Abraham Firkovich

Picture of Abraham Firkovich

Abraham (Avraham) ben Samuel Firkovich (Hebrew אברהם בן שמואל - Avraham ben Shmuel; Crimean Karaim: Аврагъам Фиркович - Avragham Firkovich) (1786–1874) was a famous leader of the Karaylar, a Kipchaks group claiming descent from Khazars practicing a form of Islamic Mosaism worshiping Allah (called Tengri in the language of Karaylar). He was born in Lutsk, Volhynia, then lived in Lithuania, and finally settled in Çufut Qale, Crimea. Firkovich was a communal leader and hakham. He is best known as a collector of manuscripts and amateur archaeologist.

Biography

Abraham Firkovich, date unknown. From the 1901-1906 Jewish Encyclopedia.

In 1818 Firkovitch was hazzan of his native city, an office which among both Karaylar and Jews includes that of cantor, reader, teacher, and minister. In 1828 he lived in Berdichev, and had controversies with some Jewish Rabbis, the result being his anti-rabbinical work Masah u-Meribah (Eupatoria, 1838). In later years when he was reconciled with the Rabbinites, he apologised for the sentiments contained in that pamphlet. In 1830 he visited Jerusalem, where he collected many Jewish manuscripts. On his return he remained two years in Constantinople, as teacher in the Karaylar community there. He then went to Crimea and organized a society to publish old Karaylar works, of which several appeared in Eupatoria with comments by him. In 1838 he was the teacher of the children of Sima Babovich, the head of the Russian Karaylar, who one year later recommended him to Count Vorontzov and to the Historical Society of Odessa as a suitable man to send to collect material for the history of the Karaylar. In 1839 Firkovich began excavations in the ancient cemetery of Çufut Qale, and unearthed many old tombstones, some of which belonged to the Bosporan "sebomenoi" period (first centuries of the common era). The following two years were spent in travels through the Caucasus, where he visited the genizot of the old Jewish communities and procured many documents on the history of his people. He went as far as Derbent, and returned in 1842. In later years he made other journeys of the same nature, visiting Egypt and other countries looking for anything which might pertain to Karaylar traditions concerning pre-Khazar origins. In Odessa he became the friend of Bezalel Stern and of Simchah Pinsker, and while residing in Wilna he made the acquaintance of Fuenn and other Hebrew scholars. In 1871 he visited the small Kabar-Karaylar community in Halych, Galicia, where he recommended several reforms. From there he went to Vienna, where he was introduced to Count Beust and also made the acquaintance of Adolph Jellinek. He returned to pass his last days in Çufut Qale, of which there now remained only a few buildings and many ruins. However, Firkovich's house is still preserved in the site.

Firkovich collected a vast number of Hebrew, Arabic and Samaritan manuscripts during his many travels in his search for evidence concerning the pre-Khazar traditions of his people. These included thousands of Jewish documents from throughout the Russian Empire in what became known as the First Firkovich Collection. He was one of the first to visit the Cairo Genizah with the intention of cataloging and studying its contents. His visit, in 1863, took place thirty four years before Solomon Schechter's more famous trip; Firkovich therefore got first pick of the documents contained in the Genizah. Though this "Second Firkovich Collection" contains only 13,700 items in comparison to Schechter's 140,000, the Firkovich documents are generally more complete.

As a result of his research he became focussed on the origin of the Karaylar ancestors among descendants of Israelite teachers (mainly from the tribes of Simeon and Levi and their Carian bodyguard from Caphtor) who arrived in Crimea to make sebomenoi among the Kolkhis natives before the common era (thus not being culpable for the crucifixion of Jesus). However, because he recorded no comment regarding the sources for the Second Collection, many documents which passed through Firkovich's hands were promoted as sceptic among Jewish academics (Chwolson, S. L. Rapoport, A. Neubauer, Julius Fürst, Heinrich Grätz, Strack and Harkavy etc.). His theories caught on in the Russian imperial court, and the Karaylar were excluded from the restrictive measures against Jews.

Upon his death in 1874 Firkovich's collection was bought by the Russian National Library.

Among the treasures in the Firkovich collection is a manuscript of the Garden of Metaphors, an aesthetic appreciation of Biblical literature written in Judeao-Arabic by one of the greatest of the Sephardi poets, Moses ibn Ezra.

Works

Tamga of the Karaylar

Firkovich's chief work is his Abne Zikkaron, containing the texts of inscriptions discovered by him (Wilna, 1872). It is preceded by a lengthy account of his travels to Daghestan, characterized by Strack as a mixture of truth and fiction. His other works are Khotam Toknit, antirabbinical polemics, appended to his edition of the Mibkhar Yesharim by Aaron the elder (Eupatoria, 1835); Evel Kavod, on the death of his wife and of his son Jacob (Odessa, 1866); and Bene Reshef, essays and poems, published by Peretz Smolenskin (Vienna, 1871). Gabriel Firkovich of Troki was his son-in-law.

Briefly stated, Firkovich's discoveries include the major part of the manuscripts described in Pinner's Prospectus der der Odessaer Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Alterthum Gehörenden Aeltesten Hebräischen und Rabbinischen Manuscripte (Odessa, 1845), a rather rare work which is briefly described in Literaturblatt des Orients for 1847, No. 2. These manuscripts consist of:

• Fifteen scrolls of the Law, with postscripts which give, in Karaylar fashion, the date and place of writing, the name of the writer or corrector or other interesting data.
• Twenty copies of books of the Bible other than the Pentateuch, some complete, others fragmentary, of one of which, the Book of Habakkuk, dated 916, a facsimile is given.
• Nine numbers of Talmudical and rabbinical manuscripts.

Jewish Criticism

The 1906 Jewish Encyclopaedia presents Firkovich in a different light. Discoveries made by Firkovich, which were first announced to the world in Pinner's "Prospectus" (Odessa, 1845), gave rise to a whole literature. The collection of stones, facsimiles, manuscripts, and molds taken from tombstones, which was acquired from Firkovich by the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, on the recommendation of Professor Daniel Chwolson in 1859, was declared by some authorities to consist partly or wholly of forgeries committed for the purpose of glorifying the "Karaites" and of enhancing the value of Firkovich's discoveries.

The account of the contents of his second and more important collection, which he sold for a very large sum to the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg in 1862-63 (see Fürst, Geschichte des Karäerthums, iii. pp. 174 et seq., Leipsic, 1869), gives more than 700 numbers of various (including many Jewish) manuscripts. Another collection of 317 Samaritan manuscripts, acquired in Nablus, arrived in the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy in 1867 (ib. p. 176).

Probably the greatest service that Firkovich rendered to Jewish science was the awakening of interest in Karaite history and literature, that led to the discussion of his alleged discoveries. His personal contributions to it are mostly of a bibliographical nature, and great caution is necessary in utilizing his materials. His most sympathetic critic, Chwolson, gives as a résumé of his belief, after considering all controversies, that Firkovich succeeded in demonstrating that some of the Jewish tombstones from Chufut-Kale date back to the seventh century, and that seemingly modern forms of eulogy and the method of counting after the era of creation were in vogue among Jews much earlier than had been hitherto suspected. But even on these points the opinions of authorities are far from being unanimous.

S. L. Rapoport has pointed out some impossibilities in the inscriptions (Ha-Meliẓ, 1861, Nos. 13-15, 37); A. Geiger in his Jüdische Zeitschrift (1865, p. 166), Schorr in He-Ḥaluẓ, and A. Neubauer in the Journal Asiatique (1862–63) and in his Aus der Petersburger Bibliothek (Leipsic, 1866) have challenged the correctness of the facts and the theories based upon them which Jost, Julius Fürst, and Heinrich Grätz, in their writings on the Karaites, took from Pinsker's Liḳḳuṭe Ḳadmoniyyot, in which the data furnished by Firkovich were unhesitatingly accepted. Further exposures were made by Strack and Harkavy (St. Petersburg, 1875) in the Catalog der Hebr. Bibelhandschriften der Kaiserlichen Oeffentlichen Bibliothek in St. Petersburg; in Harkavy's Altjüdische Denkmäler aus der Krim (ib. 1876); in Strack's A. Firkowitsch und Seine Entdeckungen (Leipsic, 1876); in Fränkel's Aḥare Reshet le-Baḳḳer (Ha-Shaḥar, vii. 646 et seq.); in Deinard's Massa' Ḳrim (Warsaw, 1878); and in other places. Chwolson alone defended him, but he also was forced to admit that in some cases Firkovich had resorted to forgery. In his Corpus Inscriptiorum Hebraicarum (St. Petersburg, 1882; Russian ed., ib. 1884) Chwolson attempts to prove that the Firkovich collection, especially the epitaphs from tombstones, contains much which is genuine. It must be admitted that Firkovich did much to further the study of Karaite and Crimean Jewish history, and that after all deductions are made his discoveries still remain of great value.

See also

• Seraya Shapshal Philosophical disciple of Firkovich also carrying the Bashyazi Sevel ha Yerushah.

Sources

• Ben-Sasson, M. (1991). "Firkovich's Second Collection: Notes on historical and Halakhic material." Jewish Studies, 31: 47-67 (Hebrew).
• Josephs, Susan. "Fact from Fantasy" The Jewish Week January 12, 2001.
• Markon, I. “Babowitsch, Simcha ben Salamo.” Encyclopaedia Judaica 3: 857-58.

________. “Firkowitsch, (Firkowitz), Abraham ben Samuel.” Encyclopaedia Judaica 6: 1017-19.

• Miller, Philip E. Karaite Separatism in Nineteenth-Century Russia. Cincinnati, 1993
• Harkavy, Albert. Altjudische Denkmaller aus der Krim mitgetheilt von Abraham Firkowitsch, 1839-1872. In Memoires de l’Academie Imperiale de St.-Peterboug, VIIe Serie, 24, 1877; reprinted Wiesbaden, 1969.

• Кизилов, Михаил. “Караим Авраам Фиркович: прокладывая путь тюркскому национализму.” Историческое наследие Крыма 9 (2005): 218-221.

• Кизилов М., Щеголева T. Осень караимского патриарха. Авраам Фиркович по описаниям очевидцев и современников // Параллели 2-3 (2003). С.319-362.

• Shapira, Dan. “Remarks on Avraham Firkowicz and the Hebrew Mejelis 'Document'.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 59:2 (2006): 131-180.

• Shapira, Dan. Avraham Firkowicz in Istanbul (1830–1832). Paving the Way for Turkic Nationalism. Ankara: KaraM, 2003.

• Shapira, Dan. “Yitshaq Sangari, Sangarit, Bezalel Stern and Avraham Firkowicz: Notes on Two Forged Inscriptions.” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 12 (2002–2003): 223-260.

• Kizilov, Mikhail. Karaites through the Travelers’ Eyes. Ethnic History, Traditional Culture and Everyday Life of the Crimean Karaites According to Descriptions of the Travelers. New York: al-Qirqisani, 2003.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)