
The Sons of Scripture. The Karaites in Poland and Lithuania in the Twentieth Century
Title:
The Sons of Scripture. The Karaites in Poland and Lithuania in the Twentieth Century
Author:
Kizilov, Mikhail
ISBN:
9783110425260
9783110487305
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
De Gruyter 2015
Physical Description:
1 electronic resource (546 p.)
Abstract:
Drawing on the variety of archival sources in the host of European and Oriental languages, the book focuses on the history, ethnography, and convoluted ethnic identity of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites. The vanishing community of the Karaites, a non-Talmudic Turkic-speaking Jewish minority that 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 dramatic history of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite community in the twentieth century. Especially important is the analysis of the dejudaization (or Turkicization) of the community that saved the Karaites from horrors of the Holocaust.