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The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Marjorie Mayrock Center for Soviet and East European Research

  THE KRYMCHAKS: A VANISHING GROUP IN THE SOVIET UNION

By Anatoly Khazanov

  Research Paper No. 71

To the memory of L.I. Kaia, a Krymchak who remained Jewish during all his tragic life

Jerusalem November, 1989

The bulk of Soviet Jewry is at present very much acculturated to the dominant Soviet, Russian-based culture.* It is an aim and a result of deliberate Soviet State policy which originated not later than the second half of the nineteen thirties. On the other hand, this policy has raised a high barrier against their assimilation in the form of the compulsory ethnic identification stamped in the internal passport which every Soviet citizen must carry from the age of sixteen.

While the reasons behind this ambiguous policy deserve specific consideration, its results are quite obvious. Notwithstanding the fact that many Soviet Jews consider the label "Jew" on the nationality (ethnicity) line of their passports and all other documents as a burden, as a kind of substitute for the yellow star of David, this very identification, which serves as an important mechanism of ethnic ascription, along with other internal and external factors (such as a growing state and public anti-Semitism and the existence of the State of Israel), has resulted in a sharp sense of a distinct self-identification that is still one of the main characteristics of Soviet Jewry, with all its consequences.

* The author wishes to thank the Leah Goldberg Fund for Russian Studies for its generous help in the preparation of this paper for publication. I am indebted to the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research for a generous grant which facilitated my work on the Krymchaks.

  This is true with respect to the majority of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union, particularly with respect to the Ashkenazim who constitute about ninety percent of the total Jewish population in that country. However, there are facts that testify to quite a different Soviet policy towards some non-Ashkenazi Jewish groups.

This policy, which during the late nineteen seventies and the early nineteen eighties was taking more and more definite and conscious form, is directed towards their separation from other Jewish groups and the annihilation of their Jewish self- identification.

I will illustrate this policy with the example of the Krymchaks (the Tatar-speaking Jews), since they were the first non-Ashkenazi Jewish group in the Soviet Union on which such a policy was experimented.*

 * In the first half of the 1980s, many people helped me to compile the materials used in the writing of this work. I am particularly indebted to the late L.I. Kaia who was my main informant on the Krymchaks and placed at my disposal very important but unpublished documents and manuscripts used in this work, and to V. Chernin who generously shared with me his invaluable field materials. For the time being, I prefer to avoid mentioning other names, but this makes me even more grateful to those people. I would like to emphasize the fact that I bear the sole responsibility for the publication of this work and of all the statements and conclusions it contains. The people who assisted me in the compilation of materials on the Krymchaks are in no way connected with this work. They did not even know how the compiled materials would be used, and for that matter, being closer to the Gulag than to Jerusalem during those years, neither did I.

At present, most of the Krymchaks are Russian-speaking, just like the vast majority of other Soviet Jews. However, prior to the Russian conquest of the Crimean Peninsula, and even long afterwards, the Krymchaks spoke the same language as the CrimeanTatars and the Karaites with only minor differences, mostly in pronunciation and vocabulary.

Differences in vocabulary were mainly due to the existence of a relatively large number (about five percent) of Hebrew words inthe Krymchak ethnolect [1], since Hebrew remained the language of religion to the Krymchaks. An opinion also exists that the Krymchak vernacular contained more archaisms than that of the Crimean Tatars.[2] However, these differences may be explained by the fact that the Krymchak ethnolect was based, not on the dialects of the southern coastal area, but on the northern steppe dialects of the Crimean Tatar language.[3]

From the second half of the nineteenth century and particularly in the beginning of the twentieth century, for reasons not yet entirely clear, the Krymchak language was sometimes called Chagatai,[4] although the Chagatai - an Eastern Turkish literary language of the Greater Central Asia area which came into existence from the end of the fourteenth century -- does not have any direct connections with the Crimean Tatar language.[5]

The Krymchak language was called Chagatai on very rare occasions, and I suspect the use of this term was greatly influenced by a second literary tradition. A Karaite, R. Beim, already in 1858, allegedly claimed that the Karaites spoke the Chagatai language relative to the Median [sic!] even before Tatar had penetrated into the Crimea.[6] An unexpected allegation that the Krymchaks themselves call their language 'Chagatai,' made by Filonenko in his article published in 1972,[7] seems to be baseless.

Be that as it may, in the past, the Krymchaks themselves never had any doubts that they spoke the Crimean Tatar language. In the beginning of the 1920s, I.S. Kaia compiled two primers for the Krymchak schools. In these text-books, he labeled the Krymchak language as Tatar. Even now, most of those who still have knowledge of it, admit that this language is the same as Crimean Tatar.[8]

The mass transition of the Krymchaks to the Russian language began after the revolution and became intensified in the thirties. In the 1897 Census, only 35 percent of the Krymchak male and ten percent of the female population claimed to be literate in Russian. In the 1926 census, 4,728 (74.1 per cent) Krymchaks still identified Crimean Tatar as their mother tongue. However, a growing number of the Krymchaks' children were then enrolling in Russian schools. At that time, I.S. Kaia noticed that the elderly Krymchaks, particularly women, did not know Russian at all and spoke only their own language. On the other hand, the Krymchak youth had a thirst for a knowledge of Russian. They preferred to speak Russian, although their Russian was usually incorrect; at the same time they did not reveal a firm knowledge of their own language.[9]

During the 1959 census, only 189 Krymchaks identified Crimean Tatar as their mother tongue.[10] In fact, at that time, such people should have been more numerous, however, confusion with the languages' names and a general ambiguity about the Krymchak ethnic identity played their role.

At present, only a few elders have Krymchak (Crimean Tatar) as their vernacular. A significant number of people of the intermediate generation demonstrate some knowledge of it, although they use it only from time to time and do not consider it as their mother tongue. As for the youth, their knowledge of it is almost next to nothing. [11]

Before the Russian conquest of the Crimea, and also during the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth centuries, the material culture of the Krymchaks was similar to that of the Crimean Tatars and the Crimean Karaites.[12] The Tatar influence appreciably affected the Krymchaks' housing patterns, interior decoration and appointments, garments, cuisine and many other traits of their culture.[13] It is possible that prior to the nineteenth century they even practiced polygamy.[14] Most of the dances and songs of the Krymchaks were also similar to those of the Crimean Tatars and the Karaites.

At the same time, the Krymchaks were completely unfamiliar with Tatar literature. Obviously, among other reasons, it was connected with their ignorance of the Arabic script that was used by the Tatars. [15]

The Krymchaks themselves had always used the Hebrew script,until 1936 when they were ordered to substitute it with the Russian one. Their own literature however, was poor. Secular works consisted mainly of the records of folklore in the Krymchak vernacular language. Handwritten collections of songs, tales, riddles and proverbs (so-called "dzhonklar") were carefully recopied, supplemented and kept from generation to generation. The most complete collections were known by the Krymchaks throughout the Crimea. In many Krymchak families these collections were still kept in the nineteen thirties.[16] However, in 1984 I failed to find even a single such collection in Simferopol. Besides, the"dzhonklar" were written in the Hebrew script and now, very few elders are capable of reading them.[17]

Religious literature of the Krymchaks consisted oftranslations from Hebrew and some commentaries. The language of these translations contained many archaic forms that had become obsolete in the Krymchak vernacular language.[18]

Traditional occupations of the Krymchaks included various handicrafts and, to a lesser extent, a petty trade. Materials kept in the Simferopol archives bear witness to the insignificant scale of this trade. Even those who were involved in trade with Turkey usually brought back to the Crimea no more than three or four sacks of henna, two or three dozen silk shawls, two or three dozen fezes, and so on.

In 1818, in a petition to the Emperor Alexander I by the Krymchak community, consisting of the residents of Karasubazar and Feodosia, they described themselves as a small and poor people.

The Krymchaks complained: No one member of our community has a stock: rams or cows; nobody owns vineyards or orchards. We lack real estates and even land for cultivation. There never was any well-to-do man among us; such poor people are we, Your Majesty.[19]

At that time, there were about 150 Krymchak families, about 50 households of handicraftsmen and shop-keepers in Karasubazar. These households lacked capital of their own and were operating mostly with money taken at interest. Most of the Krymchaks were wage-workers who earned their living with difficulty.[20]

The traditional socio-political structure of the Krymchaks did not undergo any drastic changes right up to the revolution,and it was considered necessary that the Krymchak youth learn one trade or another.[21] By the 1913 communal census, 55.3% of the gainfully employed Krymchaks were craftsmen, 28..8% of them having been shoemakers (this profession remained widespread among the Krymchaks until World War II), 34.7% of the Krymchaks were involved in trade and commerce, 5.2% in service, 1.1% in religious professions and only 3.7% worked in fields connected with intellectual professions (education, culture, medicine, jurisprudence).[22]

Apart from shoemakers, there were many hatters, tinsmiths, blanket-makers and harness-makers among the Krymchak craftsmen;

 Less represented were such professions as watch-makers, tailors, joiners, metal craftsmen, musicians, glass-cutters and house-painters.[23]

The restrictive policy of the Tsarist government prevented their occupation with agriculture, except for a short period during the reign of Nicholas I, when the Emperor decided to attract the Jews to agriculture. In 1843 the government permitted the Krymchaks to found a short-lived agricultural settlement, Rogatlikoi [24] in the vicinity of Donuzlav Lake in the Western Crimea, and about 100 Krymchak families lived there. However, during the Crimean War, in anticipation of the Turkish landing force, the Russian authorities ordered the Tatars living in this region to leave because they did not trust them. The Krymchaks were also forced to leave. After the Crimean War they were forbidden by the government to settle in Rogatlikoi again and had to return to Karasubazar.[23] Their land was given to Russian immigrants.

A historical anthropologist investigating the linguistic data always faces the danger of confusing the linguistic history of a given group with its ethnic history. The ethnic history of the Krymchaks is inseparably linked with the history of the Jewish communities in Crimea, and the general history of the peninsula as well. Most probably, the early medieval Greek-speaking Jewish population of the Crimea, at any rate part of. it, participated in the ethnogenesis of a future Krymchak community. It is less clear, however, whether a change in languages was accompanied by corresponding superstratum processes; for example, whether, and to what extent, the Turkish speaking Jews of Istanbul contributed to the ethnic core of the Krymchaks.

The genesis of the Krymchak community as a separate sub-ethnic group of Jewish ethnicity, obviously, goes back to the middle ages. Although it was intensified between the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, it was only completed in the nineteenth century. Between the fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries, the Jewish population in the Crimea was replenished with a rather significant number of emigrants from the Mediterranean countries, Eastern Europe and also from the Caucasus and Persia. Some tab newcomers were incorporated into the Krymchak community even in the nineteenth century.

An analysis of the Krymchaks' onomastics attracted the attention of different scholars more than many other fields in the ethnography of the Krymchaks.[26] This analysis also proved that the genesis of the Krymchaks took a long time and that this group was compiled from elements of different origin.

One of the most important stages in the formation of the Krymchaks was the transition of the Jewish community, or communities, in the Crimea to the Crimean Tatar language which was also adopted by many other ethnic groups in the area: the Karaites, the Greeks (Urums), partially by the Crimean Armenians and the Crimean Gypsies.

The exact time of this transition can hardly be firmly ascertained by the scanty sources at hand, however, from indirect historical and some other considerations one ran surmise that it took place between the end of the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries.[27] In the sixteenth century Greek and Italian names were still widely used by the Crimean Jews.[28] On the other hand, such Krymchak surnames as Kaia and Kokos were already known among the Crimean Jews from the fifteenth century.[29] From the linguistic point of view, the first one is of indisputable, and the second of possible Turkic origin. Another Turkic surname -- Bakshi -- has been known among the Crimean Jews from the eighteenth century.[30]

It is possible that the Jews who lived in mountainous and steppe parts of the Crimea were the first to have turned to the Tatar language and thus to have triggered and facilitated a similar process among other Jewish populations in the peninsula. The existence of a Jewish community in Solkhat (modern Staryi Krym), the first Tatar capital of the Crimea, is already mentioned at the end of the thirteenth century.[31]

The reasons for this linguistic transition are clearer. First, in the beginning of the fifteenth century a separate Crimean Khanata (extending into the adjacent Black Sea) came into being under the Girai dynasty and Tatar became the language of the politically dominant majority of the population in the peninsula. Second, it became a linqua franca of different ethnic groups there. Last but not least, it presumably also became a lingua franca, at any rate a vernacular, of different Jewish elements of the Crimea. Perhaps, descendants of the Jews who had lived in the Crimea in early medieval times continued to speak Greek even in the fourteenth century but to the newcomers from Spain, Italy and other countries it would have been quite alien.[32] Besides, although the exact extent to which Hebrew had been spread at that time amongst the Crimean Jews remains unknown to us, it should not be overestimated.

Another important moment in the formation of the new Jewish group was the religious and cultural consolidation of Crimean Jewry that took place at the turn of the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. To a large extent it was connected with activities of Rabbi Moshe ben Yaakov (Moshe haGola) (l448-1520). At the end of the fifteenth century the Jews of the Crimea were praying in three different fashions: Babylonian (Persian), Romaniot (Byzantine) and Ashkenazi. That reflected the complex composition of Crimean Jewry during the period under consideration; on the other hand, these differences and the subsequent disputes put the unity of the Jewish community in danger. Tensions went so far that the Ashkenazim were going to establish their own synagogue in Kaffa (modern Feodosia), at that time a main center of Jewish settlement in the Crimea.

Rabbi Moshe haGola, who came to the Crimea from Kiev, managed to reconcile all opponents and reach a compromise. He compiled a new prayer book which came to be known as Makhzor minhag Kafa and was accepted by all the Jews living in the Crimea at that time. In addition, he elaborated a list consisting of eighteen regulations that members of the community should follow during their lives. In this code, Rabbi Mote haggle again combined different Jewish traditions.[33] By all these actions, he contributed much to the creation of a new cultural tradition that facilitated the consolidation of different Jewish elements in the Crimea into one single community.

The third and final crucial moment in the Krymchak ethno-genesis was the formation of the Karasubazar community. Again, the exact time of this event remains unknown to us; between the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries (perhaps, even a little earlier) may be considered no more than plausible dates. At that time the Jews who already lived in Karasu were, on several occasions, mentioned in yarlyks of the Crimean Khans.[34] However, historical circumstances that caused new changes in the Jewish settlement in the Crimea are more or less evident. As economic life in Kaffa and in the coastal region in general was shifted inland, the Jews started to look for new opportunities there. It is quite possible that their move was encouraged by the government of the Crimean Khanate which was interested in their activities.[35]

Presumably, between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries members of this new community began to conceive of themselves as a separate Jewish group towards newcomers that

continued to emigrate to the Crimea: the Ashkenazim, the Sephardi Romaniots, the Gurdji (emigrants from Georgia or from the Caucasus in general), the Mizrachi (emigrants from the Near East or from Persia.[36]

Obviously, these new immigrants had been incorporated into the Krymchak community and subsequently assimilated without great difficulty. In the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth centuries only a few, insignificant traits of their origin could sometimes be traced, either in slight differences of their ritual practices or in some family stories.

Thus, in the middle of the nineteenth century, one of the observers noticed that there were still some differences in behavior between the Krymchaks of Ashkenazi and Gurdji origin during the synagogue service.[37] The former prayed sitting on benches, as is the custom in all Ashkenazi communities, while the latter prayed sitting on carpets spread on the floor.

Even at the beginning of the nineteenth century, members of the Mizrakhi family pronounced the Hebrew words in a manner different from usual Krymchak pronunciation of Hebrew. At that time, some Krymchak families still kept the memory that their ancestors had come to the Crimea from Spain, Italy, Turkey or Persia, and some descendants of the Sefardim among the Krymchaks were still called 'franko' (from the Turkish 'frenk' - a European, although now the tradition of tracing ancestors of different origin is completely lost among the Krymchaks. [39]

The name "Krymchak" was brought into use rather late, for reasons connected with peculiarities of their ethnic history. Before the Russian conquest of the Crimea the entire Jewish population was called by its inhabitants by the Tatar word which is still in use in the Crimean Tatar language. Obviously, in their own vernacular the Krymchaks also called themselves by this name.[41] Only when differences in Jewish denominations had to be pointed out, a question that at that time was important mainly to the Jews themselves, the names of confessional groups were used: the Rabbanim vs. the Karaites.

In their 1818 appeal to the emperor Alexander I, the Krymchaks called themselves "the sons of Israel from the town of Karasubazar."[42]

During the first half of the nineteenth century the Russian authorities in the Crimea faced the necessity of discriminating between the Krymchaks, who were equated to all other Jews in the Empire, and the patronized Karaites who enjoyed much higher ethnic status. However, a firm term to designate the Krymchaks had yet to be coined. In different Russian official ethnic documents they figured by different names: "the Jew-rabbins" (1832),[43] Karasubazar Jews" (1832),[44] "the Jew-Talmudists" (1833),[45] "the Jew-rabbanists" (1833),[46] "the Crimean Jews" (1844).[47] Additional names, like "the Tatar Jews" or "the Turkish Jews" also appeared occasionally in the Russian-language publications.[48]

In the middle of the nineteenth century, that was already not enough, since at that time the authorities faced the new necessity of discriminating between the Tatar-speaking Jews who were old residents in the Crimea and the Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews who were newcomers to the peninsula.

In 1856 the name "Krymchak" in the form "the Jew-Krymchaks" appeared for the first time in official documents, pointing out the place of origin and settlement of this Jewish group.[49] Later on, a shorter variety of this name, "the Krymchaks," became dominant. At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, the Krymchaks themselves began to use this name as their ethnonym.[50] Thus, a name that originally served as an exoethnonym, became an endoethnonym as well.

This fact eventually became important in Krymchak ethnic history. Ethnic self-identification, among other things, reveals itself in ethnic antitheses, i.e. when an ethnic group constantly compares itself with others. In such circumstances the existence of a separate ethnonym may point to certain trends towards ethnic segregation.

The Krymchaks never constituted a numerous group. This fact is demonstrated in the following table.

Changes in the number of Krymchaks from the end of the eighteenth century (in round numbers)

1783 800 [51]

1844 l3QO [52]

1879 2900 [53]

1897 3500 [54]

1913 7000 [55]

1926 6400 [56]

1941 8000 [57]

1945 2500 [58]

1959 1500-2000 [59]

1979 1800-2000 [60]

Notwithstandinq all Jewish migrations to the Crimea in the medieval period, at the time of the Russian conquest of the peninsula in 1783, the Krymchaks numbered only about eight hundred. An overwhelming majority of them lived in the peninsula itself, and most of them in one town only - in Karasubazar (modern Belogorsk).[61] Apart from Karasubazar, small groups of Krymchaks lived in Kaffa (modern Feodosia), Mangup, Eski-Krym (modern Staryi Krym) and Bakhchisarai; outside the Crimea they lived in towns of Temriuk and Taman.

During the nineteenth century the number of Krymchaks was constantly increasing. In 1913 the Krymchaks initiated their own communal census that was carried nut. in nineteen towns and settlements of the Crimea and the southern provinces of Russia.[62]

The Krymchak Census of 1913

NN Settlement Male Female Total

1 Karasubazar 1231 l256 2487

2 Kerch 396 376 772

3 Feodosia 396 320 716

4 Sevastopol 156 140 296

5 Evpatoria 153 119 272

6 Mariupol 48 49 97

7 Yalta 48 48 96

8 Novorossiisk 51 45 96

9 Genichesk 50 39 89

10 Berdiansk 36 41 77

11 Bakhchisarai 36 26 62

12 Odessa 33 23 56

13 Staryi Krym 24 29 53

14 Balaklava 16 15 31

15 Sukhumi 11 13 24

16 Djankoi 12 12 24

17 Armiansk 7 9 16

l8 Lugansk 7 14

19 Alupka 3 1 4

Total 2714 2568 5282

The census embraced 5,502 people including the first generation of descendants of marriages between the Krymchaks and the Ashkenazim. Besides, about 1,500 Krymchaks that were not included in the census lived at that time in Simferopol and in some other towns and cities. Therefore, at the beginning of World War I the number of Krymchaks in Russia reached 7,000.[63]

The first serious losses they sustained between 1918 and 1921 were the result of the civil war and the famine that followed.[64] Furthermore, a small number of Krymchaks emigrated during these years to Turkey. My informant told me that many of them had fled from the Crimea either to escape compulsory conscription during the Vrangel regime, or as soldiers of the defeated white guard Vrangel troops. Eventually, some of these emigrants settled in Palestine, and some in the United States. A small Krymchak community existed in Palestine from the beginning of this century.[65] In the U.S.A. only one Krymchak family had settled prior to World War I. However, by 1942 their number had increased to approximately one hundred families, most of whom lived in New York. Even at that time they were intermarrying with other Jewish groups, and scholars predicted that they would soon disappear as a separate group. [65] By the 1926 census, the number of Krymchaks in the territory of the U.S.S.R. had decreased to 6,383.

The number and settlement of the Krymchaks in the territory of the U.S.S.R. according to the 1926 census.[67]

 Crimea 6000

including:

Simferopol 1502

Karasubazar 1042

Sevastopol 831

Feodosia 559

Kerch 554

Evpatoria 250

Russia 183

including Novorossiisk 142

Ukraine 20

Trans-Caucasia 178

including Sukhumi 152

In the period between the two world wars, the number of Krymchaks increased again, and on the eve of World War II they amounted to 8,000. Although a considerable migration of Krymchaks from Karasubazar to other towns and cities had already begun from the 1880s and continued almost without interruption in the first half of the twentieth century, at the beginning of the Second World War more than 904 of the Krymchaks still lived in the Crimea.

The fate of the Krymchaks was predetermined when the German troops were only approaching the Crimea. The Einsatzqruppen leaders were not sure what standards to apply to the Crimean ethnic groups that professed Judaism but were different from the Ashkenazi Jews. They solicited further clarification and orders from Berlin and promptly received an answer. The Karaites were spared. The Krymchaks, on the other hand, were declared descendants of the Jews that had immigrated from Italy four hundred years ago and adopted the Tatar language after they came to the Crimea.[68]

During the German occupation of the Crimea, the Krymchaks, together with other Jews, were destroyed one and all, except for those who served at the front in the Red Army or had been evacuated to non-occupied territories.[69]

The Simferopol Krymchaks were killed on December 11, 1941.[69] They were shot near the village of Mazanki, outside the city. Only those who did not go to a special reqistration and managed to obtain internal passports that testified their alleged Russian or Tatar ethnicity managed to save their lives.

One of the informants claims that two Krymchak families, Ashkinazi and Mizrakhi, were spared because they held Iranian citizenship. In the past, their parents had emigrated from the Crimea, however they returned in the twenties. One Krymchak was only wounded during the execution and managed to get out of the ditch. Later, he found refuge in a village of Crimean Tatars who saved his life.

One case of individual resistance is reported by the Krymchaks. Noakh Lombroso (1910-1940) did not go with the others to the place of execution. Instead, he killed a German officer, took his pistol and put on his uniform. Then, he took a cab, joined a column in which Krymchaks, including his relatives, were going for execution, and shot two more Germans before he himself was literally cut into strips by numerous shots of the German sub-machine gunners.[71]

After the war, an unknown Krymchak bemoaned the Simferopol massacre in a song that soon became a folk song:

If I say it today, if I also say it tomorrow,

If every stranger I meet I call one of my people,

And if I give the name of cruelty to separation...

Will you then be aware of the death of my people?

We were wrong, my friends,

In the Crimea we stayed.

In the fields of Crimea

We were sacrificed.

We were all brought out

Of Simferopol, then

We were made to turn around,

And they bound our hands.

Lead us on, cruel soldier,

Do not grip our hands.

We already know full well

Where it is we are going.

From the Simferopol fields

Came the voices of my people.

The hills and the stones were struck with fright

At the horror of those voices.

  Our wretched children would die

Clasping their mother's necks.

So this is the way it had to be.

Live long, my people's remains.

Our graves, dig them deeper down,

Roomy and wide let them be.

Those who come to look for our graves

May they find them at once... [72]

The Krymchaks of Feodosia were killed on January 15, 1942. The Germans first gathered them in a local prison, then took them outside the town where they shot them. The Karasubazar Krymchaks were killed in mobile qas-chambers on January 18, 1942.[73]

In l941 the Germans failed to do away with the Krymchaks of Kerch. The Krymchak witnesses who survived the first German occupation of the city claim that some Krymchaks unsuccessfully' tried to persuade the Germans that they were not Jewish. The Germans simply did not have enough time to drive the Krymchaks into a ghetto but the latter were ordered to wear a yellow star. The Gestapo planned their shooting for January 3, 1942.[74]

However, on December 29, 1941 the city was liberated by the Red Army. After that, some of the Krymchaks were evacuated, but most of them remained in Kerch and perished during the second German occupation of the city. They were murdered on July 8 and 9, 1942, although they had previously been informed that they would not be harmed. The last to be killed were the Krymchaks of Sevastopol - on July ll and 12, 1942.[75]

On the whole, according to calculations by E.I. Peisakh and I.S. Kaia, more than 5,500 Krymchaks perished during the war, i.e. about 704 of their whole number.[76]

By 1948, only about 150 of the surviving Krymchaks returned to Feodosia, 100 - to Kerch, 400 - to Simferopol. [77]

The 1959 census revealed only 1400 Krymchaks; 963 of them lived in the Crimea. In fact, at that time they might have been slightly more numerous since, as has already been noted, during this census some Krymchaks preferred to declare that they belonged to other ethnic groups (see note 59).

At the beginning of the sixties their number reached 2000,[78] but then it began to decrease again, and at present is hardly more than 1800. According to some estimates based on an analysis of the 1979 census data, about 1000 Krymchaks lived in the Ukraine, 600 - in Russia, 200 - in Georgia, and 200 - in Uzbekistan. In the latter, their number is constantly decreasing. Thus, in 1970, 44 Krymchaks lived in Samarkand oblast' (province), in 1979 - only 4. More than 500 Krymchaks are now living in Simferopol, less than 200 in Sevastopol, about 150 in Kerch, less than 100 in Feodosia. A small number of Krymchaks are also living in other towns of the Crimea - in Evpatoria, Yalta and Djankoi. Outside the Crimea about 200 Krymchaks are living in Sukhumi and Abkhazia, and about l00 in Novorossiisk. There are also small numbers of them living in Moscow and Leningrad.> In l954, there were only two Krymchak families living in Belogorsk (former Karasubazar), a formative center of the Krymchaks;[80] in 1974, V. Iii. Chernin found only two Krymchaks there, both of whom were married to Russian women. [81]

Before the revolution the Krymchaks, contrary to the Karaites, always considered themselves true orthodox Jews, although different from the Ashkenazim, and they were conceived as such by other Jewish communities. Even throughout the nineteenth century, those of the Ashkenazim migrating to the Crimea from the Western Ukrainian (Little Russian) provinces who settled in Karasubazar, became incorporated without great difficulty into a local Krymchak community. [82]

The Russian authorities also considered and treated the Krymchaks as other Jews in their empire. Unlike the Karaites, the Krymchaks were affected by all the discriminatory legislation of the Russian Empire just like the Ashkenazim. Like all other Jews, the Krymchaks were forbidden to live outside the Pale and, with few exceptions, even in such cities as Simferopol and Yalta. [83]

To give another example, I will refer to interesting documents now kept in the Simferopol archives. The Statute on the recruit- ment of the Jews was a great burden for the Krymchak community, particularly considering its insignificant number. In 1832 the Karasubazar Krymchaks approached the governor-general of Novorossiia (New Russia) and Bessarabia with a request to substitute a money duty for a recruit levy, just as had been done for the Karaites. A civilian governor of Tavrida (the official name of the Crimea at that time), A.I. Kaznacheev, was inclined, though warily, to support their petition. When his superiors asked him about it, he provided them with the following information:

One may wonder whether the Karasubazar Jews can, in due course, unite with the other Jews, with whom they share the same faith, and whether they can begin to accept them into their community. They are doing it now only because of differences in customs, but customs are changing in the course of time. [84]

In the end, the government at St. Petersburg considered the matter and the Krymchaks' application was declined in a circular dated April 18, 1833 from the Minister for Internal Affairs to the Governor-General of Novorossiia and Bessarabia. The arguments of the Minister were rather characteristic of the attitude of the Russian government towards the Jews; therefore, I will include some extracts from the circular:

In 1818...not only those Jews who are living in the town of Karasubazar, but all the Jews of the province- of Tavrida were named Rabbins and a distinction was made between them and the Karaites... In 1821 and in 1822 the authorities of the province of Tavrida reported that the Karaites, having constituted separate communities, did not mix with the Jew-Rabbins. In December, 1827, His Majesty the Emperor, in response to a presentation by the acting Governor-General of Novorossiia, and after a conclusion of the Jewish Committee about the Karaite Jews living in the province of Tavrida, most highly revealed his will: "to suspend the levy on the Karaite Jews in the province of Tavrida." This most high order of His Majesty the Emperor is based on considerations that the Government always gave the Karaites an advantage over the Jew-Rabbins; that the Karaites, having broken off completely with the Jew-Rabbins right up to now, are different from the latter not only in the rules of faith, since they accept only Mosaic law and reject the teaching of the Talmud and its commentators, but even more so by their civil behavior; they are hardworking people, practicing corn-growing, gardening and animal husbandry; they are honest, not involved in any serious crimes and always punctual in duty payments... Taking into consideration this information about the release of the Karasubazar Jews from a levy, Your Excellency may deign to be aware that: l. Up to now, the Government and the local authorities have divided the Jews of the province of Tavrida into the Rabbanists and the Karaites. 2. The Jews living in Karasubazar, as recognizing the Talmud, were not distinguished from other Jews that came to the Crimea from the Western provinces... 4. It would not be convenient to make an exception to the general law about the whole Jewish people for a small group of Rabbanists living in the town of Karasubazar only because, having intercourse with the Tatars, they are a little different in customs from the Polish Jews... 6. Because of the notorious aversion of the Jews to military service, one may expect that they will use all means to join the Karasubazar Jews, had the latter been granted the favor that they were requesting; in this case, this favor would either be obliterated or would turn into a burden to those Jews who do enjoy it. Taking into account these considerations, I assume that the Karasubazar Jews should be subjected to a levy equal to that of other Jew-Rabbanists who are living in the province of Tavrida and the Western provinces that have been taken back from Poland. [85]

Not long afterwards, in 1841, Count M.S. Vorontsov, Governor- General of Novorossiia, provided the Minister for Internal Affairs with more information about the Krymchaks. Although his general attitude towards them was rather favorable, and he mentioned differences between them and the Ashkenazim, he did not cast any doubt on the Jewish origin and character of the Krymchaks:

  The Crimean Jew-Talmudists are living in the town of Karasubazar; they should not be confused with the Jew-Karaites. When the Crimea was annexed, they became subjects of Russia; they keep the custom of their ancestors, speak a dialect of the Tatar language and wear the usual garments of the Crimean Tatars. The Crimean Jews are reluctant to establish close rapport with the other Jews whom they call "the Polish Jews;" dogmas of their faith are the same; the books of Holy Scripture and Talmud are also the sane, however, the Crimean Jews have their own prayer schools [apparently, Vorontsov had in mind synagogues - A. Kh.], where they keep a piety in praying that is alien to the so- called Polish Jews. In reading their books in Hebrew thy use the pronunciation of the Spanish Jews. That is why they do not understand the reading of Holy Scripture by the Polish Jews who use German pronunciation. Besides, the prayer books of the latter have a slightly different order from the books of the Crimean Jews. They are of the opinion that they keep an old order in praying, similar to that kept by the so- called Spanish Jews. The Crimean Jews are a peaceful people, mostly engaged in handicrafts, they make saddles, sew caps, refine cotton paper, etc.. Only a few of them are involved in trade; on the whole, they are honest, straightforward and comfortable in their family life... They have four praying schools [synagogues - A. Kh.] and four rabbis, however, they lack schools to educate their children; their rabbis teach them to read the books of Holy Scripture. [86]

Up to the period before World War I, the Sefardim of Turkey served the Krymchaks as a reference group of higher status, and their religious tradition was the most authoritative to them. An interesting document dated 1833 is kept in the archives in Simferopol. It contains an intercession for a Turkish citizen Ioakt Haim. The Krymchaks of Karasubazar applied to the governor of Tavrida with a request not to deport. Haim from Russia, and instead, to approve him as a rabbi of their community. They argued that they were not acquainted with anyone else who was capable of filling this vacancy. [87]

One man particularly contributed to the Sefardic religious influence upon the Krymchaks. He was Jerusalem-born Haim Hezkiiahu Medini who, between 1866 and 1899, lived in Karasubazar and was their chief rabbi. He came to the Crimea through Istanbul and was fluent in the Turkish language. Among other things he founded a religious college for the Krymchaks. Even after his return to Jerusalem he maintained his connections with the Krymchak community and was involved in translations and publishing activities in their language. [88]

The Krymchaks' attitude towards the Ashkenazim settling in the Crimea was more ambiguous. After the Russian annexation of the Crimea, a greater number of Ashkenazim began to migrate and to establish their own communities there. Already in the middle of the nineteenth century, the number of Ashkenazim there exceeded the number of Krymchaks and at the end of the century the Jewish population of Crimea became predominantly Ashkenazi. By the 1897 census, 57,000 Ashkenazi Jews were living in the province of Tavrida, and the Krymchaks became a small minority within the Jewish population of the Crimea.

In everyday life, the Krymchaks sometimes had some negative attitudes towards the Ashkenazim, which were revealed in standard stereotypes like "the Ashkenazi women are sluts," or "the Ashkenazim, instead of praying, chat in synagogue."[89]

Such attitudes and stereotypes were rather characteristic of interrelations between the Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews in the Russian Ernpire. It is well known in athropology that a contact situation may often facilitate the emergence of a separate ethnic self-consciousness. In the course of the nineteenth century the Krymchaks, the Mountain Jews (the Tats), the Georgian Jews and the Bukharan Jews, for the first time in history, began to live side by side with a large number of Ashkenazim who settled in the areas of their traditional habitat. Just as in some other parts of the Jewish diaspora, in which a neighborhood of a small Jewish subethnic group lived together with a larger one, this sometimes only strengthened a segregating tendency so that differences in languages, ways of life and religious practices resulted in tensions and frictions. Ashkenazi "chauvinism" contributed to these tensions; considering themselves as more cultured and educated, the Ashkenazim tended to look down upon the "Oriental" Jews who still lived in the framework of the traditional society. To their minds, the latter were too greatly influenced by alien cultures. All this sometimes even increased the feeling of separateness in many non-Ashkenazi. Jewish groups which operated on the lines of "we-they" opposition, typical to all kinds of ethnic differentiation.

Ethnic groups not only reveal themselves in oppositions, they may also result from opposites. When all ethnosegregating factors are operating in the same direction they may result in the development of a distinct ethnic self-identification and self- consciousness. This happened with the Karaites, originally the Jewish sectarians patronized by the Russian government. In the course of the nineteenth century the Karaites passed most of the way from a religious sect to a separate ethnic group with a distinct self-identification and a distinct myth of an origin their alleged descent from the Turkish Khazars.

However, nothing like that happened to the Krymchaks, who never denied their Jewishness. Their separateness from the Ashkenazim in terms of ethnic differentiation at the time should not be overestimated. In the nineteenth century, a common religion continued to serve as a decisive ethnointegrating factor to all the Jews in the Russian Empire. The discriminating policy of the Tsarist government further contributed to the common self- consciousness of Jewish groups in Russia.

In such towns as Novorossiisk, Bakhchisarai, Odessa, Staryi Krym" and others, where the Krymchaks lacked communities of their own, they joined communities of the Ashkenazi Jews and attended their synagogues.[90] The Ashkenazi cultural influence revealed itself in different ways. The Krymchaks admitted that the Ashkenazi Jews were more cultured and educated, particularly since, prior to the revolution, the Krymchaks themselves lacked people with a university education. Even those Krymchaks who graduated from secondary schools numbered less than ten. [91] By the 1926 census, only 57.4% of the Krymchaks were literate. [92] In the past many Krymchaks knew Yiddish and even now one can meet some Krymchak elders who understand it, or even speak it.

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the vast majority of Krymchak children were taught only in schools at synagogues. [93] Education was in Hebrew with translation into the Krymchak vernacular. The first two primary schools were opened only in 1902 and 1907, correspondingly in Simferopol and Karasubazar. [94] Since the Krymchaks lacked their own teachers capable of teaching in Russian, they made use of the assistance of Ashkenazi teachers. [95]

Intermarriage with Ashkenazim, although not very frequent before the revolution, and even before World War II, nevertheless did occur. Remarkably enough, the Krymchaks had a more favorable attitude towards such marriages than the Ashkenazim. The Ashkenazi ancestors enhance their prestige. [96] Some Krymchaks of the older generation remember that the poorest of the Ashkenazim, who could not find a bride in their own midst, married Krymchak girls.

When in the beginning of the thirties the Krymchaks, as all other Soviet citizens, were for the first time ordered to receive internal passports, they faced a choice - either to register themselves as Jews, or as Krymchaks. Most registered as Krymchaks but I was told by the Krymchaks of the older generation that at that moment the choice meant very little to them for pragmatic considerations and therefore had not been considered with due attention. The Jewish self-identification of the Krymchaks remained intact then, and they were considered as such by Soviet authorities.

I.S. Kaia, an educated Krymchak who, more than anybody else amongst them, was interested in their ethnography,[97] claimed in his manuscript written in 1936 but still unpublished:

All this proves that before World War II the Krymchaks still perceived themselves as Jews, although different from the Ashkenazirn. During this period their ethnic self-identification did not undergo any drastic changes. I would call this type of ethnic self-identification a hierarchical one.

However, the acculturation of the Krymchaks and their linguistic Russification had already been in progress and were thriving with a growing speed. One of the reasons for this was that in the thirties the Soviet authorities became less concerned with the special care for cultural development of small ethnic groups and particularly their subdivisions. More and more, such development was considered too expensive, unnecessary, and even pernicious to the general trends in Soviet ethnic policy.

All Krymchak synagogues were closed already in the beginning of the thirties. [99] Just like the Crimean Tatars, the Krymchaks had to accept, first, an imposed Latinized script and then, in 1936, a Cyrillic one. During the thirties the Krymchak schools that had been open after the revolution were closed again, as well as clubs and other cultural institutions. Moreover, the Krymchaks, who before the revolution had been occupied mostly in handicrafts and petty trade, were forced to enter factories and workshops as wage laborers, or were even resettled in newly founded agricultural collective farms (the so-called kolkhozy).

By the l926 census, only 97 Krymchaks were involved in agriculture. [100] But already in 1930 up to 587 Krymchaks worked in two specially organized kolkozy "Krymchak" and "Eni Krymchak" which were administratively united into one Krymchak village Soviet (council). [101] Besides, one informant remembered that some Krymchaks in the thirties also lived in the Jewish (Ashkenazi) kolkhozy in the Djankoi district of the Crimea, mainly practicing vegetable-gardening.

Most of the Krymchaks settled in kolkhozy involuntarily. Many of the Krymchak kolkhozniks were so called "lishentsy," people devoid of civil rights because of their alleged bourgeois origin.

 They strove to leave the kolkhozy, if and when a chance occurred. Many of them already managed to do so before World War II.

These social and cultural disturbances had weakened both sides of the Krymchaks' self-identification, first of all, putting an end to the very foundations of their traditional community life. The results, however, were revealed in a full measure only after the war.

Consequences of the Holocaust affected the Krymchaks more than any other Jewish group in the U.S.S R , particularly on account of their small number. Their hierarchical but firm self- identification was also shattered. The first lesson was taught to them by the Nazis; to be a Jew is sometimes a very dangerous thing. To the Krymchaks it was a particular truth, since they could compare their fate with the fate of the Karaites with whom they had lived for so long side by side, sometimes in the same towns and even streets. The Karaites escaped the fate of the Krymchaks and the Ashkenazim, claiming their alleged descent from the Turkish Khazars.

However, the very characteristics that distinguished the Krymchaks from the Ashkenazim also served them badly in the period immediately following the expulsion of the Germans from the Crimea.

In 1944, all the Crimean Tatars were accused of collaboration with the Germans and deported to Central Asia and Siberia. [102] Soon afterwards the Crimean Armenians, Bolgars and Greeks were also exiled. At that time the local Soviet authorities consisted of new people who had come to the Crimea from other places. They knew very little about the ethnic situation in the Crimea and preferred not to bother themselves with this nuisance. All that they knew was that indigenous ethnic groups in the Crimea - the Tatars, the Krymchaks, the Greeks, the Armenians and others were suspect in the eyes of high authorities in Moscow. That was quite enough for them.

By language, habits and even their name, the Krymchaks seemed to resemble the Crimean Tatars, so they had to pay again. Some Krymchak families were deported to Central Asia along with the Tatars, although, contrary to the latter, they soon managed to return home. Some of those Krymchaks who escaped the Holocaust by serving in the Red Army, or by being evacuated to non-occupied territories, were prevented from returning to the Crimea; houses and other properties of some other Krymchaks were confiscated.

To illustrate the situation I will present a short record of these events as told by one Krymchak:

To do justice to the Soviets I should add that such a practice was neither sanctioned from above, nor was it pursued with any consistency. Besides, it did not continue for long. The Krymchaks managed to prove to the authorities, sometimes with the help of. the old Russian residents of the Crimea, that they were in no way Tatars, but just another Jewish group.

So far so good. However, after these events some local Soviet authorities began to insist that the Krymchaks should receive internal passports with non-Krymchak identification, and many Krymchaks themselves preferred to be registered as Jews, Russians, Karaites, Georgians and so on. However, they soon discovered that to be a Jew in the post-war Soviet Union was also quite a hard thing. One should also take into account social and cultural factors separating the Krymchaks from the rest of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union, particularly from the Ashkenazim.

These factors include the diminishing role of religion as an integrating factor for all Jewish groups of the U.S.S.R., and the decreasing ethnic status of the Ashkenazim due to events of the war and growing anti-Semitism in the forties.

To give but one example to illustrate this point, I can mention that very few Krymchaks of the older generation attended synagogue after the war. Some Krymchaks told me at the beginning of the eighties that on Saturdays, only one or two Krymchaks attended synagogue in Simferopol; no more than five Krymchaks attended it during the High Holy Days. Many more Krymchaks went to synagogue when somebody from the older generation died.

I was told that one of the reasons was that their own synagogues were closed in the pre-war period, and that the service and the Hebrew pronunciation in the Ashkenazi synagogue were quite strange to them. Some of the Krymchaks even claimed that many more of them would attend synagogue if they had one of their own.

Thus, in the fifties, the informal leaders of the Krymchak community, that is, the most educated and respected Krymchaks -- incidentally some of them lived outside the Crimea and were most sensitive to new trends in Soviet ethnic policy -- came to the conclusion that being Jewish is a burden and that in order to improve their ethnic status the Krymchaks should insist on their different origin from the rest of Jewry.

A ready and efficient model was before their eyes. In their private correspondence, to which I gained access since all these people had already passed away, they overtly admitted that they were just imitating the Karaite example.

Thus, they claimed that the Krymchaks were descended from the indigenous Crimean peoples, such as the Tavrians, Scythians, Sarmatians and others. They alleged t.hat some of these people were converted to Judaism by the Jews who had arrived in the Crimea in ancient times. They insisted further that, since in the Soviet Union religion had ceased to be the basis of ethnic identification, the Krymchaks should be recognized as a separate and distinct ethnic group that has nothinq in common with the Jews.

It is hardly accidental that in the Krymchaks' ethnic myth, the Khazars hardly appear. Their role had already been firmly occupied and exploited by the Karaites, and the Krymchaks' leaders evidently preferred to escape the embarrassing and unnecessary competition.

This group of Krymchaks (Peisakh, Kokos, Manto, Piastro and several others) was not numerous but very active, particularly since the first attempts in this direction undertaken on an individual level did not bring the desired results, obviously, because of the particular political atmosphere prevailing in the last years of Stalin's rule, with its open anti-Semitic campaign, rumors about the imminent deportation of the,Jews, and appeals to unmask "cosmopolites without kith or kin," in other words "secret Jews."

Professor M Zand told me a story of a Krymchak who at that time lived in Stalinabad (modern Dushanbe) and wished to substitute the word "Krymchak" for "Jew" in the corresponding line of his passport. He had approached the Tadjik Academy of Sciences for confirmation of his "just demand." Experts there were too afraid to decide anything by themselves and in their turn approached Moscow.

The answer came in 1951 from the Central Statistical Office (in Russian Upravlenie) attached to the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. It was explained that the Krymchaks were none other than the Crimean Jews.

Another attempt of a more general character also did not bring decisive results, although it was undertaken already after Stalin's death. In 1954, in reply to an inquiry by some Krymchaks,[103] Professor N.N. Cheboksarov, at that time head of the department of Europe at the Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., gave a very cautious and ambiguous answer:

the scholars from the Institute of Ethnography came to another and this time unambiguous conclusion.

In the mid-fifties the same group of Krymchaks approached the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union with a request to recognize them as a separate ethnic group. Confirmation of their claims was demanded and promptly received from the Institute of Ethnography in a certificate of February 9, 1955 written by Professor G.F. Debets:

Many years later I asked the late Professor Debets, an out- standing scholar and a very honest and respected man, whether he believed in the non-Jewish origin of the Krymchaks. The answer was: "In no way." When further asked why, then, had he signed this confirmation he answered: "Why not help people to improve their status?"

This is a very characteristic answer. By the mid-fifties being Jewish was considered in the Soviet Union either a sin or a stigma.

The first success encouraged the Krymchak leaders to further actions. They desired to confirm their achievements by what they considered to be the most important practical measures. In 1955- 1956 they initiated different applications to various Soviet authorities with a request to recognize the Krymchaks as a national 'nost' (ethnicity) and to permit them to change the ethnic identification of their internal passports.

To my knowledge, only a few of. the Krymchaks welcomed this action wholeheartedly, but only a few, like L.I. Kaia, resisted them and insisted on their Jewish identity. The majority just complied with the persuasion of their leaders.

At this stage, perhaps, a decisive action was the application on September 5, 1955 to General M.V. Poduzov, head of the department of passports and registration of the Ministry for Internal Affairs of the U.S.S.R., that forty-seven Krymchaks had been persuaded to sign. The application requested the recognition of the Krymchaks as a distinct national 'nost ' (ethnicity) and to permit them to change the ethnic identification of their internal passports.

On January 22, 1956 the application of the forty-seven was supported by the personal application of I.S. Kaia, one of the most, if not the most, authoritative and respected of the Krymchaks' leaders.

At that time I.S. Kaia changed his previous opinion (see above) about the ethnic identification of the Krymchaks or, to be more exact, was forced to do so under the pressure of other Krymchak leaders, with some of whom, including the most active, E.I. Peisakh, he was connected by ties of relationship. In his application, I.S. Kaia wrote, although hardly sincerely:

Soon afterwards, from the late fifties and the early sixties, the Krymchaks in the Soviet Union gradually began to be officially recognized as a separate ethnicity that at present has nothing in common with the Jews.

Nevertheless, a relatively large number of Krymchaks during the 1959 census preferred to point out their alleged Russian, Ukrainian, Karaite, Tatar (of course, non-Crimean Tatar) and even Jewish identity.[106] Obviously, they did so not because their ethnic self-identification had rapidly changed, but simply because they did not wish to tempt fate any more.[107]

  Several years ago, one of the most zealous followers of the late I.S. Peisakh, advocating the existence of a separate Krymchak ethnicity, complained privately that "up to now many Krymchaks are registered as belonging to other nationalities (ethnicities) including to the Karaites. They do not try to change their internal passports because they follow the principle: 'it may turn out for the worse.'"

Even the official Soviet scholarship sometimes lags behind the next changes in Soviet ethnic policy, particularly when it concerns such small and insignificant groups as the Krymchaks. That is why in some Soviet publications issued in the sixties and even later, the Krymchaks still figured as "the Crimean Jews."[108]

In the sixties some scholars, particularly Ukrainian, took the new "theory" with an overt or covert skepticism. At any rate they 1ike to stress that it was the Krymchaks themselves who did not consider themselves Jewish.

Thus, V.I. Naulko wrote:

However, he also hurried to add:

Moreover, even in the Soviet Historical Encyclopedia published in 1965, the Krymchaks were still called "the descendants of the medieval Jewish population of the Crimea.[111]

In the Soviet Union., bureaucratic mills move particularly slowly. In the sixties, the same Krymchak leaders were alarmed many times and approached the different Soviet authorities when the latter failed to recognize them as a separate ethnicity, or simply forgot about their newly achieved ethnic status.

Thus, only after their approach, the Crimean authorities, in 1963, gave instructions to the local police (militia) to substitute the word "Krymchak" for "Jew" "in passports of those persons 'of the Jewish nationality' [sic] who have documents which prove that they are Krymchaks."[112] A very curious document. It looks as if those authorities did not believe that the Krymchaks were, in fact, non-Jewish.

Six years later, it was the Crimean authorities who drew the attention of their Moscow superiors to the fact that officially the Krymchaks had ceased to be considered Jewish. In 1969, I. Zhitvitskii, the head of the Statistical office of the Crimean oblast' (province), possibly prompted by the Krymchaks, approached P.R. Podiachikh, who was responsible for t;he 1970 census, and drew his attention to the "mistake" in the draft of the "Systematic Lexicon of Peoples and Languages" prepared for the forthcoming census. In this draft, the Krymchaks still figured as "the Crimean Jews . "

In his official letter, I. Zhitvitskii suggested that it be acknowledged in the census that the Krymchaks were an ethnicity separate from the,Jews, even with its own language, separate from that of the Crimean Tatars.

The "mistake" was promptly corrected. When, in 1970, the Central Statistical Office ( upravlenie ) issued the Lexicon of' Nationalities and Languages that was to serve as the source of instructions for the forthcoming census, the Krymchaks figured in it as a separate nationality under the cipher "080."

During this period, very many Krymchaks comprehended for themselves that for all practical reasons it would be better for them to admit their separateness from the Jews. On the other hand, their leaders understood quite well that their arguments were not particularly convincing either to some of the authorities, or to many members of the Soviet scholarly community. It was only a general anti-Semitic climate in the Soviet Union which made their actions successful, since these actions were considered as weakening the entire Jewish ethnicity in the Soviet Union. The Krymchaks searched for and at last discovered a new argument which was the most convincing to the Soviet authorities. In 1970, E. I. Peisakh claimed, in a paper submitted to the editors of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia and designated as explanatory information to an article "The Krymchaks," written by the same author:

This argument turned out to be the decisive one. In the first editions of the Soviet Encyclopaedia the Krymchaks were called "an ethnographic group of the Jews," however, in the third edition, this opinion was changed.[115] In the article written by E.I. Peisakh it was claimed that

This argument sounded very convincing also to the notorious Aaron Vergelis, the chief editor at that time of the only Jewish monthly in the Soviet Union - Sovetish Heimland. In 1974 he published two papers by E.I. Peisakh in which the latter argued the non-Jewish character of the Krymchaks.[117]

Curiously enough, the same Krymchak leaders understood quite well that the proximity to the Crimean Tatars, even only linguistically, is also undesirable. Therefore, they began to claim that the Krymchaks spoke a separate language. The history of the notion of a separate Krymchak language and many circumstances which contributed to its development are illuminated in a very interesting article by V.I. Chernin, in which its scientific groundlessness is demonstrated quite convincingly.[118]

In all official documents and scientific publications of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century the Krymchak vernacular was defined as "Crimean Tatar," or simply "Tatar." To my knowledge, the first attempt to demonstrate the separate character of the Krymchak vernacular from those of the Crimean Tatars and the Karaites was undertaken by S.M. Shapshal in 1915. However, in fact he had in mind only a separate dialect.[119]

During the communal census of 1913 the Krymchaks defined their language by different names: "Crimean Tatar," "Tatar," "Turkish," or "Krymchak," "Krymchak-Tatar," "Tatar-Krymchak," "Crimean Jewish."

Apparently, the vague idea that their vernacular was somehow different from that of the Crimean Tatars existed among the Krymchaks already at the beginning of the century. This idea was neither explicit, nor consistent, and it was based mainly on two circumstances: a) on the lexical and phonetic differences between the Krymchak vernacular and that of the Crimean Tatars; b) on the existence of a separate Krymchak literate tradition. Contrary to the Crimean Tatars who used the Arabic script, until the thirties of this century the Krymchaks used only the Hebrew script. This difference served as a certain ethno-differentiating factor.

On the other hand, a certain ambiguity about the status of the Krymchak vernacular that existed among the Krymchaks was connected with its other, this time integrating, function as a means of communication with other ethnic groups in the Crimea, particularly with the Crimean Tatars and the Karaites.

Until the nineteen seventies, differences between the Krymchak vernacular language and that of the Crimean Tatars were never exaggerated by the Krymchaks. In scientific publications and manuscripts written by them, these differences were estimated as dialectical.

Thus, I.S. Kaia wrote in 1936 that:

or:

In 1955 the same I.S. Kaia in his paper written in co-authorship with V.I. Filonenko wrote:

  The Krymchaks speak the Tatar language with some phonetic and lexical peculiarities and with some archaisms that prove that their life among the Turkish tribes probably exceeds the limits of the Tatar period of Crimean history.[121]

Only in 1972 did V.I. Filonenko change his opinion and for the first time claim:

V.I. Filonenko always tended to overestimate peculiarities of the Krymchak vernacular language, and there is no reason to suspect that he was driven by political considerations. The incentives of E I. Peisakh, who gladly took up Filonenko's views were quite different.

In 1970, E.I. Peisakh wrote that the Krymchaks spoke the Krymchak language which is related to the Crimean Tatar one.[123] However, already in 1973, in a memorandum submitted to the State Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the U.S.S.R., E.I. Peisakh did not disdain even direct falsifications. Thus, he claimed:

The same allegations were repeated by Peisakh in his two articles published in 1974 in Sovetish Heimland,[125] Like the statements about the existence of a separate Krymchak ethnicity, these allegations also received support from some members of the Soviet scientific establishment.[126]

At the same time, the Krymchak leaders, particularly the late E.I. Peisakh and his follower V. Achkinazi, made every effort to convince the ordinary Krymchaks that they speak (to be more exact, spoke) a separate Krymchak language.

However, they succeeded only to a limited extent. Some Krymchak elders admit that during the census they named the Crimean Tatar Karaite language as their mother tongue, because they had never heard of the existence of the Krymchak language.

On the other hand, one should not deny that the ideas about the existence of a separate Krymchak language reflect changes in its ethnic and social status. After the expulsion of the Tatars from the Crimea, the dispersion of the Krymchaks in the post-war period, and their transition to the Russian language, their former vernacular is changing from a means of communication and is becoming more and more an ethnic symbol that demonstrates their separateness from all other ethnic groups. Its ethnointegration function became the most salient feature and is manipulated by the Krymchak leaders. The existence of a separate Krymchak ethnicity is argued by the existence of a separate Krymchak language.

Linguistic criteria and means were always important in Soviet ethnic engineering, and were often used when ethnic segregation was considered as a desired aim.[127] The attempt to create a Soviet Yiddish-based Jewish culture undertaken in the twenties simultaneously revealed the desire to isolate the Jews in the Soviet Union from world Jewry. It was not by accident that Hebrew was forbidden already in 1926, and that Yiddish was reformed.

Be that as it may, in the fifties and the sixties, a new generation of Krymchaks was born, to whom the question of ethnic self-identification was never a matter of choice, as it had been to the previous generation. In the face of growing state and public anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union and the diminishing role of the religious component in ethnic self-identification, this generation lacked the necessary ideological commitment to remain Jewish, because appropriate defense mechanisms to safeguard Jewish communal and personal identity were already badly shattered among the Krymchaks.

It is remarkable that at present the Krymchaks do not call themselves Jewish even in synagogue. They also lack a single term to designate themselves as a part of the whole Jewish people, although they had such terms in the past. The elders still remember such expressions as "kol Israel" in the Hebrew, or "sral ballary" (the sons of Israel) in the vernacular language of the Krymchaks that were applied together to the Ashkenazim (Ashkenazlar in their vernacular) and the Krymchaks (Krymchaklar), but now they have become obsolete. The term 'Yakhudeler' (Jews) is used only by the Crimean Tatars.

When the Krymchaks feel the need for such a term, they usually use the Russian word "evrei" (Jews), sometimes meaning Ashkenazim only. Or vice versa, they sometimes use their own word 'Ashkenazlar' in a broader sense, embracing not only the Ashkenazi Jews, but the Mountain Jews, the Georgian Jews and other Jewish groups as well.

In one curious case, a middle-aged Krymchak who was quite fluent in Russian, explaining to the Mountain Jews that he also was Jewish, used the name "the Ashkenazim" to designate together the Mountain Jews and the Krymchaks.

V. Chernin witnessed another curious conversation of the Krymchaks that followed in Russian with an insertion of some Krymchak words

In rare cases, when the Krymchaks feel the need to stress the unity between them and the rest of Jewry, they resort to the help of descriptive terms, for example, "the Jews and the Krymchaks." [128]

Thus, a new semantic opposition came into existence that reveals changes in their self-identification. In the past, the Krymchaks opposed the other Jewish groups as different parts of the same Jewish people.

Jews

Ashkenazim Krymchaks

  Now they oppose the Jews in general, mainly through their opposition to the Ashkenazim.

Jews and Krymchaks

   Krymchaks Ashkenazim Jews

It is no wonder then, that the aliyah movement hardly affected the Krymchaks. According to the information I managed to collect in the Soviet Union, very few of them have emigrated from that country during the last eighteen years. Most, if not all, emigrants from Simferopol, were women married to Ashkenazi Jews. Three Krymchak families from the same city applied to emigrate, however, their applications were rejected. After that they renounced their intention and began to claim that they were not Jewish but Krymchaks.

On the other hand, the change in the Krymchak ethnic self- identification is still incomplete, and not only because up to now a relatively significant number of Krymchaks, for different reasons, remain registered as Jews.[129] Contrary to the Karaites, quasi-historical arguments, aimed at explaining and stressing the difference between the Krymchaks and the rest of Jewry, seem to be not very convincing to them. Although the majority of Krymchaks now reveal much ethnic conformity and prefer to point out their alleged non-Jewish origin, at least while dealing with the authorities, they nevertheless do comprehend quite well their affiliation with the rest of Jewry, and in specific situations reveal an awareness of their Jewish identity.

Let me illustrate this point by quoting conversations of V. Chernin with several Krymchaks.

When asked whether he is a Jew, a man about sixty years of age answered "no, I am a Krymchak." When further asked who are the Krymchaks he answered after brief hesitation: "They are the Jews."

Another man of the same age, when asked whether he is afraid of being Jewish boldly answered: "Now I am not afraid, now I am retired."

A man in his twenties provided another argument. "Of course the Krymchaks are Jewish; they were killed by the Germans along with other Jews."

A Krymchak woman married to a Russian, revealed her consciousness of being Jewish in quite a different way. She sent a letter to her relatives in Simferopol in which she asked: "Please never tell my husband that we, the Krymchaks, are Jewish. He is a good man but he is an anti-Semite. So I lied and told him that we were of Turkic stock."

Some Krymchaks reveal awareness of their Jewish identity in other ways. There are Krymchaks who have been listening to the Israeli broadcasts in Russian since 1953. Other families keep prayer books and "hagadot" in Hebrew, although they do not understand the language. Even calendars issued in Yiddish by the Moscow synagogue may be found in several Krymchak houses in Simferopol. One family keeps as a relic, a calendar published in Yiddish in Israel. They claim that they received it as a gift from Golda Meir.

To give another example that Jewish consciousness in some respects still prevails among the Krymchaks, I will refer to the so-called tkun, a new cultural institution developed in its present form after the last war, and one of the very few remaining institutions that still plays an integrating role for the Krymchaks.

From a cultural point of view a tkun is a mixture of a general

Jewish tradition, tantamount to Ashkenazic "yahrzeit" interwoven with local Krymchak traditions, and even with non-Jewish traditions.

Every year, on December 11 - the anniversary of the extermination of the Simferopol Krymchaks - many Krymchaks go to this city from other towns and cities to commemorate the Holocaust of their relatives and brethren.[130]

The Krymchaks claim that the tkuns came into practice approximately from 1945. At first people would get together at the ditch where the Germans had shot their relatives. Later, they began to meet at homes, and so many people participated in the tkuns that there was not enough room for everybody

  In the seventies, in Simferopol, the Krymchaks got together in several groups of several dozen people, covered their heads, ate traditional Krymchak dishes \endash and on that day they liked them to be prepared according to the rules of kashrut. They sang traditional songs in the Tatar language, although only few of them still understood this language. Until quite recently, there were also funeral songs and poems written especially for the tkuns.[131] During their commemoration meetings the Krymchaks said Kaddish, and then they went to the places where the Krymchaks had been killed, to say Kaddish once more and to bring flowers to those sites. Apart from the aim of commemoration, the Krymchaks enjoy the opportunity of meeting each other and spending some time in their own circle. Those who still remember the Krymchak vernacular, like to talk in this language. At these meetings, once a year, most of the Krymchaks again consider themselves to be Jews, and it is not by chance that, contrary to the Gentiles, the Ashkenazi Jews have almost free access to these meetings; moreover, they are quite welcome.

The local authorities regard tkuns with suspicion; however, they do not interfere, at any rate, not openly. However, even tkuns are now playing a less and less important role in the lives of the Krymchaks. Fewer and fewer people, particularly of the younger generation, attend them, the religious side of the tkuns is fading and the Krymchaks sometimes have to invite Ashkenazim to read Kaddish. At the last tkun the majority of the Krymchaks did not even bother to cover their heads.

Moreover, tkuns -- the only time in the quasi-communal life of Krymchaks during which they assemble in the same place -- are being increasingly used in order to disseminate and propagate ideas that suit their leaders. It is precisely at those tkuns that ordinary Krymchaks are persuaded that they represent a separate ethnicity with its own separate language. In the past, especially active in this respect was Evsei Peisakh, who even as early as December 11., 1975 gave a speech at a tkun in Simferopol with a report on the existence of a separate Krymchak language. Recently, the most active in this respect is his successor, a resident of Simferopol, Vladimir Achkinazi who, among other things, urged the Krymchaks to indicate in the 1979 population census that their native language is, in fact, a separate "Krymchak language."

Be that as it may, at present the ethnic self-identification of the "Krymchaks" can hardly be described as hierarchical. F. Barth [132] and others have demonstrated that matters of ethnic identification may be manipulated by individuals and groups, particularly when mechanisms of boundary maintenance are weakened. Political factors and considerations always play an important role in formation and changes in ethnic identification and self- identification.

  Numerous examples of ethnic groups that changed their self- identification are well-known in anthropology, as well as the role that a group itself plays in defining its own identity.

Therefore an interplay between self-definition and definition by others (sometimes an imposed identity) is important in establishing a group identity and in an evaluation of its relative status vis-a-vis other ethnic groups. Just that happened with the Krymchaks in the post-war period. On the other hand, their present ethnic self-identification is not so obvious and simple as one can judge from official publications and statements, or from superficial observations. To characterize it I venture to suggest a new term "a dispositional ethnic self-identification," even at the risk of burdening further an already over-taxed anthropological vocabulary. This term seems to me proper to describe situations in which individuals and groups in specific situations tend to manifest differently their solidarity, affiliation, or identity with other ethnic groups and to use different ethnic identifications.

Further, to my mind, one should discriminate between an ethnic self-identification and ethnic self-consciousness, since the latter sometimes reveals deep-rooted but hidden ethnic feelings and attitudes. Among other manifestations, an ethnic self-consciousness reveals itself in perception by members of a given ethnic group of a whole complex of their ethno-cultural affiliations, connections and bonds, as well as of their emotional and rational attitudes towards this totality In other words, an ethnic self-consciousness is based not only on synchronous but also on diachronic information connections.

However, I have strong doubts about the possibility of the Krymchaks surviving in the future even as a separate ethnicity, marriages, either with Ashkenazi Jews or with Russians and Ukrainians, are now prevalent among them. Intensification of the processes of acculturation and assimilation is also facilitated by the dispersion of the Krymchak population in an alien ethnic environment. The Krymchaks who are living outside the Crimea are particularly prone to these processes. Thus, Krymchaks living in Rostov-on-Don testify that they maintain almost no contact with each other, except for an occasional greeting on the street.

The ties between Krymchaks living in Novorossiisk are sounder. They enjoy spending their free time together, and even have an informal meeting place on the city quay. However, these ties bear a communal, rather than an ethnic character, while the maintenance of ethnic traditions is primarily limited to preparation of Krymchak dishes. Likewise, the Novorossiisk Krymchaks at present observe no Jewish religious customs, while mixed marriages are practiced on a wide scale.

In this respect, the condition of a relatively large group of Krymchaks residing in Sukhumi bears significance. Although Krymchaks began to settle in that city even before the revolution, the overwhelming majority of them moved there during the famine of l920-1921 in the Crimea, according to the testimony of some of the Krymchaks, from Feodosia. Initially the Sukhumi Krymchaks maintained rather close ties with other Jewish communities of the city, especially with the Georgian Jews. In the absence of a synagogue of their own, they prayed in that of the Georgian Jews.

However, by the present, the process of acculturation has clearly taken the upper hand. Mixed marriages predominate, especially among the younger generation, not only with the Georgian and Ashkenazi Jews, but with the Russians as well. This is accompanied by an almost total departure from the common Jewish religious customs and traditions, as well as from those which are specific to the Krymchaks. Tkuns conducted in Sukhumi since after the war have now ceased. The practice of circumcision, according to the testimonies of Sukhumi Krymchaks themselves, has fallen into complete disuse.

During my last visit to Sukhumi in 1984, I did not encounter a single Krymchak in the Georgian synagogue, despite the fact that attended it during the holidays of Sukkot and Simchat-Torah. Many leaders of the Georgian Jewish community of Sukhumi told me at the synagogue that they had never heard of Krymchaks.[134]

A similar picture of the advanced stage of Krymchak acrulturation is in evidence at the Sukhumi Jewish cemetery, when one compares Krymchak tombstones with those of Georgian and even Ashkenazi Jews. The former, without exception, bear at present inscriptions only in Russian, and are devoid of any elements of traditional Jewish symbolism. Only the fact of being buried in a Jewish cemetery links the deceased to Jewishness and Judaism, while their belonging to a separate subethnic group is attested to by the fact that the Krymchak graves occupy a separate corner of the cemetery.

A similar situation exists in the Crimea. The Krymchaks themselves admit that even in Simferopol, where their most numerous group is living now and almost all of the Krymchaks are acquainted with each other, they do not maintain constant contacts.

Taking into account all of these factors, one may dare to predict that complete assimilation will be the obvious fate of the Krymchaks in the not too distant future.

CONCLUSIONS

  The process of the formation of the separate Krymchak ethnicity underwent several stages and was subject to numerous factors. Those stages and factors, far from being unique, are characteristic of the ethnic history of a number of other groups, Jewish as well as non-Jewish. Out of various Jewish sub-ethnic groups of the former Russian Empire, that same process took place among the Karaites and is presently taking place among the Mountain Jews (Tats). This makes it possible to propose a certain model explaining the appearance of new ethnicities. This model, while far from being universal, is at the same time not so unique.

In the proposed model, the first stages in the ethnic history of a given group are related to the prerequisites of its future separation.

I. Geographical, political, cultural isolation from the main ethnic group (or groups) which may involve consequent linguistic differences.

II. An inner consolidation of the isolating group, and the appearance of a new subethnic group.

III. Contacts with other subethnic groups belonging to a given ethnicity; under specific historical conditions, such contacts accelerate the ethnosegregating tendencies and lead to the creation of hierarchical ethnic self-identification.

IV. The existence or creation of a distinct ethnonym.

  In regard to the Krymchaks, all of those stages are arranged in a definite chronological sequence. However, as a broader regularity, such a sequence is subject to variations, and so are the factors facilitating the formation of a new ethnicity.

Depending on the specific circumstances, these sub-ethnic groups may later on continue to exist on the same subethnic level (for example, the Bukharan Jews or the Georgian Jews); or to merge with their related subethnic groups; or assimilate within one of such groups (as happened in the ethnic history of American Jewry); or to isolate itself as a separate ethnicity. However, the latter instance requires additional circumstances in order for the ethnosegregating tendency to materialize, and for some time an emerging new ethnic group remains no more than a potential ethnicity; an ethnicity-to-be.

The following stages of ethnic history in the proposed model are direc- tly related to the process of segregation of a group into a separate ethnicity.

V. The emergence of a situation unfavorable to the processes of integration and assimilation within related subethnic groups.

VI. The emergence of an active minority disseminating ideas \

of ethnic detachment, and advertising specific ethnosegregating criteria (for example, the sectarian differences in the case of the Karaites in Russia in the nineteenth century; or the linguistic and cultural differences in the case of the Krymchaks and the Mountain Jews).

  VII. Creation of an ethnic myth (the myth of the Khazar origins of Karaites; the myth of Krymchaks descending from various non-Jewish groups of the ancient Crimean population; the myth of the single origin and ethnic kinship of all the groups speaking the Tat language).

VIII. The penetration of an ethnic myth into the population at large and its dissemination there.

IX. The complete ethnic separation and the emergence of a new ethnicity, by alterations in ethnic identification and self- identification.

In the case of the Karaites in the territory of the U.S.S.R, this process may be considered as already completed. In the case of the Krymchaks, the process has not yet reached completion, although it has progressed considerably. In the case of the Mountain Jews, the process is accelerating before our very eyes. However, in every instance the processes of ethnic separation are accelerated by the corresponding policy of the Soviet authorities.

I would like to conclude this paper with a remark about this policy. The situation of the Krymchaks is now in no way unique in the Soviet Union. During the last years, the Mountain Jews of the Caucasus, the so-called Tats, were persuaded, or even ordered, to change their ethnic identification. Like the Krymchaks, they were told that they were descendants of the indigenous population and had nothing in common with the Jews, except religious tradition.

The pressure of the Soviet authorities on the Mountain Jews is even greater than on the Krymchaks. Moreover, in the beginning of the eighties there were some hints that the turn of the Bukharan ,Jews might come soon.

I cannot characterize this policy in other terms than deliberate and enforced deethnicization. One of the obvious reasons for this is a desire to weaken the Jewish ethnicity and Jewish national movement in the Soviet Union. Another reason is to prevent the desire and possibility to emigrate among the non-Ashkenazi Jewish population of the Soviet Union.

References

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