THE DESCENDANTS OF THE CASPIAN TURKS ARE THE KARAITE TURKS

The Khazars are a union of Turkic peoples who established a Khanate/State between the shores of the Idyll and the Crimean peninsula. Dec. Khazar is not a tribe name by itself, but a community of Pre-Bulgarians, Siberian Sabar (Sabir, Suvar) Turks and Western Göktürk tribes. Like the Bulgarians, the Khazars, who were part of the Hun union and were subject to the Göktürk State after the dissolution of this union, founded the Khazar State in the form of the western branch of this state in 558. After the Khazars consolidated their dominance in the North Caucasus, they began to make raids on the Persians and Byzantines. When the Eastern Göktürk State was dissolved in 630, they declared their independence and advanced to the Western Black Sea coast, giving their name to the Caspian Sea.

The Khazars, who previously had the Shamanic faith, which was a reflection of the Celestial God and the Turkish philosophy of nature, converted to Judaism in the 740s. They became the first and only Turkish State to adopt Judaism. They were weakened due to the Pechenegs coming from the east, after their complete destruction by the Kievan Empire in 1048, they merged with other Turkish tribes, some of them scattered to Eastern Europe, the Crimea.

Karay (Karaim)

Karaite (the plural of Karaim in Hebrew means Karaites, which means Karaites, so it is wrong to say Karaites), who founded a small principality in the Forty-Yere Fortress-Chufut Fortress in Bakhchisaray, a neck of the scattered Khazars, constitute the Turks.

There are twelve sects of Judaism, the religion of the Children of Israel, and these sects are sects belonging to the tribes of the twelve sons of Judah, descendants of “Sam”, the son of the prophet Noah. It is believed that the Jews of the whole world and the Jews of Eastern Europe are descended from these twelve tribes. In his book “The Thirteenth Tribe”, the Jewish writer Arthur Koestler, a native of Khazar Turkic descent from the generation that emigrated to Hungary, suggests that Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jews are Khazars of Turkish origin, that is, they come from a thirteenth tribe.

During the time of the Crimean Khanate, the Karaites were attached to the Khanate, but they retained their own local government. During the period of the Russian Empire, they also maintained their management and stubbornness in internal affairs. In Soviet times, on the other hand, belief and management systems were destroyed. Their religion and language were banned. With forced migrations, the population melted and fell to one tenth.

Beliefs

Karaite means “one who knows how to read, one who reads” in Hebrew. In the period after the Torah, the rabbis did not recognize the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud added to the Torah, formed from the laws and interpretations they developed from the oral revelations given to Moses on Mount Sinai, as well as the Torah, and formed a separate community, taking the name of the Karaites, that is, “those who read the Torah,” because they adhered only to the Torah. Basically, they are based on the ”Ten Commandments". They are very different from other Jews in this and other respects. They worship in their places of worship called ”Kenesa" (Knesa-Kenessa, Kinessa). In their rituals, they do not say O Son of Israel, they say Ay Karayoglu. They speak Karaite Turkish in their worship. They call the name of Allah “Tengri” or “Alla” instead of Jehovah. They enter their places of worship by taking off their shoes. They wash their hands and faces in a similar way to ablution, pray with their hands open and pat their faces. They perform a kind of prayer consisting of standing, bowing and prostration peculiar to them. They pray standing and sitting on the floor. Also the Prophet. Jesus and the Prophet. They accept Muhammad as a prophet. The “Baltatiymez” (untouched axe) cemetery in Crimea also has elements that resemble ancient Turkish religious Shamanism.

Karaite Migrations

in 1370, the Lithuanian Principality, lacking the population to cultivate the land, places a Karaite tribe in Poland and Lithuania, granting both compulsory and extensive privileges. Karaites, who came from the Crimea to defend the Lithuanian fortress, have been living in Trakay for about 600 years. Today the community, which is one of the national minorities of Lithuania, makes great efforts to preserve its culture and language.

Another Karaite boy who emigrated to Romania was brought to Istanbul by Fatih Sultan Mehmet again with the need for population. The Karaite Turks are placed in Eminönü and Karayköye (today's Karaköy). They also continue their professions of building construction and repair, which they are adept at, in Istanbul. The Karaite Community, who also worked on the construction of the new Mosque in Eminönü in the 1560s, were placed in Hasköy, where other Jewish communities lived. Karaköy and other Karaim Community members living in Eminönü were also coming to the Karaite temple (Kenesa) built in Hasköy. after the fire in 1918, the Karaite community also moved away from Hasköy. The only ones left are the cemeteries and the Knessas. There is also a synagogue in Hasköy called Kadoş be Kuşta Bene Mikra, which dates from the Byzantine period. The synagogue underwent a major renovation in 1536 and was then rebuilt in 1800. In order for a member of the congregation to be considered Black, both his mother and father must be Black. The children of those who marry Sephardim in Turkey and Ashkenazi in Poland and Lithuania are not considered Karaites on the grounds that “the two religions are not united”. In addition, due to migrations abroad to live in better conditions, a very small Karaite community, whose number has decreased to 40-50 people today, still lives in Haskoy and they perform their rituals in their places of worship only on Holidays. An interesting detail is that the Karaites in Turkey were not affected by the events of September 6-7, because they were not considered foreigners.the tomb of karaim

The Jews of Israel called the Karaites “Cousins". Some people belonging to the Turkish Jewish Community do not accept Karaites as Jews. They did not marry each other on the grounds that the two religions do not mix Decently.

Refik Halit Karay, one of the writers of the Republican era, is also one of the Karaite Turks. But there are also those who have the opposite opinion. Atatürk also invited Karaite Turks to the Turkish Language Congress held in 1934.

Those outside Turkey

The Turkish Karaites, while living in Egypt, do not quite identify themselves with the Karaite community with a population of 20 thousand people who have been settled around Ramleh in Israel since 1948. Because geography is different, language is different, historical formation is different. The Karaite population outside of Israel is therefore considered to be as much as 15-20 thousand

The Karaites, who have many monuments in Crimea, especially Mangup Qale-Çufut (Çifut) Qale in Bakhchisaray, are now outside Turkey, a.B.D.They live in the Crimean town of Gozleve /Kezlev (800), Warsaw in Poland, near Lithuania (50), Krakow (650), Lithuania (50), Vilnius (1380), Trakay (650), and some in Dagestan. The number of those who are from the root, that is, those whose parents are Black, is very small. More than 10 in Warsaw. There are no places of worship in Warsaw, but they have a large cemetery. The first Kenesa in Lithuania 15. This place of worship was built in the XIII century and is located on Karaim Street, the main street of the town of Trakai. Kenesa, which was originally made of wood, has been burned and destroyed many times. The Kenesa used today is the 19th. It was built in the XIII century. In Lithuania, the Karaites show similarities in the field of folk culture such as folklore, food, poetry, stories, marriage, birth with Turkish tribes such as Karachay, Tatar and Nogais, who are close relatives.

Karaite Turkish

The language spoken by the Karaites is Karaite (Karaim) Turkish and is included in the Kipchak language group. Today, it is one of the languages under the protection of the United Nations. Karaite Turkish has three dialects in the form of Troki (Trakay) spoken in Lithuania, Crimea spoken in Crimea and Haliç-Lutsk spoken in Poland. Tatar Turkish has many common features with other Kipchak Turkish dialects such as Polish, Crimean Tatar, Karachay, and Nogai. Communities speaking these dialects share common traditions, stories, fairy tales, Polishes, food names, as well as features such as language. This Kipchak Turkish character in the Karaite culture shows that the ancestors of the Karaites who lived in the region called Desht-i Kipchak, that is, the Kipchak Steppes in southern Russia were Turkish, they may have mixed with other Turkic-speaking peoples.

It is believed that the number of speakers of Karaite Turkish today is about 5000. The number of people who use it in daily speech is 50 in Lithuania and 8 in Crimea. In the Crimea, there are those who have tried to keep the Karaite language, which has Decayed today, alive by learning it from books among young people in recent years. Founded in Lithuania in 1988, the Lithuanian Karaite Cultural Association is trying to preserve the Karaite language and culture with its support.

Features of Karaite Cuisine

Karaite cuisine, consisting mainly of meat and pastry dishes, has preserved its characteristics to the present day. The most popular dish of Lithuanian Karaites is Kibin. Kibin is a type of pie made from yeast dough, baked in the oven, with lamb or beef meat in the shape of a crescent. Karaite food culture includes many types of dishes familiar to Turks, such as köbete (navel), dough stuffing, writing, künnün asi (the vaccine of the day), cabana roasting (shepherd's roasting), canaç (dish), zabsalar kanaç (vegetable stew), balık yaprağ (fish on a leaf), eggplant stuffed (eggplant stuffed), tutmaç, village vaccine, in addition to “Kıbın”.

Jozifas Firkovicius (Lithuanian Kara-Khazan [Cleric])

“We are Lithuanian Karays. The Lithuanian Karaites arrived safely from the Crimea. Our ancestors are Khazars and Kipchaks. We speak in Karaj. Our language is Turkish.”

Anna Akbike (Polish Kara-Turkologist)

“We can say that our little people are specialized Turkologists. Our favorite profession is to be a Turkologist. I think that towards the end of the 19th century, religious identity was put more on the back burner and ethnic identity came to the fore more. And at that time, he began to be more interested in Turks, in Turkishness.”

Vladimir Örmeli (Chairman of the Ukrainian Highways)

"Baltatimez means untouched axe when translated into Turkish. There are beech trees in the cemetery and we pray to these trees. Each lineage has a sacred beech tree. For example, we have a beech tree of our lineage. We go there and pray. Since these trees were sacred, it was forbidden even to tear off the branches. The bottoms of the trees are circled and these circles mean the sun. The prints on the stones are written in solar script and belong to all Turkish peoples. As you know, Evliya Celebi has written a lot of articles about this cemetery.”

Are kirimcak