Vol. 77 | No. 3/1 | Mar 2021 DOI: 10.21506/j.ponte.2021.3.2 International Journal of Sciences and Research 15 THE KARAIM MANUSCRIPTS IN ST. PETERSBURG Tülay Çulha * (Kocaeli University-Kocaeli-Turkey) Abstract: These scripts were written in Hebrew and mainly belong to the Karaims, who are a Turkic community with a population that currently is decreasing. The scripts, which are found in various libraries around the world and in private collections, are mostly composed of religious translations and mejumas which have been compiled from folk literature (e.g., stories, folk songs, proverbs, legends, and riddles etc. which have been passed down orally from story-tellers). During a visit to The National Library of Russia and The Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, analysis was conducted on some of the scripts that are located in the Eastern Manuscripts Section of this library. The purpose of this study is to share the information collected about the scripts during this visit with the science world in the hope that this will be useful for researchers who are interested in this subject. Key Words: The National Library of Russia, Karaim Manuscripts, Mejuma, Eastern Manuscripts, Karaim Language, Karaim folk literature. 1. Introduction The Karaim Turks are the only Turkic community that accepts Judaism. They regard themselves as a continuation of the Khazar Empire (VII–XI century) 1 and live scattered in a wide variety of places including Crimea, Turkey, Lithuania, Poland, America, Paris, and Australia. The Karaim Turks, regarded by UNESCO as an “endangered language and culture”, are the focus of an increasing number of studies, which is pleasing. 2 The sources of the above-mentioned studies are taken from Karaim Turkish folk literature in the form of jönk and are called mejumas. 3 Mejumas, which are folk literature written in the Hebrew alphabet, record valuable cultural information in the form of ballads, riddles, proverbs and poetry and are gradually coming to light. These works, which are tightly related to Karaim folk culture in * Associate Professor, Kocaeli University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Turkish Language and Literature, culhatulay@gmail.com 1 Z. V. Toğan, “Hazarlar”, İslam Ansiklopedisi, İstanbul: MEB Yayınları, C. 5, 1988: 397. 2 Nowadays, many researchers are studying endangered languages and cultures, including Karaim Turkic language and culture. 3 In fact, jönk is not in the normal notebook view. The regular notebook opens from right to left. Jönk is a notebook that opens longitudinally from the bottom to the top. Some stories, ballads, riddles, proverbs, and poems that were transmitted orally from generation to generation are recorded in these notebooks by listeners. Mostly it is not known who they were written by and it is not clear who told these stories, ballads, riddles, proverbs, and poems for the first time. They are told by storytellers to small group of viewers, such as a coffeehouse audience, so they're known to everyone. However, as mentioned above, listeners often record them in the form of jönks. Mejumas have the same content; it is mostly in a normal ledger view and opens right to left.. There are also some examples that open from the bottom to the top. These notebooks are called jönk in Turkey, but in Karaim they are called mejuma.