Bulent OZDEMIR, Ottoman Reforms and Social Life: Reflections From Salonica,
1830-1850, (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2003) 267 pp., Appendix A and B, Glossary,
Bibliography, ISBN: 975-428-245-5 You can order it from:
The Isis Press
S,emsi Bey Sokak 10
Beylerbeyi, 34676
Istanbul
E-mail: isis@turk.net www.theisispress.com
CALL for PAPERS and BOOK REVIEWS KADIN / WOMAN 2000 Journal for Woman Studies
Eastern Mediterranean University - Centre for Woman Studies
KADIN / WOMAN 2000 welcomes papers on women issues for the forthcoming issues.
KADIN / WOMAN 2000 is an international publication devoted exclusively to the
Mediterranean and Turkish Women issues, especially Turkish Cypriot women. It
covers a wide range of discipline such as politics, economics, anthropology,
literature, history, health, law, sociology, religion and culture, and is open
to all critical approaches whether sociological, art historical, economical or
psychological. It is designed to supply the needs of scholars, critics and to
support the works of graduate students entering this developing field of study.
The English articles published in KADIN / WOMAN 2000 are accepted to be indexed
with their abstracts mainly in GenderWatch (Covered by ProQuest), Contemporary
Women's Issues (in Gale Electronic Databases) both of which are under OCLC, MLA
International Bibliography and Index Islamicus.
Readership: Historian, literary critics, art historians and critics, linguists,
sociologists, psychologists, economist and politicians, media and communication
specialists, members of academic departments of women studies.
Notes for Authors: The authors should submit three copies of the manuscript to
the editor. For more information please sent e-mail to
netice.yildiz@emu.edu.tr or
woman2000@emu.edu.tr.
Deadline for papers:
For June 2003 issue: end of February 10, 2002
For December 2003 issue: March 15, 2003.
See the web page of KADIN / WOMAN 2000 for more details:
http://emu.edu.tr/www/KAEM/index.htm
Correspondence address:
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Netice Yıldız
Chief Editor
Faculty of Architecture
Gazimagosa - North Cyprus via Mersin 10 - Turkey
Avraham Firkowicz in Istanbul (1830-1832): Paving the Way for Turkic Nationalism by Dan Shapira
KaraM Publishing Co., Ankara, January, 2003.
ISBN: 975-6467-03-7
120 pages, 24 illustrations
Avraham Firkowicz was the outstanding leader of the Karaims, a Turkic speaking
Jewish group in Eastern Europe in the 19th century whose scientific activities
proceeded his political missions. He was the man who virtually made the Karaites
an ethnically self-conscious group, now accounted among Turks of the Kipchak
sub-group, and who started the debates on the very (Turkic) origin of the whole
East European Jewry.
The early 19th century was an age when people started to leave the Biblical
traditions on the ancient history of humankind and to look for their origins by
scientific means. Indo-European linguistic unity was discovered and people also
realized some similarities in the languages of what is termed the Uralo-Altaic
region. Jewish studies also followed the same path. Karaim Jews were very
distinct in two aspects: They were speaking in a dialect of the Northwestern
Turkic (Kipchak) and they were Talmudist, in contrast to the thousand-fold
crowded Rabbanite Jews of Eastern Europe. These Jews, few in number, used to
live in Crimea, Western Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania. This posed an
ethnological problem before inquisitive minds of the age, a leading one of whom
was Avraham Firkowicz himself, leader of the community from what is now Western
Ukraine.
He started to make scientific expeditions and pilgrimages to Crimea, the
Caucasus, Palestine and Egypt. Among those visits, the most important was his
stay in Istanbul for two years (1830-1832). During the Istanbul days, when
Turkey started to taste a new era called Tanzimat (Reformation Age), he
organized and educated native Karaim Jews. Though Karaims in those days did not
call themselves Turks, a Turkic connection at least in language was very
important. On his return, he accelerated his studies on Karaim origins. He never
termed his people as Turks, but very carefully separated them from the Rabbanite
Jews. He had political obligations before his people living under very
suppression of the Russian Tsardom. He consequently convinced the tsar that
Karaims were not accomplices in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Privileges for
Karaims followed this explanation as a gratitude. Rabbanite Jews, then jealous
of them, were still undergoing suppression of Russian officials.
In his late years, Firkowicz started to target Rabbanite Jews in his political
and intellectual conflict. After separating his community from the rest of the
regional Jewry, he tried to show historical superiority of the Karaims over the
Rabbanites. His visit to the Caucasus was associated with the Khazar Empire, an
early Medieval Turkic state, whose upper layer converted to Judaism as a reply
to the efforts of the Muslim Baghdat and the Christian Constantinople. He
claimed that Khazar Turks received Judaism in Karaim format.
This meant that the Khazars were or became Karaims. Firkowicz did not reveal
this, but later researchers elaborated this issue. The difficulty in explaining
origins of the East European Jewry in general, due to overcrowding especially in
Russia and Poland, led to extension of the debates on the Rabbanites also.
Interesting theories were offered. The Khazars were not massacred by any power
in that age, rather scattered across Eastern Europe after losing their state.
They were ancestors of today's Jews. More clearly, the Ashkenazi Jews, composing
of an overwhelming majority of world Jewry, were not Jews proper, in contrary to
the Sepharide Jews. They could be at most the thirteenth tribe as believers of
Moses, and not sons of Israel. Thus, Adolf Hitler, for instance, massacred
ethnic Turks. Some claimed even that the Ashkenazi Jews had no right over the
Promised Land. This caused very potent reactions. Avraham Firkowicz certainly
could not guess what his ideas would lead to.
Another influence of Firkowicz was in the Turkic world. Ismail Beg Gaspirinskiy,
a Crimean Tatar, familiar to Firkowicz thanks to the neighboring Crimean Karaims,
was watching his activities with great admiration. The Karaim leader saved his
people from Russian suppression and created an ethnical consciousness in a
community scattered from Crimea to Poland in very few numbers. His mean was
publications, especially periodicals. His books were read even in Egypt.
Ismail Beg, then member of a people more suffering from the Russian outrages
than any other ethnos, decided to do the same. He started to publish Tercuman (Interprettor)
in Bahcesaray, the leading Crimean city. Circulation of this paper was
comparable to the modern international papers in a geographical sense. Tercuman
was read over vast regions from Sarajevo in the west to Kashgar, now in China,
in the east, and from Kazan in the north to Cairo in the south. He continuously
expressed the unity of all Turks, but never annoyed the Tsardom. Tercuman was
more fruitful than the publications of Firkowicz in both political and
intellectual senses, and put its founder rightfully among the leaders and
initiators of Turkic nationalism.
Dr. Dan Shapira of the Open University of Israel, Tel Aviv, has been working for
a long time on this historical personality. The academic curiosity of Dr.
Shapira, an orientalist working particularly on Turko-Jewish historical
relations, seems to be more than the curiosity of Firkowicz on the origins of
his people, as shown by the very richness of the material used in this little
book. Shapira made use of all Turkish and Russian archives, as well as Jewish
sources and traditions. He elaborates on Firkowicz's Istanbul visit, with
premises and consequences, and he also gives interesting information about the
early days of the Tanzimat Era in Istanbul. In this book, one can learn also
about the life of Firkowicz.
"Avraham Firkowicz in Istanbul (1830-1832): Paving the Way for Turkic
Nationalism", enriched by 24 illustrations, was published by Ankara's Karam
Publishing. This is also a first in Ankara, as it is not customary in Turkey to
publish books of foreign authors in foreign languages.
Distribution abroad: SOTA, Haarlem, Hollanda,
sota@wanadoo.nl
Karam Arastırma ve Yayıncılık
28. Sokak No 17-1 Balgat - Ankara
Tel: (312) 284 54 15 karam@karamyayincilik.com www.karamyayincilik.com
THE TURKS (English language
edition) Edited by Hasan Celal Güzel, C. Cem Oguz, and Osman Karatay
Published by Yeni Tu"rkiye Research & Publishing Center
Hardcover, 6 volumes, 6000 pages, ISBN 975-6782-55-2 (set)
"The Turks" is a reference work for researchers of Turkic nations, regions, and
peoples, past and present. It contains 467 articles from noted international
scholars of Turkology dealing with such themes as ethnic origins, political
formations, linguistics, literature, calligraphy, music,
religious beliefs, trading activities, and relations with neighboring peoples
and countries. The entries are accompanied by extensive endnotes, bibliographic
references, and thousands of visual materials (including photographs,
illustrations, and maps).
"Here is a sampling of articles pertinent to the study of Turkey and the
Balkans: * Pechenegs in the Balkans * The History of Gagauzes * Political Crisis
and Muslim Bureaucrats in the Heyday of the Seljuks: The Genesis of Sultan Malik
Shah's Power * The Oguz Turks in Anatolia * The Crusades and the Turks *
Historical Geography of the Ottoman Empire * Ottoman Rule and Policy of
Settlement in the Balkans * Administrative Systems and Provincial Government in
the Central Balkan Territories of the Ottoman Empire * Turkish Music in the
Seventeenth Century * The Balkan Wars (1912-1913) * Foundation of Turkish
Republic * Turkish Foreign Policy (1960-1980) * The Turks of Bulgaria"
Volume 1: The Early Ages
Volume 2: Middle Ages
Volumes 3 & 4: The Ottomans
Volume 5: Turkey
Volume 6: Turkish World
Price for the complete set: $540 (U.S.) plus shipping & handling.
Library and institutional orders are welcome. Pre-payment is not necessary
for libraries and institutions, but is required for individuals.
Please send your purchase request to <kbrook@khazaria.com>
Questions about "The Turks" are also invited. The complete table of contents
can be emailed upon request.
