Oriental documents in the manuscript department of Vilnius university library: jarlyks of khans and letters of border pashas

Abstract

Three important manuscript collections were preserved in Vilnius in the interwar period. One of these collections, which contained documents of the uttermost importance, which witnessed political and diplomatic relations between the Crimea, the Ottoman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was preserved in the Manuscript Department of Vilnius University (further VU) Library. Another collection of Oriental manuscripts, which belonged to the muftiate, was for the most part lost in 1944. The third collection, which consisted of the Karaim museum fund and library, was presented to the state in 1941 by Seraya Shapshal. In his letter to the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, S. Shapshal mentioned all three collections and their scientific value. S. Shapshal encouraged to compile a catalogue of the aforementioned manuscripts and print jarlyks of Crimean khans and letters of Turkish pashas. However, no such attempt was made.
This article analyses the Oriental material stored in the Manuscript Department of the VU Library: jarlyks of khans and letters of border pashas. The condition of the documents, as well as their palaeographic qualities, content and possibility of preservation are discussed. Jarlyks of khans and letters of border pashas are stored in the Manuscript Department of the VU Library, fund No. F 5-A25-4506 – F 5-A25-4526, 12 items in total. Two documents (Nos. F 5-A25-4508 and F 5-A25-4519) cannot be fully attributed neither to jarlyks nor to pashas’ letters. One of them has a list of lost goods, while the other contains a tax register.
After comparing the original documents of jarlyks and letters of border pashas stored in the VU Manuscript Department collection with copies preserved in the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and S. Shapshal fund No. F 143–909, it has been discovered that four documents found among copies cannot be obtained among the original documents.
Additionally, the jarlyk of Kaplan Giray, written on the 4th of March 1734 to Jan Branicki, the castellan of Krakow, is presented in this article. The jarlyk’s text has been transliterated and translated into modern Turkish and Russian. The authors plan to publish the remaining documents, alongside with the translation and commentary in Russian / Lithuanian in the nearest future.