Karaimų Street
The road of the Karaims, people of a small Turkic nation, to Lithuania began from Crimea when Vytautas, the Grand Duke of Lithuania was fighting against the Golden Horde. Having in 1397-1398 brought part of the Karaims to Lithuania, Vytautas inhabited them in Trakai. Later Karaim settlements appeared also in Northern Lithuania. At the beginning (during the first hundred years) the Karaims were in charge of the castles' guard, afterwards they were mostly occupied with agriculture, gardening, horse-breeding, trade and crafts, and with time they became so close to Lithuania that did not differ from the local people in their life style.
In 1441, Kazimieras Jogailaitis, the Grand Duke of Lithuania and the King of Poland, granted the Magdeburg Law to the Trakai Karaims which guaranteed their community self-government which they enjoyed to the end of the 18th century. The Karaims I given the same rights as the residents of other cities that had adopted the Magdeburg Laws. Their community was headed by the vaitas who embodied administrative and legal powers and was subject directly to the Grand Duke. All Karaims residing on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were subordinate to the vaitas, who was elected by all members of the community and approved, with the Grand Duke's support, by the vaivada. The vaitas was the official representative of the Karaims in the country.
When after the third division of the state the Karaims found themselves in the Russian Empire, they took care of their legal status under the changed conditions. From 1850 they became subject to the religious board of the Crimean Karaims that was established as early as 1837, and only in 1863, following the Tsar's order and on the basis of their earlier rights, they were made equal to the local residents of the Russian Empire. Regulations of the above-mentioned order also foresaw the foundation of the second Karaim religious board with a separate hakhan (senior priest) for the Western provinces of the Russian Empire. Such a board led by a newly elected hakhan was established and started its activities in Trakai in 1869.
The Karaims' national identity has essentially been determined by national self-consciousness, perception of historic past, the language related to the ethnic Turkic origin, religion, and the spiritual and material-cultural heritage.
The Karaim language belongs to the Western Kipchak group of the Turkic family of languages. It is close to presently existing Karachai, Balkar, Kumyk and Crimean Tartar languages. From the ancient Turkic languages, the Karaim language is closest to the extinct Polovtsian language. Since the Karaim language has for a long time existed in the environment of other languages which were mostly non-Turkic, it has not acquired the national form and exists in three dialects - those of Trakai, Halich-Lutsk and the Crimean/The Dialects of Trakai and Halich-Lutsk are fairly close in their grammar and lexicon, the main difference being in certain phonetic aspects. The dialect of the Crimean Karaims has been considerably assimilated with the related language of the Crimean Tartars.
To the present time, the Karaim language has preserved its peculiar features and a large number of old Turkic words. This is especially evident in the Trakai dialect, as this dialect-speaking people did not experience the influence of other Turkic languages. In this way their language has preserved the archaic qualities and relative purity of its lexicon and linguistic phenomena, reflecting earlier periods in the evolution of the Turkic languages, and thus becoming especially significant in the comparative Turkic linguistics and the history of the Turkic languages.
Professor Gustav Peringer from Uppsala University in Sweden, who visited Lithuania in 1691, was the first to announce that the Karaim language belongs to the group of the Turkic languages. Later it was investigated by Russian orientalists W. Radloff, V. Gordlevski and others. The largest study about the Karaim language "Karaimische Texte im Dialekt von Troki " was published in German by the Polish turcologist, professor Tadeusz Kowalski in Krakow in 1929. His work has not lost its significance to the present day, and all subsequent scholars took and are still taking it as the foundation in their work.
T. Kowalski's merit to Karaim studies lies also in that he encouraged the Karaims themselves to study their native language. His pupil, world famous Karaim orientalist professor Ananjasz Zajaczkowski who was born in Trakai, studied at Vilnius Gymnasium and later worked in Warsaw and Krakow where he investigated into the Persian, Arabic and Turkic languages and literature, wrote many outstanding works on the Karaim language and literature. Mention should be made of " Sufiksy imienne I czasownikowe w języku zachodnio-karaimskim" (Nominal and Numerical Suffixes in the West-Karaim. Language, 1932) and "Karaims in Poland" (1961). Two other Karaim Polish orientalists, Wlodzimierz Zajaczkowski, lecturer at Krakow University, and Alexander Dubinski, professor at the University of Warsaw, have also devoted much attention to studies of their native language. Thanks to the joint efforts of the above-mentioned scholars, as well as of doctor habilis at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Lithuania, professor Hadgi Seraya Khan Shapshal and professor Nikolai Baskakov of the Institute of Oriental Languages at the Moscow Academy of Sciences, a tri-lingual dictionary "Karaimsko-russko-polskij slovarj" (Karaim-Russian-Polish Dictionary) was published in Moscow in 1974. Along with the textbook of the Karaim language by Mykolas Firkovichius, "Mien karajče urianiam", published by the Open Society Fund Lithuania in 1996, these works are the most accessible to the reader today.
The Karaim faith (Karaimism, or Karaism), as a separate religion with independent dogmas, ecclesiastic traditions and separate religious hierarchy, emerged in the 8th century on the territory of Mesopotamia (Iraq). It is based on the Holy Scripture (the Old Testament, without subsequent supplements and commentaries). It is interpreted individually, independently, irrespective of authorities. Such interpretation of the Holy Scripture makes up the main principle of Karaism, while the Decalogue functions as the main moral norms.
Islam exerted significant influence in the formation and development of the Karaim religion - in particular, philosophical dogmas of the Mutacalimits and Mutazilits, and the principles of the ritual-legal field of the Hanifits. Christ and Mohammed are recognized Christian and Muslim prophets by the Karaims.
When the centre of Karaism moved from Baghdad to Jerusalem, this faith started expanding in many countries. Part of the Turkic peoples (Khazar, later Polovtsian or Kipchak-Kuman) in the Crimea and the steppes of the Lower Volga were converted to Karaism in the 9th century, which eventually were united into one nation by the religion. The Karaims residing in Lithuania, Poland, the Ukraine, the Crimea and in Russia at present are their descendants.
From the very first days of the Karaims arrival in Lithuania the community life was concentrated in Trakai. Trakai was, and still is, the centre of the Karaims spiritual life - their Mecca. At present Trakai plays this role even to the Crimean Karaims whose national identity was damaged considerably during the eighty years of the Soviet regime. It was thus not incidental that the first meeting of compatriots in 1989 was held in Trakai. It was attended by over five hundred Karaims from different countries - Poland, Russia, the Ukraine (especially the cities of Lutsk and Halich) and of course from the Crimea.
In Trakai the Karaims from old times had lived in on street which in 1990 was restored its old name - Karaim Street, spoke among themselves and prayed in the Karaim language. From the early nineteenth century the Karaims spread over the whole town. The Karaim religious board which was in charge of Lithuanian and Polish Karaims was also situated in Trakai. The Karaim religious school attended by all children of school age, was functioning here until 1940. All honoured guests to Vilnius used to, and still visit Trakai. If in Vilnius you could only hear about the Karaim, here one could meet, greet and talk to them. For instance when Reshid Saffet Bey, member of the Turkish parliament and chairman of the Turkish tourism club, visited Vilnius in 1930 and came to Trakai, he was photographed with the people who accompanied him and then stopped to talk to Karaim gardeners who presented him with a basket of cucumbers. Having spoken with them in Turkish and seen little boats named "Batmast" and "Kiugiurchun" on the shore of the lake, the guest was very excited and said that he feels himself as on the bank of the Golden Horn but not by the Galve lake.
In the post-war years, Trakai played an important part in the culture and life of the Karaims, because here lived the only Karaim priest in the Soviet Union, Simonas Firkovicius (1897-1982) who was elected for these duties as early as 1920; the only Karaim temple - kenesa -active in Europe. In other words the Karaim spirit was still alive here and the Karaim community life protected by their religion, rituals and language was pulsating irrespective of restrictions. It should be admitted that people were scared to attend mass openly, but as Firkovieius blessed all marriages and all new-borns, and would send off the dead on their final journey with the prayer and traditional lament "Syjyt Jyry".No doubt, living under such conditions many authentic elements of culture, morals, religion and language fell off or even irrevocably disappeared, but the national self consciousness survived.
The inter-war period intellectual activities of the Karaims, which were strong in Vilnius, Panevėžys, Halich and Lutsk, and which were no longer possible in the post war years, played an important role in this process. It was these activities that laid firm foundations for the post war generations who gradually experienced painful blows of assimilation and denationalization. This foundation is important today amidst the Karaim's stubborn attempts to survive as an ethnic group.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries especially after lifting the press ban, the artistic, political and philosophical thought of different nationalities residing in Vilnius, emerged. The Karaims were no exception especially when there were many educated people among them. In 1913-1914 the publishers of the magazine "Karaimskoye Slovo" - the Karaim word - declared that the aim of the magazine was to develop and foster national self consciousness. However it was written in Russian as that was the rule at the time. Nevertheless the very idea of the magazine, a desire to learn of their ancestor's past and a strong wish to consolidate the Karaim nation was doubtless influenced by the strong spiritual atmosphere then predominant in Vilnius. (The first exhibition of Lithuanian art in 1907 organized by M. K. Čiurlionis and others is another example). The spirit of the revival of national consciousness inspired the construction of the Karaim kenesa in 1911. The work was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. Like many Lithuanian people were forced into evacuation to Russia - some to Petrograd, Pskov, Kharkov, some to Moscow and the Crimea, but the Karaims of Trakai did not feel at home in the Crimea even though their ancestors came from these parts and many of them favoured a warm climate. As soon as the opportunity to return occurred in 1920, many did so, tracing the steps of their forbears in 1397.
Having returned home in 1920 the Karaims found themselves in two countries - in Lithuania (Panevėžys, Pasvalys and Talačkonys) and Poland (Vilnius, Trakai, Lutsk and Halich), the border separated families, relatives, made their communication difficult, but did not divide their people. The care of the preservation of national self consciousness that started before the war became even stronger especially when both re-established national states - Lithuania and Poland - took resolute steps in fostering national self consciousness and a feeling of patriotism.
It goes without saying that due to the small numbers in both states the Karaims could not restrict their interests to their own culture and life in a closed community. It is thus not surprising that apart from their national culture that they tried to foster and preserve, they were influenced by the cultural milieu in which they lived, and had to integrate their professional activities into the public life of the respective countries.
The Karaims of Panevėžys for example, attended Lithuanian schools during the inter-war period and freely spoke Lithuanian. The Karaims of Vilnius and Trakai attended Polish schools and only in 1939 organized the first courses of the Lithuanian language. This explains why almost all Karaims are multilingual, but depending on the historical conditions under which their parents and they themselves grew up, some feel a stronger affinity to Lithuanian culture and some to Polish or Russian culture.
It is not these or other inessential issues, but the desire, ability, efforts and conditions to preserve national identity and originality that are essential in the history of a nation. Both efforts and conditions for this existed in inter-war Lithuania and Poland. The Karaim press was published parallel to the Lithuanian in Lithuania and the Polish in Poland.
"The Onarmach "(Progress) Society of Lithuanian Karaims established in Panevėžys publishing a magazine of the same title in the Karaim language. Young people gather at the "Karaj Bitikligi" (Karaim writing) library, the amateur theatre gives one performance after another, the state is funding the reconstruction of the kenesa in Sodų Street. The activities of Š. Lopatto (1904 -1923) a poet from Panevėžys were especially important. Although there only 114 Karaims lived in Panevėžys at the time their cultural life in pre-war Lithuania was fairly active.Karaim communities in Poland also enjoyed a rich cultural life.
The Provisional religious board that represented the Karaims up until the completion of legal settlement of relations between the state and the Karaim community was founded in Trakai in 1922. At the general assembly of the representatives of the Karaim communities in Trakai in 1927, the famous orientalist and former hakhan (senior priest) in the Crimea, Hadgi Seraya Khan Shapshal, who after 1918 emigrated to Istanbul, was unilaterally elected as senior spiritual leader.In 1928 he arrived to Vilnius where he lived until his death in 1961. The new kenesa in Vilnius was already constructed and consecrated in 1923 at the time of his arrival. Having been nationalized the kenesa was returned to the Karaim community and newly consecrated in 1993 after reconstruction. Thanks to the charitable activities of the brothers Lopatto a community hall for the gathering of young people, lectures and meetings and religious instruction, was built at the kenesa in the same year. In 1936 the Karaim religious community together with the Moslem community were given legal status and statutes for both were adopted.
Intellectual and scientific activities of the Karaims became especially active during the inter-war period, the magazine "Karaj Avazy" (the Voice of the Karaims) was published in the Karaim language in Lutsk. Initiated by the turcologist Ananjasz Zajączkowski, the publication of the historic literary magazine "Mysl Karaimska" (the Karaim mind) which also included texts in the Karaim language began in 1924. The magazine presented numerous scientific articles, a chronicle of the community life, samples of folklore and works by the aforementioned scholar Tadeusz Kowalski. The growing number of publications shows that Karaim studies were emerging in Vilnius as well. The Society of Lovers of Karaim Literature and History was founded here in 1932. Hakhan Hadgi Seraya Khan Shapshal, who was brimming with energy, had many ideas on Karaim life, and oriental research and its display in Vilnius. He taught oriental languages at Vilnius University and brought artefacts of oriental culture from his expeditions to the Near East. These together with his own collections formed the basis of the future museum.
Realizing his dream, Hadgi Seraya Khan Shapshal initiated the Karaim museum in Trakai. The construction of the building was partially carried out by the Karaims themselves who considered it an honour to make a contribution. Some brought foundation stones on wheel barrows, others brought construction materials from Vilnius in their cars, still others built the walls, even children were involved in the building work. However, as artefacts were being transported from Hadgi Seraya Khan Shapshal's flat in Vilnius, the Second World War broke out. The private Karaim museum remained in his flat until 1951, when all exhibits were handed over to the depositories of the History and Ethnography Museum. Only in 1967 was the Karaim ethnic exhibition moved to the building constructed specially for the museum in Trakai. At present the building is being repaired and it is hoped that on the occasion of the six-hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Karaims and Tartars in Lithuania, the exhibition will be re-opened.
Several popular books on Karaim history and language were published in Vilnius between the wars. S. Firkovicius, the Karaims' higher priest, compiled and published the small prayer book "Koltchalar", in which he included different prayers and hymns. Krylov's fables and Lermontov and Pushkin's verse translated into the Karaim by the poet Jokūbas Maleckas, were published in Panevėžys.
The above publications have remained a witness of unusual importance to the nation's vitality. People who were then young and have been brought up in the spirit of respect for national culture and native language have preserved this spirit to the present day. Unfortunately, however their number is decreasing and together with them disapears the language despite the older generation's efforts to pall it on to the young.
Speaking of the inter-war cultural and religious life of the Karaims in Vilnius, Trakai and Panevėžys, it is necessary to emphasize its authenticity which, unfortunately we have almost lost. Today we only try to remember and reproduce what was living, direct and obvious then.
And still it is very important that with the beginning of national rebirth in Lithuania the Karaims have also been able to revive. They were among the first on 15 May 1988, to found the cultural association of Lithuanian Karaims, and took an active part in social life during the re-establishment of Lithuania's independence. New regulations for the religious community of the Lithuanian Karaims were adopted on 4 April 1992. On 30 July, of the same year the government of Lithuania conferred the rights of legal person to the Karaim community, as the successor to the Karaim religious community which had existed in Lithuania since the fourteenth century. The Karaim religion has been recognized in Lithuania as traditionally and historically existing. Since 1992, Mykolas Firkovičius has been chairman of the religious community of Lithuanian Karaims. In recent years he has compiled and published several books in the Karaim language: "Karaj Jyrlary" (Karaim poetry, 1989), "Karaj Koltchalary" (Karaim prayers, 1993), "David' Bijnin Machtav Cozmachlary " (King David's hymns of praise. Psalms, 1994), "Mien Karajce Urianiam" (I learn Karaim, 1996) the first teach - yourself book of the Karaim language.
One of the most important conditions in the preservation of identity for the Karaims is the adherence to national customs rituals, they are related to the essential events in man's life birth, marriage and death; as well as the nature cycle or calendar feasts, such as the new moon, harvest and sacrifice. The national customary moment with distinctively expressed Turkic origins is the most important for the Karaims even in religious feasts. The Karaim wedding customs, the betrothal ritual accompanied by the bride's melodious and doleful lament to her parent's home "Muzhul Kielin" (the Sad bride), the traditional election of the wedding's ataman (symbolic matchmaker), dressing of the bride and groom, the aksakals' (community elders) moral precepts for future life, and the melody of the wedding song when entering the kenesa - all that very strongly resembles the wedding customs of the Karachai and other Turkic nations of the Caucasus and Crimea. The favorite Karaim lullaby "Bir Bar Edi" has its counterpart in Karachai folklore, it is not by chance that the Karachai Karaims call the their brothers in language. The Karaims are probably the only Turkic nation in the world to use their native language for religious practice.
Having preserved their language for centuries, possessing original written heritage, the Karaims seek to make it accessible to the younger generation. Apart from the above mentioned Karaim assembly in 1989, a number of occasional scientific conferences were organized for that purpose: in 1991, to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the death of the famous orientalist and the senior priest Hakhan Hadgj Seraya Khan Shapshal; in 1992, in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the death of the higher priest Simonas Firkovičius; and in 1993, in commemoration of the famous orientalist Professor Ananjasz Zajączkowski. Representatives of the Karaims from Poland and the Crimea took part in all of these conferences.
Although the Karaims of Poland, who live mostly in Warsaw, Gdansk and Wroclaw, belong to the officially registered religious union of Polish Karaims, they are in fact a part of the communities of Trakai and Vilnius, and of Lutsk and Halich that emigrated after the Second World War. Individual contacts between them (frequently those of kinship) were renewed in 1955-56, but the first official Lithuanian Karaim representation at the seventh Karaim Congress in Poland took place as late as 1990 after Lithuania had declared its independence.
In spite of the fact that the emigre Karaims spent the larger part of their lives abroad, for them Trakai and Vilnius have lost neither their significance nor their enormous power of attraction. Not only does each of them try to come here himself, but also to bring his children to see where Vytautas the Great settled their forefathers, who managed for six hundred years to preserve their national identity and the sacred memory of the Grand Duke himself.
In Trakai, and later in Vilnius, there existed, and still exists a special atmosphere because different cultures have existed here - intertwined and separately - throughout the centuries. Existing independently, they at the same time are together in one state of Lithuania marked with tolerance and respect for each other.