#karaimi

Mír začíná uvnitř nás - KARAIMI

The ethnogenesis of the Karaims is not homogeneous because of their several separate lines. “In the ethnogenesis of the Crimean and Polish-Lithuanian Karaims,both the Turkic people of the Khazar Empire played their part and, after the fall ofthat empire in the second half of the 10th century (in result of a battle lost in 969 against prince Sviatoslav of Kiev), the Kipchak-Polovtsian tribes of Turkic descent which arrived there later. Those peoples, if the above is correct, came from the territory of modern Iraq where they were called Ananites after Anan Ben David of Basra. Such an explanation, although frequently given, does not have to be entirely correct. Its grounds are lost in the mists of time and possible sources seem to be silent or disagree about its legitimacy. Szymon Szyszman, a well-known scholar studying Karaims, “considers it to be a fact that Karaism is in a straight line an extension of the beliefs of the Essenes, remains of whose monastery were discovered in Qumran near the Dead Sea in 1949”. Another “fact” is that Karaims are descendants of the Sadducees. “The tribe which today is called the Karaim are Israelite people who long before the birth of Christ got separated from their native tribe under the rule of Israelite king Uzziah (or: Azariah [in historiography he was king of Judah – P.L. and K.R.]) in the number of ten generations.” After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Sadducees lost their leading role and, in line with rabbinic tradition, were declared heretics. Their place was taken by a Jewish religious and political formation of Pharisees. It is thought that in the 8th century, Karaims separated as a religious group in the region of modern Iraq, and became known for its orthodox interpretation of the Torah and promotion of Hellenism. That was also the starting point of Karaims’ life as wanderers which later found its reflection in the doctrine of Karaism. “From the 8th to the 10th century, as a result of missionary activities, Karaism spread in Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and North Africa and reached Spain, Byzantium, Persia, and the Khazar Empire (Khaganate) where it was adopted by its ruler (khagan) Bulan, his court and dignitaries as well as by a part of the population, especially people who settled in the Crimean Peninsula and the southern steppe of Ruthenia. During those dozen or so centuries, the Karaim religion was practised in many different territories and by people of different descent but nowhere their number was very high.”[Szymon Pilecki]  Their presence in Crimea is confirmed in a sources from the 12th century. It is highly probable, however, that they settled there much earlier. The later established communes of Halych, Lutsk, and Lviv were the new home for Karaims. Starting from that time, the history of Karaims and their heritage is better documented but questions about their Turkic or Israelite descent and about them coming from Khazars or Sadducees, keep recurring. Those questions have not been fully answered yet, and thus Karaims’ thinking about their past has a dual character.