Sheraya Szapszal
| Szeraya Szapszal | |
 | |
| Birth | 8 May 1873 Bakhchisaray |
|---|---|
| Deaths | 1961 (88 years) Vilnius |
| Training | Linguist |
Sheraya Szapszal ( Karaites : Russian : () Polish : Seraj Szapszal; Turkish : Seraya apalolu) is a religious leader and Turkologist the nineteenth and twentieth centuries ( 1873-1961).
Hakhan of Karaite of Crimea , then to Poland and Lithuania , he made a profound reform of their religious beliefs in order to gain recognition as an ethnic Turkish non-Jewish.
Summary |
Biographical Elements
Sheraya Shapshal born in Bakhchisaray in Crimea ( Ukraine ) and grew up ufut QALE an old Karaite center in the same region. He studied at the University of St. Petersburg , where he received a doctorate in philology and Oriental languages.
Invited to serve as personal tutor to the heir to the crown of Iran , Mohammad Ali Shah , he became a minister in the Persian government in 1907. A rumor that it would be in fact a Russian spy.
In 1911 , he returned to Crimea and appointed Hakhan (likely turkicization of Hakham) Chief Crimean Karaite community, despite its lack of specific religious training. This appointment is part of the gradual secularization of the Karaites of the Russian Empire , whose population is undergoing rapid modernization and secularization, and where secular studies become more prestigious than religious studies. Shapshal is also the propagator of a particular vision of radical ideas of the "National Movement Karaite" up to redefine the principles of faith Karaism (which is basically a Jewish movement), by accepting Jesus and Muhammad as prophets.
It is close to the Turkish nationalist movements, especially the Young Turks. After the Bolshevik revolution , Szapszal is installed in Istanbul from 1919 to 1927 and was active in the Pan-Turkish nationalist movement.
In 1927 he moved to Vilnius , and became the leader of the Karaite in Poland and Lithuania. Redefining as Karaite population of Turkish origin, not Jewish, having been accepted by the Nazis, they escape the Holocaust. In addition, Szapszal having agreed to establish a list of Karaite the territories under its jurisdiction, they appear as active collaborators with the Germans, even some Karaite who served in the ranks of the Wehrmacht.
After the war, lives in Szapszal Troki another Karaite center in Lithuania now under Soviet control. Religious activities became impossible due to the atheist Soviet official, he resumed his activities linguist and professor at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. He died in Vilnius in 1961.
Work
Sheraya Szapszal is co-author of a dictionary Karaite (a dialect of Judaeo- tartar ) - Russian - Polish, published in 1974 , and wrote a number of articles on Karaite of Crimea. His History of Karaism remains unpublished.
Part of its collections and its books are kept in a small museum of old kenessa (Karaite house of prayer) of Troki.
Reform and Karaite Crimean Karaism
The "national movement Karaite," appears in the second quarter of the nineteenth century under the leadership of Avraham Firkovich. It aims to facilitate the living conditions of the Crimean Karaites in Russia's anti-Semitic nineteenth century. They actually get equality with Russian citizens in 1863.
Firkovich aims to prove that the Karaites are descended from a community of Turkish non-Jews, practicing a religion of Moses , detached from other streams of Judaism in the seventh century BCE. The Karaites are therefore closer to the original Mosaic that rabbinic Judaism and would, above all, innocent of the death of Jesus (the charge of deicide was one of the most frequently leveled against the Jews in Russia tsars).
Szapszal meanwhile defended the idea that Jesus Christ and Muhammad should be recognized by the Karaite as great prophets (but in the case of Jesus , not as the Messiah ). In addition to any religious beliefs Szapszal, this dual acceptance seems to have had three advantages:
- accentuate the differences with the Jews in Czarist Russia , where pogroms are many;
- Karaite make religion more acceptable to Orthodox Christians (by the partial acceptance of Jesus );
- Karaite make religion more palatable to the Turks , overwhelmingly Muslim , partly by accepting Muhammad.
This new religious doctrine seems to have been widespread among the Crimean Karaite and during the massacre at Babi Yar , in which 200 Karaite are murdered, they are preparing to "die like Christ The list of Szapszal Theories and Firkovich Szapszal on Karaite were confirmed by top Jewish interviewed by Nazis , who had criticized these arguments before the war, and seemed less motivated by the scientific truth that help to protect Karaite . They are spared the Holocaust , a number of Jews Rabbinites posing Karaite with the help of members of this community. However, in 1941 , Sheraya Szapszal agrees to establish a list of Karaite of Poland and Lithuania. This list has been strongly challenged after the war, and Szapszal accused of writing a "death list". He and his supporters defended it by stating that he had merely responded to an order of the Nazi occupation, which he could not escape without endangering the community. Notes
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