A Jewish Pan-Turkist: Seraya Szapszal (Sapsaloglu) and his Work Qirim Qaray Türkleri(1928)
A Jewish Pan-Turkist: Seraya Szapszal (Sapsaloglu) and his Work Qirim Qaray Türkleri(1928)

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines a highly interesting workQirim Qarai Türkleri,published in Istanbul in 1928 by Seraya Sapsaloglu (Seraja Szapszal in Polish sources), the renowned Karaite communal leader, one of the leading Russian Turkologists of his time, a former Czarist diplomat and a Jewish Pan-Turkist. This popular and quasi-scientific work was typical of the Romantic Period of the “nation-building”stage in the history of many Eastern European minorities. It was, however, essential in the presentation of the Türkic-speaking Eastern European and Crimean Karaite Jews as remnants of some imagined ancient Türkic race, clandestinely preserving Altaic paganism. Written in an appealing style, this work made a deep impression on the Early Republican intellectuals. In the present paper some of Szapszal's assertions made in this work are analysed against their historical and linguistic background. The paper touches on intellectual trends current during the Early Republican period, the state of the European, Russian and Turkish Turkology of the age, and the metamorphoses of the secularised communal consciousness.

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