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Karaites and Krimchaks: the Crimean Communities Karaite Marriage Contract The Crimean peninsula, which juts into the Black Sea at its northern shore, was ruled by various Turkic peoples from the seventh century until its annexation by Catherine II of Russia in 1783. The first were the Khazars, a central Asian people whose rulers converted to some form of Judaism some time in the eighth century and maintained a center in the Crimea. In the thirteenth century, under the Mongol Golden Horde, the Crimea served as a center of trade linking the Mediterranean, central Asia and China; the first Karaite settlers there were traders from Byzantium. The majority population of the Crimea were Turkic-speaking Muslims, and both the Crimean Karaites and Rabbanites (the latter were known as Krimchaks) developed their own dialect of Turkic, called Judeo-Tatar. The Karaites had always been economically better off than the Krimchaks, occupying themselves with trade and commerce rather than agriculture. Despite the social tensions this inequality may have produced, the two groups nonetheless shared certain traditions: both communities use the same Judeo-Tatar translation of the Bible, for example, and each claims it as its own work of scholarship. |
