Turkish knife

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Miyamoto

Causcasian front?

Beware!
This item is still active on e-bay and the fiersome Moderators are wide awake.

For a similar mistake I have been banned for 10 days.
Let's not discuss this shashka for a while.

[erlikhan]

Rivkin, 6 pointed star was always used by Trabzon or any other town in the Ottoman empire and other non Ottomanic Turks or perhaps other Moslems, as a talismanic symbol to bring good luck and fortune and perhaps even didnt decrease till the end of 19th c. The picture you attached is in that manner. 6 pointed star without a crescent. But what would surprize me only is to see it inside a crescent. I have seen crescent and 8 pointed star in Azeri kindjals(and their flag is still 8 p. ), and 5 p. in some others, but not a 6 pointed. So you say, you have seen a lot of shashkas with exactly that design - 6 p. star inside a crescent-, right? By Kabardins. But not other Circassians..Interesting info.
I guess you want to mean Karaims by "Jew like Moslems" .They are Turk in race and language and Jew in religion,whose population were quite large in Ukraine and Caucassia before WW2 German occupation, but very little now. I know them as merchants,and dont think they would have troops, militaristic symbols and productions. Could they have combined 6 p. star and the crescent to symbolize their special identity??And Uzbek troops with the same symbol? I would like to see if any picture is available.
regards

[Battara]

IN Rivkin's last picture, the 6 pointed star is called the Star of Solomon by Muslims. Somewhat talismanic.

[Rivkin]

Jew-likes is something more similar to turkish denmeh than to karaites - while the latter ones are a sect in judaism. Jew-like (zhukty) means someone who descends from a jew, preferrably on their male line.

The reason for their existance is that until very recently religious identification for most of caucasians was rather vague. People lived by clans, sharing the same male ancestry. Female ancestry did not account for anything (since women were almost in 100% taken from clans or nations different from that of the father).
As a result, clans were identified by their founder - chechens of georgian ancestry (gurj), georgians of chechen ancestry, abaza of svan ancestry etc.
Similar to this jew-like clans (for example Bagrations) are defined as the ones that were founded by jews.

I don't think this sword has much to do with them...
Concerning shashkas - unless this is the same shashka being resold over and over again, I've seen quite a lot of those.

[erlikhan]

Ah got it now. Like Sabetaists (donme) in Turkey. Anyway, if you think the sword has not much to do with them, then let's put point to the ethnical side of the subject as I 've learned continuing ethnical conversations in the forum mean increasing potential of unexpected trouble .

[Tim Simmons]

It would be helpful if some buff could come up with a list or map of the trench systems on the various fronts, then find which troops fought there that might use such national emblems. Then we could avoid raking embers. Tim

[ariel]

Originally Posted by erlikhan

Ah got it now. Like Sabetaists (donme) in Turkey. Anyway, if you think the sword has not much to do with them, then let's put point to the ethnical side of the subject as I 've learned continuing ethnical conversations in the forum mean increasing potential of unexpected trouble .

I do not think we shoud shy away from these discissions as long as they are helpful to the educational purpose of the Forum in terms of weapon/military discussions and do not degenerate into nationalistic/racist accusations.
Karaim and Donmeh are two different stories altogether.
Karaim are a purely Judaic sect that believes only in the written Torah (Pentateuch) and rejects later books and Rabbinical authorities such as Talmud (G'mara). Their ethnic origin is obscure. Some claim purely Jewish roots and their Turkic language a reflection of the point of their spread from the Crimea where they lived next door to the Tatars. Others suggest their descent from the Khazars (Turkic tribes living north of the Caspian and Black Seas) that converted to Judaism sometimes in the 9-10th century and spread west to Crimea and subsequently to Poland/Lithuania or east to North Caucasus (Tats, Nogais, Karachai etc). In both localities they maintained very militaristic way of life (see Trakai Castle in Lithuania). The Khazar origin is dubious because Karaim were present in medieval Spain in 10-11th centuries. Nevertheless, they were viewed as non-Jews by the Westerners to the point that Russian Tsars were very protective of them and the Nazis did not touch them at all.
Donmeh are the descendants of the real Jews: the followers of Sabbetai Zvi, a 17th century Jew who proclaimed himself a Messiah but converted to Islam as soon as the Ottoman Sultan offered him a choice between that and immediate decapitation. Donmeh in Turkey never were militarily oriented and stuck to trade/crafts. By the way, they supported Ataturk and that gave a ground to his enemies to claim that his mother must have been Jewish ("Not Mustafa, not Kemal and not even a Turk").
As Rivkin pointed out, the Royal Georgian Bagratid dynasty (Batonishvilis) claimed descent from a man named Smbat who was allegedly a leader of the Jews brought to the Caucasus (Armenia, mainly) by the Babylonians in 6th century BCE, after the destruction of the First Temple (the original Lost Tribes). True or not is unknown as the equally aristocratic Orbelianis claimed Chinese descent and Abashidzes, Abyssinian.
I went into this historical digression simply because it is impossible to understand the history of weapons without knowing the history of men who carried them. Quick example: ancient Kievan Russians carried typically Viking swords but their armour had major "Tatar" influence. Only by knowing that the Vikings were the earliest rulers of the Rus and that Kiev was established by the Khazars (Ki-ev means "place by the water" in Tats language) can we understand this strange and beautiful mix.

[erlikhan]

ariel, I have heard the reverse about ww2 period from a Karaim (only one I have met in fact). He claims descending from Hazars, but i know that Judaism didnt spread among all Hazar nation, just the ruling dynasty and close environment of them. The community was multi religional, Shamanism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism on a big land. Perhaps that can explain Karaim's having small population but I didnt know their settling in Spain.
Donmes have always been the "men of every period" and estimating the upcoming wind and rotating their sails through that direction in close history ( perhaps not so unethical and not blaming for this). Their supporting Ataturk must be evaluated just inside this frame. One family from them has even a very fundementalist Islamic imaged holding of companies. I don't know any government against which they have seemed to fall into opposition .
And if we return to the symbol , according to me Rivkin's approach about the Kabardins is highly possible, -if their tribal symbol is a 6 p. star within a crescent, and the same symbol is seen on several shashkas-, it seems very acceptable to me. I will count points on shashka stars more carefully from now on