There were many attempts to solve the Karaim "enigma," to explain their origin by means of their name itself. It must, however, be stated from the very beginning that this does not explain the matter completely. This name, in Karaim language Karay, in plural Karaylar, in Arabic Kara'im in European languages Karaim (Russian and Polish), Caraime (French), etc., is derived, as is at present agreed by almost all the investigators, from the Hebrew stem kara "to read." This form in Hebrew karai and in plural Karai'm means literally "reading" that is to say acknowledging only the authority of Reading of the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament." Both the substance of the Karaim religion which actually does not acknowledge any other authority but the Holy Scripture, and - on the other hand - the meaning of the stem kara' as in the Islamic loanword from the Arabic term Koran in the meaning "reading, lecture, Holy Scripture of the Muslims (1), seems to point out to such an etymology.
This explanation leads us only to the statement that the name of Karaim determines the Karaim religion which acknowledges only the authority of reading (see Chapter 11, Religion), and does not tell us anything about the ethnical origin of Karaims.

A similar traditional explanation of the name Karaim is proposed by L. Nemoy in his latest work Karaite Anthology: "The most natural rendering of it is "champions of Scripture" - who do not recognize the postbiblical oral tradition - from the Hebrew kara, "to read," specifically, "to read and study Scripture" (Hebrew kara). Another explanation derives the term from the alternate meaning of kara, "to call, to invite"; hence Karaites would signify "callers, missionaries," similar to the Shiite "callers" (Arabic da'i, pl. du'at), who exhorted Moslems to join their movement. A third interpretation connects the name with the Arabic karra' (pl. karra'un), "expert reader in Scripture," alluding to the Karaite preoccupation with biblical exegesis. All these derivations, however, are more or less conjectural and have no documentary evidence to support them." (2)

2. ETHNOGENESIS OF KARAIMS
Since the name Karaim does not explain the ethnogenesis, we must base ourselves on other evidence in order to determine their origin. The most important evidence is to be found in the language which is spoken till now by Karaims and which belongs (for more details see Chapter 11) -to the Kipchak-Turkic group.(3) Not without bearing on our theme is also the Karaim folklore and other protoTurkic traditions (see Chapter IV).

The Kipchak-Turkic character of Karaim culture and - on the other hand -the Karaim religion (Chapter 11), when taken together, are rather an extraordinary combination. Therefore, if we wish to explain this fact in a natural way, and so find out the ethnogenesis of the present Karaims, we must assume that in the Middle Ages they must have got mixed with some Turkic or Turkic speaking peoples, who at that time lived on the steppes of South Russia, the so-called Kipchak steppes (desht-i-Kipchak of Muslim geographists).

The ethnical elements which stamped the Turkish character on the Karaims were the particular groups of Polovtsi or Komans, and in the earlier period the Khazars.

Especially the ancient realm of the Khazars, called Khazaria, which in the light of the recent scientific researches' shows many features in common with the Karaims - chiefly the Turkic language along with the Mosaic religion - seems to be the ethnic and political area where the cultural aspect of the Karaims found its formation. Therefore we must discuss the history of Khazaria, whose successors (heirs) in culture are the present Karaims.

3. HISTORY OF KHAZARIA (4)
The political history of Khazaria fully confirms the opinion now generally accepted by orientalists about the part played by Turkic ethnical elements in the formation and organization of strong, though not too lasting, states. The Turkish origin of Khazars is now assumed by a great number of scholars. Fr. Dvornik, in his work about the Byzantine-Khazar relations, categorically states: "Les Khazars étaient un peuple nomade d'origine turque," and the French orientalist Rene Grousset in his work L'empire des steppes defines: "Les Khazars etaient un peuple turc."

We find the first mentions of Khazars in Armenian and Georgian annalists. They refer sometimes to the 2nd and 3rd centuries of our era. However, we are not always able to distinguish the Khazars from the Huns of these chronicles. Quite reliable historical information is provided, beginning with the 6th century, by Byzantine, and later by Arabic-Muslim sources. According to those sources the state of Khazaria in the 6th century occupies a leading position among other similar tribal unions or tribal confederation of the Turkic peoples and extends its sway over the big steppe spaces on the Black and Caspian Seas, as well as over the sub-Circassian areas, situated between the Maeotis Sea and the Bahr-i-hazar, i.e. the Khazarian Sea, as the Caspian Sea was called in the Middle Ages, and also between the Volga, the Don and the Caucasus.

The growth and development of the Khazarian State soon compelled probably the most powerful Empire of those times, the Persian State of Sassanids, to adopt a defensive policy. It was just for defensive purposes against the imminent Khazar incursions that the Persian Emperor Khosro I Anoshervan (531-578) built the strong fortress of Darband. He also girdled round with a wall the passage to Transcaucasus at the Caspian coast. The walls, the relics of which have come down to our days, have often played their part in history as barrier to the entrance gate leading from Iran to the South and to the North to Eastern Europe. That is why Muslim geographers call Darband Bab ul-abwab "The Gate of Gates" (the Caspian Gates).

Thus the State of Khazaria was a powerful factor in international politics of the Near East. As enemies of the Persians, the Khazars quite naturally had to grow into powerful allies of the Byzantine State. Byzantium, the next power after the Sassanid Empire, occupied a central position one may say "Between East and West". For the West, i.e. for Christian Europe, it represented the nearest Orient, and for the Asiatic East the Occident. In this struggle "between the Iranian East and Byzantine West" an outstanding part has been played by the Khazars.

The year 626 is of great historical importance in the Byzantine Khazar relations. In this year, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius made an alliance with the Khaqan (Kaghan) of Khazars. The emperor when going on an expedition against Persia, obtained from the Khazars considerable aid consequent on the alliance: they gave him in fact 40,000 horsemen.

Soon afterwards, already in the latter half of the 7th century, the first encounters between the Khazars and the Arabs began. The latter supplied the place of the Persians in historical purport. The Sassanid power in Iran was completely destroyed under the pressure of Arabic conquerors fighting in the name of the new Islamic religion, but the changes in Persia did not bring about any fundamental changes in the foreign relations of Khazaria. The fights went on, with varying fortune. The Arabs managed under calif Osman's reign (644-656) to penetrate northwards to Darband. As a result of this expedition, the Khazarian principal town Samandar was ruined and devastated, and this determined the transposition of the Khazarian political center northwards, to the Volga estuary, where the new capital of Khazaria, Itil, was built. The Khazarian military feat of greatest renown was to force in 731, the Caucasian passage Dar-i-Alan and to reach as far as Iraq. These expeditions found their annalist in a Muslim historiographer, al-Tabari.

The last Khazarian incursion into the Northern borders of the califate territory was in 799, under Harun ar-Rashid's califate. From this time on there reigns a relative equilibrium of forces, which can be explained as a result of "exhaustion", of the termination of the period of conquests by both parties concerned, i.e. the Arabs and the Khazars, and of the begining of a new period of interior stability and peace. In connection with those struggles some investigators rightly emphasize the historical part played by the Khazars, as defenders of Europe against the imminent peril in Middle Ages of the overflow and conquest of Europe by the Arab-Muslim hordes. A Hungarian author, M. Kmosko in his paper Araber und Chasaren (Körösi Csoma Archivum, 1925) writes: "A most significant thing. The (Arabian) people, whose invasion could not be hindered either by the Iranian mountains or by the military power of a state then second in greatness, was obliged to halt before the Caucasian gates and could not advance any further, although the passage was defended by no empire, but merely by a half-settled people of Khazars." (5)

The Khazars, those active enemies of the Arabs, were still welcomed by Byzantium as allies. Their mutual relations grew closer and closer and led even to dynastic unions. The emperor Justinian II (685-695 and 705-711), when in exile, looked for asylum to the Khazarian court and there he married the kaghan's sister, who later on became the empress Theodora. The empress Irene was also originally a Khazarian princess, wife of Constantine V Kopronikos (741-775). Hence to their son, the emperor Leo IV (775-780) history has given the name of Xazaros (Leo IV, surnamed "the Khazar").

At the beginning of the X century a new political power appears on the stage of history, which was destined to exert a great influence on the fate of Khazaria. It was the newly organized state - Kiev Russia. The greatest blow at the Khazarian state was dealt by the ruler Sviatoslav during the expedition of A.D. 965.

In the first half of the llth century, after the fall of the Khazarian power at the end of the 10th century, there comes to the southern steppes on the Dnieper a new Turkic people, the Polovtsi or Komans. They have, most probably, absorbed the rest of the Khazarian people. The Karaims of to-day are regarded as heirs of the Khazarian culture. Therefore we must determine in what this culture consisted.

4. KHAZARIAN CULTURE
The sources show us the Khazars as a people that did not quite get rid of their nomadic peculiarities adopting a half-settled (semi nomadic) way of life. This is then seminomadism, characteristic of many Turkic peoples in the transitory period of their history. In Ibn Rusteh, an Arabian geographer, we find evidence of the Khazarian periodical nomadism, according to the seasons. The author says: "In winter the whole Khazarian population lives in towns, and when spring comes they go from the town to the steppes and remain there till winter." The information given by the so-called "Khazarian