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THE KARAITES in CONTEMPORARY LITHUANIA and the FORMER USSR1 Tapani Harviainen in 1897, the Number of Eastern European Karaims2 R

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THE KARAITES in CONTEMPORARY LITHUANIA and the FORMER USSR1 Tapani Harviainen in 1897, the Number of Eastern European Karaims2 R CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE THE KARAITES IN CONTEMPORARY LITHUANIA AND THE FORMER USSR1 Tapani Harviainen In 1897, the number of Eastern European Karaims2 reached the highest attested figure, approx. 13,000. Of these 12,894 were enrolled in the census in Tsarist Russia; elsewhere, two hundred Karaims lived in the city of Halicz which a century beforehad been incor­ porated into the Dual Monarchy of Austria. In Russia approx. 5,200 Karaims lived in the Crimea, 800 in Lithuania and 6,200 in other parts of the Empire, i.e. in the Ukraine and in the chief cities of Russia proper. 3 In 1979, when the great majority of Karaims were citizens of the Soviet Union, 3,341 persons declared Karaim to be their national­ ity (nacional'nost', which was mentioned in the internal passport); of these 1,151 lived in the Crimea, 352 in Lithuania and 1,838 else­ where in the Soviet Union.4 The Karaim community in Poland num­ bered 200 during those years (a number of them were repatriated from the army of General Anders and from Harbin, Manchuria, where a community was established before the First World War), 1 I am very grateful to the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Academy of Finland for their financial support, which enabled me to undertake the research published in this project, and to my friend Professor Henryk Jankowski (Poznan) for numerous important references. 2 On this term see further below and ---> Shapira, The Turkic Languages. 3 "Karaimy", Statistika by Ju. Gessen, pp. 297-298; Schur, History if the Karaites, p. 114. According to Dubinski ("Osnovy karaimskoj religii", 61 ), before the First World War there existed thirty Karaim communities: Armiansk (k), Bakhchisarai (k), Berdiansk (k), Ekaterinodar, Elizavetgrad, Eupatoria (2 k), Feodosia (k), Harkov (k), Herson, Karasubazar, Kerch, Kiev (k), Kishinev, Kremenchug, Luck (k), Melitopol (k), Moscow, Nikolaev (k), Nizhni-Novgorod, Novorossiysk, Odessa (k), Orel, Poltava, Poneve:l (Panevezys, k), Rostov-na-Donu, Sebastopol (k), Simferopol (k), Slaviansk, Taganrog, Troki (k), Vilna, Vorone:l, Warsaw, Yalta (k) and Yuriev; in 1911 Karaimskaja Zizn' (3-4, 1911, p. 118) mentioned the existence of a kenesa building in seventeen cities (two in Eupatoria and Chufut-Kale; the cities are marked with the letter k in the above list) and a temporary kenesa in Moscow and Vilna. 4 Naselenie SSSR, 130; Cislennost' i sostav naselenija SSSR ... 1979 g., pp. 78, 104. 828 TAPANI HARVIAINEN and a few hundred emigres lived in France, Switzerland, Romania, America and Australia. 5 In Turkey the Karaite communities were Greek-speaking, although many Eastern European Karaims settled in Constantinople/Istanbul, in particular. At present, only one Karaite community is extant in Turkey, that in Istanbul, with a member­ ship of 80-100.6 In Lithuania the censuses of 1989 and 1997 offer the figures 289 and 25 7, respectively, as the size of the Karaim community. 7 Approx­ imately 130 Karaims lived in Poland. 8 Of the former Ukrainian com­ munities, there are not more than eight or ten Karaims living in Galic (Halicz) and in Zalukva (Zalukiew), a village in its vicinity. As for other countries, no reliable statistics are available. On the basis of the former figures, we may estimate that two thousand Karaims live in Russia and the Ukraine, where especially the communities in the Crimea, with a membership of 800, have shown new signs of revival in the recent past. Associations of Karaims were established in Moscow, Leningrad and other chief cities in the last years of the 1980s and the beginning of the '90s. Despite the fact that their activ­ ities have not been very prominent, they nevertheless serve as means of inviting and bringing together the undoubtedly numerous Karaims who, although aware of their roots, have been officially registered as Russians, Ukrainians etc. The emigre communities are on the verge of extinction. As for the present day, we may conclude that active Karaim life can be found in two regions in Eastern Europe, i.e. in Lithuania and Poland, and, to a lesser degree, in the Crimea. 17ze Vicissitudes if the 20th Century As mentioned above, the number of Karaims reached its peak before the First World War. Although the traditional way of life and edu- 5 Pilecki, "Karaimi w Polsce po 1945 r.", esp. 42-43, 49; Schur, History qf the Karaites, pp. 148-150. 6 On Istanbul, see Chascoylu, "Karaimi za granicej, Konstantinopol"', Harviainen, "The Karaite community in Istanbul and their Hebrew", and Kuzgun, Hazar ve Karay Tiirkleri, pp. 232-258 (with pictures). 7 National minorities in Lithuania, pp. 9, 17; statistics in Karaimai Lietuvqj~Karaims in Lithuania, pp. 18-31/47-61. 8 According to the Polish statistics, 60 Karaims lived in Warsaw, 34 in Gdansk and 16 in Wrodaw in 1997; in addition there were 50 "half-Karaims" in Poland (Karaimai Lietuvqj~Karaims in Lithuania, pp. 24/53). .
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