The Baltic Sea Region
Cultures, Politics, Societies
Editor Witold
Witold Maciejewski
Maciejewski
Editor
A Baltic University Publication
Case Chapter
5 The Karaim community in Lithuania
Éva Ágnes Csató
Karaims have been living in Lithuania for about
six centuries and are considered ‘original inhabitants’ of the country (see National Minorities
in Lithuania. Vilnius: Centre of National
Researches of Lithuania, 1992). The Karaim
group, which is an officially acknowledged reli-
Figure 84. Karaim symbols. Ill: Éva Á. Csató
gious community, gets support from the state
for the development of its culture. Its religious
and administrative leader is the so-called Ullu
Hazzan, a title now held by Jozef Firkovich.
The Karaim Religious Society is the main
administrative organ of the community and the
legal owner of the community properties. The
Lithuanian Karaim Cultural Society is responsible for taking care of the cultural heritage.
The community has about 250 members.
There are other Karaim communities, namely
in Russia, in the Ukraine, both in the Crimea
and in Halich, and in Poland. Most of the
Lithuanian Karaims live in Vilnius, Trakai.
The most important task of the Karaim
communities today is the revitalisation of
community life. The Karaim organisations
make efforts to create opportunities for young
Karaims to learn their history, religion, language and traditions
Caspian Sea and the Dnieper estuary. They
were later divided into three main groups. One
group remained in the Crimea. Another group
moved to Galicia, and a third group left for
Trakai at the end of the fourteenth century. The
three groups developed their own dialects.
By the end of the 17th century there were
about 30 Karaim communities in eastern Central
Europe. Their number was, however, drastically
reduced as a result of epidemics and wars in the
18th century. Karaims gained support from the
administrative and political authorities of their
respective countries. They were given privileges,
and their independent status as a religious community was acknowledged.
The shifting political map of Europe
shaped the fate of the Karaim people. The
Crimean communities belonged to Tsarist
Russia and later to the Soviet Union. Halich
was a part of Galicia, which belonged to the
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, but after World
War I it came under Polish rule, as did Trakai
and Vilnius.
World War II changed the political situation again. The Karaims became citizens of the
Soviet state, a change which had serious consequences for them. The traditional Karaim
settlements were weakened. Many Karaims
left for Poland or countries in the West. The
collapse of the Soviet Union has again created
1. The Karaim national identity
Karaims consider themselves to be descendants
of Kipchak Turkic tribes who once lived in the
tribal union of the Khazar empire between the
272
Figure 85. Karaim inscription on a gravestone in Trakai,
Lithuania, Photo: Alfred F. Majewicz
Language and multilingual societies
The Karaim community in Lithuania
a chance for the scattered communities to revitalise their activities.
2. The Karaim religion
Karaims are believers of the Old Testament.
Their religion does not recognise the postbiblical tradition incorporated in the Talmud
and the later rabbinical works. The beginnings
of this religious movement can be traced back
to the 8th-11th centuries. Today there are
two main groups of believers: the Turkic (=
European) Karaims on the one side and the
Oriental (= Non-Turkic) Karaites on the other
side. Turkic-speaking Karaims differ from
Oriental Karaites with respect to their ethnic
and cultural identity.
The Karaim house of worship is called
kenesa. There are today two functioning
kenesas in Lithuania, one in Vilnius and one
in Trakai.
3. The Karaim language
Karaim is a Kipchak Turkic language. Elements
of folklore and material culture such as tales,
proverbs, riddles, folk-poetry, and names of
dishes also remind us of the Turkic origin of
the Karaims.
Karaim is today an endangered language.
The only community that has preserved its
language up to now is the one in Lithuania.
There are about 50 people who can still use it
in everyday conversation.
The maintenance of their mother tongue is
the most urgent task facing the Karaims today.
The former Ullu Hazzan, Mykolas Firkovich
(1924-2000), published a textbook containing
a grammar and texts for children. A project
aiming at the documentation of the spoken
language has been carried out with the financial
help of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
A multimedia CD has been published by the
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies to help
young Karaims to learn about their language.
Until the 20th century Karaim literacy was
based on the knowledge of Hebrew, the holy
language. Hebrew characters were also used for
writing Karaim. In the later period, the orthography was based on the writing systems of the
countries in which the Karaims lived, i.e. Polish
in Poland, and Russian in Tsarist Russia and the
Soviet Union. After Lithuania gained its inde-
Figure 86. Karaim sanctuary (kenessah) in Trakai,
Lithuania. Photo: Alfred F. Majewicz
pendence in 1990, the Karaims adopted a new
orthography based on the Lithuanian one. The
best dictionary is written in Cyrillic, with Polish
and Russian equivalents. The only comprehensive grammar is in Russian. The most important
religious texts have recently been published by
Mykolas Firkovich in Lithuanian orthography.
4. Swedish-Karaim contacts
European Protestants took an early interest in
the Karaim belief. A number of western scholars visited the Karaims in order to discuss questions of religion. In 1690, the Swedish professor
Gustaf Peringer was sent by king Charles XI to
the Karaims in Lithuania and Poland. In his
work Epistola de karaitis Lithuaniae, he commented upon the Karaim language and quoted
as a sample the first verses of Genesis.
5. Karaim literature
A significant secular literature started to develop in the 19th century. The inter-war period
was for the Karaims, just as for the other Baltic
nations, a time of national upheaval, also with
Language and multilingual societies
The Karaim community in Lithuania
273
Table 7h. Turkic minority languages of the BSR
Turkic
Territory
Number speakers
Earliest
written
records
! Karaim
Lithuania, Poland, 1,000
16th c.
Ukraine
(†)Tatar
† Khazar (6th–10th c.)
Belarus
+
Cross-ethnic
communication
di- or triglossia,
Turkic and/or
Slavic communities
17th c.
Ukraine, ?Poland
regard to the conscious cultivation of their
mother tongues. Karaim intellectuals became
aware of the necessity to develop a literary language and published periodicals in Karaim.
There are still some Karaims writing literary
works in their language. A new theatre play
written in Karaim was performed in 1997 in
Trakai.
English translation (King James’s Bible
1611/1769):
Sample of a manuscript of the Karaim
Bible (Ps 83: 15–16)
[1] Alej kuvhun alarny tavuluj byla, da vichoruj
[2] byla alhasatkyn alarny. Tolturhun juźliariń
[3] jeńgilliktiań, da kolsunlar Šemijni, ey H!
[4] Ujatly bolsunlar da alhasansynlar dunjaha
[5] diejiƒ [...]
Henryk Jankowski
Translated into the north-western or Troki/
Trakai dialect of Karaim.
[1–2] So persecute them with thy tempest, and
make them afraid with thy storm.
[3–5] Fill their faces with shame; that they may
seek thy name, O LORD [forever].
Transcription:
In formal Hebrew characters:
(for technical reasons, two dashes above two gimels, marking a
fricative [γ], were disregarded)
Selected, transcribed and rewritten in formal
Hebrew characters by Henryk Jankowski
Figure 87. Sample of a manuscript of the Karaim Bible (Ps
83: 15–16). Photo: Henryk Jankowski
(The manuscript is kept in the private collection of Ms
Mariola Abkowicz in Poland).
274
Language and multilingual societies
The Karaim community in Lithuania
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