“On the Performance of a Rite of Marriage under Threat of Execution by a Gazzan...”: The Problem of Interethnic and Interfaith Marriages in the Karaite Communities of Crimea in the Late 19th – Early 20th Centuries

Abstract

The aim of the offered article is an analysis of legal and religious aspects of marriage-domestic relations, and demographic statistics in the Karaite’s communities of the Russian Empire in the end of the 19th and Early 20th century. In particular, in the article author has describes the activity of confessional self-government bodies and the organizational problems of the religious life of Karaite communities. This institution was the main authority for resolving issues related to the observance of the doctrines of the Karaite religion; spiritual government made judgments on the regulation of family and marriage relations in Karaite society, including the issue of interfaith and interethnic marriages.