Established in 2019 and dedicated to publishing occasional collections of articles on different topics.
Vilniaus universiteto leidykla / Vilnius University Press
Copyright (c) 2008 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Virtual Orda. Virtual Dzhemiat. Karaims and Tatars as a Net Community
or Karaims – are tied to a very fluid diffusion between the territorially conceptualized identity and the identity arising / constructed and realized in the Internet, being “here” in “reality” and there in “virtual reality”, or conversely. The report is an analysis of the phenomenon of defining the identity of Polish Karaims and Polish Tatars who in changing contexts returned to creating a community, redefining their identity and re-territorialising the space of their communal functioning. The postmodern reality of ethnicity becomes a process of navigation, leaping and building one’s own story – although from scattered elements. Social and technological transformation revealed / activated a form which became a place of dialogue and exchange of opinions; setting the hierarchy of values within a group, building and perceiving ethnic identity. A website as a symbol of culture co-creates it, becoming simultaneously its indication – a territory. On the one hand, it is a presentation and a showpiece of a community with its history, the main (exposed) components of cultural distinction placed on it, and, on the other hand, it performs the communicative functions of information exchange and of solving the current problems of a group. The virtual “drama“ of virtual “actors“ in a virtual space is a postulate model, a representation of the social panorama composed of parts resulting from feelings of identity, a desire to maintain group ties, and the memory of descent. It remains a fact that for some years now Karaims and Tatars have been redefining and recontextualizing their ethnic distinction with the help of interactive media, building – consciously or not – societies in the Internet.
Silvestras Valiūnas’ “Birutė“ (Ant krašto marės, Palangos miestelėj) is a song of literary origin, popular and sung all over Lithuania. In 2007, in Trakai, the Polish variant of the song about Birutė was written, which was provided by the Karaim Lidia Mashkevich-Firkovich (Lidija Maškevič-Firkovič). “Birutė“ used to be sung by the grandmother and mother of Lidia Mashkevich-Firkovich, and exactly from the latter the song was learnt. This song would be sung in Polish also by the other Karaim community members in Trakai. Sung in Polish, “Birutė“ is a rare variant of this song written in Lithuania.
Professional and Social Activities of Karaims Coming from Lithuania to the 20th Century Warsaw
Karaims coming from Trakai, Panevėžys, Vilnius or Kaunas started settling in Warsaw in the last decades of the 19th century. Most likely the very first Karaims to settle there were producers and merchants of tobacco industry who had come from the Crimea. They liked to employ their compatriots from Lithuania. I would like to present several businessmen, tradespeople, civil servants, university professors and students who willingly led their life in Warsaw and, still keeping in touch with their native soil, became reliable and faithful citizens of Poland. As it is impossible for me to mention all of them, I chose those really close to my heart and memory, mainly my relatives and some other people I can remember. Among them Szymon Chorczenko (1868–1923) and his wife, Rafał N. Jutkiewicz (1872–1953) and his wife Raisa née Bezekowicz, Emil Kobecki (1868–1943) and his wife Maria Ławrynowicz, Ananiasz Zajączkowski (1903–1970) and his wife Nadzieja née Jutkiewicz, Izajasz Jutkiewicz and his wife Nadzieja née Dubińska, Michał Kobecki and his wife Elwira née Kapłanowska, Aleksander Dubiński and his wife Anna née Nowicka, Michał Maszkiewicz, Ananiasz Rojecki, Szymon and Zofia Firkowicz. Their activities and participation in the life of Karaim society in Warsaw earned them gratitude and respect of younger generations. Chronologically, the history of Karaims settling in Warsaw and the area can be divided into several periods: before the outbreak of the First World War, between the two World Wars, years of the Nazi occupation, and finally the People’s Republic of Poland when the group of Karaim newcomers from Lithuania was the largest as a result of territorial changes. During each of those periods, members of the Karaim community in Warsaw had to face various challenges. Between the Wars, they made efforts to validate the Status of the Karaim Religious Association, during the war they helped people in need, for instance, offering refuge. The Organisation Committee of Karaim Religious Association exerted themselves to validate the Status again, to obtain a special place for religious and social purposes. A rule, widely recognised among Karaim people actively engaged in the work, said that the higher position you have in society, the more helpful you should be and the more your compatriots can expect of you. The most important feature of all those periods was a special bond with the land of our ancestors, a tie which was not only formal, but deeply felt, a bond of belonging to the religious community of Trakai, of participating in religious, spiritual and cultural life over there. Thanks to this special bond we have survived as a group, and nowadays we can take part in new cultural initiatives.
Anonymous Author’s Manuscript about the Lithuanian Tatars
This article is devoted to the publication of the manuscript “Notes about Lithuanian Tatars” stored in the funds of the National Historical Archive of Grodno, Belarus (Nat. Hist. Archive of Grodno. F. 1. – Op. 27. – D. 202. – L. 87–92). The time and place of manuscript creation, as well as the name of its author are not specified, and the scientists working in the archive referred it to 1832. From the Note’s content it is possible to assume that it appeared among Tatar noblemen and was submitted to the Grodno Deputy Assembly not earlier than Alexander I accession in 1801. The author of the document strived to show Tatars’ self-sacrificing faithfulness to interests of Lithuania (and later Poland as well), their full solidarity with the Lithuanian nation, without distinction as of religion; to detrace the evolution of Tatars’ social status equalized with the status of Polish gentry; to underline that Tatars were in demand on both military and civil services even after liquidation of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth’s political independence. Thereby the source reflects the time when Tatars appeared in Lithuania, the reasons for their settlement, octroying them the lands and, finally, – the general milestones of the social-legal integration to the category of Polish gentry and then to the Russian nobility of a peculiar population group – Lithuanian Tatar noblemen. We hope that this source will prove to be helpful while studying the problems referring to the socioeconomic, political-legal plots of history on the Eurasian scale.
Lutsk Kenesa in Karaim Religion Community’s Archive Documents
The Karaim community in Lutsk ceased to exist after Wold War II when part of its members who chose in 1945 the so-called “repatriation” to Poland left their hometown for ever and settled down mainly in the Dolny Śląsk region. Moving to Poland, they took with themselves the main part of the property of the community, including the equipment of the kenesa and archives. Its files contain a large number of various documents which prove to be a rich source of information on activities of the Lutsk community in the last years of its existence. Especially valuable are documents referring to the kenesa and efforts made by the community to renovate it and to build a community house in Lutsk in the interwar period. These records give us information not only about the building itself, but on some financial matters and relations among the Karaim community, local authorities and co-habitants of Lutsk. As the Karaim kenesa burnt down completely in 1972, these documents at present are almost the only material evidence of its existence in Lutsk. The aim of the article is to present works on the renovation of the wooden building of the 18th century after the damages it suffered during World War I, basing on the documents from the archive.
The Factors of Preserving the Ethnic Identity of the Lithuanian Karaims
Lithuanian Karaims ethnically belong to the Turkic nations. Their ethnic identity has essentially been determined by ethnic self-consciousness, perception of historic past, language, which belongs to the Kipschak‘s (Kuman‘s) family of the Turkic languages, religion, and the spiritual and material cultural heritage. They have been settled in Lithuania by the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas in 1397 mostly in Trakai, the old capital of the state. In 1441 the Karaims were given the same rights as the residents of other cities by the Magdeburg Law. 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. First they became subject to the religious bord of the Crimean Karaims, and only in 1863, on the basis of their earlier rights and the Tsar‘s order, they got permission to found the Karaim religious board with separate senior priest for the Western provinces. Such system of Karaim religious hierarchy was functioning untill 1940 and again reestablished in 1992. The joint efforts of priests and Karaim community to continue traditions of their ancestors were instrumental in preserving the national conciousness of Karaims, despite many losses (assimilation, low birth-rate, the decline of those who speak their mother tongue). The main role in this process during the 20th century was played by the highest senior priest, famous turkologist Hadgi Seraya Khan Shapshal (1873–1961), senior priests Simonas Firkovičius (1897–1982) and Mykolas Firkovičius (1924–2000). A strong sense of national belonging was preserved and national patriotic feelings were ceased to be treated as something negative.
The article is devoted to one of the less known pages in the history of the Vaisi Movement (The Vaisi Godly Regiment of Muslim Old Believers) which revealed itself as a complex religious, social and political movement among the Muslims of the Volga region in the second half of the 19th and first third of the 20th century. Over the course of a half century (1860–1920s) the movement followed the path from an eschatological religious “sect” to a political party. In the late 19th century, the Vaisovs came into being as a Sufi-inspired, messianistic movement which built up a “parallel” set of Islamic institutions in Kazan as well as in various rural areas of the Volga-Urals. After a long series of conflicts with the official Islamic clergy and with state authorities, the head of the sect, Shaykh Bahautdin Vaisov, was finally arrested and put into a lunatic asylum. Other leading members were exiled or imprisoned. After Bahautdin’s death, several of his followers claimed leadership. Under Vaisovs’s son Ginanutdin, the group turned into a still religious but more politically oriented movement. Standing in opposition to the Muslim bourgeoisie of Kazan, Ginanutdin chose to side with the Bolsheviks and was killed in the struggles of 1917. While this story is interesting in itself, it shows how a religious sect is transforming into a political party-like group. At the turn of the 1920s and 30s the Vaisi community essentially collapsed, and practically all of the movement leaders and activists living in the USSR were repressed. In Soviet times, the Vaisov movement was a taboo for its religious character as well as for its nationalist tendencies. The presence of members of the Vaisi movement in the northwestern borderlands of the former Russian Empire is linked to one of the sons of Bahautdin Vaisov, Gaian. Having settled at the beginning of the 1920s in Wilna, Khodzha-Mukhammed Gaian Vaisov (1882–1940?) was engaged in entrepreneurship and took an active part in the life of Muslim communities in the Polish state. In the 1930s, he was one of the prominent leaders of the Muslim community (gmina) of Wilna; he participated in the work of Muslim congresses and distinguished himself by his broad charitable activity. The occupation of the Wilna region by Soviet forces and the repressions that followed evidently played a tragic role in G. Vaisov’s fate.
Unknown Facts of Olgierd Kryczyński’s Fate
The article sheds light on the circumstances of the arrest and subsequent death of Olgierd Najman Mirza Kryczyński, one of the outstanding Polish–Lithuanian public figures of Tatar origin. His fate and the fate of his brother Leon, killed by the Nazis in the Piaśnica forest in 1939, have very much in common. The introductory part deals with Olgierd Kryczyński’s biographical data. He was born in Vilnius on 22 October 1884 in the family of the future General of the Russian Tsarist army Konstantyn Kryczyński and Maria Achmatowicz. He graduated from Saint-Petersburg University, Faculty of Law. In 1908 Olgierd and his brother Leon, together with other Tatar students, set up a Tatar student society with the aim to find out more about the past of the Tatar nation. Other important episodes of Olgierd Kryczyński’s life are also found in the article. The main source of the article was the documents kept in the Lithuanian Special Archives. Olgierd Kryczyński was arrestes by the NKVD on 15 February 1941. He was charged under Articles 58(4), 58(11), 58(13) of the Criminal Code of the Soviet Federal Republic of Russia with counter-revolutionary activities, with sabotage, an attempt to ovethrow the socialist order of the USSR, and other crimes. The file contains the interrogation documents gathered from the day he was detained to the day he was shot in prison, in Gorky, on 2 June 1942. He was indicted with what he did through his lifetime: till 1919 – Prosecutor in the Simferopol County, where the Crimea Democratic Republic was emerging; after it failed, till 1920 – Vice-Minister of Justice in Azerbaijan; Chairman of the Cukture and Education Union of Polish Tatars in Poland; and the job of Procecutor for many years. The documents tell that he was under surveillance for a year before his arrest. There were three informes who reported on Olgierd Kryczyński, claiming that he was an enemy of the USSR and contributed to the foundation of the organization that aspired at the Crimea’s and Azerbaijan’s independence from the USSR. Olgierd Kryczyński rejected the charges, retained his dignity during the investigation, and tried to protect the other members of the community from possible arrests.
Reflection of the Antitrinitar Polemics in the Literature of the Tatars of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The article is devoted to the religious-polemical texts from the Tatar manuscript P97 from the Central Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus. These texts are four original works united into collection with the common title “From where the idols have come”. The texts are strongly connected with the important cultural processes of the 16th–17th centuries and reflect a typical religious polemic of that time. The peculiarities of every of these four works reveal their multi-layer character from the point of view of religious origin. The anti-Trinitarian influence is the most noticeable among the different ones that can be found in these texts, especially in the first of them. Only the anti-Trinitarian mediation between the origin and the Muslim editor can be supposed in the second and third texts. The fourth text has not any specific anti-Trinitarian features. The Muslim authorship is suggested for all four works which are not a mere compilation of the different texts but a fundamental re-make of the original sources. This collection of the texts is an important source for the history of relations between different confessions in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and for the history of the spiritual culture of the Lithuanian Tatars.
“Who is Better: a Jew, a Tatar or a Gipsy?” Piotr Czyżewski’s view on Day-to-Day life of Tatars in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The aim of the article is to discuss a subjective view on the day-to-day life of Tatars in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (hereinafter GDL) by referring to the only anti-Tatar work written in the GDL “Alfurkan Tatarski prawdziwy na czterdziestu cześći rozdzielony” (“The Real Tatars’ Alfurkan Divided into Forty Parts”) by Piotr Czyżewski (second edition, Wilno, 1617). The comparative method used in discussion by the author is very important, because when Czyżewski assesses Tatars he compares them with Jews and Rom. This research is bipartite: 1) determination or motives that lead the author to choose to compare Tatars’ everyday life with that of Jews and Rom; 2) an attempt to restore the roots of some of the author’s anti-Tatar ideas. The conclusion of the research is that since the beginning of the 17th century stereotypes or common images of the non-Christians, which were equally associative having in mind Tatars and Jews, gradually formed in the society of the GDL, and there was an attempt to imitate well known anti-Jewish approaches for creating anti-Tatar imitations by interception.
The Tatar Likeness in Polish Historical Writings
The Tatar–Polish mutual contacts have more than a six-hundred-year-long history. The contacts began in the 14th century when the first Tatar tribes began to settle on the territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Polish Kingdom. The developing Tatar–Polish contacts, although various and sometimes difficult in their character, caused an increase of Polish interests in Tatar issues. Consequently, the increasing interest contributed to the appearance of numerous and differentiated in their subjects Polish writings discussing also the Tatar matters. Beginning from the 16th century, several Polish excellent descriptions of Tatar issues appeared. They cannot be compared to those written in other European countries where the knowledge on the Tatar matters was minimal at that time. Let us mention several examples of Polish works in which the subject of Tatars appeared. In 1517, in Cracow “Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis Asiana et Europiana et de contentis in eis“ by Maciej Miechowita was published for the first time. Another 16th – century work worth mentioning was that written in Latin by Michał Litwin. It included a very comprehensive description of Tatar customs, however, only a small part of this treatise was published at the beginning of the 17th century under the title “Michalonis Litvani moribus Thartarorum, Litvanorum et Moschorum“ (Basel, 1615). Nevertheless, the most popular at that time was “Sarmatiae Europae descriptio […]“ written by Alexander Gwagnin (or Maciej Stryjkowski) and published in Craców in 1578. In comparison with the 16th century, the 17th century brought an apparent decrease of Polish literature concerning the Tatar matters. However, among the 17th century works we can find some publications worth mentioning, for example, the one written by Marcin Paszkowski “Dzieie Tureckie y utarczki Kozackie z Tatary […]“ (Craców 1615). Another one that should be mention of here was the treatise “Alfurkan tatarski […]“ by Piotr Czyżewski (Wilno, 1617). All the above-mentioned works describe the picture of Tatars in various aspects. They give not only information concerning the history of Tatars’ origin (in some sources rather fantastic) and the settlement in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but also present different examples of Tatars’ customs, habits, religion, faith, etc. Some information included in those sources are objective and reliable, some others being fantastic and even insulting (cf. “Alfurkan tatarski“ by Piotr Czyżewski). Besides, in Gwagnin’s and Paszkowski’s works we can even find some information concerning Tatar names and official titles for the first time. In conclusion, it should be emphasized that, no matter what the character of those works was, they constitute a very rich source of various information about the Tatar nation.
Comparison of the Rituals from Child’s Birth to Beginning School in the Karaimes and Anatolian turks
Žmogaus gyvenime yra trys tarpsniai: gimimas, vedybos ir mirtis. Turkams ypač svarbus yra vaiko gimimas, reiškiantis giminės pratęsimą. Laikoma, kad bevaikė šeima susilaukė Dievo bausmės. Šio požiūrio vaizdingų pavyzdžių esama Dede Korkuto knygos apsakymuose „Bamsi [...]“ ir „Bogač [...]“. Dede Korkuto knygoje rašoma, kad karaimams ir Anatolijos turkams svarbu turėti vaikų. Visuomenė gerbia ir vertina tuos vyrus ir moteris, kurie turi vaikų. Karaimų ir Anatolijos turkų apeigos, atliekamos vaikui gimus ir ikimokykliniame amžiuje, labai panašios. Nors turkai plačiai pasklido po pasaulį, susidūrė su skirtingomis kultūromis ir atsivertė į įvairius tikėjimus, šiandien, žvelgdami į turkų pasaulį, tokių panašumų galima rasti Rytuose ir Vakaruose.
Karay (Karaim) Syntax in the Works of the Late Hazzan Mykolas Firkovičius (1924–2000)
XX a. devintajame dešimtmetyje Mykolas Firkovičius reikšmingai patobulino dabartinės karaimų kalbos sintaksę. Jis teigė, kad per daugelį šimtmečių karaimų kalbos sintaksė tiek religinėje, tiek pasaulietinėje literatūroje buvo labai deformuota, nes karaimų kūrinių kalba rėmėsi ne šnekamąja jos forma, bet literatūriniais Biblijos vertimais iš hebrajų kalbos, kuri su karaimų kalba neturi nieko bendra. Todėl savo knygose, parašytose karaimų kalba, M. Firkovičius bandė konstruoti šnekamosios ir literatūrinės kalbos sintaksę taip, kad ji atitiktų tiurkų kalbų sintaksės bendrąją tvarką. Mokslininkai dar turės įvertinti M. Firkovičiaus pastangas šioje srityje.
The Katikhizis by Jacob Duvan (1890) – a Document of the Karaim Creed
Nelengva apibūdinti karaimų tikėjimą, ypač Vakarų Europos kalbomis. Viena pagrindinių priežasčių yra komunistinis režimas, kuris XX a. trukdė diskutuoti, leisti publikacijas religine tematika. Jakobo Duvano veikalas „Катехизис, основы караимского закона“ (Katekizmas, karaimų įstatymo pagrindai) buvo išspausdintas Sankt Peterburge 1890 m. Šios knygos pradžioje rašoma, kad Duvano knygos leidybai pritarė karaimų religiniai vadovai. Dėl to knygą buvo rekomenduota naudoti kaip vadovėlį karaimų mokymo įstaigose ir namuose. Kadangi Duvano „Katekizmas“ sulaukė autoritetų pritarimo, galima teigti, kad jis reprezentuoja pažiūras, kurių laikėsi karaimų bendruomenių religijos lyderiai XIX a. pabaigoje. Dabartiniai karaimai savo religijos pagrindu laiko Dešimt Dievo įsakymų. Panašus statusas suteikiamas Dešimčiai tikėjimo tiesų. Šiame straipsnyje analizuojami Duvano „Katekizmo“ komentarai, kuriuose aptariami Dešimt Dievo įsakymų, taip pat Dešimties tikėjimo tiesų versija. Duvano pažiūros ir šiandien yra aktualios, nes iki šiol atstovauja pusiau oficialią karaimų teologijos kryptį.
Karaims’ Anthroponymy in the Record Books of Spiritual Board of the Trakai Karaims (the 19th and 20th centuries)
The books and certificate documents reflect the life of society, summarizing in a very brief way the vicissitudes of human existence. They are a source of genealogic and personal data, like first names and family names, and they testify to the nation’s life, traditions, health, migrations, changes in the society and relationships with its neighbours. Between the 19th and the 20th century, and especially in the period between wars, it is possible to observe a very interesting phenomenon in the Karaim society which on the one hand started to be open to the outside world, and on the other was still bound to traditions, culture and national autonomy. In this work, we show Karaims’ anthroponimical materials. Our focus was on first names and family names, which identify people. We included their origin, alterations in their orthography, vocalization and pronunciation.
The Question of the Existence of the crimean Karaim and Its Relation to western karaim
Dauguma tiurkologų Krymo karaimų kalbą laiko kipčiakų kalba, kuri istoriškai besivystydama supanašėjo su Krymo totorių ir Krymo tiurkų kalba. Prieš išnykdama ji prarado daugumą kipčiakiškų bruožų, kurie išliko Vakarų karaimų kalboje. Dan Shapira daro visai kitokią prielaidą, būtent tai, kad Krymo karaimų kalba apskritai neegzistavo. Šiame straipsnyje pateikiami argumentai, kuriais siekiama paneigti Shapiros teiginius.
The Tatar Name of Sorok Tatary / Keturiasdešimt Totorių Discovered
Stanislovas Kričinskis darė prielaidą, kad vienos seniausių totorių gyvenviečių Lietuvoje pavadinimas Keturiasdešimt Totorių / Sorok Tatary turi būti siejamas su pavadinimu Kyrklany, kurį mini istorijos šaltiniai. Jo manymu, tai reiškia iškraipyto totorių kalbos žodžio Qırqlar „keturiasdešimt DAUGISKAITĄ“. Dauguma mokslininkų pritarė S. Kričinskio prielaidai, kuri grindžiama istoriškai ir kalbiniu požiūriu. S. Kričinskio kalbinę prielaidą sudaro vietovės dabartinio pavadinimo forma Sorok Tatary (lenk.), taigi jis teigia, kad senasis totoriškas pavadinimas Qırqlar buvo išverstas į rusinų, o vėliau ir į lietuvių kalbą: Keturiasdešimt Totorių. Tačiau šio straipsnio autoriui pavyko Lietuvos archyvuose rasti 1692 m. dokumentą, pasirašytą turkiškai arabų rašmenimis. Pasirašęs asmuo vadina save Kırk imamı „Imamas Kyrk“. Taigi dabartinio kaimo pavadinimo Sorok Tatary / Keturiasdešimt Totorių pirminė forma buvo Qırq.
The Tatars’ religious manuscripts have been researched more or less since the half of the 19th century. A lot of manuscripts have been described since this time, a lot of them still wait for being described. In order to complete existing studies with new facts, I have conducted field work researches in the society of Tatars in Podlachia. The aim was to record the presence and the character of manuscripts owned by private people. The researches were conducted in the places of Bohoniki, Sokółka, Białystok and Suchowola. Among the manuscripts owned by the Tatar families of Podlachia, chamaiły have the dominating role. They are 70 to 150 years old. These manuscripts were copied manually by particular family ancestors or were given to a family. The tradition of copying religious manuscripts has not vanished completely here. At present, it is still kept by the imams, Konstanty Szczęsnowicz from Sokółka and Stefan Jasiński from Białystok, for example. They copy the prayerbooks for their own use (to perform the imam’s duties) and for believers’ use. Although each of the discovered prayerbooks, descibed in the register made by me, comes from the last period of the Tatars’ literature, it is of a great value both for the families who own them and for researchers. The features of the new, uncatalogued manuscripts can make it possible to complete the previous researches on the literature of Polish–Lithuanian Tatars, and maybe also to draw new conclusions and theories.
Lithuanian Tatars’ Hamail in the Funds of the Lvov of the National Scientific Library of Ukraine
The prayer book of Polish–Lithuanian Tatars was written in 1808 in the Tatar language in the Arabic graphic with an admixture of Arabic and Persian turns. The keeping of the book is exposed, the architectonics of the text and the structural features of the code – a correlation of the size of binding and the book’s block, the form of binding counterfoil, the method of sewing the block, the methods of fastening the end-paper and decorating the skin – were analysed. A mixture of European and Eastern traditions of creating a book was exposed. Coming from marginal inscriptions and stamps, the historical aspects of the ownership of the Hamail were revealed to emir Wacław Rzewuski; to a certain pan Belyak; to a participant of the Daszewo battle in 1831; to the collector W. Baworowski, and also to two unknown persons.
The Manuscript P98 (Tajwid) from the Central Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus
The article is devoted to the manuscripts P98 (Tajwid) and P436 (Handbook for the tajwid terminology) from the Central Library of the National Scientific Academy of the Republic of Belarus. They were united under one code (P98) in the past and described in several catalogues as one manuscript. But, in fact, only the content of the first manuscript was shown. The content of the second manuscript (P436) was not taken into account. Dating the manuscript P98 to the 70–80 years of the 18th century, proposed in the previous works according to the watermarks, seems to be extremely unconvincing. It is being argued here on the base of the orthography that the manuscripts P98 and P436 were copied in the middle of the 19th century. Besides, the research of the contents of the manuscript P436 allows defining it as “a handbook for the tajwid terminology”.
The Turkish–Polish Vocabulary from Jacob Chasienevich Kitab (1840)
The finding of another (three are known overall) Turkish–Polish vocabulary indicates a certain tradition of vocabulary writing by Lithuanian Tatars in the 19th century. The original transliteration of a vocabulary was prepared by the VU Philology Faculty graduate Sigita Namavičiūtė. The genre of the vocabulary – conversation – was not anything exceptional or special in our or our neighbours’ territories. It must be noted that in the common Lithuanian and Polish nation in 1615, a book in which the lexicography of Turkish–Polish languages was presented for the first time – “Dictionarz Turecki o Bogu i ŚŚ. Jego, o niebie i o żywiołach, o dniach i czasiech wszelakich, o człowieku, członkach jego, o sprawach i rzeczach potocznych etc. przez Marcina Paszkowskiego“. Something similar can be seen in our Eastern neighbours Russians. Late in the 18th and early in the 19th century, dozens of handwritten and printed vocabularies, as well as phrasebooks and other kinds of educational language books were published, which were all intended to those interested in the Turkish language. The users of such literature most often were members of war campaigns against Turkey. It is hard to determine something particular concerning the source which could have been used by the author. The Turkish–Polish vocabulary occupies pages 125–135 of the manuscript. It consists of 2858 lexemes. The vocabulary is quite broad and varied theme-wise. It can be considered quite a good and informative source of Turkish grammar, as well as an excellent material for Polish language research. There are 15 thematic groups in the vocabulary: 1. Phenomenon of God and nature; 2. Man and his bodyparts; 3. Crafts; 4. Social and family order; 5. Food and grain; 6. The names of domestic and wild animals; 7. Plant names; 8. Metals and minerals; 9. Soldiership; 10. Days of the week and figures; 11. Clothing; 12. Various appliances for every day; 13. Pronouns; 14. Verbs and their forms; 15. Phrases and daily speech.
Law, Rule, Torah – the Translation of the Titles of the Sacred Books in Polish Biblical and Koranic Translations
The aim of this article is to show Biblical and Koranic translations of the names of the sacred books such as Law, Rule, Torah. They are selected lexemes from the semantic field of the names of Christian and Muslim books present on the Koran and Bible pages. Other names from the law area are: Decree, Proof, Admonition, Judgment, Warning, Safeguard, Settlement and Judge. Also, the author searches for the answers of the questions: was the process of translation of the sacred book of Islam patterned on the Biblical translations or were semantic equivalents searched for in general Polish (from this it follows that an indication of the history of these lexemes could be found in the Polish language)? Were there also other manners of rendering the specific meaning of Muslim terminology in the translated texts? It was stated that in the Polish translations of the Koran and the Bible one can distinguish four main methods of rendering the proper names as well as the appealing ones: 1. Translocation (transferring the name in the foreign form as a quotation). 2. Transforming into Slavonic (borrowing the form and the meaning of the word and the adaptation into the grammar and lexical system of Slavonic languages, including Polish language). 3. Translation (searching for Polish semantic equivalents). 4. Creating neologisms or neosemantisms. An example of translocated word is Torāh, the Hebrew original name present on the K3 pages. In the writing Tlp Slavonic forms of the trameian taurāt – Taur, Tawrīt, Tawry, Tewrat, T’evrit’ appears. In the 19th century, translations of the Koran and at Tlp are used with references to the Moses’ Book’s Greek name Pentateuchum, and later, in the 20th century translations of the Hebrew original name Torah are used. Examples of the translation of a lexeme of a foreign origin are the words law and regulation appearing in the Bible and the Koran. The source of the translation is, first of all, the Hebrew tỏrh preaching, caution, tip, regulation, law, Law, translated in the analysed context of the OT most frequently as law (“Biblia Tysiąclecia” (BT) and old Polish translations) or order (known from Old Polish translations) and Greek  translated as law or order, too. Analogically to the biblical translations, the lexeme law was used as the name of the sacred book – the Koran in the Jan Murza Tarak-Buczacki’s translation, whereas, in the case of the Pentateuch, J. M. Buczacki used the name regulation, present only in the contemporary translation of the Bible (BT) as the translation of the Hebrew tỏrh (OT) or Greek  (NT) and appearing in the meaning of advice, commandment, law, but not used as the name of the Holy Scripture or its part. That is why it is also an example of the neosemantisation of this word.
Sacred and Profane Time in the Khamail of Aleksandrowicz: Hours and Days of Nahs
The article analyses the aspect of the Polish–Lithuanian Tatars’ beliefs: a belief in wrong (Arabic nahs) and good (Arabic sad) parts of days and months. This belief comes back to the Islamic manners and customs of the Middle East. Islam is both a religion and the way of life; for this reason, every thing in Islamic culture is connected with sacrum – there exists no profanum. The belief in nahs and sad is one of the aspects of this phenomenon. We found many proofs for this in the books of Medieval Arabic “sorcerers”, for example, in “Shams al-Ma’arif al-Kubra” (The Great Sun of Knowledge) by Al-Buni and “Ghayat al-Hakim” (The Goal of the Sage) by Al-Madjriti. The belief in good and wrong hours and days has its roots in detailed astrological calculations. As for the Polish–Tatar evidences, I examined the khamail of Aleksandrowicz, a handwritten “prayer book” from the 19th century. This khamail was found and partially described by the Polish orientalist Stanisław Szachno-Romanowicz and from 1997 is deposited at the library of the Faculty of Oriental Studies of Warsaw University. Nahs time (days, hours) in this khamail (and also in other Tatar sources) is known as niechś [niekhsh]. The sources for the analysis of the nahs/sad diversification are not only the texts directly connected with niechś and the revelation about it sent to the Prophet Musa, but also a small Tatar dream-book and a story about the “wandering of the soul” in the men’s body and also the beliefs connected with the “ringing in the ears”. There are, for example, the nahs-days from the story about Musa: in muharram: 3rd and 7th days; in safar: 2nd and 20th days; in rabi al-awwal: 4th and 25th days; in rabi al-akhira: 1st and 2nd days; in jumada al-ula: 1st and 5th days; in jumada al-ahira: 1st and 14th days; in rajab: 9th and 12th days; in shaban: 2nd and 4th days; in ramadan: 1st and 10th days; in shawwal: 4th and 20th days; in dhu al-qada: 3rd and 6th day; in dhu al-hijja: 20th and 30th days. Despite their Middle Eastern roots and Islamic dress, in the context of Polish–Tatar culture those beliefs show probably the influence of Slavonic and Old Turkic areas.
Glosses, Commentaries, Explanatory Notes, etc.: about the Extra-Quranic Notes in Tafsir Manuscripts of the Muslims of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
A typical feature of the Tafsir manuscripts of the Polish and Lithuanian Muslims is the numerous glosses, explanatory notes and commentaries, either written on the margins of the basic text or directly interwoven with the Slavic (Polish and / or Belarusian) translation of the Quran. The article provides an initial classification of these notes, with particular emphasis on their quality and quantity. Moreover, the article proposes a thesis about possible substantive and formal connections between the notes and the Islamic commentaries in Turkish. An emphasis was also put on the chronology of the notes in regard to the main translated text: their archaic form at the linguistic and the graphic level lead to a conclusion that many of them were written at the same time as the first Slavic translation of the Quran was done (i.e. in the second half of the 16th century) and then copied by the authors of later copies.
Karaim History and Literature Lovers’ Society in Vilnius: Its Activities in 1932–1939
In 1920, after the World War I emergency evacuation was over, the Karaims returned home and then settled in Lithuania and Poland. They gradually restored activities of different community organisations. In 1924, the Vilnius Karaim society started publishing the magazine in Polish “Myśl Karaimska” (A Karaim Thought). In the first issue, there was already a note about the Karaim national identity to be retained. And for that, as the authors pointed out, the unanimity and sincere efforts of the whole community for the good of the nation were needed. Soon, on 23 October 1927, in Trakai during the assembly of the representatives of local Karaim religious communities Hadji Seraya Bey Shapshal was elected the highest priest. At that time he lived in Istambul, which he left in 1928 and moved to Vilnius for the rest of his life till 1961. H. S. Shapshal fully realised his mission and took into consideration the vibrant activities of Vilnius’ society as well as the patriotic movements of different nations in this city. He took the initiative to found a Karaim history and literature lovers’ society there. Tadeusz Kowalski, the turcologist at Cracow university, and Ananiasz Zajączkowski, a Karaim himself and the future professor of turcology at Warsaw University, together with Karaim inteligentsia helped H. S. Shapshal substantially. The constituent assembly of the Society took place in Vilnius on 3 January 1932. Since then, the magazine “Myśl Karaimska” was overtaken by this Society, and H. S. Shapshal was announced a honorary chairperson of the Society. The Karaim history and literature lovers’ society in its activities united the Karaim communities of Vilnius, Trakai, Luckas (Lutsk) and Haličas (Halich), at that time Polish territories. It also maintained a close collaboration with those from Lithuania – in Biržai, Naujamiestis, Panevėžys, Pasvalys, Talačkonys. Due to the efforts of the members of this Society, the information about the most western Turkic minority reached other countries. Moreover, as the Society promoted visits of Vilnius scientists to the countries where other Karaim communities lived, it also facilitated contacts among the communities. The Karaim history and literature lovers’ society in Vilnius played a very important role both in stimulating investigations on Karaim history and culture, carried out by Karaims themselves and scientists of other nationalities, and in fostering Karaim national identity. Furthermore, the Society turned to be a culturally and scientifically very important institution appreciated not only by Karaim communities, but also by Polish orientalists of that time. The Society fulfilled also a huge educative mission by promoting young people’s patriotic feelings.
Tatar and Karaim Communities in the 19th Century: Demography
This paper is based on the analysis of registers of births, marriages, divorces, and deaths. Records of the Forty Tatars (Keturiasdešimt Totorių, Vilnius province, Trakai district) and Nemėžis (Vilnius district) Tatar communities in Lithuania go back to 1833–1905 (although record books were conducted to 1940); records of the Trakai and Naujamiestis (Kaunas province, Panevėžys district) Karaim communities were compiled in 1859–1904. The demographic behaviour was typical of Tatar and Karaim families (age 25–30 for men, 21–25 for women, but many brides were 25–30). The reason for late marriages could have been the military service of Tatars. Good conjugal circumstances played an important role as well: in both the Tatar and the Karaim communities, the husband had to grant a pay to his wife in the case of divorce; also, in a the Karaim community, gifts to a bride and a woman’s dowry were obligatory. Matrimony usually occurred between members of the same community. There are known very few marriages with the Kazan Tatars and the Crimean Karaims. In both the Tatar and the Karaim communities, the practice of remarrying was spread because of the high mortality. It allowed keeping the structure of a whole family. Divorce was an exceptionally rare phenomenon. The birth rate was higher in the Karaim community. During the period under discussion, their families would gave birth to 3.1 children, versus 2.6 in the Tatars families. However, in both communities there were a lot of large families. True, children’s mortality was very high. The percentage of children who died before the age of 5 comprised 19.1 in the Tatar families and 29.5 in the Karaim families. The reproductive conditions of both communities were poor. In the Karaim community, the number of births only slightly exceeded the number deaths, and, for example, in the Forty Tatars community this ratio was negative. Although both Tatars and Karaims died from similar diseases, tuberculosis was more typical among the Tatars, and the Karaim children often died from epilepsy.
The Peripheral Karaim Communities. Division of Influence between Centre and Periphery during the 17th–18th Centuries
The main subject of this paper is to reconstruct those aspects of social history of the peripheral Karaim communities that show their influence on Lithuanian Karaims on the whole. Our aim is to discuss the spread of the Karaim community from their religious and spiritual centre in Trakai (Troki) to the periphery of Lithuania, the formation of their living space in Panevėžys (Poniewież) and Naujamiestis (Nowe Miasto), and to reconstruct their relations with the spiritual centre in Trakai. The research of the social aspects of the Karaim history is based on published and unpublished sources (mainly manuscripts kept at the Manuscript Section of the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences). This research has led to the following conclusions: The main reason for Karaims’ migration from the spiritual centre in Trakai to the periphery of Lithuania was the economic decline of this town as a result of Lithuania’s wars with Russia and Sweden. Communal documents of the Karaims of Naujamiestis clearly show that the community of the latter appeared not earlier than in the middle of the 17th century. (The same is to be said about the Panevėžys community, despite many variations in historiography). Moreover, the Naujamiestis community became the most influential Karaim community in Lithuania in the 17th and 18th centuries mainly because of its economic prosperity and the decline of the Trakai community. There was a competition between Karaims of Naujamiestis and Trakai because both communities tried to gain influence on the other communities of Lithuania. In fact, the Naujamiestis community succeeded in enlisting the nearby communities of Biržai (Birże), Panevėžys, Pasvalys (Poswol), Pumpėnai (Pompiany), Upytė (Upita) and were even trying to deal with the authorities separately from the leaders in Trakai. The peripheral communities were unsatisfied with the policy of authorities in Trakai (who had the moral superiority in the Council of Lithuanian Karaims over those in the periphery), especially on the matter of taxes that were paid together with Jews. The reconstruction of the history of Karaim settlements in Naujamiestis and Panevėžys allows us to draw a conclusion that despite their existence in the periphery of Lithuania, the influence of these two communities was of great importance to all Lithuanian Karaims.
Tatars’ Assimilation/Integration in the Social Fabric of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Lithuanian Tatars in Relation to State Authorities from the Early Modern Period to the End of the 20th Century
Tatars came to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 14th century and have survived there until the beginning of the 21st century, i.e. over 500 years. They have tried to adapt to the principles governing the area of historic Lithuania. These principles were set by Christian neighbourhood and then remained constant, or by different state authorities, and in that case they were altered with every change of the national status of the area. Muslims in Lithuania in practice were not polygamists, and the Islam they professed was merged with some elements of other beliefs existing in their environment. This fact could have been influential in abating conflicts with their Christian neighbours. Although Tatars were breaking some of the legal bans put upon them (they married Christians, employed Christian servants, sold their premises burdened with a military service duty, purchased nobility’s premises, enlisted companies (chorągiew), etc.) – it happened with a consent of or even in a cooperation with the Christian environment. The restrictive legal rules were lessening its rigours this way. Tatars also stressed their loyalty to the authorities both of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. They served not only as translators and recorders – people linking with the Islamic world, but also, to a great extent, as soldiers. After the fall of the Polish–Lithuanian state they also preserved loyalty towards the new authorities. Most of them stayed passive during the November Uprising of 1830 and the January Uprising of 1863. A small part of them backed Russian authorities and an even smaller part joined the uprisings. However, this situation was not awkward: similar proportions were among Christian habitants of Lithuanian provinces (gubernia) under the Russian rule. In the 20th century, after Poland gained independence, Polish authorities wanted to demonstrate tolerance towards national minorities, which was by no means troublesome, and took a kind attitude to Tatars postulates. Tatars took advantage of the situation and were intensively creating structures of social, cultural and religious movements. In the Republic of Lithuania, the background was similar and Tatars acted likewise, although due to a three times smaller population than in Poland, on a lesser scale. The situation of Muslims was much worse in the USSR where a strict policy in national and religious matters adopted by Soviet authorities took its toe not only on Belarusians and – after World War II – on Lithuanians, but also on Muslims. After the fall of the iron curtain and disintegration of the USSR, all ideological and administrative limitations put upon Muslims were abandoned. In the 80s of the 20th century, conditions for rebuilding the social, cultural and religious life of the Tatars were created in Poland and soon also in Lithuania and Belarus. Muslim newspapers have been published, schools of religion have been founded, mosques have been reopened (like in Kaunas in 1991) and reconstructed. In the course of the process Muslims have gained some support from state authorities. It resulted from the constitutionally equal rights for all prophesies as well as from political reasons. An example of small minorities – just like before World War II – was ideal for showing that the state carries out a policy of equal rights for minorities. Small minorities did not create – contrary to large ones – much problems. Their postulates and demands were relatively easy to fulfil and did not have a political nature. Tatars in the past times obeyed the rules set by the majority, their honesty and decency (as also of Karaims) was even set as a positive example for Christians. They remained loyal to the state. The positive attitude towards the state and their neighbours Christians has secured Tatars a relatively calm existence for over five centuries. Therefore they could preserve their religion, some of their customs and, to a some extent, their ethnic type.