Słów kilka o przywilejach Karaimów na ziemiach polskich

Abstract

According to historical data, Karaites, as an ethnic group and as a religious community, settled in the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania under the Grand Duke Vytautas. Of their own free will or compulsion, the Karaites began to settle, first of all in Trakai, and then Vilnius, Galich and other places, as evidenced, in particular, by the recognition of privileges and their extension by subsequent Lithuanian princes, Polish kings and Russian emperors. Karaites never constituted a large ethnic group, both in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, and, after the partition of the Polish Commonwealth. In the western regions of the Russian Empire, especially since their number was in the 18th century, declined (the rebellion of the Haidamakas, and then due to the plague). In addition to the problem of Karaites, the article also pays attention to the (comparatively) legal, and not only, restrictions for the larger Jewish population.