The Crimean Karaites or simply Karaites (Crimean Karaim: Кърымкъарайлар, Qrımqaraylar, singular къарай, qaray; Trakai dialect: karajlar, singular karaj; Hebrew: קראי מזרח אירופה; Crimean Tatar: Qaraylar; Yiddish: קרימישע קאַראַיִמער, romanized: krimishe karaimer), also known more broadly as Eastern European Karaites, are a traditionally Turkic-speakingJudaic ethnoreligious group[8][9] indigenous to Crimea.[10][11][12] Nowadays, most Karaim in Eastern Europe speak the dominant local language of their respective regions.[13]
The Karaite religion, known in Eastern Europe as Karaism, split from mainstream Karaite Judaism in the 19th and 20th centuries.[14] Most Karaites in the region do not consider themselves to be Jews, associating the ethnonym with Rabbinical Jews alone, but rather consider themselves to be descendants of the Khazars, non-Rabbinical Judeans, or other Turkic peoples.[15]
Research into the origins of the Karaites indicates they are of ethnic Jewish origin and are genetically closely related to other Jewish diaspora groups.[16][17] Some researchers believe they originated in Constantinople and later settled in the Byzantine Principality of Theodoro.[18]
A closely related group, the Slavic Karaites, were formally accepted into the Karaite ethnoreligious community of Crimea after the deposition of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917. They are descendants of ethnic Russian Subbotniks.[19][20] However, most Slavs claiming to be Karaites in Eastern Europe are not members of the Karaite ethnoreligious community, and are not accepted as legitimate Karaites.
^Kizilov, M. (2008). The Karaites of Galicia : an ethnoreligious minority among the Ashkenazim, the Turks, and the Slavs, 1772-1945. Brill. ISBN978-90-47-44288-2.