Historical Consciousness, Haskalah, and Nationalism among the Karaites of Eastern Europe

Golda Akhiezer, PhD (2008) in Jewish history, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is a senior lecturer in the Israel Heritage Department at Ariel University. She has published extensively on the history and culture of Eastern European Jewry with main emphases on Karaism; Jewish-Christian and Karaite-Rabbanite polemics; modernization, Haskalah, and Jewish studies in the Russian Empire. She has recently published the book The Conquest of the Crimea by the Russian Empire through the Eyes of Karaite Chroniclers (Jerusalem • Moscow: Gesharim 2015).

• Acknowledgements11List of AbbreviationsAbstractGeneral Introduction1 Research Methods and Their Ramifications2 Reconstructing Historical Thought3 Types of Sources4 Pseudo-Scholarship, Forged Documents, and Their Significance for the ResearchIntroduction to Terminology1 Historical Consciousness and Traditional Writing2 History versus Historical Narrative3 Identity4 Sect5 Authors’ Identity: Elites versus Everyman1 The Study of Karaism and Its Paradoxes1.1 The Research of Ḥokhmat Yisrael and Protestant Scholarship1.2 The Ideology of Ḥokhmat Yisrael Scholars and the Study of Karaism1.3 The Karaite Paradigm: Authentic or Imagined Karaism?2 History or Historical Narratives? Formative Traditions in Karaite Literature and Their Social Function2.1 Karaite Historical Narratives as Reflections on the Schism2.2 The Karaite “Chain of Tradition” and the Schism in Rabbanite Sources2.3 Historicization of Rabbanite Sources—Karaite Historical Writing in the Early Modern Period3 Karaite Intellectual Life in the Fifteenth- to Seventeenth-Century Poland-Lithuania3.1 Early Karaite Settlement in Eastern Europe: Historical Background3.2 Halakhah, Polemics, and Libraries as Influences on Karaite Identity in Fifteenth-Century Poland-Lithuania3.3 The Polemics of Yitzhak ben Avraham of Troki, His Cultural Milieu, and the Question of Karaite Identity3.4 The Intellectual Profile and Identity of the Seventeenth-Century Karaite Scholar4 The Interaction between the Karaites and the Protestant Hebraists in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries5 The Karaite “Chain of Tradition” in Eastern Europe and the Resurgence of Schism Literature5.1 The Historiographical Writing of Mordecai ben Nisan5.2 Solomon ben Aaron and His View of History5.3 Simḥah Isaac Lutski: The Schism and the History of Kabbalistic Tradition6 Karaite Chronography in the Crimea and Eastern Europe6.1 Cultural and Historical Features of the Crimean Karaite Communities6.2 The Chronographic Texts and the Method of Their Analysis6.3 Features of Chronographic Writing in Poland-Lithuania7 Karaites and Their Neighbors in the Nineteenth Century: The Attempt to Construct a Karaite History7.1 The Polish-Lithuanian National Narratives and Karaite Historical Writing7.2 “Modern-Traditional” Historical Writing8 The Haskalah, Hokhmat Israel, and the Evolution of Karaite Identity in the Russian Empire8.1 The Advent of Modernity8.2 The Historical Theories of Abraham Firkovich8.3 Historical Writing in Russian Society and Firkovich’s IdeasConclusionAppendix A: Sources in the Polemical Writings of Isaac ben Abraham of TrokiAppendix B: List of Books from the Register (Pinqās) of the Karasubazar Rabbanite Community (1717–33)Appendix C: List of Disciples and Books Studied in the Chufut-Kaleh Study Hall, 1751–53Appendix D: Fragment of a Chronicle by Abraham LeonowiczAppendix E: Abraham Firkovich, Remarks on the Sadducees and on the Origins of the Karaites of Eastern EuropeBibliographyIndex of Names