Esseńczycy a karaimi: Problem genezy karaizmu w wypowiedziach karaimów polskich.

Abstract

The article presents an obscure page of history devoted to the discussion of this issue in the Karaite literature from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Those pronouncements can be found in works by Mordecai ben Nisan (Dod Mordekhai and Levush Malkhut), Solomon ben Aaron Troki (Sefer Apiryon) and Simha Lucki (Orah Zaddikim). The main focus of the article is on the text by Mordecai ben Nisan from Kukizov, which was written at the end of the 17th century as a reply to a letter of professor Jacob Trigland from Leiden. The aforementioned letter was an expression of the Protestant interest in Karaites, which was due to the analogy between the Karaite separation from the Rabbanites and the Protestant from Catholics. The main theses advanced by Polish Karaites, as well as the premises which constituted their basis, were presented in this article. According to those theses, the Karaite community descended from the Jewish community of Judea of the 2nd century B.C.E. Those statements of Polish Karaites are particularly significant in the context of ideological and religious changes which took place in eastern Europe in the 20th century and the so-called process of dejudaization.