Hungarian History - The beginings not yet finished!

Introduction:

This is first part of my series dealing with Hungarian history. This post contain Hungarian history from the beginings to the arrival to the Carpathian basin. First when we talk about this period of Hungarian history, we must know that this period is largely lacks in resources and we have to face many uncertainties. Nevertheless, with the help of genetics, linguistics and archaeology, can give a better picture of this period in Hungarian history.

Who Are the Hungarians ?

Most of the Hungarian people nowadays are living in Hungary and in it's neighbouring countries located in East Central Europe. The Hungarians arrived to this place in the late 9th century as a steppe nomadic tribal confederation. In 1000 the Hungarian Kingdom was found.

The Hungarians are Uralic-speaking people. Our closest living relatives are the Mansi and Khanty people in Western Siberia.

Hungarians refer to themself as magyar. This is a really old term, it can be traced back as far as the Proto- Ugric times when the speakers of the ancestor of the Hungarian, Mansi and Khanty languages were not yet separated . The term "magyar" (ipa: mɒ.ɟɒr ) could be divided into two part, the first part: "magy" came from the proto ugric word: maɲça (human, man, tale, to tell ) and the second "ar" is from proto finnougric irkä (son, man) however there some other theories also such like that the "ar" ending came from Sarmatian word arii (noble) but the one I have presentet seems to be the most probable.¹ The name, Mansi come from the same word. The third ugric nation's name, the Khanty come from the proto uralic word kunta which means community, army. It's "had" IPA: hɒd (army) in Hungarian.

The ethnonym, Hungarian is derived from Onogurs (> (H)ungars).

The Ugric ages:

After the Ugric split off from the Finno-Ugricans. The Cherkaskul and later Mezhovskaya culture is connected to them after they moved a little further east.

In the life of the early Ugrian society hunting had a very important role. It was what guaranted the survival. Later when the animal husbandry appeared the most important were the horses. Horse husbandry became significant, made an effect not just in lifestyle but also in cultural, religious way. The vocabulary related to horses in Hungarian, Mansi, Khanty languages come from this period.

Horse breeding brought innovations such as a new hunting method using dog and Horse. Herodotus mention there¹ that there are people east to Tyssagetes and north to Messagetes called Jyrka and he described exactly this hunting scene:

This could be the first written mention of Ugrians. They climbed a tree. The horse and dog were taught how to lie down to remain unnoticed. When the wild approached they tried to shoot it down if its failed they jumped down from the tree to the horse and the chasing started.

Arrows were shot at the wild from horseback. The dog followed the scent. Exactly like in the Hungarian myth where ancestor of the Hungarians, Magor and ancestor of the huns, Hunor chasing the Miraculous deer. ²

The ancestors of Ob Ugrians went north and conquered the local population there this is where their two phratries came from the mós (from mańćɜ) and por (term for locals). The Hungarians stayed south in the border of forests and steppes. Despite the change in Ob Ugric lifestyle and the accompanying decline in the importance of horses, the Ob-Ugric society preserved the memory of this period, which is echoed in religion, fairy tales, in the fact that high prestige associated with keeping horses, in the existence of horse sacrifices, and in the depictions their metalworks. 

The migration period:

The Sargat culture is the most significant archeological culture of the Transurals and the forested steppes of Southwestern Siberia along the Irtish and Tobol rivers in early iron age. It was located on the border of the taiga and the Great Eurasian Steppe.

Sargat culture was likely related to the Hungarian. Genetics, linguistics also confirms the Sarmata influence on the conqueror Hungarians.  

Knives, arrowheads ,daggers, swords, battle axes was produced in large number. Important trade with Sarmatians. Sargat Culture even had Chinese iron products thought Xiongnu empire. Sign of a northern trade route through Siberia between east & west centuries before the Silk Road

The sargat culture can be characterised by good quality of metallurgy increasing production of Sargat iron supplied the local population and its nomadic neighbors.

The Bakalskaya culture was Sucessor the Sargat culture predecessor of the Kushnarenkovo culture. Carrying the features of the late Sargat and early Kushnarenko cultures

Kushnarenkovo Culture (6.-8. century AD) - marked with black dots in the map The culture linket to a horse nomadic ethnicity which moved from the eastern urals to the western side of the mountains.

The mayority of of the researcher agree on that they were most likely the ancestors of Hungarians. It's archaeological connections to the period of the conquest and the Dnieper region looks indisputable.

Today, research can trace back the legacy of Kusnarenkovo east of the Urals to the beginning of the 10th century. The cemetery of Uyelgi in the east urals. Findings in Uyelgi.

This is the place what we call Magna Hungaria The Eastern Hungarians or Volga Hungarians found by Friar Julian in the early 13. century lived closed here. Originally may there number were even higher than the conquerors of the Carpathian Basin.

This is also the place where Hungarians met with Bashkirs and closed ties between emerged. Based on various sources, it seems for the travellers was hard to distinguish between Hungarians and Bashkirs lots of time they referred them as the same nation

Parts of the Hungarians who stayed in east merged into Bashkirs. There are tribe names in Bashkorstan which similar to some Hungarian tribe names. Genetics of modern Bashkirs also show lots of similarity to the conqueror Hungarians's.

May Hungarians also had contact with Permians. The Hungarian ezüst (silver) and kenyér (bread) words likely to come from permic languages.

At the middle reaches of the Volga and at the southern foot of the Ural Mountains, the steppe zone is wedged deep into the forests. Throught the millennias, centuries several Finno Ugric, Iranic, and Turkic people nation lived here. Nations of Volga Ural region nowadays

The disintegration of Kuvrat's Bulgarian empire is an important event in early medieval history of eastern europe. The Bulgarians went to different places. The Volga Bulgarians were one of them.  The Hungarians probably met them at the course of the Volga. The Oghurs were the most influental turkic people to the Hungarians. Most of our turkic loanwords in Hungarian have Oghur origin.

The Dulo dynasty appears in Hungarian myths. One of the rulers of Volga Bulgaria was called Almış which is very similar to Álmos's name. The Hungarians got their external name from the Bulgarian onogurs (ten tribe, arrow)

At this time period the Khazar Empire became a dominant power in the Eastern European steppe. the Hungarians came close to the Khazar Empire many things are unclear regarding the details of the Khazar-Hungarian relationship.

In the early 9th century, the Kimeks joined forces with the Oghuz tribes and defeated the Pechenegs somewhere in there Ural river, so the Pechenegs went west and attacked the Hungarians and Khazars.

The Volga, which turns south a few kilometers after the city of Kazan reach Zhiguli Mountains, at the settlement of Usolje. The turn leading to the the town of Sizrany. Near this place, the Hungarians heading west crossed the Volga. Hungarian findings marked with blue.

The Hungarians potentially splited into three parts to thoose who went west to thoose who stayed magna hungaria and the a small group that went to the forefront of the Caucasus.

The direction of the migration of Hungarians according to different theories, as well as the archaeological sites marked in red

The Hungarians also met with a northern group of Alans. The proof of the former living side by side can be seen in as loanwords originating from them and also influences in the clothing of our predecessors. For example clothing an weaponry of the Hungarians probably have some Alan influence.

The Alans also appear in Hungarian myths according it the Alanian price's daughters become the wives of Magyar and Hunor by bride kidnapping.

In the last decade from Ukraine and, most recently, from the territory of Moldova, there have been great amount of findings found that prove that a population of Volga origin moved there in the first half of the 9th century.

Hungarians also attacked Kiev and went with their captives to a port of the Byzantine Empire on the coast and traded with them. But according to sources relations later became more peacefull.

Levédia was named after Levedi ( the most influencial leader of the Hungarian Tribal Confederation at the time), while Etelköz means: between rivers. Theese rivers where most likely the Dnieper, Prut and Siret (Szeret in Hungarian) rivers. it is disputed where exactly Levédia was located or whether it even existed as an independently or where part of Etelköz.

According to archaeological materials the Hungarians at Etelköz had almost daily trade relations with Byzantium. Remains of a Byzantine silk dress in a Dniester rural burial and Crimean-Byzantine storage vessels in an increasing number of graves.

As I mentioned before most important leader of the Hungarians at that time could be Levedi, whose wife was the daughter of the Khazar Khagan. But they had no children. According Constantine VII, the khazars wnated to gain more influence over Hungarians. They wanted to make Levedi the Prince but he refused.

Rise of the Árpád dinasty:

Álmos: Álmos father or grandfather was Ügyek, in other sources Álmos's father is Előd. His mother was Emese. He was an outstanding general, probably from the Megyer tribe. Who played one of the most prominent role in Hungarian history.

According to the myth once the Turul visited Álmos's mother Emese while she was sleep. The word "Emse" just like "nő" originally meant woman or mother in Hungarian this word survived as the first syllable of world for human, man : ember. Emse also associated sometimes with "ünő": female deer

According to another interpretation. The turul does not make her pregnant, but by appearing to the pregnant woman and placing the little one under her protective wings, ensures that he fulfills his great destiny. Turul is therefore both a news-bringer and a guardian spirit.

The blood oath: The Seven Hungarians : Megyer, Tarján, Kér, Keszi, Nyék, Jenő, Kürt+Gyarmat tribe and their leaders Álmos, Előd, Töhötöm, Tas, Huba, Ond, Kond,  choosed Álmos to be their leader. Which was confirmed by blood oath. the Hungarian principality was founded.

theories: Álmos, son the the uyghur khan?

The power structure of the Hungarian principality:

It is also uncertain whether this was really the case, but perhaps the institution of a kind of dual principality system existed at this time. The sacral leader, the prince, was called Kende, and the military leader was called Gyula.

There was also the horka or harka (karcha), who fulfilled the task of the judge, was the supervisor of the foreign peoples the different tribes still had their own leaders, they enjoyed a lot of freedom, but they had to listen to the princes.

Etelköz:

The Khazars tried to keep the Hungarians under their influence, but this did not work in the long term, they turned against each other. A rebellion broke out in the empire and the rebeler Kabars joined to the Hungarians.

Over time, the Khazars had more and more trouble with the Hungarians,the Khagan wrote letter where he asked for help from Byzantium to build a fortress against the Hungarians. The Hungarians intervened more and more often in the wars of various European countries.

They mapped the area well. Hungarians have already visited their future homeland many times. In fact, perhaps some of them had already moved in when the Pechenegs launched attack through the Khazars. Álmos decided to move into the basin, the conquest has been started.

The old faith:

funeral customs also and add kiegészítés

clothing, hair

weaponry, defensive weapon, war style, arrowheads

geopol

constatinus include

newcomers

Örs (turkic), Káliz (Hworezmian iranian), Böszörmény(muslims form eastern europe mainly turkic), Oszlár (alan), Varsány (alan), Berény (turkic) and Berszel/Bercel (turkic)

⁰ ¹ ² ³ ⁴ ⁵ ⁶ ⁷ ⁸ ⁹

 Róna-Tas A. Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: An Introduction to Early Hungarian History. Central European University Press, 1999 (mansi hungarian language)

² Abondolo D.M. The Uralic Languages. Routledge, 1998 (sarmatian words)

³ Istvánovits E. Kulcsár V. Sarmatians: History and Archaeology of a Forgotten People. Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, 2017 (sarmatian genetic)

Maróti Z. , Neparáczky E. , Schütz O. , Török T. The genetic origin of Huns, Avars, and conquering Hungarians, 2022

Helen Post, Endre Németh, László Klima, Rodrigo Flores, Tibor Fehér, Attila Türk, Gábor Székely, Hovhannes Sahakyan ,Mayukh Mondal, Francesco Montinaro, Monika Karmin, Lauri Saag, Bayazit Yunusbayev, Elza K. Khusnutdinova, Ene Metspalu, Richard Villems, Kristiina Tambets, Siiri Rootsi Y-chromosomal connection between Hungarians and geographically distant populations of the Ural Mountain region and West Siberia

¹ A. D. Godley, Ed. Herodotus: The Histories, Harvard University Press, 1920

² Simon of Kéza: The Deeds of the Hungarians (Edited and translated by László Veszprémy and Frank Schaer with a study by Jenő Szűcs)  CEU Press. Bp., 1999

Constantine Porphyrogenetus, De administrando imperio. Greek text ed. by Gy. Moravcsik, English Translation by R. J. H. Jenkins. New revised Edition. Washington, 1967.

Moravcsik Gyula: Az Árpád-kori magyar történet bizánci forrásai. Bp., 1984.