The Karaites of Galicia : : an ethnoreligious minority among the Ashkenazim, the Turks, and the Slavs, 1772-1945 / / by Mikhail Kizilov.

• Author: Kizilov, Mikhail, 1974-
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Language: English
• Series: Studia Judaeoslavica 1.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (480 p.)
• Notes: "1876-6153."

The book focuses on the history, ethnography, and convoluted ethnic identity of the Karaites, an ethnoreligious group in Eastern Galicia (modern Ukraine). The small community of the Karaite Jews, a non-Talmudic Turkic-speaking minority, who had been living in Eastern Europe since the late Middle Ages, developed a unique ethnographic culture and religious tradition. The book offers the first comprehensive study of the Galician Karaite community from its earliest days until today with the main emphasis placed on the period from 1772 until 1945. Especially important is the analysis of the twentieth-century dejudaization (or Turkicization) of the community, which saved the Karaites from the horrors of the Holocaust.

Table of Contents

The topicality of studying the Galician Karaites as a vanishing ethnic minority -- Literature survey -- Methodological difficulties, sources, and objectives of the study -- The system of transliteration -- Outline of the history of the Galician Karaite community prior to 1772 -- The Karaites and Toleranzpolitik -- The Karaites as the "exemplary Jews" of Austria -- The Karaites and the royal family of Austria -- Halicz -- Kukizow -- Lwow-Lemberg and its role in the life of the Galician Karaites from 1772 to 1918 -- Religio-ethnographic customs and traditions -- Karaim, a Turko-Judeo-Slavic language: history, literature, and folklore -- The Crimean Karaites and their impact on the religious and everyday life of the Galician community -- The Karaites and the Slavic population (Poles and Ruthenians) -- The Karaites and the Talmudic Jews -- General state of the community after World War I -- Interwar ..azzanim, Isaac Abrahamowicz, and the conflicts of the 1920s and early 1930s -- The Karaites and their ethnic neighbours -- Seraja Szapszal's visit to Halicz in 1929 -- Seraja Szapszal's reformist activity of the 1930s The visit of Corrado Gini's anthropological expedition and its impact on the development of Szapszal's Turkic theory -- Implementation of Szapszal's Turkic doctrine in Halicz and its outcome -- The Karaites of Halicz during the Second World War and the Holocaust -- Decline of the Galician community after the Second World War -- The collapse of the Soviet Union and the last of the Galician Mohicans -- The Galician Karaite community and its cultural heritage today.