2 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918
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2 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918 2.1 A Short Survey of the General State of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite Community on the Verge of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Before beginning an analysis of the twentieth-century history of the Karaite communities in Poland-Lithuania it is necessary to provide a short overview of the state of the community as it was on the verge of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Before the beginning of the First World War, practically all Polish-Lithuanian Karaites (apart from the community of Halicz) were subjects of the Russian Empire. They lived in several communities that, in many respects, differed from each other. In 1897, i.e. a short while before the beginning of the twentieth century, there were 1,383 Karaites living in western provinces of the Russian Empire (mostly in the Wilno, Kowno, Vitebsk and Volhynian guberniias). The largest communities lived in Troki (377), Poniewież and its vicinity (181), and Wilno (155). Some scattered communities lived in Lifland, Kurland, Warsaw and a few other guberniias.120 Adding the 167 Karaites living in Halicz in 1900,121 one arrives at an approximate number of 1,550 Karaites living in the Russian parts of Poland-Lithuania and in Austria on the verge of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.122 This number represented a bit more than ten percent of the whole Karaite population of the Russian Empire – only a drop in comparison with millions Rabbanites living in Russia and Austria at the same time. The Polish-Lithuanian Karaite communities were divided into two main groups: northern communities (those of Troki, Wilno, Poniewież, Nowe Miasto, and smaller villages) and southern ones (those of Łuck and Halicz). Several dispersed small communities concentrated in and around Poniewież and Nowie Miasto seemed to be less Russified and Polonized and sustained more contacts with the Lithuanians than all other communities. The largest, the community of Troki, was under Russian, 120 This is according to Dmitrii Prokhorov, “Statistika karaimskogo naseleniia Rossiiskoi imperii v kontse XVIII – nachale XX veka,” Materialy po Arkheologii, Istorii i Etnografii Tavriki 17 (2011): 665. One should bear in mind that statistical data sometimes seems utterly unrealistic. Thus, for example, the total number of 168 Karaites living in Warsaw guberniia (with only 21 of them living in Warsaw itself) does not seems to correspond to real state of affairs: it does not seem possible that there could be more than 30-40 Karaites living in this area in this time. 121 Janusz, Karaici, 52. 122 This numerical estimates are given on the basis of Veniamin Sinani, “K statistike karaimov (po perepisi 1897 g.),” KZh 1 (1911): 30-31, 36 and Iulii Gessen, “Statistika,” EE 9, 297-298. © 2015 Mikhail Kizilov This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. A Short Survey of the General State of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite Community 35 Belorussian and Polish cultural influences.123 Its members were perhaps more traditionally-oriented than those of the neighbouring community of Wilno. The Wilno community, which was located in the fairly large capital city, was the richest, most Russified, and most secular of all Polish-Lithuanian Karaite communities. An important role in the life of the southern Karaite communities (those of Łuck and Halicz) was their cultural contacts with the local population that consisted mostly of Rabbanite Jews, Poles, Ruthenians (Ukrainians), and Russians. The strong impact of the Rabbanite religious tradition was clearly visible in the style of decorating their houses of prayer and tombstones, which were greatly different from those of the northern Karaites. The Łuck community was the least numerous because of mass emigration of the local Karaites to Crimea. Nevertheless, it was comparatively well-to-do and educated. The community of Halicz, the only East European Karaite community living in the Austrian Empire, was separated from its Polish-Lithuanian and Crimean counterparts. It can be noted that due to this cultural isolation, the Halicz Karaites (in contrast to most other communities) managed to preserve their traditional Karaite conservatism. In addition to the Austrian cultural and linguistical influence, the life of the community was also strongly affected by contacts with local Rabbanites (perhaps much stronger than in any other community), Ruthenians (Ukrainians), and Poles. The traditional structure of any given Karaite community in Eastern Europe at the end of nineteenth–beginning of the twentieth centuries looked as follows: As we shall see, most positions within the Karaite communities in Europe (except for the office of the ḥazzan and ḥakham) had practically the same meaning and function as those of the Rabbanite Jews. In addition to traditional Jewish terminology referring to spiritual and administrative positions within the community, the Karaites frequently also used Karaim and Tatar equivalents of Hebrew terms in colloquial speech. In Hebrew, the community itself was called qehilah and in the Turkic languages dzymat/dżymat124. The duties of the head of the community were fulfilled by the ḥazzan. The position of the ḥazzan in Karaite communities roughly corresponds to the office of the rabbi in Talmudic qehilot. In Rabbanite communities, however, the ḥazzan was only a cantor in a synagogue. The Karaite ḥazzan was not only the religious head of the qehilah, but also the main authority in legal and administrative matters. He normally also possessed the titles of rosh ha-qahal (Heb. “head of the community”), ha-nagid (“the leader,” usually recognised by the state authorities), av 123 It is hard to estimate whose cultural influence was stronger at that moment; apparently that of the Russian culture. Tadeusz Kowalski mentioned that it had been usually quite difficult for him to distinguish from which of the Slavic languages – Russian, Polish, or Belorussian – originate Slavic loanwords in the Troki dialect of Karaim. In his opinion, one could see in both material culture and language many borrowings from their Belorussian neighbours (Tadeusz Kowalski, Karaimische Texte im Dialekt von Troki. Texty Karaimskie w narzeczu Trockiem (Kraków, 1929), lxxv). 124 From Arab. jema’at; cf. Turk. cemaat. 36 Between the Israelites and the Khazars: 1900–1918 beit din (“head of the religious court”), and shofeṭ (normally the same as “judge”; but here, rather, in the sense of Pol. wójt or Heb. shtadlan – mediator or lobbyist, the head of the community responsible for representing the community to non-Karaite authorities).125 In Karaite communities which were larger than 200 souls, there were usually two ḥazzanim: senior and junior (ḥazzan ha-gadol126/ha-qaṭan in Hebrew). In nineteenth-century Halicz these ḥazzanim were called ḥazzan ha-rosh (head ḥazzan) and ḥazzan ha-mishneh (deputy ḥazzan).127 Some documents also refer to the office of the mitḥazzen (ḥazzan in training).128 In Karaite and Rabbanite communities in medieval and early modern times the term ḥakham (sage, wise man) was generally an honorary title, especially for elder members of the community distinguished for their religious knowledge.129 After 1839, however, the Russian Karaites started using the term ḥakham to denote the highest Karaite authority in Eastern Europe. After 1839 Karaite ḥakhamim were seldom authors of theological treatises, poets, and exegetes. They usually were wealthy and/ or politically and administratively influential individuals known not only within the community, but also without. Their main task was not only to settle important matters within the community, but also to represent the Karaite community to the world and lobby its interests politically, administratively, financially and ideologically. Simcha Babovich (Babowicz), who was appointed as the first East European “administrative” ḥakham in 1839, was in fact a wealthy and influential Crimean merchant, but hardly knowledgeable in religious matters.130 In the 1850s, because of numerous ideological and financial controversies between the southern and western Karaite communities living in imperial Russia, the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites elected their own ḥakham. Thus, from this period on, there were two ḥakhamim in Eastern Europe: the Odessa and Taurida ḥakham (under whose jurisdiction were the Karaites of Crimea, Russia, and Ukraine), and the Troki ḥakham (Volhynia and Lithuania). One of the foci of this study, Seraja Szapszał, was elected the Taurida and Odessa ḥakham in 1915 and Troki ḥakham in 1927. In 1928, in the context of his dejudaization (Turkicization) reforms, he replaced the Hebrew term ḥakham with the pseudo-Turkic ḥakhan which was invented most likely by Szapszał himself (see more in 4.3.2). 125 E.g. the ḥazzan Abraham Leonowicz, who was presented in one of the later MSS as ha-ḥazzan ve-ha-shofeṭ ve-av beit din… ha-rosh ve-ha-nagid (Bernhard Munkácsi, “Karäisch-tatarische Hymnen aus Polen,” Keleti Szemle 10:3 (1909): 187, ft. 2). 126 In the twentieth century ḥazzan ha-gadol was usually called ułłu ḥazzan (lit. “great ḥazzan”) in Karaim. 127 See “Taqqanot Even Reshef li-qehal ha-Qara<im be-Haliṣ bi-medinat Galiṣiya,” in Adolf Jellinek, Abraham Firkowitsch, das religiöse Oberhaupt der Karäer: ein Gedenkblatt (Vienna, 1875), 13. 128 GAARK F. 241, op. 1, no. 1864, fol. 2v. 129 Among other honorary terms were maskil (wise, enlightened one), rav, morenu and rabbenu (all of them may be translated as “(our) teacher/rabbi”). 130 Miller, Karaite Separatism, 45. A Short Survey of the General State of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite Community 37 It appears that the Galician Karaites, members of the only East European Karaite community that did not live in Russia, remained rather independent from the authority of both the Taurida and Troki ḥakhamim. This is why we have only a few Galician cases in the archives of the Karaite boards of administration of these regions.131 The independence of the Galicians from Crimea and Troki also might explain why until 1918 the term ḥakham apparently did not carry any additional administrative or political meanings in Halicz.