Articles
Pinkas Medinat Kefe: A new source for the history of Crimean Karaites in the Early Modern Times
Vyacheslav Elyashevich
Vostok/Oriens '2016, №5
The period of the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman rule in the Crimea may be referred to as the “Dark Ages” in the history of the Crimean Karaites. This period is very poorly covered by written sources. Among such sources is the pinkas of the Karaite community of the Ottoman city of Kefe which dates from the seventeenth century. It is kept in the collections of the Department of Jewish Studies of the Institute of Manuscripts of the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine in Kiev. The pinkas was written in Hebrew and partly in the language of the Crimean Tatars. It contains various legal documents as well as poetic and liturgical works. The pinkas should be analyzed as a rare and valuable source for the history of the Crimean Karaites.
Keywords: pinkas, Crimean Karaites, Kefe, Crimean Khanate, Ottoman Empire
Pages: С. 42–52
