Dr. Mikhail Kizilov

Professional Background

Dr. Mikhail Kizilov is an Alexander Von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Institutum Judaicum, Tübingen (Germany).  He earned his PhD in history from Oxford University (United Kingdom) in 2007.  He possesses skills in English, Russian, Polish, German, Hebrew, Yiddish, French, Italian, Karaim, Turkish, Arabic, Ukrianian, and Latin. While in residence at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Dr. Kizilov conducted research on his project, “The Karaites, the Jews, and the Nazis in Eastern and Central Europe During the Second World War and the Holocaust.”

Dr. Kizilov has many publications translated into multiple languages, including: Crimean Judea: Notes on the History of the Jews, Khazars, Karaites, and Krymchaks in the Crimea since Ancient Times (2011) and Bibiographia Karaitica: An Annotated Bibliography of Karaites and Karaism (2011). He has received several academic awards, including the 2012 Judaica Bibliography Award from the Association of Jewish Libraries for his book Bibliographia Karaitica (2011).

Fellowship Research

For his Sosland Foundation Fellowship at the Mandel Center, Dr. Kizilov used Karaite community documents and the recently acquired archives from the former Soviet Union to conduct an ethnographic study of Karaite Jews investigating the fate of the Karaites during the Holocaust. He examined their unique status to the Rabbanite (Ashkenazic) Jews and the delicate relationship between the two communities.

Dr. Mikhail Kizilov was in residence at the Mandel Center from September 1, 2014 to April 30, 2015.