Kipchak branch
Karaims
A small Kipchak-speaking Turk people of Crimea, Lithuania, Ukraine and Poland, whose traditional faith is Karaism.
Karajlar (Qaraylar) / Karaimler
The Karaims are a small Turk people whose historic homeland is Crimea, with long-established communities in Lithuania — above all in Trakai and Vilnius — in Halych in western Ukraine, and in Poland. Their language, Karaim, belongs to the Kipchak branch; its main varieties are those of Trakai, of Halych and Lutsk, and of Crimea. Karaim is today endangered, and community programmes in Lithuania and Poland work to keep it in use.
Their traditional faith is Karaism (Karaite Judaism), a scripture-centred tradition that takes the Hebrew Bible as its sole religious authority and does not accept the rabbinic Talmud; Karaim houses of prayer are called kenesas. In the 20th century the Karaims of Poland and Lithuania increasingly stressed their Turk identity and came to describe their faith as distinct from rabbinic Judaism.
According to community tradition, Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania brought Karaim families from Crimea to Trakai at the end of the 14th century, where they served the grand duke and lived in their own quarter. Karaimų Street in Trakai, with its kenesa, remains the best-known centre of Karaim life today.
- Language
- Karaim, a Kipchak Turk language with Trakai, Halych and Crimean varieties; endangered
- Branch
- Kipchak
- Homeland
- Crimea, with historic communities in Trakai and Vilnius (Lithuania) and Halych (western Ukraine)
- Also living in
- Poland and wider diaspora
Key dates
c. 1397–1398
According to tradition, Grand Duke Vytautas settles Karaim families from Crimea in Trakai (sources differ on the exact year).
1441
Casimir Jagiellon grants the Karaims of Trakai Magdeburg rights of self-government.
1928
The orientalist Seraya Shapshal (1873–1961), born in Bakhchysarai, settles in Vilnius as hakham, the spiritual leader of the Karaims of Poland and Lithuania.
1995
Lithuania’s law on religious communities lists the Karaites among the country’s nine traditional religious communities.
2005
Poland’s Act of 6 January 2005 recognises the Karaims as one of the country’s four ethnic minorities.
Heritage
- Kenesas in Trakai and Vilnius, and historic Karaim sites in Crimea such as Çufut Qale (Chufut-Kale) near Bakhchysarai and the kenesas of Yevpatoria
- Kibinai, the Karaim baked pastries associated with Trakai
- The Karaim ethnographic museum in Trakai, built on the collection of Seraya Shapshal, and Karaim-language hymns and liturgy
Sources
- M. Kizilov, The Sons of Scripture: The Karaites in Poland and Lithuania in the Twentieth Century (De Gruyter, 2015)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Karaism”
- Trakai History Museum, trakaimuziejus.lt — S. Shapshal Karaim Ethnographic Museum