Seraya Shapshal or ''His

Excellency Excellency is an honorific style given to certain high-level officers of a sovereign state, officials of an international organization, or members of an aristocracy. Once entitled to the title "Excellency", the holder usually retains the right ...

Hajji Hajji ( ar, الحجّي; sometimes spelled Hadji, Haji, Alhaji, Al-Hadj, Al-Haj or El-Hajj) is an honorific title which is given to a Muslim who has successfully completed the Hajj to Mecca. It is also often used to refer to an elder, since i ...

Seraya Khan Shapshal '' ( Karaim: Серая Бен Мордехай Шапшал; lt, Seraja Šapšalas; pl, Seraj Szapszał; russian: Серге́й Маркович Шапшал) (1873–1961) was a

hakham ''Hakham'' (or ''chakam(i), haham(i), hacham(i)''; he, חכם ', "wise") is a term in Judaism, meaning a wise or skillful man; it often refers to someone who is a great Torah scholar. It can also refer to any cultured and learned person: "He ...

and leader of the

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

n and then the

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

and Lithuanian

Crimean Karaites The Crimean Karaites or Krymkaraylar (Crimean Karaim: Кърымкъарайлар, ''Qrımqaraylar'', singular къарай, ''qaray''; Trakai dialect: ''karajlar'', singular ''karaj''; he, קראי מזרח אירופה; crh, Qaraylar; ), a ...

(Karaim) community.

Biography

Shapshal was born in Bahçesaray,

and studied at

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

University, where he was graduated in

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

and

oriental languages A wide variety of languages are spoken throughout Asia, comprising different language families and some unrelated isolates. The major language families include Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Caucasian, Dravidian, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Tur ...

. During his studies he became a strong adopter of Russian orientalist V. Grigorjev's theory about the

Khazarian The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...

origin of the

. Immediately after his graduation at 1901 he was invited to serve as the personal tutor of the

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

ian crown prince, Mohammad Ali Shah, and became a minister in the Persian government in 1907 (actually he was a Russian spy). In 1911 he returned to

and became Chief

Hakham ''Hakham'' (or ''chakam(i), haham(i), hacham(i)''; he, חכם ', "wise") is a term in Judaism, meaning a wise or skillful man; it often refers to someone who is a great Torah scholar. It can also refer to any cultured and learned person: "He ...

of the

communities in

. From 1920 to 1927 he lived in

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

. Here he was active in the pan-Turkic movement. In 1927 while living in Turkey he was elected the head of the Karaims in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

and in 1928 moved to

Wilno Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...

. He denied any connection between

and

Rabbinic Jews Rabbinic Judaism ( he, יהדות רבנית, Yahadut Rabanit), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, or Judaism espoused by the Rabbanites, has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Babylonian ...

. Shapshal is the founder of the

Crimean Karaite The Crimean Karaites or Krymkaraylar (Crimean Karaim: Кърымкъарайлар, ''Qrımqaraylar'', singular къарай, ''qaray''; Trakai dialect: ''karajlar'', singular ''karaj''; he, קראי מזרח אירופה; crh, Qaraylar; ), a ...

religion and historical doctrine of Dejudaization. Under this doctrine, he changed the traditional title of "

Hacham ''Hakham'' (or ''chakam(i), haham(i), hacham(i)''; he, חכם ', "wise") is a term in Judaism, meaning a wise or skillful man; it often refers to someone who is a great Torah scholar. It can also refer to any cultured and learned person: "He ...

" to "Gahan" ("Ḥakhan"), which in his opinion goes back to the

word " Khagan". In the mid 1930s, he began to create a theory of the Altai- Turkic origin of the Karaims and the pagan roots of the Karaite religious teaching (worship of sacred oaks, polytheism, led by the god

Tengri Tengri ( zh, 騰格里; otk, 𐰚𐰇𐰚:𐱅𐰭𐰼𐰃, Kök Teŋri/Teŋiri, lit=Blue Heaven; Old Uyghur: ''tängri''; Middle Turkic: تآنغرِ; ky, теңир; tr, Tanrı; az, Tanrı; bg, Тангра; Proto-Turkic *''teŋri / ...

, the Sacrifice). Shapshal's doctrine is still a topic of critical research and public debate. He made a number of reforms aimed at the

Turkification Turkification, Turkization, or Turkicization ( tr, Türkleştirme) describes a shift whereby populations or places received or adopted Turkic attributes such as culture, language, history, or ethnicity. However, often this term is more narrowly ...

of the Karaims and the eradication of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

elements from their culture and language. He issued an order abolishing the teaching of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

in Karaite schools, replaced names of Jewish holidays and months with the Turkic ones, renamed "Gahan" the position of "

" in consonance with the word " khan". According to Shapshal, the doctrine of Anan ben David was close to early Christianity, and Karaites had believed for centuries in

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

and Mohammed as prophets. Crimean Karaites adopted the law of Moses, but continued to adhere to the ancient Turkic pagan beliefs. LT-1997-50litų-Karaims and Tatars-b

Between the efforts to impose a

origin for the

was the "militarization" process of their history originated in the 20th century's inter-war

:''Кизилов М.'
Ильяш Караимович и Тимофей Хмельницкий: кровная месть, которой не было
Karadeniz Araştırmaları, Cilt: 6, Sayı: 22, Yaz 2009, C.43-74. the trend of representing the Karaite population of Eastern Europe as a nation of warriors. Shapshal was one of the initiators of this process. In 1939, using his connections with the community of Russian emigrés in Germany, he appealed to the authorities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Reich with a request to examine the issue of

' ethnicity. After the occupation by German troops of the areas of Eastern Europe populated by

, this appellation was observed by the German administration. They involved three major historian specialists on the history of the Karaites: Zelig Kalmanovich, Meir Balaban and Yitzhak (Ignacy) Schiper. Despite the fact that all three had been before the war fierce opponents of the theory of the Turkic origin of the Crimean Karaites, they supported Shapshal's theory in order to save the European Karaites from the Holocaust. Shapshal was instrumental in the formulation of

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

policy towards the Karaims. As

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

he was infamous for his confrontations with such Jewish community figures as Zelig Kalmanovich. He was also known for having been forced (under penalty of endangering his own community) to give the Nazis a detailed list of the members of the

communities of

Troki Trakai (; see names section for alternative and historic names) is a historic town and lake resort in Lithuania. It lies west of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Because of its proximity to Vilnius, Trakai is a popular tourist destination. ...

and

, allowing them to easily discover and arrest

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

who had forged papers stating that they were

. In 1945 he formally abdicated from Karaite Gahan post, submitting a statement to the Commissioner for Religious Affairs of the

Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR The Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR ( lt, Lietuvos TSR Ministrų Taryba) or Council of People's Commissars in 1940–46 ( lt, Lietuvos TSR Liaudies Komisarų Taryba) was the cabinet (executive branch) of the Lithuanian SSR, one of the rep ...

, and got a position as a researcher at the Institute of History of the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

-dominated

Lithuanian Academy of Sciences The Lithuanian Academy of Sciences or LMA ( lt, Lietuvos mokslų akademija) is a state-funded independent organization in Lithuania dedicated for science and research. Its mission is to mobilize prominent scientists and initiate activities that ...

He co-authored a Karaim–

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

–

dictionary (published in 1974) and wrote a number of articles on the

. Using his position he continued to promote his ideas, including forgery of some evidences regarding the military past of

, publishing the articles about his "discoveries" in the Soviet Union's leading academic journals. Recent studies on Shapshal's archive have shown that his drafts include several versions of the "original" documents texts, evidencing forgery. In spite of that, Shapshal's ideas about Karaim warriors were adopted widely in USSR and even abroad. Thus in

Trakai Trakai (; see names section for alternative and historic names) is a historic town and lake resort in Lithuania. It lies west of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Because of its proximity to Vilnius, Trakai is a popular tourist destination. ...

, modern Lithuania, visitors are often told that Karaim warriors were guards of Trakai Castles. In 1997, a commemorative coin in denominations of 50 LTL was issued in honor of the 600th anniversary of the

Tatars The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

and

in Lithuania. The coin includes the image of Tatar and Karaim warriors. Some of his works (including "History of the Karaims") remain unpublished. Part of his collections and books are kept in National Library of Lithuania, the other in a small museum in the old kenesa of Trakai, where he died in 1961. Some of his descendants settled in Israel during the 1990s under the

Law of Return The Law of Return ( he, חֹוק הַשְׁבוּת, ''ḥok ha-shvūt'') is an Israeli law, passed on 5 July 1950, which gives Jews, people with one or more Jewish grandparent, and their spouses the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Isr ...

.Mikhail Kizilov. The Karaites of Galicia: An Ethnoreligious Minority Among the Ashkenazim, the Turks, and the Slavs, 1772—1945 (Studia Judaeoslavica, 2009)] с. 340

References

* Shapshal, S. M.: Karaimy SSSR v otnoshenii etnicheskom: karaimy na sluzhbe u krymskich chanov. Simferopol', 2004 * Kizilov M. New Materials on the Biography of S. M. Szapszał in 1928-1939 // Материалы Девятой Ежегодной Международной Междисциплинарной Конференции по Иудаике. – М., 2002. – Ч. 1. – С. 255–273 * Shapira Dan D. Y. A Jewish Pan-Turkist: Seraya Szapszał (Şapşaloğlu) and his Work Qırım Qaray Türkleri (1928) (Judaeo-Türkica XIII) // Acta Orientalia Hungaricae. – December 2005. – Vol. 58, № 4. – P. 349–380 * Зайцев И.В. «Что мне делать и как быть?» (письма Серайя Марковича Шапшала академику В.А.Гордлевскому: 1945-1950) // Вестник Евразии. Acta Eurasica. № 4 (38). М., 2007. С.147-169 * Петров-Дубинский О.В. С.М.Шапшал (Эдиб-ус-Султан) ― учитель Валиахда Мохаммед-Али, генерал-адъютант Мохаммед-Али-шаха // Восток. 2007, № 5. С. 64-78 * Прохоров Д.А., Кизилов М.Б. Шапшал Серайя Маркович (1873-1961) // Крым в лицах и биографиях. Симферополь, 2008. С. 396-400 {{DEFAULTSORT:Shapshal, Seraya Karaite rabbis History of Crimea Crimean Karaites 1873 births 1961 deaths