The Karaims

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė (LDK; Grand Duchy of Lithuania; GDL); Tautos; The Grand Duchy of Lithuania; Nations.

ENAccording to an old legend handed down by generation after generation of Tatars, the invincible king Vatat Biy (i.e., Grand Duke Vytautas, whose cult is quite strong in the Karaim tradition) brought 380 Karaim families to Lithuania in 1397, after the war against the Golden Horde. They were settled down in Trakai, in a convenient place (the present-day Karaim Street) between two castles of the Grand Dukes. The basic task of the Karaims, just as of the Tatars who were settled down in Lithuania about the same time, was to perform military service and to serve as guardsmen. In return for landed property, the Karaims had to guard the castles and the town of Trakai. In the course of time, as the castles lost their strategic significance, their guards’ duties were also abolished. In Trakai, on the lands granted to the Karaims in return for their service as guards, a city quarter arose that began to function as a community, the so-called Karaims End. It has its pendant in the Karaim Fields, a quarter of the town of Lutsk singled out on the basis of a Magdeburgian privilege. Up to the early 17th century, the majority of the Karaims were concentrated in Lutsk and in Trakai, which had acquired the status of main religious, cultural and administrative centre of the Lithuanian Karaims. It was only later on that they established their communities in Biriai, Pasvalys, Kruonys, Naujamiestis and elsewhere (predominantly in the lands of ethnic Lithuania). At the close of the 14th century, the movements of the Karaim communities originally settled in Vytautas’ patrimonial towns were spontaneous and uncontrolled. It is hard to tell what considerations inclined the Karaims to leave their homesteads, for there can have been no overpopulation. Because of the scarcity of sources we are unable to give accurate demographical data, but there can be no doubt that the Karaims were the smallest ethnic group of Lithuania. [From the publication]