Firkovich’s life and works are of great importance to Karaite history and literature. His collections at the Russian National Library are important to biblical scholars and to historians, especially those of the Karaite and Samaritan communities. Controversy continues regarding his alleged discoveries and the reliability of his works
Abraham Firkovich collected several distinct collections of documents. In sum the Firkovich collection contains approximately 15,000 items, of which many are fragmentary. His collections represent ‘by far the greatest repository of all Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts’ and are today held in the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg, while microfilm reproductions of all the manuscripts are held in the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew manuscripts at the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem.
The Odessa Collection contains material from the Crimea and the Caucasus. It was largely collected between 1839 and 1840, but with additions from Firkovich as late as 1852. It was originally owned by the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities and was stored in the Odessa museum. Some of these documents deteriorated due to chemical treatment performed by Firkovich. Other documents which were suspected forgeries disappeared; Firkovich claimed they had been stolen. The collection was moved to the Imperial Public Library in 1863.
Firkovich has come to be regarded as a forger, acting in support of Karaite causes. He wished to eliminate any connection between Rabbinic Judaism and the Karaites by declaring that the Karaites were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes. Firkovich successfully petitioned the Russian government to exempt the Karaites from anti-Jewish laws on the grounds that Karaites had immigrated to Europe before the crucifixion of Jesus and thus could not be held responsible for his death.
S. L. Rapoport has pointed out some impossibilities in the inscriptions (Ha-Meliẓ, 1861, Nos. 13–15, 37); A. Geiger in his Jüdische Zeitschrift (1865, p. 166), Schorr in He-Ḥaluẓ, and A. Neubauer in the Journal Asiatique (1862–63) and in his Aus der Petersburger Bibliothek (Leipzig, 1866) have challenged the correctness of the facts and the theories based upon them which Jost, Julius Fürst, and Heinrich Grätz, in their writings on the Karaites, took from Pinsker’s Liḳḳuṭe Ḳadmoniyyot, in which the data furnished by Firkovich were unhesitatingly accepted. Further exposures were made by Strack and Harkavy (St. Petersburg, 1875) in the Catalog der Hebr. Bibelhandschriften der Kaiserlichen Oeffentlichen Bibliothek in St. Petersburg; in Harkavy’s Altjüdische Denkmäler aus der Krim (ib. 1876); in Strack’s A. Firkowitsch und Seine Entdeckungen (Leipsic, 1876); in Fränkel’s Aḥare Reshet le-Baḳḳer (Ha-Shaḥar, vii.646 et seq.); in Deinard’s Massa’ Ḳrim (Warsaw, 1878); and in other places.
In contradiction, Firkovich’s most sympathetic critic, Chwolson, gives as a résumé of his belief, after considering all controversies, that Firkovich succeeded in demonstrating that some of the Jewish tombstones from Chufut-Kale date back to the seventh century, and that seemingly modern forms of eulogy and the method of counting after the era of creation were in vogue among Jews much earlier than had been hitherto suspected. Chwolson alone defended him, but he also was forced to admit that in some cases Firkovich had resorted to forgery. In his Corpus Inscriptionum Hebraicarum (St. Petersburg, 1882; Russian ed., ib. 1884) Chwolson attempts to prove that the Firkovich collection, especially the epitaphs from tombstones, contains much which is genuine.
In 1980, V. V. Lebedev investigated the Firkovich collection and came to the conclusion that forgery cannot be attributed to Firkovich, but rather it was done by the previous owners, in an attempt to increase the price of the manuscripts.
For many years the manuscripts were not available to Western scholars. The extent of Firkovich’s forgeries is still being determined. Firkovich’s materials require careful examination on a case-by-case basis. His collection remains of great value to scholars of Jewish studies.
=================
It is noteworthy that the oldest complete and publicly available Old Testament was
discovered by Firkovich. Christian versions of the scriptures have been translated from it, and most modern Jews pray according to this version of the Tanakh. It is the so-called “Leningrad Codex“, whose documented provenance begins in Odessa. Unlike many of Firkovich’s other documents – this manuscript is considered authentic and has never been subjected to scientific chemical analysis of the materials until now.
PIC
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004276819_010
https://doi.org/10.1080/13501674.2018.1434980
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/inventing-the-karaites
