with the Star of David.773 In the eighteenth century the Troki Karaite community was decimated by the plague which lasted from Tammuz 5470 (June/July 1710) until Tevet 5471 (December 1710/January 1711) with the most difficult days in the month of Av 5470 (July-August 1710).774 As a token of commemoration of this drastic community event, it was customary for local Karaites to gather in the Troki cemetery to perform a memorial liturgical service dedicated to the victims of the plague. One of the features of this ceremony was a touching of the grave of the deceased relatives with a handkerchief.775 Solomon ben Aaron of Troki (1670?-1745) composed a special elegy in Hebrew and Karaim that was supposed to be sung by the Karaites after reading of parashah and haftarah starting from the ninth of Tammuz and until the seventh of Av in order to remember victims of the plague. This tradition was in use at least until the 1920s.776 769 See the photo of a group of Jewish tourists while visiting the cemetery in Hecht, Karaimi: “Synowie zakonu,” 24. 770 Cohen, Vilna, 465-466. 771 Kirkut – in Yiddish and archaic Polish the term for a Jewish cemetery (a corruption of the German Kirchhof – “churchyard”). 772 In general, Piątkowski tends to reproach the Karaites for their pro-Russian sentiments. This is why he emphasized that the Karaites followed the Russian tradition of indicating not only a name, but also a paternal name of deceased (“imia i otczestwo,” as he writes in Russian in Polish transliteration). 773 Piątkowski, “Karaimszczyzna,” 6-7, part viii. 774 Siddur ha-tefillot ke-minhag ha-Qara Epigraphic investigation of the cemetery, which had been started by Liebmann Hersch, a member of Corrado Gini’s anthropological expedition in 1934,777 has been resumed only in the past few years.778 Compilation of the full catalogue of the cemetery’s tombstones remains a desideratum. 3.4.6 The Karaites and the Troki Cucumbers What a taste, what a shape, what a nice smell! Known in Wilno and in Warsaw! Zofia Abkowicz (Juchniewicz) (2000)779 According to Jan Krywko cucumbers had been cultivated in Troki as far back as the fifteenth century.780 Krywko used several unpublished sources, found by him, according to his own assertion in the archive of the Russian archaeologist Bułyczow (Mosalsk, Russia).781 One of these documents dating back, according to Krywko, to 30.04.1428, mentioned plots of lands in Troki cultivated by żydowa (archaic Polish and Russian “Jews/Jewry”). This document did not specify which vegetables were cultivated by the Jews (most likely, the Karaites). Similar data about the Jews’ cultivating the lands in Troki were mentioned in the charter of Zygmunt in August of 1555, while the document of 1[.]80 (Krywko dated this document to 1680) mentioned a sum of money given to the Jew named Kobecki for cultivating cucumbers. Because of the fact that the family name Kobecki was spread among the Troki Karaites, this document is the first reliable evidence of Karaite involvement in cultivating cucumbers.782 According to twentieth-century Karaite authors (and some scholars who based their opinion largely on the data received from Karaite sources) the tradition of cultivating cucumbers had been brought by the Karaites from Crimea or from the 777 Hersch, “Les langues,” 259-294; this article was highly critically (and not too objectively) analyzed in MK 12 (1939): 127-128. 778 Akhiezer, Dvorkin, “Ktovot ha-maṣevot,” 225-260; Kizilov, “Ezra ben Nisan ha-Rofe,” 83-103. 779 Zofia Abkowicz (Juchniewicz), “Ogórki Trockie,” Awazymyz 1 (4) (2000): 11. 780 Krywko, O ogórku, 6. 781 One may ask how these old Karaite-related documents happened to find their way as far as Mosal’sk in Russia. Although Krywko did not mention the archaeologist’s initials, there is no doubt that he meant Nikolai Ivanovich Bulychov (1852 – ca. 1919). He was a Russian statesman, vice- governor of Ufa province (1900-1902), a member of the Archaeological Commission of the Ministry of the Imperial Court. 782 Krywko, O ogórku, 5-6. 164 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory Orient.783 As an anonymous twentieth-century Karaite (Aleksander Mardkowicz?) has it, when being resettled from Crimea to Lithuania “the Karaites took with them seeds of cucumbers and other plants, and, having no knowledge about that remote land [i.e. Lithuania], they even took full bags of soil from their Crimean gardens.”784 It is not entirely clear whether this tradition, as a part of late romantic nationalist discourse, reflects historical truth. According to modern research, the Karaites had been resettled in Troki not from Crimea, but from other regions of the Golden Horde. To our knowledge, there is no data confirming that cucumbers had been cultivated anywhere in the territory of the Golden Horde (including Crimea) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the Karaites were resettled in Troki.785 According to Jan Krywko, cucumbers could have been cultivated by local Catholic and Orthodox monks.786 Tadeusz Kowalski’s remark that the agricultural terminology of the Troki Karaites related to the cucumber growing is almost exclusively Belorussian, Polish, and Russian,787 also suggests that this agricultural tradition may have been brought from Slavic countries rather than from Crimea or the Orient. On the other hand, the very fact that the Troki Karaites usually used the word chyjar to denote cucumbers, rather argues in favour of the hypothesis about Oriental origin of this tradition. According to botanists and linguists the modern English gherkin, German Gurken, Russian ogurtsy and similar terms in other European languages (and, accordingly, Karaite chyjar as well) can be traced, through the Arabic and Persian khiyar, to Urdu, Hindi and Bengali khira or k-hira, which are widely spoken in the region of the ancestral home of Cucumis sativus (Latin: cucumber), the Indian subcontinent.788 Whatever its origin was – local Slavic or imported Oriental – cucumber-growing became perhaps the most profitable business for the Troki Karaite community. The cucumber plantations had been situated close to the lake shore. From 1915 to 1918, when many of the Karaites had been forced to emigrate to Russia, the tradition of cultivating the Troki cucumber almost disappeared. It was revived only with return of the Karaites from emigration back to Troki. The Troki cucumber represents a special specimen of Cucumus sativus, called in Polish “Ogórki Trockie gruntowe,” or “Karaimskie,” “Wielkie szyszkowate,” and “dołżyki”. Its special feature is (or, rather, 783 Marian Hepke, Wilno. Stadt zwischen Ost und West (Bromberg-Bydgoszcz, 1935), 71; Kowalski, Karaimische Texte, xi; Kowalski, “Przyczynki do etnografji,” 202; Jan Jerzy Tochtermann, Troki: Zarys antropogeograficzny (Wilno, 1935), 15. 784 The untitled article by anonymous Karaite author (Aleksander Mardkowicz?) (the Yurchenko MSS, fol. 3). 785 Harry S. Paris, Jules Janick, and Marie-Christine Daunay, “Medieval Herbal Iconography and Lexicography of Cucumis (Cucumber and Melon, Cucurbitaceae) in the Occident, 1300–1458,” Annals of Botany 108 (2011): 471–484. 786 Krywko, O ogórku, 6. 787 Kowalski, “Przyczynki do etnografji,” 202. 788 Paris, Janick, and Daunay, “Medieval herbal iconography,” 483. Troki 165 was) containing a high percentage of sugar, much higher than in any other kinds of cucumbers.789 The cucumbers had been sold not in provincial Troki, where one could hardly expect an influx of customers, but in the market in Wilno. In spite of the fact that Troki cucumbers – because of their superb quality – had been purchased more eagerly than other kinds of cucumbers, the Karaites did not gain very much income for their work.790 Krywko also told of many superstitious beliefs related to cucumber growing, i.a. belief in the “light hand,” and tradition of the need to plant a couple of young plants that must be stolen from a neighbour’s plantation.791 In 1928 two texts in Karaim related to the cucumber growing in Troki had been narrated to Tadeusz Kowalski by Troki farmers, Aron Szpakowski, and Józef Ławrynowicz.792 The tradition of cultivating the Troki cucumbers was lost soon after the integration of the local Karaite farmers into the Soviet kolkhoz system in 1944. *** To sum up, the Troki community was the largest and the most agricultural Karaite qehilah in interwar Poland. Its head – ḥazzan Szemaja/Szymon Firkowicz – was an important Karaite man of letters and at the same time the right hand of ḥakham Seraja Szapszał. Perhaps it was Firkowicz who was the key figure in implementation of new, “pure Turkic” version of the Troki dialect of the Karaim language. In contrast to Łuck, Wilno and Poniewież that published their own Karaite journals, the Troki Karaites did not venture to issue their own periodicals other than the short-lived “Przyjaciel Karaimów/Dostu Karajnyn”. As a historical site, Troki and its Karaite community were frequently visited by a number of most distinguished visitors including political leaders, diplomats, journalists, litterateurs and scholars. Many visitors left interesting notes on the state of the local community that often provide much more objective information than data of internal Karaite documents. 789 For details, see Krywko, O ogórku, 9-11; cf. Kowalski, “Przyczynki do etnografji,” 212-220; Helena Pilecka (Bezekowicz), “Chyjarczech, Troch chyjarczechłar. Ogóreczek, trockie ogóreczki,” Awazymyz 1 (4) (2000): 9-11; Abkowicz (Juchniewicz), “Ogórki Trockie,” 11-13. 790 Krywko mentioned that the Wilno Rabbanites made more profit than the Karaites by buying from them cucumbers in raw form and selling them after pickling (Krywko, O ogórku, 23). One of Tadeusz Kowalski’s Karaite informants, Aron Szpakowski, described the process of selling cucumbers on the Wilno market to “rabbankałar” (Kar. “Rabbanite women”) (Kowalski, “Przyczynki do etnografji,” 213). Karaim “Rabbankałar” is a curious example how the Karaites composed new words: Slavic female ending “ka” and the Turkic plural suffix “łar” are added to the Turkicized Heb. “rabban.” 791 Krywko, O ogórku, 24. 792 Kowalski, “Przyczynki do etnografji,” 212-220. 166 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory 3.5 Wilno 3.5.1 General State of the Community Unlike all other Polish-Lithuanian Karaite communities, whose numbers considerably diminished, the Wilno community had even grown after the end of the First World War. As the document says: “before the German occupation of 1915 practically all the Karaites had left Wilno and headed to the East, to Russia; however, in 1918 they had already started gradually coming back to Wilno... Returned not only those, who left the country in 1915, but also larger part of the Karaites whose fathers... emigrated to Russia during last fifty years”.793 Thus, by 15.03.1922 the community already consisted of 127 people. In 1921 the local Karaites officially registered “Brotherhood of Wilno Karaites” (Pol. Wileńskie Stowarzyszenie Karaimów).794 In 1922 E. Kobecki, J. Jutkiewicz, and J. Zajączkowski, as a consequence of the growing number of community members, asked the government to allow them to organize in Wilno a separate Karaite diocese and donate funds for constructing the house of prayer.795 E. Kobecki spoke to the government of the political importance of helping the community because the local Karaites “in the course of the last 130 years were under the pressure of Russifying tendencies of the [Russian] occupants.”796 The statute of newly-established community was affirmed by the government on 24.01.1925. Czesław Miłosz, the famous Lithuanian-born Polish litterateur and Noble prize winner, studied in Wilno in the 1910s-1920s. He spoke of local Karaites as his school friends.797 In 1924 Wilno was visited by the German Jewish journalist and writer, Alfred Döblin (1878-1957), who mentioned that around 50-60 members of the community prayed in the synagogue-kenesa. According to Döblin “they [the Karaites] speak Russian to each other, many of them [speak] Polish. Yiddish is not to be heard. They have various [ethnic] origins. Only half of them possess Jewish facial expression; others [look like] Russians or Poles, with Slavic cheek-bones, short wide noses, somewhat Mongoloid.”798 From the words of his Rabbanite guide Döblin documented a highly interesting oral tradition about the conflict between the Wilno Karaite and 793 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fol. 167. 794 E.K. [Emanuel Kobiecki?], “Z Wileńskiego Stowarzyszenia Karaimów,” MK 1 (1924): 24-25. 795 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 166-168. 796 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fol. 171. This statement directly contradicts the loyalty that the Polish- Lithuanian Karaites many times demonstrated to the Russian government before 1917. 797 Czesław Miłosz, Rodzinna Europa (Paris, 1980), 51. Miłosz opined that the Karaites had been descendants of the Essenes, Dead Sea sectaries. Was he influenced by the historical concept of Szymon Szyszman, whom he could possibly know either in Wilno or in Paris? The Karaites’ origin from the Qumranites was a part of Szyszman’s historical views (for more information, see 6.3.7). 798 Alfred Döblin, Reise in Polen (München, 1993), 152-153. Alfred Döblin (1878-1957) is the author of many articles, books, and novels, “Berlin Alexanderplatz” being, perhaps, most famous of them. Wilno 167 Rabbanite community at the time of the Polish kings, a tradition somewhat similar to the legends documented in Halicz by Reuven Fahn.799 One can also notice a swift change in the self identification of the Wilno community members. Being Russian-speaking citizens of the Tsarist Empire, faithful to Russia until 1918, after the end of First World War they suddenly became Polish patriots. The same caveat may be applied to their ethnic identity, which underwent a swift shift (performed, undoubtedly, under Szapszał’s ideological pressure) from the “Israelite” Karaites with some vague theories about their possible Khazar origin (see more in subchapter 2.5.3) – to the “Turkic” Karaites, descendants of the Khazars’ culture.800 In 1942 there were 78 Karaites aged between 20 and 50 living in Wilno.801 3.5.2 Publishing Activity: the ‘Jednodniówka’ Sahyszymyz/Nasza Myśl (“Our Thought”) After the end of World War I Owadja/Owadjusz Pilecki, who was the de facto editor of the pre-war Russian “Karaimskoe Slovo”, decided to continue his publishing activity and create a new Karaite periodical. It seems that Pilecki nourished the idea of publishing a new Karaite journal already in the early 1920s. Initially Pilecki had intended to entitle the periodical “Jarych” (Kar. “Light”),802 but by 1923 he changed the title to “Sahyszymyz/Nasza Myśl” (Karaim/Polish “Our Thought”). Pilecki informed Szapszał about his idea of publishing “Sahyszymyz” some time before the newspaper had actually been published. In his letters Pilecki expressed the idea that “‘Our Thought,’ or ‘Sahyszymyz’ must unite all the Karaites scattered around the world.”803 The first news about the intended periodical appeared in the local Russian newspaper “Vilenskoe utro” on 16.09.1923.804 A week later Pilecki sent a letter to the newspaper and in detail described the supposed objectives and main idea of the periodical: 799 Döblin, Reise in Polen, 150-151. 800 Israel Cohen remarked that the Wilno Karaites “maintained that they were not Jews by race, but Tatars” (Cohen, Vilna, 467). 801 Was it a list of those who could be potentially drafted to the army or used for obligatory public works by the Germans? Children and elders were for some reason excluded from this list (Rafał Abkowicz, “Wykaz członków Karaimskiej gminy w Wilno wieku od 20 do 50 lat,” Wilno, 20.11.1942, Polish (LMAB F. 143, no. 1080)). 802 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 541, fol. 2v. 803 Ibid., fol. 11. Pilecki also mentioned that he had been working for three years at Szapszał’s office in Eupatoria (perhaps, from 1917 to 1920) (ibid., fol. 13v). 804 “Sredi karaimov,” Vilenskoe utro 697 (16.09.1923). 168 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory On the pages of the intended periodical, which shall be the only printed organ among the Karaites, I shall be an unbiased mouthpiece of peoples’ thought, especially because the historical past remains still unknown to many, and also because today’s social life and activity of the Karaites living in various parts of the world globe is also little known.805 At the end of his letter Pilecki points out that he would be able to publish the periodical only with voluntary financial assistance of Karaite benefactors. In his letter to Zarach Zarachowicz, Pilecki asked him to send information about his plans to members of the Halicz community and to publish the news about the forthcoming periodical in a local Polish newspaper.806 However, members of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite communities were apparently too impoverished after the war and nobody could manage to invest money into this project. This is why Pilecki managed to realize his dream only four years later. The first donators and sponsors of the newspaper, somewhat surprisingly, were the American emigrants from Poniewież, brothers Awijezer and Isaak Tynfowicz.807 Because of the scarce funding, “Sahyszymyz” was published not as the journal, bus as a newspaper-jednodniówka (Polish “one-day newspaper”). The newspaper was quite small, only eight pages long. Apart from the “kyna” (eulogy) written by Józef Łobanos on the death of Emmanuil Osipovich Kobecki (1864-1927),808 and the poem “Sahyszymyz” by Owadja Pilecki,809 the authorship of all other submissions was not indicated. Most likely, all of them were written by Pilecki himself. Contributions to the newspaper included community news, chronicle of events in the Polish Karaite community, communiqués from Crimea and Jerusalem, and some other materials.810 In order to make his periodical comprehensible to all members of the East European Karaite communities, Pilecki published it in two most common languages of the pre-war Karaite community: Karaim and Russian (his first periodical, “Karaimskoe Slovo,” was published mostly in Russian, with some materials in Karaim in Cyrillic script). The periodical’s format presented Russian text published on the right side, and Karaim on the left. Pilecki did not take into account the changed political situation: even the most minimal manifestations of pro-Russian sentiments were more than unwelcome in the anti-Russian (and anti-Soviet) atmosphere of the Second Polish 805 O.I. Pilecki, “Pis’mo v redaktsiiu,” Vilenskoe utro 704 (23.09.1923); cf. [idem], “Niecza sioź ochuwczułarha/Neskol’ko slov k chitateliam,” Sahyszymyz 1 (1927): 1. 806 O. Pilecki to Z. Zarachowicz (31.10.1923, Polish) (the Yurchenko MSS, disc 6, folder “Ow. Pilecki to Z.Z.,” doc. 19, file 5742). 807 [Owadjusz Pilecki], “Burunhu bołuszuwczułarymyz/Pervye nashi zhertvovateli,” Sahyszymyz 1 (1927): 1-2. 808 J. Łobanos, “Kyna,” Sahyszymyz 1 (1927): 4; cf. [Owadjusz Pilecki], “Jarych gan’ edień I.O. Kobeckigia/Svetloi pamiati E.O. Kobetskogo,” ibid., 3-4. 809 Owad’ja Pilecki, “Sahyszymyz,” Sahyszymyz 1 (1927): 2-3. 810 Sahyszymyz/Nasza Myśl (Wilno: Szymanowicz, 1.06.1927). The only copy of this rare periodical that I could access was that of the library of LMAB. Wilno 169 Republic. On 11.06.1927, quite soon after the publication of “Sahyszymyz”, deputies of the assembly of Karaite communities of Poland denounced “such attempts as this newspaper at introducing disharmony into our [i.e. Karaite] ideological background, as “Nasza Myśl” (“Our Thought”) published in Wilno in the Russian language by Owadjusz Pilecki.”811 An anonymous author (apparently, Ananiasz Zajączkowski) published a highly critical review of “Sahyszymyz” on the pages of “Myśl Karaimska.”812 Thus, Pilecki’s idea of publishing a newspaper in the two most widespread languages of the East European Karaites was interpreted by many Polish Karaites as manifestation of undesirable loyalty to Russia. In order to defend himself Pilecki published an article in the local Russian newspaper813 where he stated that the Karaim part of “Sahyszymyz” was published in “Polish characters and in Polish orthography… In addition, as an exception in this newspaper, the text in Karaim was also translated into the Russian language; this was done especially for those readers who live abroad and can not read either Polish, or Karaim.”814 Nothwithstanding the explanation, opposition was too strong and the newspaper never saw the second issue. As a consequence, “Sahyszymyz/Nasza Myśl” was limited to the publication of the first issue only. 3.5.3 The ḥazzan, Poet, and Translator Józef Łobanos (1880-1947) From 21.06.1928 to 1937/8 and from 1946 to 1947 the duties of the local ḥazzan were fulfilled by Józef Łobanos (Łabanos), son of Józef Łobanos and Emilja Abkowicz (b. Troki, 07.05.1878 – d. Wilno, 17.06.1947).815 Łobanos completed a course of religious studies in Troki, studied metal work and mechanics in St. Petersburg, and later worked on plants and factories of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Israel Cohen, who visited Lithuania in summer 1932, had a conversation in the Wilno Karaite synagogue- kenesa with its “cantor” (i.e. ḥazzan), who certainly was none other than Łobanos: The cantor, a middle-aged man, with slight black beard and moustache, and high cheek- bones, wore a black tight-fitting robe bound by a dark blue sash, and topped by a round black hat [...] I remarked to the cantor that the number of Karaites had now dwindled to such an extent that it appeared to be only a matter of time before they would become as few as the Samaritans and perhaps have a similar struggle for existence. He thereupon 811 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1465, fol. 100. 812 MK 1: 4-5 (1928): 74-76. 813 Apparently in “Vilenskoe utro.” 814 A newspaper cutting containing the fragment of this article without the date of publication was found by me in MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1139. 815 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1464, fol. 30; Włodzimierz Zajączkowski, “Łobanos Józef (1878-1947), pisarz karaimski, duchowny,” PSB 18: 369; see also the draft of his curriculum vitae composed in Russian in 1946: LMAB F. 143, no. 1087, fol. 5. 170 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory replied that there were 300,000 Cossacks on the Volga who were also faithful to the Karaite doctrine. But inquiries made afterwards in other circles convinced me that this figure was a fantastic exaggeration...816 The explanation of these mythical “300,000 [Karaite] Cossacks on the Volga” is as follows: As has been mentioned above, in the nineteenth century some Russian Subbotniks started associating themselves with the Karaite variety of Judaism. Many of them (perhaps up to a few thousand members) lived in areas such as the Volga and Astrakhan’ region, the northern Caucasus, and Crimea. Some of those Subbotnik- Karaites indeed served in Cossack regiments of the Russian army. Thus, it seems very likely that speaking about the Karaite Cossacks on the Volga, Łobanos was referring to the Subbotniki.817 However, as Cohen stated, Łobanos certainly considerably exaggerated the actual numbers of these Russian converts to Karaism. It is perhaps worthwhile adding here that Seraja Szapszał later claimed that the Judaized Cossacks had professed the Karaite faith as far back as the seventeenth century (with Iljasz Karaimowicz as the most famous of them). According to him, in 1792 these Karaite Cossacks were resettled by Catherine II from Zaporozhie region to Kuban and the Caucasus. The idea that Karaism was a proselytic faith which spread among such varied people as the Turkic Khazars, Russian Cossacks, Near Eastern Jews, African Berbers and Ethiopians, was mentioned by some other twentieth-century Karaite leaders.818 Łobanos’s statement about the army of the Karaite Cossacks on the Volga should be understood in the context of these ideological claims. In 1937/8, for unclear reasons, Łobanos left the post of the Wilno ḥazzan; on 18.03.1939, however, he was appointed ḥazzan in Łuck.819 In 1941 most likely after (or a short while before) the Soviet annexation of Łuck, Łobanos returned to Wilno. In 1946, when the Wilno ḥazzan, Rafał Abkowicz, emigrated to Poland, Łobanos again became the community ḥazzan. He fulfilled his duties until his death in June, 1947. Although only a handful of his compositions were published during his life- time,820 Łobanos was one of the best twentieth-century Karaim litterateurs, and certainly the most prolific Karaim translator. As the ḥazzan, he was in charge of composing “kynałar”, i.e. elegies/lamentations for funeral services.821 His most 816 Cohen, Vilna, 467-468. 817 Il’ia Kodzhak also spoke about 300,000 Karaite Subbotniki living in the Caucasus (Kodzhak, Oko v okne, 39). 818 Especially by S. Szyszman (see 6.3.7). 819 Z.S., “Zmiana na stanowisku hazzana,” MK 12 (1939): 147. 820 Józef Łobanos, “Bałkuwłu sahynczyna Józef Piłsudskinin,” MK 11 (1936): 6-7; idem, “Bu edi syjły Troch szaharda,” MK 1:2 (1925): 27-28; idem, “Burunhu czozhu,” KA 2 (1931): 18; idem, “Eki konšu (įomaχ),” MK 1:3 (1926): 21-22; idem, “Inamły dostum,” KA 1:1 (1931): 18; idem, “Iułuv,” MK 2:2 (1929): 34. 821 Only one of them was published (Łobanos, “Kyna”); cf. MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1453, fol. 9 (unpublished kyna on the death of A. Szyszman). Wilno 171 interesting secular poem is perhaps “Sahyšlarym” (My thoughts), a poetic essay dedicated to the history, culture, and identity of the Karaite community in Eastern Europe.822 Furthermore, he composed prose in the Troki dialect of Karaim. Especially interesting is the collection of fairy tales entitled “Sözlangian söź” (The word that has been spoken) which contains a number of interesting literary fairy-tales with Oriental flavour somewhat similar to those composed in Łuck by Aleksander Mardkowicz; many of these fairy-tales were dedicated to Crimea and its Karaite community. Some were dedicated to the conflict between the Rabbanites (called by Łobanos exclusively çufutlar, i.e. pejorative for “Jews”) and the Karaites, whom the author considered türklar (Turks).823 Łobanos translated into Karaim such monumental epics as Homer’s “Odyssey” and “Iliad”, Adam Mickiewicz’s “Pan Tadeusz”, many poems by A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, I. Krylov824 and other classical Russian authors.825 He also translated into Russian a few important Hebrew sources such as selected fragments from “Massa Qrim” (Description of Crimea) by Ephraim Deinard.826 Unfortunately, Łobanos’s colossal prose, poetic and translator’s legacy (apart from a few poems published in the interwar Karaite press) remains hitherto unpublished and scarcely known even to students of East European Karaite history. Thus, he is in a way an unsung hero of twentieth-century history of Karaite literature. 3.5.4 Abraham Szyszman, a Military Engineer and Collector of Karaite Folklore The figure of Abraham/Avraam, son of Jacob Szyszman (or Abram Yakovlevich Shishman;827 1879 – d. Vilnius, 13.06.1946), a member of the Wilno Karaite community, has not been noticed by students of Karaite history so far. Very little is known about the biography of this most interesting man. It seems that he was born in 1879, lived in Troki and Wilno where he died in 1946.828 His father may have been Jacob ben Joseph Szyszman, the sponsor of the Wilno siddur (4 vols., 1891-1892)829 and founder in Wilno in 1865 the large tobacco factory “Szyszman and Duruncza”. His wife was Zinaida Iosifovna Szyszman (daughter of Józef Żarnowski); on 9.29.1930 she gave birth 822 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1459, fols. 3-6v. This poem was so interesting that A. Mardkowicz wrote a response to it (ibid., no. 1453, fols. 24-25). 823 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1452, 152 fols. 824 On the Karaim translations of Krylov, see also: “Basni Krylova na karaimskom iazyke,” Sovetskaia Litva (14.11.1944). 825 See folder “Nasledie Lobanosa” in MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1453, 214 fols. 826 GAARK, R-3864, op. 1, no. 482. 827 This is how he was called in Russian by T.S. Levi-Babovich (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1538, fol. 1r). 828 See “kyna” on his death by J. Łobanos: MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1453, fol. 9. 829 Siddur ha-tefillot ke-minhag ha-Qara to their daughter, Elmira Szyszman.830 Szyszman was an engineer by profession; in the 1930s he took part in the construction of the dacha for Szapszał in the village of Malowanka (TrKar. Kiorklu-Sała) in the vicinity of Troki.831 His son Daniel (1921–1989) and daughter Elmira moved to Crimea after the war.832 His first publication (1913) was a short note on Professor Pavel Kokovtsov’s reflections on the contents of the famous Cambridge document.833 In this note Szyszman turns readers’ attention to the fact that the Khazars in his opinion professed not the Jewish (as Kokovtsov has it), but the Karaite faith. Moreover, Szyszman suggested that the Khazars had ethnically mixed with Crimean Karaites – quite a bold statement, considering that at that time the Karaite community of Eastern Europe did not officially accept Szapszał’s Turkic doctrine.834 He was the treasurer of TMHiLK from 24.04.1932 to 1939. During the sittings of this organisation he delivered two papers dedicated to Karaite folklore (they unfortunately remained unpublished).835 In the 1930s Szyszman published two historical essays on the settlement of the Karaites in Polish-Lithuanian lands. Their amateur character notwithstanding, these two essays became classical studies for all later scholars studying the problem of Karaite migration to Poland-Lithuania.836 From today’s standpoint, it is evident that these article certainly lacked objective examination of sources and, consequently, proper conclusions about the history of the Karaite settlement in this area. His later article, also devoted to discussion of the Karaite settlement, is even more biased than the two previous ones.837 In this article, Szyszman stated that the Karaites had been originally called “Tatars” by the local population, and, consequently, all the Troki toponyms containing the root “Tatar” had been named after the local Karaites. This idea certainly originates from the general dejudaization tendency of presenting the Karaites as Turks; all the toponyms with the root “Tatar” from this area are references to the Lithuanian Tatar population and not to the Karaites. Szyszman also wrote an article on the topic not related to his 830 See the manuscript birth certificate no. 32 given to Abraham Szyszman in Troki on 1.05.1930 (signed by S. Szapszał and J. Łobanos; Polish; kept on exhibition in the Trakai Karaite museum). A. Szyszman’s personal documents and photos are kept in the repository of this museum. 831 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1063, fol. 1; no. 1044. Of interest that among the contractors working on this building were the Rabbanites Zukermann, Mal’chik, and Herstein (ibid.). 832 Szymon Pilecki, Chłopiec z Leśnik. Dziennik z lat 1939-1945 (Wrocław, 2009), 384. 833 P.K. Kokovtsov, “Novyi evreiskii dokument o khazarakh i khazaro-russko-vizantiiskikh otnosheniiakh v X veke,” Zhurnal Ministerstva narodnogo prosveshcheniia 11 (1913): 150–172. 834 Abraham Szyszman, “Istoricheskaia zametka,” KS 5 (1913): 12-13. 835 “Powstanie i pierwszy okres działalności Towarzystwa Miłośników Historji i Literatury Karaimskiej,” MK 10 (1934): 100; “Działalność T-wa M.H. i L.H. [sic for M.H. i L.K.],” MK 11 (1936): 111. 836 Abraham Szyszman, “Osadnictwo karaimskie i tatarskie na ziemiach W. Księstwa Litewskiego,” MK 10 (1934): 29-36; idem, “Osadnictwo karaimskie w Trokach za Wielkich Książąt Litewskich,” MK 11 (1936): 40-69. 837 Idem, “W sprawie osadnictwa karaimskiego w Trokach,” MK 12 (1939): 132-135. Wilno 173 field of interests; it focused on the biography of Crimean Karaite Mark Tapsashar, a Russian Army officer, who heroically died during the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.838 This point marks the end of the story of the published works of Abraham Szyszman, and starts, perhaps, a much more interesting part of his literary activity – the unpublished ones.839 In the 1930s and 1940s Szyszman started collecting and documenting folklore legacy of the Troki and Crimean Karaites with special emphasis on the legends, tales, and fairy-tales. Chronologically, Szyszman’s legends include medieval, early modern and even twentieth-century tales from Poland, Lithuania and Crimea. The topoi of the legends, as well as chronology, are also varied. They include such varied themes as the future birth of the Messiah in the Crimean mountains; introduction of phone lines in the Crimean Socialist Republic; biographies of Tatar gangster Alim, Armenian painter Aivazovskii, and Isaak Troki; the French invasion of Troki in 1812; the magic horse of Prince Vitold; the cursed daughters of Ezra ben Nisan, and many other. Among the sources for Szyszman were such famous Karaite leaders as Seraja Szapszał and Toviyah Levi-Babovich.840 Some of these legends represent original Karaite oral traditions; others seem to be considerably transformed by the author’s intention to compose literary fairy tales similar to Wilhelm Hauf’s or Hans Christian Andersen’s writings. Szyszman’s manner of presenting oral traditions to his readers demonstrates a curious mixture of traditional Karaite values (messianic expectations, hostility towards converts, etc.) and the militant ideology of Szapszal along with Turkic sentiments. The content of the legends demonstrates that Szyszman possessed excellent command of Hebrew, Karaim, and Russian (and apparently of Lithuanian and Polish as well). Paradoxically, Szyszman’s good knowledge of Karaite history and literature somewhat distracted him from documenting oral traditions in their original “raw” shape.841 Szyszman’s final work was a biographical note on the artist Barri Egiz, which likewise remained unpublished.842 He remains the best – and, in fact, the only – Karaite collector of Karaite fairy-tales in twentieth-century Poland and Lithuania. 838 Idem, “Pieśn epicka o poruczniku Tapsaszarze,” MK 12 (1937-38): 60-72; cf. Simon Szyszman, “Un exploit du lieutenant Marc Tapsašar lors du siège de Port-Arthur,” BEK 3 (1993): 76-80. 839 Only one his fairy-tale was published so far: Abraham Szyszman, “Karaj kašuhu,” Onarmach 3 (1939): 13-14. 840 According to T.S. Levi-Babovich, he himself heard some of his legends from an old Karaite, Rachel Chinak. In the 1920s-1930s Szyszman’s wife, Zinaida Iosifovna Szyszman, had been sending to Levi-Babovich, who lived at that moment in Simferopol, packages with food and clothes (T.S. Levi- Babovich to A. Szyszman (1932, Russian) in MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1538, fols. 1v, 3r). 841 Abraham Szyszman, Legendy i predaniia karaimov, 1932-1944 (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1531; presented by the author to S. Szapszał on 10.06.1944). This unique collection of Karaite folklore is being prepared for publication by Mikhail Kizilov. 842 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1586, fols. 1-4r. 174 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory 3.5.5 Kenesa A short while before the beginning of World War I the Wilno community finally decided to build its own house of prayer. On 30.10.1911 the first stone of the kenesa was installed and blessed843. In addition, a small wooden house temporarily used for praying and as the editorial house of “Karaimskoe Slovo” was erected.844 Municipality also ordered to establish against the facade of the kenesa a new street, which was officially named “Karaimskaia” (Karaite).845 The part of the town where the kenesa was built, had been called Zverinets (Russ.; Pol. Zwierzyniec; Lith. Žverynas – literally, “a place for keeping animals”). Although its conceptual design had been elaborated by Pinachas Malecki, kenesa’s official architect was Mikhail Prozorov (1860–1914).846 In 1913 the building was finished, but furnishing of the interior and aron ha-qodesh needed another 4–5,000 rubles.847 “Karaimskoe Slovo” published an appeal to raise funds for the completion of the kenesa.848 It seems that the building was completely finished and furbished only after the end of the First World War. In 1924 the kenesa (“Tempel der Karaiten” as the traveller has it) was visited by Alfred Döblin who appraised its “protestant purist coolness and soberness”. At the time of his visit the kenesa’s construction had been already accomplished. The journalist recorded a detailed description of the liturgy in the kenesa; he found there about 50-60 praying Karaite believers. He also described a small conflict between the Karaites and a few strangers who, for some unknown reason, wanted to enter the sukkah (“Laubhütte”) together with the Karaites. After a rather heated discussion, the strangers had to abandon their intention.849 Highly interesting is the documentation by a traveller of 843 “Kenasa,” KS 1 (1913): 13-14. 844 In 1922, the local Karaites complained that although the first “węgielny” (Pol. “corner”) stone of the building had been laid back in 1908, the kenesa was still unfinished. At that time the local Karaites still had to pray in the aforementioned small house adjacent to the future kenesa which was still under construction (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 166-168). Both buildings have survived until today. 845 KS 1 (1913): 13-14. This small street still exists under its previous name (Lith. “Karaimų gatvė”), with a few wooden houses which are now inhabited by non-Karaites. 846 E.K., “Kienesa Karaimska w Wilnie,” MK 1 (1924): 23; KS 5 (1913): 22. 847 KS 5 (1913): 22. 848 KS 7-8 (1914): 22. 849 Döblin, Reise in Polen, 152-153. Wilno 175 an oral Rabbanite tradition, according to which the main synagogue of Wilno had originally been in the possession of the Karaites.850 In 1932 the kenesa (the traveller used the term “synagogue”) was visited by Israel Cohen: It is semi-Moorish in design and is crowned with a cupola, which is surmounted by an iron circle containing the initial words of the Decalogue in two columns. The interior is in general like that of the synagogue at Troki, but rather more ornate. There are rich carpets of Oriental design in front of the Ark... Facing the Ark stands the cantor’s reading-desk, and on either side of this is a comfortable armchair, one for the cantor himself and the other, somewhat more ornate, for the Hakam. Aloft there is a gallery for women, where they can easily hear but not easily be seen.851 The iron circle with the symbolic depiction of the Tablets of Law, mentioned by Cohen, was later replaced by... two pseudo-Turkic tamğalar, the symbols of Szapszał’s “coat of arms” of the Karaite community.852 In 1935 the kenesa was visited by the Polish litterateur, Paweł Maliszewski, who described this event in one of his poems.853 Both Karaite Street of Wilno and its kenesa survived the Second World War and the period of the Soviet regime in Lithuania. 3.5.6 Cemetery In 1913, two years after the foundation of the kenesa, in addition to permission to erect the house of prayer and establish the Karaite Street, the Wilno city council made one more concession to the local community and donated a parcel of land on the outskirts 850 Döblin, Reise in Polen, 150-151. In fact, practically every Karaite community in Europe and elsewhere possessed similar traditions expressing the idea that the earliest synagogues of a place (or a region) had once been in the hands of the Karaite community, but then was seized by the more numerous Rabbanites. E.g. Halicz Karaites claimed that the Karaite synagogue of Lwów had been originally situated on the place where later the main Rabbanite synagogue of Lwów was built (Jecheskiel Caro, Geschichte der Juden in Lemberg von den ältesten Zeiten bis zur Theilung Polens im Jahre 1792 (Kraków, 1894), 3; cf. Bałaban, “Karaici,” 17). Cf. claims of the Cairo Karaites that Ben Ezra synagogue had been originally Karaite; Theodosia Karaites’ concerning the synagogue of 1309; Istanbul Karaites concerning certain Muslim buildings. Some of these traditions seem to be true, while others represent romantic “embellishment” of historical reality. It is highly interesting that according to Döblin’s tradition even the Rabbanites themselves were of the opinion that the main synagogue of Wilno had once belonged to the Karaites. 851 Cohen, Vilna, 466-467. 852 For the photo of the tablets of law above the cupola of the Wilno kenesa, see Pełczyński, Najmniejsza mniejszość. 853 The poem was dedicated to S. Szapszał (see Paweł Maliszewski, “W kenesie Wileńskiej,” 20.10.1935, Polish (LMAB F. 143, no. 460, fol. 1)). 176 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory of the town, called “Lipovka” (Lith. “Liepkalnis”), to be used as a burial ground. The first burial in the cemetery took place on 21.04.1913.854 The name of the deceased was Sara Shoshana (Zuzanna) Zajączkowska, the wife of Samuel Yedidiah Zajączkowski. The inscription on the monument is in Hebrew; above it is the image of the cupola of the Wilno kenesa.855 This small cemetery consists of approximately a hundred graves. The small size of the cemetery may be explained by the fact that many twentieth-century Wilno Karaites preferred to be buried in the Troki Karaite cemetery.856 The cemetery contains the graves of important Karaite figures such as Owadjusz Pilecki, Pinachas (Finneas/ Felix) Malecki, Seraja Szapszał and his wife, Vera Egiz.857 The establishment of the cemetery signified, perhaps, a new tendency in the Karaite self-identification. This cemetery was established near the Muslim Tatar cemetery, and not near the Rabbanite one, as was the case with many other Karaite burial grounds in Eastern Europe (cf. the close location of the Rabbanite and Karaite cemeteries in Halicz, Nowe Miasto, Birża, Lwów, Theodosia, Sevastopol, Karasubazar and Eupatoria). *** The Karaite community of Wilno was perhaps the most secular and well-to-do of all the Polish-Lithuanian communities of that period. Among its members were such distinguished Karaite intellectuals as O. Pilecki, J. Łobanos, A. Szyszman, P. Malecki, S. Szapszał and S. Szyszman. Its kenesa was the largest and perhaps the most beautiful of all the local Karaite houses of prayer in the country. Nevertheless, as well as the Troki kenesa it was also dejudaized by Szapszał and his followers and the pseudo-Turkic tamğalar were installed on its top instead of traditional Karaite and Rabbanite Tablets of Law. Although the first attempt of printing community’s own periodical (“Sahyszymyz”) was rather unsuccessful, the community published the Polish-language “Myśl Karaimska” which was perhaps the most ambitious Karaite periodical in the twentieth century. 854 “Novoe kladbishche,” KS 1 (1911): 14. 855 As seen by M. Kizilov in March, 2002. 856 This is according to Cohen, Vilna, 466. Cf. also the fact that although many Crimean Karaites lived far away from Çufut Kale, some of them continued to bury their dead in the valley of Jehosaphath in the vicinity of Çufut Kale. 857 As seen by M. Kizilov in March, 2002. Poniewież 177 3.6 Poniewież 3.6.1 Outline of the History The history of this fairly small and remote Karaite community seems to be less known than that of other Karaite qehilot. It appeared to be more provincial and less commercially successful as other communities; it also produced much fewer men of letters and important figures. At the end of the nineteenth century the community consisted of 205 members, under the guidance of the ḥazzan Zevulon Rojecki.858 In 1911 “Karaimskaia Zhizn’” published an article entitled “The life which is fading away (a letter from Poniewież)”. This article presented a sorrowful picture of the fading away of the life of the Poniewież community at the beginning of the twentieth century. The author complained that the Poniewież community consisted of only 40 families (around 160 souls); most of them were elderly people while the younger generation had been emigrating to Southern Africa and America. According to the author, in spite of the fact that most of the local Karaites were not in need, they still belonged to the lower social eschalons of the population.859 In the 1930s the local community consisted of 155 members.860 The Poniewież community did not have its own cemetery (apart from the small section in the local Rabbanite burial ground) and most of its members were buried in the Karaite cemetery of Nowe Miasto (Lith. Naujamiestis; Kar. Šaharčech; Heb. Ir hadashah). This small cemetery consists of ca. 150–200 tombstones. It seems that the cemetery started functioning only at the end of the eighteenth century; the earliest tombstone inscription which I found on the site dated back to 1790. There is a Rabbanite section in this cemetery; Rabbanite tombs can be distinguished from those of the Karaites by their west-east orientation.861 In March, 2002, when I visited the cemetery, there still was a small Karaite house nearby where lived a family of keepers of the cemetery. An important role in the life of the local community was played by Nechamja Tynfowicz (Poniewież, 1843 – Melitopol, 1920). From 1896 to 1914 he worked as the community shammash and ḥazzan; in 1915 he, together with the rest of the community, 858 115 women and 90 men (MS LMAB F. 301, no. 302, fol. 3bis, 9). 859 Finees [Pinachas] Rojecki, “Ugasaiushchaia zhizn’ (Pis’mo iz Poniewieża)”, KZh 3-4 (1911): 120- 122. 860 Čiplytė, Panevėžio karaimų, 28. 861 Preliminary study of this cemetery was made by Akhiezer, Dvorkin, “Ktovot ha-maṣevot,” 250-256; cf. the description of these and a few other (Poniewież, Poswol, and Birża/Biržis) northern Lithuanian cemeteries in Daniel Čaprocki, “Konachlychba karyndašlarda,” Onarmach 2 (1938): 17-21; idem, “Kaldychlary ašchan zamannyn,” Onarmach 1 (1934): 21-23. 178 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory had to evacuate to Russia.862 In the 1920s in Poniewież, there lived an important Karaite poet, Szełumiel Łopatto (b. Troki, 14.05.1904 – d. Poniewież, 20.08.1923, son of Yeshayahu Łopatto and Mania Dubińska). During the First World War he studied in St. Petersburg (1915–1916), but in 1916 he moved with the rest of the family to Eupatoria where he studied at the local Karaite Spiritual College until 1920. In 1920 he managed to return to his native land – although not to Troki, but to Poniewież, at that time in independent Lithuania. Unfortunately, he was destined to die very young. In 1923 he was killed by unknown bandits at the age of only 19 on his way to Poniewież (Karaite sources often emphasize that he was going there for Yom Kippur prayer). Among his Karaim poems are such as Awo bigwurot Adonaj Ełohim (Heb. “I will come with courage, Lord God”), Kültküsü gorałnyn (“The irony of destiny”), “Mi jaale bahar adonaj” (Who will ascend to the mount of the Lord?), and “Uszattyrmach Dawidnin mizmorłaryna” (In imitation of David’s psalms).863 As is evident even from the titles of his poems, Łopatto’s poetic imagery was inspired largely by Biblical and religious topoi.864 The local community had its own kenesa, although it remains unclear when exactly it was built. Its building was much less elaborate and impressive than the kenesalar of Troki, Wilno and Halicz. In the 1930s the building of the kenesa needed renovation. In 1939 the community finished the renovation; this was done with financial support from the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture and wealthy Karaites from Paris, America and Riga.865 After the war, however, the kenesa was confiscated by the Soviet authorities, and in 1970 destroyed. At present only a memorial sign gives witness to its former existence. About 1934 Szapszał received information from a certain Jewish visitor to Poniewież that the local Karaites were actively engaged in “Judaizing and communist tendencies.”866 Other sources do not corroborate this statement. In the 1930s there existed a small theatre called in Russian “Gruppa liubitelei posle Kippura vecherom artistov pri K.P.K. “Onarmach” ponevezhskoi karaimskoi molodezhi” (somewhat 862 [Owadjusz Pilecki], “Jarych gan‘ edień N.M. Tynfowiczcha/Svetloi pamiati N.M. Tynfowicza,” Sahyszymyz 1 (1927): 6. 863 Szełumiel Łopatto, “Awo bigwurot Adonaj Elohim,” KA 4 (1932): 4-5; idem, “Iszancz,” KA 4 (1932): 6; idem, “Klaklar,” KA 4 (1932): 4; idem, “Kültküsü gorałny,” KA 4 (1932): 5; idem, “Kusiancz,” KA 4 (1932): 4; idem, “Mi jaale bahar adonaj,” Onarmach 3 (1939): 14; idem, “Uszattyrmach Dawidnin mizmorłaryna,” KA 4 (1932): 6-7. 864 For more information on his biography and literary activity, see “Szelumiel Lopatto da anyn jirlary,” KA 2 (4) (1932): 1-7; Irena Jaroszyńska, “Szełumiel Łopatto 100-lecie urodzin,” Awazymyz 2 (9) (2004): 9; Jaakov Malecki, “Muzhul jovel,” Onarmach 3 (1939): 15-24. Aleksander Mardkowicz, “Szełumiel Łopatto da anyn jirłary,” KA 4(1932): 1-4; Gabriel Józefowicz, “Pamięci Szełumiela Łopatto,” Awazymyz 2 (9) (2004): 8 (a poem in Karaim). 865 For archival photos, see Čiplytė, Panevėžio karaimų, 16. 866 A. Mardkowicz to S. Szapszał (10.11.1935): MS LMAB F. 143, no. 468, fols. 8r-v. Poniewież 179 incorrect Russ. “The group of amateur artists in the evening after [Yom] Kippur at the club ‘Onarmach’ of the Poniewież Karaite youth”).867 On 11.08.1937 thirty members of the local community took part in the excursion to the remnants of the Karaite historical monuments in Northern Lithuania. Among most important places visited by the community, were the forsaken Karaite cemetery in Birża and the so-called “Hill of the Twelve sages” (Kar. “tavčehy 12 chachamnyn”) in Poswol. Czaprocki informs us that even in the 1930s the Lithuanian Karaites continued visiting this hill where, according to their tradition, twelve Karaite sages had been buried some long time ago.868 A beautiful poem by Michael Tynfowicz dedicated to the cemeteries served as the illustration to the article of Czaprocki.869 It seems that being cut from other Polish-Lithuanian communities by the state border between Poland and independent Lithuania, the Poniewież community desperately needed support of Troki authorities in order to maintain proper religious life and ceremonies. In 1935–1937 the community was visited by such important Karaite communal leaders as ḥazzanim Szemaja Firkowicz and Rafael Abkowicz, and Troki teacher, Zarach Firkowicz. It seems that all the aforementioned visitors helped the community to organize its religious and cultural life. In 1935 the duties of the local ḥazzan were in fact fulfilled by the mitpallel; the gabbai was the main administrative figure in the community.870 In 1937 Grigulewicz, the head of the community and his secretary, I. Rojecki, sent a letter to Szapszał where they asked to appoint Zarach Firkowicz of Troki their ḥazzan. By that time the community had its own seal bearing the Lithuanian inscription “Panevėžio Karaimų bendruomenès” (Poniewież Karaite community).871 In 1938 the community elected Zarach Firkowicz (a.k.a. Zenon Firkowicz, 1906–1958) the community ḥazzan and sent a letter to Seraja Szapszał asking to confirm this decision.872 In 1939 the community was again visited by Szemaja Firkowicz, this time together with the ḥakham (ḥakhan), Seraja Szapszał. 3.6.2 Periodical “Onarmach” – “Success” and “Development” of the North Lithuanian Karaites The most important cultural achievement of the Karaite communities of Northern Lithuania was a highly interesting periodical entitled “Onarmach” (can be translated from TrKar. as “Success” or “Development”). Three issues of the periodical had been 867 Čiplytė, Panevėžio karaimų, 28. 868 Čaprocki, “Konachlychba karyndašlarda,” 17-21. 869 Michael Tynfovič, “Zeriatliar,” Onarmach 2 (1938): 21. 870 “Działalność T-wa M.H. i L.H.,” 111-113. 871 Grigulewicz and I. Rojecki to S. Szapszał, 8.01.1937, Russian (LMAB F. 143, no. 1023, fols. 127-128r). 872 Minutes of the meeting of the community sent to S. Szapszał on 15 Tammuz (sic) 1938; Karaim (LMAB F. 143, no. 1023, fol. 347r). The minutes were signed by 34 members of the community. 180 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory published in the northern variant of the Troki dialect of the Karaim language in the 1930s.873 All three issues were published in Latin characters with additional diacritical signs used in the Lithuanian language. In this respect this periodical differed from “Karaj Awazy”, “Dostu Karajnyn” and “Sahyszymyz” which used Polish diacritics to transcribe phonological peculiarities of Karaim. The editor of the periodical, Michael Tynfovič (Michał Tynfowicz/Mikhail Samuilovich Tinfovich; 1912–1974), at the very beginning of the first issue of “Onarmach” explains the differences between the Russian, Polish and Lithuanian Karaites in a transliteration of the Karaim language. He also supplied the table of correspondence between three variants of the transliteration. Thus, Lithuanian “č” was equal to Polish “cz” and to Russian “ч”, “š” corresponded to “sz” and “ш”; “ž” to “rz” and “ж” etc. According to A. Dubiński, the second issue of “Onarmach” had been published in Pasvalys (Poswol). In his opinion, the correspondence between Michał Tynfowicz, Rafał Griguliewicz (the editors of the periodical), and Aleksander Mardkowicz of Łuck played important role in the activity of the periodical (it is worthy of note that this correspondence managed to find its way through the closed state border between Poland and independent Lithuania via the mediation of the Riga Karaites).874 The local community, consisting of about 155 persons, clearly had a wont of the authors who could contribute to the periodical: about 70–90% of the articles published in Onarmach were, in fact, written by the non-Lithuanian Karaites. Among them were contributions by Toviyah Levi-Babovich, Aleksander Mardkowicz, and Solomon Krym. Originally these were composed in Russian, Hebrew, and Polish and later translated into Karaim.875 A few articles were originally written in the northern Karaim dialect. Nevertheless, their authors, such as Ananiasz Zajączkowski, Boris Kokenai, and Abraham Szyszman, were from Poland and not from independent Lithuania.876 The first issue of the periodical contained a few letters from the Cairo community which were translated from the Tora tili (Kar. “the language of the Torah”, 873 Onarmach. Vachtlych Karaj Tildia 1, ed. M. Tynfovič (Kaunas/Kowno, 1934); no. 2 (Kaunas/ Kowno, 1938); Onarmach. Vachtlych Karaj Tildia 3, ed. J. Rojecki (Panevežys/Poniewież, 1939). It seems that apart from private Karaite collections the only place where this periodical can be found is LMAB. 874 Aleksander Dubiński, “Karaimskaia nauchnaia i obshchestvennaia publitsistika (kratkii obzor),” 3 (unpublished). 875 T.S. [Toviyah ben Simha] Levi-Babovič, “Gyzly joldžy,” Onarmach 3 (1939): 12; idem, “Istorijasy karajlarynyn Litva da Lech Bijlikliarnyn sormachlarda da karuvlarda,” Onarmach 2 (1938): 6-14; idem, “Kaidan čyhad indiav Karaim,” Onarmach 1 (1934): 6-7; Solomon Krym, “Jalbarmahy Hachannyn,” Onarmach 3 (1939): 8-11 (a Karaim translation of the fairy tale “Molitva Gakhama” [ḥakham’s prayer], published by S. Krym in Russian in Paris in 1925. Paradoxically, the editors of the periodical “censored” the word ḥakham and changed it into Szapszał’s neologism, ḥakhan. 876 Boris Kokenai, “Bir-nieča bergianliar Karaj sioz-bitiktian,” Onarmach 3 (1939): 25-31; Avraham Šyšman, “Karaj kašuhu,” Onarmach 3 (1939): 13-14; Ananiasz Zajončkovski, “Karaj tili,” Onarmach 2 (1938): 3-5 (this article was published for the second time without any changes in Onarmach 3 (1939): 2-3). Poniewież 181 i.e. Hebrew).877 It seems that Michał Tynfowicz, Daniel Czaprocki, and Jakub Malecki (1889–1952)878 were the only representatives of the Northern Lithuanian Karaites, who contributed to “Onarmach” with their articles. One article was in French879 and one in Lithuanian.880 There is a sharp difference between the two first issues of the periodical and the last one. The first two issues were rather amateur production composed on a typewriter, in a limited number of copies. However, the content of the first two issues, and, especially, their language, is much more interesting and “uncensored” than in the final one. It seems that the first two issues of “Onarmach” are the only interwar publications, which provide the readers with highly important samples of genuine literary and spoken Karaim. This unmodified variant of Karaim contained a number of Slavic and Hebrew loanwords – whereas in most other interwar Karaim publications Slavic and Hebrew loanwords were consciously replaced by their Turkic equivalents. This was done in accordance with Szapszał’s directive for the Turkcization of the Karaite religion and language. There are scores of Turkicized Hebraisms practically on every page of the first two issues: “jerušša” (“inheritance” here used in the sense “inherited traditions”), “mišpacha/mišpachalar” (family/families), “jisraelliar” (“Israelites”, here used mostly in the sense of “true followers of the Tora” in contrast to “talmudlar” and “rabbanlar” – “Talmudists” or “Rabbanites”), “chachamlar” (“sages”), “seferliar” (“books”), “talmidliar” (“pupils”), Mašiach (“Messiah”), “macceva/maccevalar/ macceva tašlar” (“tombstones”), “chaverliarim” (“my friends”), “nešer” (“eagle’), “zichron” (“remembrance”), “mitpallelik etme” (“to pray”), “kavvana” (“intention”), and many other religious terms: niggun/niggunlar, kyna, tefilla, deraša, Hummaš. 877 “Kairdan,” Onarmach 1 (1934): 17-20. 878 Jakub Malecki, “Muzhul jovel,” Onarmach 3 (1939): 15-24; Čaprocki, “Kaldychlary;” idem, “Konachlychba;” idem, “Sormachlary biugiungiu kiunniun,” Onarmach 3 (1939): 3-5; idem, “Tirligindian Karaj-Džymatnyn Lietuvada,” Onarmach 3 (1939): 36-40 (a series of articles dedicated mostly to the author’s travels to the monuments of Karaite history in the Lithuanian lands). In addition to this, there was a number of community news, notes, and a chronicle of events written by the main editor, Michał Tynfowicz. Jakub (Jaakow) Malecki, a local Lithuanian author, frequently published his writings in KA (e.g. “Bazłyk jerde,” KA 9 (1936): 7-12). 879 Daniele Tchaproski [Daniel Czaprocki], “On écrit de Kaunas,” Onarmach 3 (1939): one page before the last of the journal-cover (Czaprocki’s report about his encounter with a Crimean Karaite Katlama, a sportsman living in Paris. The article was composed in French so that the Parisian Karaites, to whom Czaprocki wanted to send a copy of the periodical, would be able to understand it). 880 Aleksander Mardkowicz, “Įstatymo sūnūs,” Onarmach 1 (1934): 8-16. This was a Lithuanian translation of Mardkowicz’s Synowie zakonu. It was apparently made for the use of the Lithuanian audience so that the Lithuanians would be able to get some historical data about the local Karaites (cf. review of “Onarmach” by Aleksander Mardkowicz in KA 8 (1935): 24-25). 182 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory Needless to say, many of these would not be included later in the “Karaite-Russo- Polish dictionary” edited by Zajączkowski, Szapszał, and Dubiński.881 The last issue of “Onarmach,” however, was strikingly different from the first two. It was printed in a regular printing house and, perhaps, could easily compete with “Karaj Awazy” and other Karaite periodicals. Its title was published in Karaim along with with the Lithuanian translation; Johonodav Rojecki was indicated as the new editor. The language, and, as it seems, the content of this issue was strongly censored – one would not find there any Hebraisms and letters from the Cairo community (the latter were usually published with the subheading “Chevrat HeHaclacha HaJisraelim HaKaraim BeMicrajim”). Thus, the periodical was adjusted in accordance with the new, Turkic tendencies in the Karaite historical and literary thought. It seems that these innovations and financial support, which enabled the local community to publish the periodical in a printing press were brought to the community as a consequence of the visits of Seraja Szapszał and Szemaja Firkowicz in the second half of the 1930s. Moreover, it seems that the readers were urged to forget about the existence of two first issues of the periodical: the title page of the new “Onarmach” carried no reminder that it was already the third issue of the periodical and omitted any reference to the first two issues. This might explain why the article by Zajaczkowski was reprinted in the last issue without any changes882 – it was supposed to indicate that the real “Onarmach” began only now, in 1939. Unfortunately, the beginning of the war terminated the existence of this interesting periodical, which has never been resumed. *** To conclude, the community of Poniewież, which had been cut from their Karaite counterparts by the state border, nevertheless, continued its contacts with other Karaite communities of the world. This was manifested first of all by the printing of a periodical in the Karaim language, which included correspondence and contributions from many other Karaite qehilot. The Troki Karaite leadership also did not remain inattentive to the needs of the Poniewież Karaites, for in the second half of the 1930s they sent to Poniewież the Troki Karaite Zarach Firkowicz to fulfil the duties of the local ḥazzan. 881 See KRPS. 882 Zajončkovski, “Karaj tili,” Onarmach 2 (1938): 3-5; cf. Onarmach 3 (1939): 2-3. The Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in Other Communities of the World 183 3.7 The Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in Other Communities of the World Scattered Karaite communities, whose members originally were of the East European extraction, existed not only in Poland in Lithuania, but in many other countries of the world, mostly due to the establishment of trading routes with Western Europe, America, and China. Karaite diaspora in Eastern and Central Europe especially grew after 1917, when thousands of White883 Army officers, rich merchants and bourgeoisie had to emigrate from Crimea and Russia in order to avoid the Red terror and persecutions. The aim of this subchapter is to outline the interwar history of several smaller Karaite communities of Europe and the rest of the world, with special emphasis on those populated by the Karaites of Polish-Lithuanian origin. Although the largest Karaite communities of that period were located in Crimea and in Egypt, their history shall not be analyzed here because there were virtually no Polish-Lithuanian Karaites living there.884 On the other hand, the history of the smaller communities such as those of Harbin and Riga, will be surveyed here because of the prominence of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in their community life. Contacts between members of these smaller communities and Polish-Lithuanian Karaites are fundamental to this subchapter of the study. For more details about the history of these communities after 1939, see Chapters 5 and 6. 3.7.1 Warsaw The first presence of the Crimean Karaites – tobacco traders –in Warsaw is reflected in records dated to the beginning of the nineteenth century. There is further information that already by the end of the nineteenth century there were some Karaites, mostly of Crimean origin, permanently living in Warsaw. The land for the cemetery in Warsaw was purchased by the Karaites in 1890 for 465 Russian rubles and 30 kopeikas. There were eight Karaites (perhaps, heads of the families), who took part in the purchase, only one of them (Joseph ben Jehoshaphat Kapłanowski) of Polish origin, with all 883 I.e. anti-Bolshevik. 884 In the 1920s the Egyptian community numbered 700 families (3,500-5,000 souls) (MK 1:3 (1926): 30); 7 to 9 thousand Karaites lived in the Soviet Union (especially in Crimea) in the 1930s. 184 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory other belonging to Crimean families of Prik, Fuki, Kefeli, Kazas, Cohen, and Aga.885 As there was no Karaite kenesa in Warsaw, some of them, as reported by Pesaḥ Kaplan at the end of the nineteenth century, attended services at the main Rabbanite synagogue of the city.886 One Warsaw Karaite, N.R. Jutkiewicz, in the 1920s, provided the famous Turcologist Tadeusz Kowalski with a valuable manuscript.887 It was estimated that in 1934 there were only about 12-15 Karaites living there. It was the Warsaw Karaite, Eugenjusz Nowicki, who took care of the local cemetery in the interwar period. He lived at Marszałkowska 53a and did this work on voluntary basis without payment.888 Ḥazzan Szemaja Firkowicz visited the community and local cemetery in 1932.889 In 1934 representatives of the Polski Kościół Narodowy (Polish National Church)890 in Warsaw asked Karaite officials to allow them to bury members of their church within the bounds of the local Karaite cemetery. The Karaite community did not allow them to do this.891 Since the 1930s the famous Karaite Orientalist, Ananiasz Zajączkowski, who settled in Warsaw with his family, became an unofficial leader of the community. In September 1939, when Warsaw became occupied by the Nazis, the local Karaites immediately realized the potential danger of being persecuted as Jews and asked Szapszał to provide them with certificates confirming their non-Jewish origin.892 885 For the copy of the deed of purchase, see MS LMAB F. 301, no. 403, fol. 7r. The earliest tombstone of the Warsaw Karaite cemetery dates back to 1895 and belongs to a Crimean Karaite, Saduk Osipovich Kefeli (Wrzosiński, “Der älteste karäische Grabstein”). At present moment this small cemetery is situated on the Redutowa Street, close to the Russian orthodox cemetery. Inscriptions on all other tombs are in Polish or in Karaim in Latin characters (regarding this cemetery, see Tokarczyk, Karaimizm, 162-173; Maria Emilia Zajączkowska-Łopatto, “Działaność zawodowa i społeczna Karaimóv trockich w Warszawie w XX wieku,” in Orientas Lietuvos, 299-309; Adam Dubiński, “Karaimi i ich cmentarz w Warszawie,” in Karaimi, 145-179; for the list of the persons interred in the cemetery, see ibid., 230-240). Before the establishment of the separate Karaite cemetery, one Troki Karaite, Yefet ben Mordecai Ławrecki, was buried in 1887 in the famous Rabbanite cemetery on Okopowa Street (Wrzosiński, “Der älteste karäische Grabstein”). During WWII several Karaites were interred in the Muslim cemetery on Młynarska street; some Karaites were interred in other Karaite cemeteries (Dubiński, “Karaimi i ich cmentarz,” 145-179). 886 Pesaḥ Kaplan, “Bein “aḥeinu” ha-Qara 3.7.2 Latvia and Estonia The arrival of the Karaite population in the territory of present day Latvia dates back to the second half of the nineteenth century893. As well as in many other places of the Russian Empire, the first Karaite settlers of Latvia were tobacco merchants of Crimean origin. In 1887 one such merchant, Abram Maikapar,894 built a large tobacco factory in Riga. The factory produced “Riga” cigarettes.895 His son, Fedor/Theodor Abramovich Maikapar (b. Moscow, 9.02.1878 – d. in Kazakhstan ca. 1943), was the owner of this factory in the interwar period.896 In 1897 there were 60 Karaites living in Riga and its surroundings.897 With the development of Riga as important centre of trade and commerce at the beginning of the twentieth century, more and more Karaites started coming to this Baltic city – an advantageous move from a commercial standpoint. In 1913 there were as many as 95 Karaites living in Riga; 21 of them had Persian and Turkish citizenship, the rest were Russian citizens. It is also highly significant that most of the Karaite inhabitants of Riga were apparently rather secular persons: only some of them indicated their adherence to Karaite religion in official documents; many stated that they were Catholics, Russian Orthodox, Lutherans or did not indicate their confession at all.898 This is why there were no attempts to arrange a kenesa or Karaite house of prayer in Riga; the Karaite cemetery on Aizsaules Street was a part of the Muslim cemetery. Fedor Maikapar, who was a Russian Orthodox, was known as a leading member and benefactor within the local Russian community. Such a curious religious differentiation within the Karaite community is not attested anywhere in the Russian Empire before 1917. It seems that in the interwar period the local Karaite community became much smaller. In 1937 a certain Karaite, P. Beim (apparently, a Crimean emigrant), served as a liason between the Troki and Poniewież Karaites. He 893 The word of thanks goes to Dmitrii Olekhnovich (Daugavpils, Latvia), who provided a written note on the presence of the Karaite population in Latvia in the nineteenth/twentieth centuries. 894 The Maikapars are a famous Karaite family of musicians. Samuil Moiseevich Maikapar (b. Cherson, 1867 - d. St. Petersburg, 1938) and Alexander Maikapar (b. Moscow, 1946) are prominent Russian pianists and theoretics of music, authors of numerous books and articles (see Alexander Maikapar, “Moj ded Samuil Maikapar,” Muzykal’naia Zhizn’ 11-12 (1994): 26-28; see also the family site of the composers: lived in Riga, on Brivibas Street 35–18.899 The Maikapars lived at Tserkovnaia Street 22. In 1939 the local Karaite community finally decided to form their first social organization and created the Society for keeping up the Riga Karaite cemetery.900 Ca. 30 Karaites of Crimean and Polish origin lived in Tallinn, the capital of another Baltic state.901 One local Karaite possessed a tobacco factory in Tallinn and employed half of the Estonian Karaite population as assistants.902 Izaak Żarnowski settled in Revel (Tallinn) in Estliandskaia guberniia of the Russian Empire in 1903. Crimean Karaite family, the Babadzhans (Babacan), moved to Tallinn at the beginning of the 1920s. Representatives of both families are still living in Tallinn.903 Archival documents preserved the names of Ester Babadzhan and Moisei Semenovich Aga (Agin) as the Karaite inhabitants of the city after the war.904 3.7.3 Germany, France, Italy and Holland In the interwar period the Karaites lived also in several Central European countries such as Germany, France, and Italy. These communities consisted largely of Crimean Karaite emigrants who usually were rich individuals, former White Army officers and their family members. Because of the fact that France – and Paris – were the most popular destination of Russian émigré, the largest Karaite community was established in France. In 1926 there were about 120 Karaite living in Paris.905 Archival Karaite records supply an over-estimated number of 500 Karaites living in Paris in 1937; as the Berlin Karaites, they had the Committee for Mutual Assistance.906 Other documents provide more reliable number of about 270 Karaites living in France. They were organized in “Association de Caraimes en France” with Simon Kazas acting as its president.907 Interesting data concerning the Parisian life of the Karaite families of Gelelovich, Pastak, and Efetov can be found in the letters of the famous Russian émigré writer, Ivan Shmelev, to Elisaveta Gelelovich-Duvan.908 In the 1920s-1930s the 899 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1023, fol. 128r. 900 Ščerbinskis, Ienācēji, 26. 901 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1064/2, fol. 158. 902 Ibid. 903 Andrei Żarnowski, “Moja rodzina,” Awazymyz 1 (5) (2001): 16-17. 904 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 178, fol. 1, 8. 905 “Życie Karaimów poza kordonem Rzeczypospolitej. Paryż,” MK 3 (1926): 29-30. 906 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1465, fol. 29. 907 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1081, fol. 28; cf. Emanuela Trevisan Semi, “The Image of the Karaites in Nazi and Vichy France Documents,” The Jewish Journal of Sociology 32 (1990): 89; Warren Paul Green, “The Nazi Racial Policy Towards the Karaites,” Soviet Jewish Affairs 8:2 (1978): 42-43. 908 K.S. Batozskii and N.V. Pavlenko, “Ivan Shmelev i krymskie karaimy v Parizhe,” in Venok Shmelevu (Moscow, 2001), 319-323. The Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in Other Communities of the World 187 duties of the ḥazzan were fulfilled in Paris by Captain F.S. Forumda, a graduate of the Karaite religious college in Eupatoria.909 According to archival documents there were 18 Karaites living in Berlin in the 1930s.910 A letter of E. Kovshanly (Kowschanly) refers to the names of several other Karaites living in Germany: I.A. Katyk, I.I. Kumysh, A.I. Katyk, Kharchenko.911 In 1937, a Polish Karaite, Ananiasz Rojecki, was registered as a student at the Berlin university.912 A report of Mikhail-Musa (Moses) Kovshanly notes that the number of the Karaites living in Germany was even less, only 11 persons. Most of them were prisoners of the First World War, former Soviet and Turkish citizens who remained in Germany. They were generally engaged in “blue-collar” employment (restaurant waiters, drivers, tailors, metal workers etc.). After 1934 they began to be systematically and persistently humiliated; they lost their jobs, were frequently beaten and interrogated by the German Gestapo and “Russische Vertrauensstelle” (a special committee dealing with affairs of ethnic Russians in Germany). Ovadia Rofe lost his eye in the course of one such interrogation in Gestapo; Aron Rofe was beaten; Veniamin Maksimadzhi was sent to concentration camp; Il’ia Levi and his wife were imprisoned from 1934 to 1936; Mikhail Kovshanly was arrested.913 In July of 1936, in order to defend themselves against the Nazi oppression, local Karaites formed the Berlin Karaite Society.914 One year later all of them had managed to find other places of work. In 1937, the Berlin Karaite community was visited by S. Szapszał.915 In 1934 there were four Karaites living in Italy.916 In 1938 two Polish Karaite émigrés living in fascist Italy (Michele/Michał Łopatto and Raissa Juchniewicz) started experiencing the same type of “racial” discrimination as did the German Jews – and German Karaites. It was with Szapszał’s help that they managed to procure a certificate that testified to their non-Jewish, Khazar origin.917 At least three Karaites (Jaacob Shapshal/Jacques Chapchal, his wife Lydia Chapchal, and André Appak), 909 “Życie Karaimów poza kordonem Rzeczypospolitej. Paryż,” MK 3 (1926): 29; MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1023, fol. 256; Michel Kefeli, “Karaimi we Francji,” transl. from French A. Sulimowicz, Awazymyz 3 (2007). 910 Trevisan Semi, Emanuela. “L’oscillation ethnique: le cas des caraïtes pendant la seconde guerre mondiale,” Revue de l’histoire des religions 206 (1989): 386; Green, “Nazi Racial Policy,” 37. 911 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 392, fols. 1-3. 912 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1467, fol. 160. 913 M. Kovshanly to S. Szapszał, ca. 1943, Russian: MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1053, fols. 5-6. 914 The Berlin Karaite Society to S. Szapszał (26.07.1936, Russian): MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1053, fol. 1. This petition was signed by seven Karaites, representatives of families of Kovshanly, Rofe, Sariban, and Levi. 915 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1465, fol. 29. 916 Gini, “I Caraimi,” 30. 917 See 4.4. 188 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory lived in 1939 in Holland; they also asked Szapszał to send certificates concerning their Karaite origin.918 3.7.4 Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia There was also a small Karaite community in Romania, located mostly in the capital town of present-day Moldova, Chișinău (Kishinev) and in Bucharest. Until 1929 Abram (Alexander) Il’ich Dzhigit was the gabbai and the head of the community; after his death these duties were fulfilled by Semen Aronovich Kalfa. Functions of the religious head were fulfilled by S.Yu. Savuskan, a son of the former Odessa ḥazzan.919 In 1932 the local community published a short brochure in Romanian intended to give the Romanians an idea about the new ethnic group which had settled down in the country only a few years ago.920 In 1934 there were 46 Karaites living in Rumania and 54 in 1939.921 Abram-Alexander Dzhigit and I. Sary are mentioned as inhabitants of Bucharest in 1935. On 25.11.1935 Dzhigit sent a letter to Seraja Szapszał in which he stated that he had lost his birth certificate and asked to provide him a new one.922 In 1938, with the introduction of new laws by the local pro-fascist government, the position of the Romanian Karaites also became quite precarious. As a consequence, they composed a memorandum in which they emphasized their non-Jewish racial origin; the document noted that there was a Karaite cemetery in Chișinău, whereas the whole Karaite community in Romania counted about 50 persons, 30 of them living in Bessarabia.923 In 1934 there were 35 Karaites living in Bulgaria (Varna and Sofia);924 according to Szapszał, in 1939 the community comprised 32 individuals.925 In July 1935 a marriage between Todor, son of Avraham Michri and Raisa Gelelovich, was registered in Varna. The couple received official permission from Szapszał for the marriage. The ceremony took place in the presence of ten witnesses, all of them with Crimean Karaite surnames: Kalfa, Aga, Turshu, Shishman (Szyszman), Dzhumuk, Gelelovich.926 918 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1064/2, fols. 145-149. 919 Isaac Aivaz to S. Szapszał (Russian, 1929-1935): MS LMAB F. 143, no. 164. 920 Caraimii: un scurt istoric (Chisinau, 1932). 921 Gini, “I Caraimi,” 30; MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1064/2, fol. 158. 922 In his letter Dzhigit mentioned that he had been born in Odessa in 1900; his parents were Boris and Anna Ilidzhi (A. Dzhigit to S. Szapszał, Bucharest, 25.11.1935, Romanian (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1023, fol. 42)). 923 See the draft of this memorandum (Russian): MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1061, fol. 4. 924 Gini, “I Caraimi,” 30. 925 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1064/2, fol. 159. 926 The marriage certificate of T. Michri and R. Gelelovich, Varna, 21 Tammuz 5695 (22.07.1935), Bulgarian (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1023, fol. 43). The Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in Other Communities of the World 189 In March 1939 Nazi Germany established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Immediately afterwards the local Karaites began experiencing the same difficulties as Jews living in this area. Szapszał started receiving numerous letters from the Karaite families living in Prague, Plzen, and Brno asking to provide them with the certificates testifying to their Karaite (and non-Jewish) origins.927 On 23.02.1939 a group of 16 Karaites living in in Prague, Brno (Brünn) and Plzen sent Szapszał a letter asking to provide them with detailed historical memorandum about the Karaite religion and their Turkic origins; this document was supposed to be presented later to the local authorities.928 Later that year, the local Karaites founded “a Karaite circle” (Russ. karaimskii kruzhok) which was supposed to represent the local community.929 Ca. 20 Karaites lived in 1939 in Yugoslavia; all of them were officers of the former White Army. As well as other Karaites living in Nazi-occupied Europe, they sent letters to Szapszał asking to provide them with the certificates testifying to their Karaite origin.930 3.7.5 China (Manchuria) A small Karaite colony appeared in Harbin931 almost immediately after the foundation of that city in 1897. Attracted by its rapidly developing trade and industry, Karaite merchants and undertakers from almost all parts of the Russian Empire began settling in this city which came to represent a part of Russia in the Chinese lands. At the beginning of the twentieth century the Taurida and Odessa ḥakham Panpulov sent his son to Harbin as a type of “exile” over some misbehaviour. The local Karaites, mostly of Polish-Lithuanian origin, actively participated in tobacco and wine trade. There existed the officially registered Harbin Karaite Society (Russ. Kharbinskoe Karaimskoe Obshchestvo). The first ḥazzan of the community was Crimean Karaite, Abram Azarovich El’; his successors were of Polish-Lithuanian origins: Roman Jutkiewicz, Iosif Łopatto, and, finally, Rafal Grigulewicz.932 Two wealthy Harbinians of Troki origin, Il’ia Aronovich (Eliasz) Łopatto and Abram Łopatto, often sent considerable sums of money to support the Karaites of Wilno and Troki in the 1920s. In 1924 they sponsored publication of “Myśl Karaimska” and, in 1926, the Russian 927 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1068, fols. 1, 10-11. 928 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1064/1, fols. 2-3; cf. ibid., fols. 51, 60, 62-63, 73-77, 89-91; no. 1064/2, fols. 92- 97, 101 and passim. 929 G. Kal’fa and S. Tanagoz to S. Szapszał, Prague, 11.08.1939, Russian (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1064/2, fol. 122). 930 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1064/2, fol. 159. 931 Today Harbin is the capital of Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China. 932 For more details, see Leonid Lavrin, “Kolonia karaimska w Harbinie,” Awazymyz 1 (5) (2001): 12- 13. Unfortunately, the author of the article provides no dates of the the ḥazzanim successions. 190 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory leaflet by T.S. Levi-Babovich.933 Liudmila Il’inichna Lopato (Łopatto; b. Harbin, 1914 – d. Cannes, 2004), who was born in Harbin in 1914, later became a famous cabaret singer in Paris. She left interesting memoirs depicting the life of the Karaite community of Harbin.934 In 1932 Il’ia Kodzhak, a member of the community, published in Harbin several socio-philosophical books in Russian. A subchapter in one of these books presented the Karaites as descendants of the Khazars; other sections were dedicated to non-Karaite matters.935 In 1934 Harbin together with the rest of Manchuria became part of Manchukuo (Mǎnzhōuguó), a puppet state ruled by the Japanese government. In 1936 the group of the Polish Karaites living Harbin organized the “Society of the Polish Karaites in Manchukuo” (Russ. Общество Польских Караимов в Маньчжу- Ти-Го). The Polish consul agreed to support the Society and helped to register it with the government of the country. The local Karaite community consisted mostly of Polish-Lithuanian and Crimean Karaites; a few had Soviet citizenship and were atheists. There was a communal Karaite cemetery; the apartment of the ḥazzan was used as the kenesa (the ḥazzan himself called it Кенесса). In 1934 there were 40-50 Karaites living in Harbin.936 Two years later the ḥazzan sent a letter to Szapszał in which he sought to include the local community into the list of those under his jurisdiction.937 The Karaites were still in Harbin during the Second World War. One of them, S. Szpakowski, even published a short book there on the Karaites in the English language.938 The last Karaites left Harbin in the 1950s.939 3.7.6 United States Karaite emigration from Eastern Europe to the United States began, or so it seems, about the same time as the general Jewish flight to North America in the wake of the series of pogroms in Russia at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Some of these Karaite emigrants were from Wilno, Poniewież, 933 [Owadjusz Pilecki], “Charbin. Biźniń ummaha bołuszuwczułar/Kharbin. Nashi natsional’nye blagotvoriteli,” Sahyszymyz 1 (1927): 5. 934 Aleksander Vasil’iev, Liudmila Lopato [Łopatto], Tsaritsa parizhskikh kabare (Moscow, 2011), 2 7-53. 935 Il’ia Babakaevich Kodzhak (Sevastopol 1897 – Sidney 1967), Oko v okne (Harbin, 1932), 31-43 (a courtesy of Konstantin Burmistrov); cf. idem, “Evreiskii vopros”. Kul’turno-gosudarstvennaia problema evreistva (pertsepta) (Harbin, 1935); idem, Sotsiosofiia: novaia nauka o gosudarstve (Harbin, 1937). In the 1930s he maintained correspondence with S. Szapszał (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 371). 936 Gini, “I Caraimi,” 30. 937 LMAB F. 143, no. 444, fols. 6v-7r. 938 S. Shpakovsky (Szpakowski), Short Informations about Karaims (Harbin, 1943) (non vidi; was seen by A. Tokarczyk (Tokarczyk, Karaimizm, 30)). 939 Ludmiła Kopycińska, Michał Abkowicz, and Włodzimierz Abkowicz, “Z Dalekiego Wschodu... do Szczecina,” Awazymyz 2 (35) (2012): 4-10; Cf. Pilecki, “Karaimskie życie,” 49; General Trends in the Life of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in the Interwar Period 191 and Halicz.940 Local Karaites organized the “American Karaite Aid Society” in the 1920s.941 According to Corrado Gini, the American Karaite emigrants from Eastern Europe often married local Rabbanite Jews. The scholar also stated that in 1934 there were 23 Karaite emigrants in New York.942 *** Thus, the Karaites of Polish-Lithuanian origin were present in many large European cities and sustained contacts with their counterparts living in France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Bulgaria, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Estonia, North America and China. Unfortunately, for political and geographical reasons, their contacts with the largest Karaite communities of the world – those of Crimea and Egypt – remained the weakest. In the 1930s many members of these scattered European communities began experiencing serious problems with their legal status in the ware of the growth of general fascist, Nazi and anti-Semitic sentiments in many European countries. As a result, many of those Karaites, whose life had been jeopardized by anti-Jewish regulations enforced in these countries, turned to S. Szapszał for help and asked to provide them with certificates testifying to their Karaite – i.e. non Jewish – origin. Szapszał reacted positively to their pleas and thus the position of the Karaites living in these pro-fascist countries soon became less precarious than before. These communities (especially that of Harbin) explicitly referred to Szapszał as the head of their communities in diaspora and saw in him the guarantor of their security. 3.8 General Trends in the Life of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in the Interwar Period 3.8.1 The Karaite Periodical “Myśl Karaimska” (Pol. “Karaite Thought”) and Its Role in Shaping Historical Views and Self-Identification of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites “Myśl Karaimska”943 (Karaite Thought) and earlier Russian “Karaimskaia Zhizn’” were, undoubtedly, two of the most important Karaite periodicals of the twentieth century. Unlike “Karaimskaia Zhizn’”, which was intended for an internal use within the 940 Izaak Abrahamowicz, the future ḥazzan of the Halicz community, spent a long time in America; cf. the list of Karaite sponsors of the newspaper “Sahyszymyz.” 941 For the Constitution and Laws of the Society, see the letter of Natan Yoorga to S. Szapszał (15.02.1924) in MS LMAB F. 143, no. 977 (English). Natan Yoorga was apparently a great-uncle of Leonard Fox. 942 Gini, “I Caraimi,” 12. 943 For contemporary reviews of MK, see S. Klaczyński, “Myśl Karaimska,” Kurjer Wileński 25 (30.01.1929): 2; W. Charkiewicz, “Trochę egzotyki,” Słowo 35 (6.02.1934): 2. 192 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory community, “Myśl Karaimska” was, as Tadeusz Kowalski pointed out, “a Karaite visit card to the world”. Twelve issues of the periodical were published in Wilno from 1924 to 1939 and two after the war. The main publisher of the first issues of “Myśl Karaimska” was Ananjasz Rojecki.944 In the 1920s, prior to the arrival of Seraja Szapszał in Poland, the Galician Karaite intellectuals (especially, Z. Zarachowicz, N. Szulimowicz, and Z. Nowachowicz) took an active part in its activity. Two of them, Zarachowicz and Nowachowicz, became members of the editorial board of this periodical.945 The first issue of “Myśl Karaimska” carried an article by Zarach Zarachowicz: a programme for the development of the Karaite community in the years to come.946 However, after the arrival of Seraja Szapszał in 1928 and an active involvement of a young and ambitious follower of his doctrine, Ananiasz Zajączkowski, the editorial policy of the periodical changed considerably. Relations between Rojecki and other members of “Myśl Karaimska” and Karaite community deteriorated. Apparently, the overall tone and content of “Myśl Karaimska” began to be negatively perceived by the religious members of the community. Rojecki, it appears, was attentive to the comments of religious Karaites while Zajączkowski clearly wanted no interference on their part in the process of editing the periodical. At one point he wrote a categorical letter to Rojecki and suggested that he become the main editor of “Myśl Karaimska” in the case that the latter did not respond to his request.947 Rojecki apparently decided to step aside; as a result Zajączkowski became the main editor of the periodical in September 1930.948 According to S. Szyszman, however, it was Szapszał, who was the main editor of “Myśl Karaimska”, whereas Zajączkowski’s participation in the editing was reduced to “a fight over the size of the letters with which his [i.e. Zajączkowski’s] name was to be printed.”949 This statement produces a most odd impression, since 944 Ananjasz b. Eliezer Rojecki (geophysicist, b. Vienna, 19.07.1896 – d. Warsaw, 19.11.1978). See on him also A. Dziewulska-Łosiowa, “Ananiasz Rojecki (1896-1978),” Acta Geophysica Polonica 27:4 (1979): 413-417; Karaimi, ed. B. Machul-Telus (Warsaw 2012), 234, no. 40. 945 In fact, the Halicz Karaites had been originally planning to publish their own periodical- sprawozdanie, but having received news about the establishment of Myśl Karaimska, they abandoned this idea (AN PAN, Spuścizna K III-4, no. 122:2, fol. 83). 946 Zarach Zarachowicz, “Kilka uwag o naszych zadaniach w chwili obecnej,” MK 1 (1924): 5-6. 947 A. Zajączkowski to T. Kowalski, 22.08.1930 (UO, 55-56). 948 UO, 57. The last page of MK 2:2 (1929): 44 indicates that it was still Ananjasz Rojecki, who fulfilled the duties of the editor. Nevertheless, the copy of MK 2:2 (1929), which is kept in the library of Zajączkowski’s alma mater – the Oriental Institute of the Warsaw University – contains corrections inserted there by Aleksander Mardkowicz. The name of Rojecki is crossed out and the name of Zajączkowski is written above. Regardless, in the following issue (MK 2:3-4 (1931)) Zajączkowski is officially indicated as the main editor. 949 Szyszman, Przywódca duchowy Karaimów, 10. General Trends in the Life of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in the Interwar Period 193 from Zajączkowski’s own correspondence and other sources, we know how much of time and energy the latter invested in editing “Myśl Karaimska”.950 Twelve issues of interwar “Myśl Karaimska” contained a number of very valuable articles with publications of rare and unknown sources related to the history of the East European Karaites. Among them were publications by the non-Karaite scholars (T. Kowalski, M. Morelowski, B. Baranowski, and others); numerous historical and publicist writings of the Karaite authors from Poland (Z. Zarachowicz, A. Zajączkowski, S. Szapszał, Sz. Firkowicz, A. Rojecki) and from abroad (B. Kokenai, T.S. Levi- Babovich); a chronicle of most important events in the life of the Karaite communities in Poland-Lithuania and elsewhere in the world; short stories and poems in Karaim. Having said this, it is necessary to mention that, unfortunately, many historical articles published in “Myśl Karaimska” were marred with references to non-existent or, even, falsified sources, tendencies of the wrtiers to distort and “amend” the authentic content of the original sources, and the general pseudo-historical tendency to present the East European Karaites as descendants of the Khazars and Chuvashes, i.e. as an ethnic group having nothing in common with Jewish civilization. It is on the pages of “Myśl Karaimska” that Seraja Szapszał presented his “revolutionary” concept that Karaites recognized the prophetic nature of Jesus and Mohammed, and included elements of shamanism and veneration of Turkic deities in their religious creed.951 The main language of the periodical was Polish, although some materials were published in Karaim and (rarely) in Hebrew; Karaim was normally published in Polonicized Latin transliterations and not in Hebrew characters. It fulfilled the goals of the periodical’s founders and indeed became the Karaite visit card to the interwar non-Karaite audience; furthermore, it became the main source of information for the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite itself. Although many material published in “Myśl Karaimska” had a distinctive ideological character, the periodical remains the best source of information on the state of the community before the Second World War. Moreover, some of its articles, especially those which published rare sources on Karaite history and linguistics, still have not lost their scholarly importance. For the information about two post-war issues of “Myśl Karaimska,” see 6.1.1. 3.8.2 Relations with the Rabbanite Jews Considerable changes occurred in the Karaites’ relations with the Talmudic Jews during the interwar period. The general attitude of the Polish government to the 950 For more information about the active participation of Zajączkowski in the editorial process, see UO; AK, 65-163. 951 E.g. S. Szapszał, “Alexandre Baschmakoff, “Cinquante siecles d’evolution ethnique autour de la Mer Noire” Paris, 1937 (Recenzja),” MK 12 (1938): 112-118. 194 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory Rabbanites was highly intolerant and bluntly anti-Semitic. After the first wave of anti-Jewish violence of 1918–1920, there followed another one, this time accompanied by a number of discriminatory anti-Semitic laws officially enacted by the Polish government. According to Ezra Mendelson, “the war against the Jews during 1935–1939 took many forms, ranging from legislative efforts to brutal attacks.”952 In some Polish institutions of higher education, Jewish students were required to attend lectures in specially segregated areas (this system was introduced at the Lwów Polytechnicum in 1935 and then at Wilno university). More serious, however, was the economic boycott of Jewish businesses and the pogroms which took place in some cities in the Kresy in the second half of the 1930s.953 The attitude of the Polish state to the Karaites, however, was surprisingly welcoming and warm. This may be explained by the apparent pro-Polish patriotism expressively shown and emphasized by the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites immediately after 1918 and later, and also by their careful representation of the Karaite community as an absolutely separate religious and ethnic entity which was totally unconnected with the (Rabbanite) Jews. In fact, Poland continued the Austrian and Russian policy of legal separation of the Karaites from the Rabbanites, and of granting the former exemptions from many anti-Jewish laws and limitations. For example, in contrast to the Karaites, the local Rabbanite Jews were not allowed to work at the local railway station at all.954 This is why some sources state that after the Polish annexation of Galicia, relations between the Karaites and Rabbanites worsened. According to one of the local Rabbanite merchants, in the 1930s the Karaites lost their “fear of the Jews,” the fear that they had had during Austrian times. In this informant’s view, such “loss of fear” caused relations between the two groups to deteriorate.955 Another interwar source states that the Halicz Rabbanites, on the contrary, developed some sort of irrational fear of the Karaites. As the local superstition had it, a Rabbanite who met a Karaite on the way to a shop or after the end of the Sabbath would not – as a direct consequence of that meeting – have any success in his trade for a day or even during the course of a whole week.956 One of the interwar Jewish journalists reported that the Karaites considered themselves as the “Elite-gemeinde” (Germ. “elite community”). Furthermore, according to the same report, some of the local Karaites were rather “anti-Semitic.”957 On the other hand, many sources testify to the continuing interest of the local Karaites in many Rabbanite practices and traditions. Izaak Abrahamowicz and 952 Mendelson, The Jews of East Central Europe, 73. 953 Ibid., 73-74. 954 Wachsmann, “Halitsch,” 13. 955 Emanuela Trevisan Semi, Gli ebrei Caraiti tra etnia e religione (Roma, 1984), 73. 956 Wachsmann, “Halitsch,” 13. 957 Ibid. General Trends in the Life of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in the Interwar Period 195 Zarach Zarachowicz, two very learned and educated Halicz Karaites of the interwar period (for a while, both fulfilled the duties of ḥazzanim), are known for their interest in the Qabbalah and Rabbanite religious literature and customs. Zarachowicz copied and translated into Karaim some Rabbanite liturgical works,958 while Abrahamowicz apparently tried to introduce some Rabbanite elements into the Karaite liturgy. Furthermore, one Karaite respondent from the 1930s stated that the Karaites had excellent relations with the Rabbanites, less friendly dealings with the Poles, and even less amicable ones with the Ukrainians. He also added that the little Karaites played mostly with Rabbanite children and even spoke Yiddish with them.959 According to the memoires of Edmund Sulimowicz, which were documented by his niece, Anna Sulimowicz, in interwar Halicz local children often played the game of “Jews and Arabs” (Pol. “w Żydów i Arabów”). Not only Karaites, but also the local Ashkenazim, Ukrainians and Poles took part in these games – which testifies that it was a rather friendly tradition unifying all ethnic groups of this town.960 According to Aleksander Gołub, who spent his youth in interwar Łuck, relations of the Karaite community with the Rabbanite Jews were not uniform: We often fought against each other as boys; sometimes they were stronger, sometimes we. On our side, however, there was no anti-Semitism. Furthermore, in Łuck there were much more of them than of us. In addition, they often disturbed us during prayers and provoked. They bullied us even in front of the kienesa.961 Moreover, it was the Rabbanite Jews who were hired by the Halicz Karaites to repair their synagogue after the destruction of 1913-1918. In the 1920s the community made the first, superficial, renovation of the synagogue (kenesa). Nevertheless, it needed more financial support to make a complete restoration.962 The final repairs to the synagogue were carried out only in 1927 by a group of the local Ashkenazic Jews (Abraham Wohl, Perly Rosenman, and Israel Spund).963 *** 958 Shapira, “Turkic Languages,” 688. 959 Trevisan Semi, Gli ebrei Caraiti, 73. The East European Karaites normally did not use Yiddish at all (cf. Mikhail Kizilov, “Faithful Unto Death: Language, Tradition, and the Disappearance of the East European Karaite Communities,” East European Jewish Affairs 36:1 (2006): 76). 960 Anna Sulimowicz, “Mieczek i Siunek,” Awazymyz 1 (38) (2013): 4-13. 961 Tokarczyk, Karaimizm, 158. 962 In 1924 the Karaite community asked the Polish government to grant them 10,000 złoty for the restoration of the kenesa (Z. Z. [Zarach Zarachowicz], “Restauracja kienesy,” MK 1:2 (1925): 42; idem, “Restauracja kienesy,” MK 1:3 (1926): 27). 963 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1466, fols. 43-44, 71. 196 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory There were a few controversial topics and events that were actively discussed in the Jewish, Polish, and Karaite press in interwar Poland. In general, in the 1930s both Polish and Jewish press often used the Karaite example in order to prove this or that doubtful ideological premise. This is evidently seen, for example, in discussion concerning the problem of ritual slaughter. In 1936, the Polish Sejm forbade the Rabbanite sheḥiṭah (ritual slaughter of animals) under the pretext of its alleged “sadistic” character. This anti-sheḥiṭah bill was modelled on a 1930 German law according to which animals were supposed to be stunned before slaughter. This demand violated biblical prescriptions concerning the slaughter: as is known, in order to be considered ritually pure (kosher), an animal should be slaughtered according to a specific Rabbanite ritual. The Polish Rabbanites knew that the Karaite sheḥiṭah (slaughter) was quite similar that of the Talmudic Jews – and decided to use this fact in their fight against anti-Semitic Polish legislation. Thus, the Jewish newspapers objected to the new law by saying that both the Karaites and Muslims also use similar sort of ritual slaughter.964 For the Karaites, of course, such indication of the similarity of their rites to those of the Rabbanites appeared to jeopardize their advantageous legal status. An indignant Aleksander Mardkowicz responded by saying that “animals, slaughtered by the Karaites, would not be consumed by the Rabbanites.”965 Seraja Szapszał went even further and testified to the Polish readers that “in the question of the animal slaughter the Karaites do not recognize any ritual… What concerns the Tatars and Turks, in Crimea, for example… they usually buy meat in the Karaite shops… What concerns the Jews, they do not eat animals slaughtered by the Karaites.”966 In fact, of course, the difference between Karaite and Rabbanite slaughter is not that apparent: according to both traditions, animals are slaughtered ritually at the neck, but a different blessing is said and different signs of the animal’s health and suitability for digestion are checked.967 The Rabbanite Jews’ attempt to use the Karaite case against the new law was unsuccessful: it was adopted by the Polish government in April 1936 anyway. 968 The Karaite theme was also used by a certain Rowno-born Lilienfeld-Lenski, a Jewish seeker of adventures. After some sordid affair in Poland Lilienfeld-Lenski arrived in Leipzig, where he contacted a highly-placed NSDAP authority from 964 “Karaimi pomagają Żydom? Projekt zniesienia polowań wnoszą Żydzi do Sejmu,” ABC – Nowiny codzienne (9.03.1936). 965 [Aleksander Mardkowicz], “Tasłar Karaj bachcasyna,” KA 9 (1936): 24. To his article Mardkowicz also attached a few highly curious quotations from the Jewish press of the 1930s concerning the Karaites. 966 “Karaimi nie uznają uboju rytualnego,” Wieczór warszawski (27.03.1936); cf. “Karaimi wobec uboju rytualnego,” Gazeta Wągrowiecka (27.03.1936): 2. 967 Daniel J. Lasker, “Karaite Judaism,” The Encyclopedia of Judaism 4:1 (Leiden-Boston, 2003), 1813. 968 Isaac Lewin, Michael L. Munk, and Jeremiah J. Berman, Religious Freedom: the right to practice Shehitah (Kosher Slaughtering) (New York, 1946). General Trends in the Life of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in the Interwar Period 197 Chemnitz. He suggested to the NSDAP to use the rebellion of the Karaites in their struggle against Poland, providing them with false information that the Karaites represented a large group of people. In order to realize this bogus “Karaite uprising”, Lilienfeld-Lenski milked large sums of money out of the NSDAP treasury. The end of the story was rather tragic. By the time the whole absurdity and impossibility of the “Karaite rebellion” was discovered (ca. 1937), the NSDAP leader from Chemnitz had died and Lilienfeld-Lenski had been killed by frontier guards while trying to escape from Germany. The Karaite themselves were totally unaware of this alleged “rebellion” only learning about the whole affair from Polish newspapers.969 Another point of Karaite-Rabbanite controversy was the “Khazar question.” To interwar Karaite leaders, the origin of the East European Karaites from the Khazars was self-evident. However, in the 1930s some few Rabbanite scholars (especially M. Gumplowicz and I. Schipper) suggested that the Khazars played an important role in the formation of the Ashkenazic Jewry as well.970 Of course this caused an indignant reaction from Karaite leaders who did not like the idea of “sharing” their Khazar forefathers with the Rabbanites.971 One should mention here that neither Karaite leaders, nor their Rabbanite opponents were the first, and, certainly, not the last, ones who tried to “find” descendants of the Khazars among some nineteenth/ twentieth century ethnic groups (among them were the Ashkenazim, mountainous Jews of the Caucasus, Don Cossacks, Subbotniki, Brodniki, and some others). Of course, most of such “straightforward” identifications of the Khazars with present- day ethnicities are very naive and unconvincing. However, the debate on the extent of the impact of the Khazar Jews on European Jewry is still going on.972 One more heated discussion centred on the Karaite theme took place in 1934. In general, one can find hardly any information about the involvement of the Polish- Lithuanian Karaites in Zionism. According to Reuven Fahn, the Wilno tobacco company “Szyszman and Duruncza” was the only Karaite company which hired Rabbanite assistants. Its owners were sympathetic to Zionism and even took part 969 Unfortunately, I was unable to find original Polish reports about this unsuccessful “Karaite uprising.” This information was gleaned from an article in the Karaite press ([Aleksander Mardkowicz], “‘Turałmahy’ Karajłarnyn,” KA 12 (1938): 3–4). 970 Maksymilian Ernest Gumplowicz, Początki religii żydowskiej w Polsce (Warsaw, 1903); Itzhak (Ignacy) Schipper, “Rozwój ludności Żydowskiej na ziemiach Dawnej Rzeczypospolitej,” in Żydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej, ed. Aleksander Hafftka, Itzhak Schipper, and Aryeh Tartakower (Warsaw, 1936), 21- 36; idem, “Dzieje gospodarcze Żydów Korony i Litwy w czasach przedrozbiorowych,” in ibid., 111-190. 971 See [Aleksander Mardkowicz], “Kari biz, ari alar,” KA 12 (1938): 2-3 (the title of this article is, undoubtedly, a calque from Russian “Kuda my, tuda oni”). 972 For a survey, see, Mikhail Kizilov and Diana Mikhailova, “Khazary i Khazarskii kaganat v evropeiskikh natsionalisticheskikh ideologiiakh i politicheski orientirovannoi nauchno- issledovatel’skoi literature,” Khazarskii Al’manakh 3 (2004): 34-62; idem, “The Khazar Kaganate and the Khazars in European Nationalist Ideologies and Scholarship,” Archivum Eurasii Medii Aevi 14 (2005): 31-53. 198 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory in a deputation which greeted the arrival of Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, in Wilno.973 Gedo Hecht observed that – with that one exception – in the 1930s the local Karaites responded apatheticallly to Zionism.974 Nevertheless, in January 1934 “Palestine Post” published the following report about the Karaites’ appeal to Zionist organization: Warsaw, Jan. 15.—[1934] A delegation of Karaites, headed by their Hacham, (as cabled briefly), have arrived here from Volhynia, making the long journey on foot because they had no money for the fares, and have visited the Palestine Emigration Office of the Zionist Organisation, asking for immigration certificates to enable them to go to Palestine, and help to establish Chalutzim training centres and to learn the Hebrew language. They explained that there are some hundreds of Karaite families in great want, who are land workers, and wish to settle in Palestine. The Directors of the Palestine Office have promised to transmit the application to the Jewish Agency Executive.975 A few other reports with the same information about the petition of the Łuck Karaites to the Palestine Emigration Office of the Zionist Organisation in Warsaw were published in some other newspapers from January through April 1934. “Gazeta Warszawska” wrote: “The Jewish agency in Jerusalem received a petition from the leaders of the ancient Jewish sect of the Karaites expressing their wish to give them the freedom of emigration to Palestine... The outcome of the Karaites’ petition to the Jewish agency is not known”.976 Further publications added that the petition had been brought by a group of the young Karaites of Łuck.977 A report in Yiddish interpreted this news as a possibility of a reconciliation between Karaites and Rabbanites; however, according to this report the Karaites were refused permission to emigrate.978 In response to the official enquiry sent to him with regard to these reports, Karaite ḥakham Seraja Szapszał dismissed this account as a mere newspaper hoax: The Crimean-Polish Karaites are not at all interested in Zionism as a movement supporting the creation of Jewish state; they, as the people of Turkic origin, would not have anything in common with the state of such a nation alien to them. What concerns our religion, which is based on Scripture in its original purity, it is as far from the Jewish religion as it is from Christianity. However, the Jews maintain that all other monotheistic religions, as well as the Karaite faith, are nothing but Jewish sects.979 973 Fahn, “Aus dem Leben der Karaiten,” Ost und West 1 (1912): 67. 974 Hecht, Karaimi: “Synowie zakonu”, 35. 975 PTA, “Karaites Ask in Palestine,” Palestine Post (24.01.1934): 3. 976 “Sekta Karaimów,” Gazeta Warszawska (13.04.1934). 977 “Czy Karaimi zamierzają emigrować do Palestyny?” Dziennik Wileński 64 (7.03.1934). 978 Shaul Yiṣḥaq Stupnicki, “Di Karaimer shtreken-oys di hand tsu unz,” Der Moment 25:17 (19.01.1934). 979 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1464, fols. 35-36; cf. “Czy Karaimi zamierzają emigrować.” General Trends in the Life of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in the Interwar Period 199 What lay behind this “Zionist episode” remains unknown. The information published in newspapers could have been indeed some sort of misunderstanding or “newspaper hoax”, as Szapszał alleged. Some “picturesque” details of the report published in “Palestine Post” force one to doubt their veracity. The Karaites of Łuck could not be “led by their Hacham” because only ḥazzan is the head of their community, not the ḥakham. Their coming to Warsaw on foot from Łuck “because they had no money for the fares” also does not sound very convincing: such a journey (ca. 400 km) would have taken them, perhaps, several weeks; furthermore, the Łuck Karaites were normally rather well-to-do and could afford to buy their own train tickets themselves. On the other hand, it is still possible that some members of the Łuck community could have arrived in Warsaw to enquire about the possibility of emigrating to Palestine. It is known, for example, that at least one Halicz Karaite, Marek (Mordecai) Abrahamowicz, emigrated to Jerusalem ca. 1935 – almost about the time when the question of the Karaites’ interest in Zionism was discussed in the press.980 Further, in 1937 a Rabbanite Abram Bronzaft mentioned in his letter to S. Szapszał that he had been in touch with the keeper of the Karaite synagogue of Jerusalem, Sinani. The latter informed him that he had asked the Va’ad Leumi (Jewish National Council) to grant permission to several Karaites to emigrate to Palestine.981 Thus, although it still remains unclear whether the “Zionist episode” of 1934 reflected any real appeal of the Polish Karaites to the office of the Zionist Organisation in Warsaw, there certainly was some limited interest on the part of some Polish Karaites in emigration to Palestine. *** Although, as we have demonstrated, there were still close contacts between the Karaites and Rabbanite Jews in interwar Poland both on every day and intellectual level, there is no doubt that in general the Karaites began feeling increasingly different – and differentiated – from their Ashkenazic neighbours. Practically all Rabbanite visitors to interwar Troki noticed that this tendency could be explained first of all by the conscious policy of Karaite intellectual and religious leadership directed at presenting the Karaites as separate ethnic and religious entity which 980 He stayed at the home of the Karaite ḥazzan of Jerusalem (M. Abrahamowicz to his parents, Jerusalem, 21.10.193[5]; Polish; the Yurchenko MSS). He continued living there even after the end of the war and the establishment of the State of Israel. In 1950 he met Mordecai Abraham Alfandari (1929- 1999), a future ḥakham of the Israeli Karaites (Nehemiah Gordon, “The Death of a Karaite Hacham” ( had nothing to do with Judaism in general and Ashkenazic Jews in particular.982 To give an example, M. Blum wrote in 1936: “Militarization of Karaite youth is no more than a part of senseless actions of Karaite clergy, sowing hatred against the Jewish masses, so that these hostile feelings would consolidate their power over the poor Karaite community.”983 This policy of Karaite leadership, which is called by scholars endogenous dejudaization (or Turkicization), will be analyzed in detail in Chapter 4. 3.8.3 The Problem of Mixed Marriages In general, the number of mixed marriages between Jews and Christians grew considerably in the interwar period. During this era, in many cities of Western and Central Europe a full third of the Jews married outside the Jewish community.984 In Eastern Europe (apart from the Soviet Union), however, the percentage of mixed marriages among the Jews was relatively small: 1% in Galicia, 2.64% in Latvia, and only 0.2% in Lithuania.985 In spite of the fact that the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite community tried to preserve the religious traditionalism of their forefathers, it appears that the lack of potential Karaite brides led members of the community to be much more flexible concerning the rigidity of their matrimonial laws. In 1922, the Halicz ḥazzan, Izaak Abrahamowicz, registered the marriage between Izaak Ickowicz and Zofja Abrahamowicz, who was a sister of Ickowicz’s first wife.986 According to traditional Karaite laws, such marriages were not allowed. Furthermore, having discovered that Izaak Abrahamowicz winked at such “minor” violations of religious law, a few Karaites from other communities brought their non-Karaite fiancées to Halicz for conversion to Karaism and subsequent marriage. Thus, a Łuck Karaite referred to in the documents as “Rutkowski” arrived in Halicz with a Polish woman, Barbara (Tamara?) Majewska, who was converted to Karaism and accepted into the Karaite community.987 In May of 1923, Abrahamowicz converted another Polish woman, Marja Stankiewicz of Wilno, to the Karaite faith. It is of interest that sources have preserved 982 Blum, “Ha-Qara a description of the rite of conversion. As the report of Józef Eszwowicz has it, in order to convert Marja Stankiewicz to Karaism, Abrahamowicz “did not ask her whether she knew any Karaite prayers; he only read to her the Ten Commandments in Hebrew, which she did not understand at all.”988 After her conversion, Stankiewicz received a new Karaite name: “Tamar.”989 Both conversions were made with one pragmatic purpose: to enable these “proselytes,” who apparently did not seem to care very much about the tenets of Karaite creed, to marry Karaite men. Thus, in the 1920s, against all religious proscriptions, there were cases of proselytism in the Karaite communities at the time. In spite of the opposition on the part of Halicz traditionalists, all of the aforementioned not-too-scrupulous – and legally vague – acts were considered legitimate, and, moreover, the Polish “proselytes” soon married their Karaite partners.990 Especially interesting is the legal aspect of this problem. Why would Karaites from such remote regions of Poland as Wilno and Łuck bring their “converted” fiancées as far as Halicz to be married? The answer may be found in the inconsistent character of the Polish legal system after 1918, which had to incorporate elements of Russian and Austrian laws into a single unified code of law. Somewhat surprisingly, in the 1920s the Polish administration of former Russian territories considered the Russian regulation of 17 April 1905 as binding. It prohibited the conversion of Christians to a non-Christian faith.991 Nevertheless, Polish administration of former Austrian territories (i.e. of Galicia) continued following Austrian laws, and allowed mixed Christian–Jewish marriages.992 This is why the only way around this official ban on such marriages was to have a mixed marriage performed in the former Austrian territory of Halicz. This may explain why, sanctioned by the permission of the Halicz ḥazzan, the two aforementioned Polish Catholic women were officially allowed to convert to the karaimskie wyznanie (Karaite faith) by the local Polish administration (starostwo) in Stanisławów.993 In most other interwar Karaite communities there were similar tendencies. Many secularized Karaite intellectuals clearly understood the danger of demographic 988 J. Eszwowicz to the regional government in Stanisławów, 3.02.1924, Polish (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1461, fol. 120). 989 Ibid. 990 S. Rudkowski continued living with his converted wife in the 1930s (T. Kowalski to S. Szapszał, MS LMAB F. 143, no. 384, fol. 55). 991 A copy of the new confirmation of this Russian regulation by Polish law was sent to the Troki ḥakham in 1924 – which means that the Karaites could not simply ignore it (“Zarządzenie władz w sprawie przechodzenia na wiarę niechrześcijańską,” MK 1:2 (1925): 38-39). Thus, the report to the effect that after 1904 one or two Germans and several Russians converted to Karaism seems very unlikely to be true (Adler, “Krim-Karäer,” 119). 992 Ruppin, Jewish Fate, 106. 993 A report by a police officer from Halicz to MWRiOP, 1923 (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1461, fol. 118). 202 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory decline, and saw mixed marriages as the only solution to this problem.994 A highly curious case is related to the Maikapars, a Karaite family from Riga. In December, 1930, Samuil Abramovich Maikapar and his wife, Rashel Osipovna, asked Szapszał to allow the marriage of their daughter, Inna, to a young Rabbanite lawyer, Horacio Bernhardt (Бернгард; his real name in fact was Goratsii Zakharovich (Zeligovich) Blumental).995 In order to avoid the law prohibiting mixed marriages, Szapszał suggested that they “adopt” this young Rabbanite996 and give them their Karaite surname. After the “adoption” of Horacio by a Karaite family Szapszał had been prepared, according to his own words, to send ḥazzan Kalfa to Riga to perform the marriage ceremony. According to Szapszał, however, the Troki Karaite community somewhow received the news about this forthcoming marriage. As a result, members of the community, in Szapszał’s words, started actively protesting against such deviation from their religious law. Szapszał wrote to the Maikapars: “In observing that this seemingly purely religious problem had taken on a sharp national character, I… could not ignore the pleas of the people.” Consequently, he was obliged to give a negative answer and withdrew permission for the marriage.997 Nevertheless, this marriage still took place on 28.12.1930, after which Horacio took the double surname of Bernhardt-Maikapar while Inna – Blumental.998 According to Corrado Gini, the American Karaite emigrants from Eastern Europe often married local Rabbanite Jews. The scholar also stated that in 1934 there were 23 Karaite emigrants in New York.999 Nevertheless, the Polish Karaite authorities seemed to keep to the letter of the law and did not allow such marriages. This, however, as the aforementioned cases clearly show, does not mean that such marriages did not take place. In spite of these difficulties and the apparent unwillingness to recognize such mixed marriages on the part of Karaite and Rabbanite authorities alike, numerous marriages of this kind were registered in Europe and America in the interwar period 994 E.g. Aleksander Mardkowicz (Łuck) and Lidia Poziemska (Łobanos) of Troki ([Aleksander Mardkowicz], “Bitik da karuw,” KA 12 (1938): 9-12a; Konstanty Pilecki, “Cień z przeszłości,” Awazymyz 1 (4) (2000): 3-7). As was mentioned above, Mardkowicz himself was married to a Rabbanite woman – which can explain his eagerness to permit mixed marriages. 995 Latvijas Universitātes Tautsaimniecības un tiesību zinātņu fakultātes. Tiesību zinātņu nodaļas absolventu dzīves un darba gaitas (1919-1944) (Riga, 1999). 996 In spite of the fact that Horacio’s parents were still alive. 997 MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1016, fols. 1, 7-10. 998 They both and their two children were killed by the Nazis in 1941 (Kaufman, Hurbn Letland. Unichtozhenie evreev, 92-93; Evgenii Klimov, “Zametki” and after 1945.1000 Mixed Karaite–Rabbanite marriages were especially numerous under the state atheism of the Soviet Union, where religious and ethnic differences were much less important than in other countries.1001 3.9 The Visit of Corrado Gini’s Anthropological Expedition to the Karaite Community in Poland and Lithuania Karaite, oh, Karaite, a special destiny: Your real ancestors are unknown! As a child lost in the market, You are calling every man with a beard an “uncle”. Karaite poet Aleksander Mardkowicz (1937).1002 In the summer of 1934 the leading Italian statistician, demographer, and sociologist, Corrado Gini, started negotiations with the Polish government and the head of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite community, Seraja Szapszał, concerning his research trip to Poland. Before attempting a critical evaluation of the results of Gini’s expedition, a few words should be said about Gini himself and the general atmosphere of the study of demographics in Italy under Benito Mussolini (fascist leader from 1922 to 1943). Corrado Gini (1884–1965) was one of the leading twentieth-century Italian scientists, who developed the so-called “Gini coefficient,” a measure of income inequality in a society. In the 1920s-30s he founded the statistical journals Metron and Genus, and in 1929 he established the Italian Committee for the Study of Population Problems (Comitato italiano per lo studio dei problemi della popolazione).1003 In the 1920s, however, he became closely associated with Italian fascist circles and maintained a close friendship with Mussolini himself. In 1927 he even published a theoretical work 1000 Ibid.; MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1016, fols. 1, 7-10. The Karaite ḥazzan Abraham Beim (Armiansk, 1918) was forced at gunpoint to register a marriage between the Karaite Emai (Yeremei?) Kodzhak and the Rabbanite woman Berta Berlovich (GAARK F. 241, op. 2, no. 49). Leonard Fox informed me that his parents had registered their mixed Karaite–Rabbanite marriage in 1932. For more discussion regarding Karaite–Rabbanite marriages, see Trevisan Semi, Gli ebrei Caraiti, 39-40; Mann, Texts, 685- 687. 1001 One report – abeit questionable – from the 1930s stated that the Soviet Karaites married Russian, German, Rabbanite, Tatar and Krymchaki women – and that the ideal wife of a Karaite of that time was a German housewife! (Adler, “Krim-Karäer,” 119). I personally know a few descendants of such mixed marriages between Crimean Karaites and their Ashkenazic, Tatar, and Slavic neighbours. 1002 Karaj, Karaj, ajrycty gorałyn:/Biliwsizdłer duhru ebgełerin!/Chaz ułan azaskan panairde,/Char sahałha ajtas: “dede” (Aleksander Mardkowicz, “Ebgełer,” KA 11 (1937): 20). 1003 Corrado Gini, “Recherches sur la population,” Scientia (1934) : 140-155. 204 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory entitled “The Scientific Basis of Fascism,” which discussed the role of power and science in Gini’s conception of a fascist state.1004 He further published several other papers dedicated to various aspects of fascist state and politics.1005 In 1926 Mussolini personally appointed him president of the Central Institute of Statistics in Rome. According to Giovanni Favero, it was Gini’s political role as Mussolini’s “advisor” on demographic issues that had initially protected this institution from pervasive propaganda exploitation.1006 Nevertheless, in 1932, apparently as the result of a conflict with Mussolini’s close associates, Gini resigned from his position; afterwards, it seems, he discontinued his close contacts with the fascist authorities. In the 1930s he continued to be involved in fascist discussions about the qualities of so-called “superior races”. In 1934 he edited a book containing an article on the history of the Jews in Italy, leading one to believe that he also was aware about the demographic situation of the Jewish community in his own country.1007 Initially his opinion on the subject differed drastically from that of the proponents of purity of races who preached against “cross-breeding with inferior races.” On the contrary, according to Gini’s early thoughts, it was important for the “superior races…to recognize the necessity of cross-breeding for the preservation of the races.”1008 By 1937, when the general fascist discourse became increasingly anti-Semitic, Gini drastically changed his opinion: in one of his publications it appears that he rationalized a justification of genocide as a form of “understandable reaction” that could be applied to primitive peoples, Armenians and Jews.1009 He continued to scientifically justify racism after 1938.1010 The main objective of Gini’s expedition to Poland and Lithuania of 1934 was to study the local Karaite community from sociological, anthropological, and statistical standpoints. His interest in the Karaites was stimulated by the general interest of Italian and German scientists in racial and eugenic questions. One may suggest that it was Gini’s Jewish colleagues of Polish origin who recommended that he study the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites in 1934 (before 1938 many Italian fascists did not have 1004 Corrado Gini, “The Scientific Basis of Fascism,” Political Science Quarterly 42:1 (1927): 99-115. 1005 For a complete bibliography, see V. Castellano, “Corrado Gini: a memoir,” Metron 24 (1965): 3-84. 1006 Giovanni Favero, “Corrado Gini and Italian Statistics under Fascism,” a paper presented to the XIIIth Congress of the International Economic History Association (Buenos Aires, 23.07.2002). specifically anti-Semitic agenda). In spite of the fact that many such ethnographic and anthropological studies of the 1930s had some scholarly value, most of them were stimulated and sponsored by local Nazi and fascist authorities – and had rather sinister implications and consequences. From 1933 to 1938 Gini’s Committee for the Study of Population Problems undertook several expeditions which studied the Dauada of Tripolitania, Samaritans of Palestine, Mexican ethnic minorities, the Karaites of Poland and Lithuania, the then-called “Bantu” of South Africa, and the Berbers of Giado. Gini himself considered these groups to be “primitive” and “decadent”; study of them, however, was necessary to understand important processes leading to the creation of “new races”. Gini stated that the main task of his Committee was to “collect as many as possible data on these primitive or decadent peoples and especially to study the modality and, if possible, the causes of the decline and gradual disappearance of certain races as well as the causes of the formation and flourishing of new races on which our ignorance is almost complete”.1011 Thus, Gini’s anthropological publications of the 1930s – and his study of the Karaites – should be understood as a part of the general Nazi and fascist racial discourse which had very little to do with actual science. According to archival documents, Seraja Szapszał, the head of the Polish Karaite community, was far from being enthusiastic about Gini’s arrival.1012 Szapszał’s letter to the Director of the Department of Religious Confessions in Warsaw clearly indicated that in addition to purely academic purposes, Gini’s expedition might pursue (as the Polish authorities stated in their letter) political or perhaps even espionage functions: I received a private communication revealing that Prof. Gini had allegedly been informed by a certain Polish Jew1013 that the Polish Karaites supposedly belonged to disappearing people and that this [situation] was made worse by conditions provided by our state [i.e. Poland] with regard to ethnic minorities... initially I decided to oppose, though in indirect manner, prof. Gini’s arrival... However, unusually strong resolution of this scholar [to do his research on the Karaites], together with information that I received about the fact that he was Mussolini’s close friend, evoked my doubts: could my refusal possibly cause some (even most minimal) undesirable consequences for our government? I think that my personal explanations... would be able to disprove and ruin insinuations of this unknown to me Polish Jew. Thus, having no personal abilities to restrain scientific expedition of prof. Gini to Poland, I supply the information mentioned above to your attention and have 1011 “Uno degli scopi essenziali del Comitato sarà quello di raccogliere su queste popolazioni primitive o decadenti la quantità di dati più estesa possibile e di studiare specialmente le modalità e, se possibile, le cause della decadenza e della scomparsa graduale di certe razze così come le cause della formazione e della fioritura di razze nuove sulle quali la nostra ignoranza è quasi assoluta” (as cited in ibid., 135). 1012 For numerous documents related to Gini’s arrival in Poland, see AAN MWRiOP, no. 1464, fols. 42-56. 1013 Gini’s source is believed to have been a Polish citizen and one of his students in Rome, Benjamin Freilichmann. 206 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory an honour to inform you that it comes from [our] correspondence that there still remains one month until the arrival of prof. Gini. Prof. Gini intends to start his research in Łuck, then move to Halicz, and from there, in September, he plans to visit the Wilno region.1014 Polish officials, while being aware of Gini’s closeness to Italian fascist circles, also were rather alarmed at his sudden interest in the local Karaites. A letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of 10 August 1934 warned MWRiOP: Professor Corrado Gini is a prominent Italian scholar knowledgeable in population issues, which are highly topical in the context of fascist national policy… It would be, however, most desirable to turn our attention to the research activity of [his] committee in order to make sure that it indeed does not exceed the officially determined limits of its activity. Professor Gini’s stay in Poland should be arranged in such a way that he will not be able to establish any undesirable contacts.1015 Indeed, while visiting the Karaite centres in Poland (Łuck and Halicz), Polish Lithuania (Wilno, Troki), and independent Lithuania (Poniewież), members of his expedition could have easily gathered some other, unscholarly information. However, if the scientific side of this expedition is well-known, its tentative “political” mission, to my knowledge, was not documented by any written source apart from the aforementioned letter. Until further documentation is gathered, one may well presume that this expedition remained purely scientific. *** In the course of their visit to Poland in August–October 1934, Gini’s expedition examined 549 Karaites (175 families), i.e. approximately 60 percent of the whole Karaite community in Poland and Lithuania. The expedition measured and recorded such parameters as skull dimensions, proportions of body members, weight, height, finger- and footprints, blood groups, colour of eyes, hair, and skin. In addition, each examined Karaite was photographed, and his/her genealogy was documented. Furthermore, some members of the expedition asked Karaite respondents about their world-views, the historical and ethnic origins of the Karaites, and their religious and everyday traditions. As many as 549 anthropometric, 547 medical, and 175 demographic questionaires were completed.1016 Apart from Professor Corrado Gini, the expedition included a few other notable scholars: Nora Federici (1910–2001), who together with Gini was one of the founders of the science of demographic in Italy; 1014 S. Szapszał to the Director of the Department of Religious Confessions in Warsaw, 16.07.1934, Polish (AAN MWRiOP, no. 1464, fols. 44-45). 1015 AAN MWRiOP, no. 1464, fol. 49. 1016 Corrado Gini, “Appunti sulle spedizioni scientifiche del Comitato Italiano per lo studio dei problemi della popolazione (febraio 1933-febraio 1935),” Genus 2: 3-4 (1937): 237; Gini, “I Caraimi,” 36. The Visit of Corrado Gini’s Anthropological Expedition 207 Annibale Del Blue (Rome); Liebmann Hersch (Geneva);1017 Benjamin Freilichmann (a Polish citizen and student in Rome; after his emigration to Israel, a.k.a. Benjamin Zvi Gil).1018 A few Polish scientists (Jan Czekanowski,1019 Stanisław Zejmo-Zejmis, Tadeusz Henzel, Martyna Puzynina, Izabella Wojkowska, Jerzy Guthke) assisted them in Poland. Among these was, surprisingly, the Karaite physician Konstanty Łopatto of Wilno.1020 Solomon Czortkower, a Polish Jewish anthropologist, who wrote several articles about the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites, initially was also supposed to take part in the expedition.1021 In the end, however, he did not go. Some sources say that that among the members of the expedition there also was the influential Italian racist author, Carlo Magnino.1022 The Galician Karaites, as the Karaite community geographically located closest to Rome, were the first to be visited. The expedition arrived in Halicz during the last days of August 1934. Research in Halicz was conducted mainly by the Rabbanite Jews, Hersch and Freilichmann. Altogether 86 Halicz Karaites in 37 families (ca. 65% of the community) were examined. After studying the local Karaites, Freilichmann, himself an Ashkenazic Jew of Galician origin, also examined 197 Halicz Rabbanites.1023 The work of the members of the expedition was overseen by the most influential leaders of the Halicz community – Zachariah Nowachowicz and Samuel Samuelowicz. On 28 August 1934 the expedition donated 270 złoty towards the construction of a Karaite National House (dom narodowy), which was later erected in the vicinity of the kenesa.1024 After their stay in Halicz, Gini and his colleagues also visited the Karaite communities of Łuck, Wilno, Troki (4.09 – 16.09.19341025) and Poniewież. 38 Karaites were examined in Łuck, 168 in Troki, and 137 in Wilno. The expedition also discovered 1017 For his biography, see G. Frumkin, “From Conventional Demography to Potential Demography – in Memoriam of Liebmann Hersch (1882-1955),” Population Investigation Committee 9:3 (1956): 276- 2 7 7. 1018 He was the head of the Statistics department in the Israeli government in the 1950s (Yitṣḥaq Ben Zvi, Niddeḥey Yisra in the local museum in Łuck 11 Karaite skulls taken from the old Karaite cemetery of the town; these skulls were also measured and examined.1026 It seems that no other East European Karaite community welcomed the expedition as cordially as that of Poniewież. The expedition, which arrived in Poniewież, as the Lithuanian report claimed, “incognito”, stayed there from 2 to 8 October, 1934. Practically all members of the community were examined, except for a few elders, who were “ashamed and confused to show their bodies.” As many as 120 local Karaites were examined, i.e. about 80 percent of the community.1027 According to A. Mardkowicz, many Karaites arrived in Poniewież from adjacent localities in order to be studied; as a result, Liebmann Hersch “looked like a person having a birthday” (Russ. имел вид именинника) while Gini set the Poniewież community as an example to be followed.1028 *** The expedition left Poland and Lithuania in autumn 1934. The Karaite community and its leaders anticipated the publication of the results of Gini’s expedition with anxiety. Aleksander Mardkowicz even wrote him a letter with request to send information about the results of the expedition; the letter remained unanswered.1029 A letter explaining the hierarchy of Karaite communal structure was sent to Gini by the Troki ḥazzan Szemaja/Szymon Firkowicz in 1935. Firkowicz stated that Z. Nowachowicz of Halicz informed him that Gini had found similarities between the blood groups of the Karaites and Turkic peoples. This information made him, in Firkowicz’s own words, extremely happy (Russ. очень обрадовало).1030 Especially anxious, undoubtedly, was ḥakham Seraja Szapszał. He was engaged in the active correspondence with Gini both before and after the expedition.1031 He knew that Gini and his colleagues’ conclusion that 1026 Gini, “Appunti sulle spedizioni,” 237. 1027 See the article in Lithuanian newspaper Lietuvos Aidas 238 (18.10.1934) translated into Karaim as “Üvriatiuv ekspedicijasy Italjanlarnyn,” Onarmach 2 (1938): 22-24; cf. “Nauka bada Mohikanów,” Słowo 255 (18.10.1934); [Aleksander Mardkowicz], “Ełcejdłer…,” KA 8 (1935): 7; “Nieznana polska mniejszość narodowa. 900 Karaimów nie łączy się z innemi rasami,” Nowy Kurjer 253 (4.11.1934): 9; Aizakson, “Karaimen gehen unter” (this article, which I initially considered to be an original piece of work, after a more detailed examination turned out to be… a mixture of second-hand data about Corrado Gini’s anthropological expedition with a compilation from Reuven Fahn’s account of his stay in Halicz at the beginning of the twentieth century). 1028 A. Mardkowicz to S. Szapszał, 10.11.1935, Russian (LMAB F. 143, no. 468, fol. 9). 1029 [Aleksander Mardkowicz], “Isi icin Prof. Cininyn [sic],” KA 9 (1936): 24a. 1030 See the draft of the lettter of Sz. Firkowicz to C. Gini (22.12.1935, Russian) (LMAB. F. 301, no. 494, fols. 1r-v; published in Kizilov, Karaites of Galicia, 403-404). 1031 Szapszał’s personal archive contains 16 letters sent by Gini to Szapszał in the period between 1934 and 1937 (LMAB F. 143, no. 211); see also drafts of Szapszał’s letters to Gini (1934-1937) in ibid., nos. 116 and 117. The Visit of Corrado Gini’s Anthropological Expedition 209 the Karaites belonged to the Semitic anthropological type would seriously jeopardize his dejudaization policy, especially in the eyes of Polish officialdom. Undoubtedly, as well, the presence of two Jewish anthropologists among the members of the expedition strengthened his fears. During Gini’s stay in Poland, in order to provide the Italian scholar with the “proper” Turkic perspective on Karaite history, Szapszał gave him a few articles by himself and other interwar Karaite nationalists – all of them attesting to the Turkic origin of the East European Karaites and their historical development from the Khazars and Cumans.1032 Many modern East European Karaite authors refer to Gini’s work as the ultimate proof of Karaites’ Turkic-Mongolian origins. This, however, is certainly far from the truth. In spite of the fact that the influence of Szapszał’s historical information is evident throughout the whole of Gini’s work, the anthropological results of the expedition, which were published in the Italian periodical Genus, were rather unexpected. Gini and his colleagues came to the following conclusions: First, the Karaites who lived in different parts of Poland, Lithuania, and Crimea did not represent a unified anthropological type. Surprisingly, in terms of their anthropological composition, the Karaites of Halicz were distant from their nearest neighbours, the Karaites of Łuck, and were very close to their brethren from Troki and Wilno. Moreover, even more surprising, the Karaites of Halicz and Wilno turned out to be highly similar to the Indo-Aryans (sic; this was the term used by Gini in his study), Chuvashes, Permyaks, Manchus, Buryats, and several other Turkic, Mongol, and Finno-Ugric ethnic groups of European Russia and Siberia! The Karaites of Łuck (another surprise) were almost identical with the Oriental Jews, and very close to Crimean Karaites and the Finno-Ugric Votes (Votyaks). On the whole, Gini came to the conclusion that the general anthropological type of the East European Karaites was most similar to that of the Chuvashes, whom he considered to be a group of Finno-Ugric origin. As a consequence, the scientists came to the “learned” conclusion that the Karaites were not of Turkic Cumano-Khazar, but of Finno-Ugric origin. Gini explained the predominance of Finno-Ugric anthropological features in the Karaites by the fact that their ancestors were the Tauro-Cimmerians. According to Gini, the latter were Ugric tribes, who had lived in Crimea and were later assimilated by the Khazars. On the other hand, he admitted the possibility that the Khazars themselves might have been Finno-Ugrians who had accepted a Turko-Tatar language.1033 *** 1032 This fact is corroborated by Gini himself (Gini, “I Caraimi,” 3-4 (ft. 2), 39). 1033 Ibid., 52-56, fig. 1; see also Corrado Gini, “Inchiesta demografico-antropologico-sanitaria sui Caraimi di Polonia e Lituania,” Genus 2 (1937): 236-237; Nora Federici, “La curva di sviluppo individuale presso alcune popolazioni isolate,” Genus 3 (1939): 323-343; Corrado Gini and Nora Federici, Appunti sulle spedizioni scientifiche del C.I.S.P. (Rome, 1943). 210 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory To date, there has been no critical analysis of Gini’s study. Jan Czekanowski (who nota bene could not find access to this work in post-war Poland) criticized Gini’s expedition and stated that members of his group did not have proper scientific qualifications.1034 The naiveté of Gini’s historical arguments is more than obvious from today’s perspective. They cannot withstand any critique from either historical or anthropological perspectives. Historically, the Tauri and Cimmerians (two absolutely different ethnic groups!), whose origin is still being debated, certainly were not of Finno-Ugric origin. Moreover, they could hardly have been assimilated by the Khazars, whose influence in medieval Crimea also seems to be considerably exaggerated by nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship. Moreover, the Chuvashes (a.k.a. Čavaš/Çuvaş), who, according to Gini, were Finno-Ugric, are considered today to be a Turkic (or Turkic-speaking) people of a mixed Finno-Turkic anthropological composition.1035 There certainly were some Finno-Ugric tribes among those belonging to the Khazar Kaganate, but their impact on the ethnic composition of the Khazar state is also rather murky. Furthermore (if we follow Gini’s line of argumentation), why would the Karaites assimilate only the Finno-Ugric anthropological features of the Khazar tribes and “ignore” the Turkic features of the Savirs, Khazars, Kök-Turks (Göktürkler), and other Turkic groups which lived in Khazaria? Anthropologically, one may also question the veracity of the results of Gini’s expedition. Why would the Karaites of Halicz be so different from their immediate neighbours, the Karaites of Łuck, with whom they intermarried and were closely connected historically and linguistically? Why did Gini decide to correlate the Karaites with Finno-Ugric groups from remote parts of Russia and not compare them to the Armenians, Italians, Greeks, and other Mediterranean peoples who are usually found to be highly similar to the Oriental and European Jews? Furthermore, the results of Gini’s expedition did not correspond to those of other pre-war anthropologists who had studied the East European Karaites. Most of those studies came to the conclusion that the Karaites, who indeed differed somewhat from their Ashkenazic neighbours (quite an expected conclusion, when taking into consideration the prohibition of 1034 Czekanowski, “Z zagadnień antropologii,” 20. 1035 In Gini’s times, however, the theory of the Finno-Ugric origin of the Chuvashes prevailed (see Chuvashi. Etnicheskaia istoriia i traditsionnaia kul’tura, ed. V.P. Ivanov, V.V. Nikolaev, V.D. Dmitriev (Moscow, 2000)). The closest ancestors of the Chuvashes seem be the Turkic Volga Bolgars: “It cannot be absolutely proven that the Chuvashs are indeed the direct descendants of the early Bolgars, but it does seem very likely. Naturally, they have been subjected to much infusion and influence, not only from Russian and Turkic peoples, but also from neighboring Finnic tribes, with whom they were persistently and mistakenly identified for centuries, perhaps aided by the fact that the Chuvash language is a highly divergent form of Turkic, and was not easily recognized as such… Racially, the Chuvash seem to be a mixed Finnic and Turkic type, with rounded heads and generally flat features, and light eyes” (John R. Krueger, Chuvash Manual. Introduction, Grammar, Reader, and Vocabulary (Hague, 1961), 7-8). The Visit of Corrado Gini’s Anthropological Expedition 211 Karaite–Rabbanite marriages), possessed mixed Semitic, Mediterranean, Slavic, and even Armenoid features.1036 Finally, ethnic self-identification is understood today as a phenomenon of social and psychological nature that often has nothing (or very little) to do with physical or anthropological characteristics. From this standpoint, the Judeo-Israelite identity of the nineteenth-century Karaites and their understanding of the Karaites’ indisputable affiliation with Jewish civilization and “the people of Israel” (>am Yisra 1036 For more details, see 1.5.3; for the bibliography, BK, 165-169. 1037 Gini, “I Caraimi,” 55. 1038 E.g. recent research carried out by the team of Michael Hammer showed that the Ashkenazic Jews correlate best with the Greeks and Turks (Hammer et al., “Jewish and Middle Eastern,” 6769- 6774). 1039 The theory of the Turko-Khazar origin of European Jewry is not corroborated by any historical source and is purely conjectural. Gini was not the only one to suggest the Turkic origin of the Ashkenazic Jews. Indeed, there were some Jewish authors who claimed that the Ashkenazim were the descendants of the Khazars, or of the mixed Slavic-Khazar population (e.g. Avraham Poliak, Kazariyah. Toledot mamlakhah yehudit be-Eiropah (Tel Aviv, 1951); Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe (New York, 1976 (see esp. Chapter VIII. Race and Myth, pp. 181-200)); Kevin Alan Brook, The Jews of Khazaria (Northvale, NJ-Jerusalem, 2002), 281; Wexler, Ashkenazic Jews. Nevertheless, these authors have always been in the minority, and the vast majority of European Jews have never claimed to be of alleged “Khazar” origin (see more in Kizilov, Mikhaylova, “The Khazar Kaganate;” idem, “Khazary i Khazarskii kaganat;” Dan Shapira, “Khazars and Karaites, Again,” Karadeniz Araştırmaları 4/13 (2007): 43-64). 212 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory questionnaires with detailed information on every Karaite that had been examined in 1934 – remains hitherto unpublished. Furthermore, they remain uncatalogued and are currently kept in the basement of the Nora Federici library of the Faculty of Demographic Science at the University of Rome.1040 Substantial studies based on the data retrieved in the course of the expedition were also published after the war.1041 How did Gini’s expedition arrive at such erroneous conclusions? This question cannot be easily answered. Mistakes in the physio-anthropological aspect of Gini’s study can certainly be explained by the primitive and underdeveloped state of physical anthropology of the 1930s. Nevertheless, Gini’s erroneous conclusions about the “Finno-Ugric” origin of the Karaites and the “Turko-Tatar” proselyte nature of the Ashkenazim, which he made on the basis of historical, rather, than anthropological, data, deserve additional attention. Could Gini have developed these two theories on his own? Indeed, it seems very likely that it was his own conclusion that the Karaites represented descendants of the Finno-Ugrian Khazars. There were great many factors that could have suggested this idea to him. As early as 1932 (i.e. two years before the expedition to Poland), the influential Italian newspaper L’Osservatore Romano – the daily newspaper of the Vatican City State and unofficial voice of the Holy See – published an article “The Karaites of Poland: The last Remnant of a Vanishing Race.”1042 The author, Mario de Mandato, had met Szapszał in Poland and, using the latter’s information as a source, subseqently wrote of the Karaites as the remaining descendants of the Khazars in Europe. The article is full of references to the “racial” dimension of Karaite history. The Karaites were presented in the article as “the Tatars by race and Hebrews by faith” (It. Tartari di razza, ebraici di fede) who led a “pure existence” in Poland because of their unwillingness to mix with any other race, and especially with the Jews.1043 The concept of “racial purity” was part of the general fascist discourse in Italy.1044 Thus, it seems that Gini, who most likely could have read this article, was aware in which manner he should analyze the Karaites’ anthropology. Furthermore, Gini personally met with Szapszał and other Karaite proponents of Turkic theory, read their publications and was perfectly aware of their Turkic view 1040 When examined, this collection could potentially become a most significant source on the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites community in the 1930s. For a preliminary analysis, see Trevisan Semi, Gli ebrei Caraiti, 63-77. Unfortunately, for technical reasons I was unable to examine this collection although I visited the library personally in June 2008. 1041 S. Saggese, “I Caraimi di Polonia e Lituania,” Genus 23 (1967): 43-180; Nora Federici, “Caratteristiche demografiche di alcuni gruppi di Caraimi e di un gruppo di Ebrei dell’Europa orientale,” Genus 9 (1950-1952): 138-175. 1042 Mario de Mandato, “I Caraimi di Polonia. L’ultimo residua di una razza che si spegne,” L’osservatore Romano 19 (21.777) (24.06.1932). 1043 Ibid. 1044 For more information, see Sarfatti, Jews, 72-74. The Visit of Corrado Gini’s Anthropological Expedition 213 on Karaite ethnic history and their eagerness to be recognized as the Khazars’ only descendants. However, the other important conclusion of his study – the idea of the Turko-Tatar origin of the Ashkenazim – could hardly be a product of his own observations. There is no doubt that some parts of Gini’s study were composed not by the demographer himself, but by his collaborators (N. Federici, A. Del Blue, L. Hersch, and B. Freilichmann). It is known that a few twentieth-century Polish Rabbanite scholars (e.g. M. Gumplowicz and I. Schipper) suggested that the Khazars played important role in the formation of Ashkenazic Jewry in general.1045 Gini, who did not know Polish, could hardly be aware of the existence of this hypothesis. Thus, it seems very likely that it was Benjamin Freilichmann, a Polish-speaking member of the expedition interested in anthropology and demography of Polish Jewry who suggested this idea. Why did the ideas about non-Semitic origin of the Karaites and Ashkenazim surface in the study written by the fascist demographer and his team? From about 1934 onwards, the public image of Italian Jews began to be viewed with an increasingly pejorative bias. In March/April 1934, articles began appearing that depicted the Jews as “anti-fascist” and “anti-Italian.” Although these articles did not have lasting consequences, the new image of the Jews projected by the Italian press was hardly a sympathetic one.1046 German racial theory began to find an echo in Italy about 1936. A violent anti-Jewish campaign was launched in the autumn of 1936, about the same time that Gini had published his study.1047 Although Gini was a fascist interested in racial questions, he apparently was not an anti-Semite. Furthermore, even Mussolini himself had intially rejected Hitler’s racial theories.1048 Thus, it is very likely that Gini’s study, which explicitly expressed the idea about the non-Semitic origin of the European Karaites and Rabbanites (Ashkenazim), could have been written as some sort of rejection of Nazi theories about the “underhuman” nature of the Jews. Furthermore, it is not entirely impossible that this idea was suggested to Gini by his Jewish collaborators (L. Hersch and B. Freilichmann), who were certainly aware of the fact that Nazi anti-Semitic discourse represented serious threat to the existence of the Jewish community in Germany; they were also by all means aware about the growth of anti-Semitism in Poland. Thus, by stating that both Karaites and Rabbanites were not Semitic peoples, they could hope to alleviate the situations of both communities in Europe. Gini’s study provided a serious argument in favour of the non-Semitic origin of the Karaites at the time of the examination of the “Karaite question” by the Nazis. To our knowledge, it has never been used to prove the same for the Rabbanite 1045 Gumplowicz, Początki religii; Schipper, “Rozwój ludności;” idem, “Dzieje gospodarcze.” 1046 Sarfatti, Jews, 74. 1047 Sarfatti, Jews, 158; Meir Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews: German-Italian Relations and the Jewish Question 1922-1945 (London/Oxford, 1978), 102, 116. 1048 Ibid., 100. 214 Interwar Period (1919-1939): the Victory of the Khazar Theory Jews of Europe – although that it was clearly stated in the study that the Ashkenazim were not Semites either. *** What was the reaction in Karaite circles to Gini’s discoveries? Immediately after the publication of Gini’s work, his theory was bitterly mocked in Łuck in a poem by Aleksander Mardkowicz, who considered this hypothesis to be another journalist fabrication: Chabar sa jiraktan kełed’, From afar there came the news Ki ebgen Czuwaszba indełed’. That our ancestor is called “Chuvash.” Czuwasz bu tiwild’ chor tuwmus; Chuvash is not the worst relative; Bołhyjd chorrak, bołsyjd Tunguz. It could have been even worse, It could have been Tungus.1049 Alas, Mardkowicz apparently did not know that Seraja Szapszał at that moment was seriously contemplating new changes in his Turkic doctrine. If he knew this, he would have hardly dared to ridicule Gini’s study. Szapszał’s reaction also was not consistent. It seems that he had initially found the results of Gini’s expedition somewhat frustrating. Indeed, they did not prove the Turkic origins of the Karaites! On the other hand – and this was much more encouraging – they did not show any Semitic racial affiliation either. This is why the conclusions reached by Gini’s expedition, which found a resemblance between the Karaites and the Chuvashes, forced Szapszał to considerably alter his theory.1050 An abridged version of Gini’s historical introduction to his study was published in 1938 (without a reference to Gini as a source of his information) by Carlo Magnino.1051 Whatever the case may be, in spite of the ironic timing of Mardkowicz’s poem, Gini’s “scientific” approval of Szapszał’s Khazar theory also produced a strong impression on many members of the East European Karaite community. From this point on, many of those who earlier doubted the possibility of the non-Semitic origin of the Karaites started to believe it – mainly because of the fact that after Gini’s discoveries, not only Szapszał’s directives, but also secular scientific “evidence,” 1049 Mardkowicz, “Ebgełer,” 20. 1050 Szapszał, “Corrado Gini,” 111-112. 1051 Carlo Magnino, “I Caraimi: storia di una setta giudaica,” La Difesa della Razza 2:2 (1938): 13- 14. Magnino became interested in the Karaites, whom he understood as a non-Jewish people, in 1933 (idem, Il complesso etnico dei Carpazi. Escursioni nella Rutenia carpatica (Rome, 1933), 138); cf. also his “Gli ebrei e l’agricoltura,” La Difesa della Razza 1:1 (1938): 37. Some sources say that Magnino was a member of Gini’s expedition of 1934 (MS LMAB F. 143, no. 1081, fol. 29). The Visit of Corrado Gini’s Anthropological Expedition 215 led them to do so.1052 For a further application of the results of Gini’s expedition in interwar period, see 4.7.3; on the role of Gini in rescue of the Karaites from the Nazis during the Second World War, see Chapter 5. The next chapter is dedicated to the role of Seraja Szapszał in the further dejudaization of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite community. 1052 Referring to Gini’s work as alleged “proof” of the veracity of Szapszał’s Khazar theory is a commonplace in the writings of modern Karaite authors (e.g. Abrahamowicz, “Dzieje,” 15; Yu.A. Polkanov, Karai – Krymskie karaimy-tiurki/Karais – the Crimean Karaites-Turks (Simferopol, 1997), 18; Karai (Krymskie karaimy), 10, et al.). Evidently, most of them never saw this rare pre- war publication de visu and based their arguments on Szapszał’s distorted retelling of Gini’s work (Szapszał, “Corrado Gini”).