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Hungary EARLY HISTORY
The Hungarian nation traces its history to the Magyars,
a
pagan Finno-Ugric tribe that arose in central Russia and
spoke a
language that evolved into modern Hungarian. Historians
dispute
the exact location of the early Magyars' original
homeland, but
it is likely to be an area between the Volga River and the
Ural
Mountains. In ancient times, the Magyars probably lived as
nomadic tent-dwelling hunters and fishers. Some scholars
argue
that they engaged in agriculture beginning in the second
millennium B.C.
Before the fifth century A.D., the Magyars' ancestors
gradually migrated southward onto the Russian steppes,
where they
wandered into the lands near the Volga River bend, at
present-day
Kazan, as nomadic herders. Later, probably under pressure
from
hostile tribes to the east, they migrated to the area
between the
Don and lower Dnepr rivers. There they lived close to, and
perhaps were dominated by, the Bulgar-Turks from about the
fifth
to the seventh century. During this period, the Magyars
became a
semisedentary people who lived by raising cattle and
sheep,
planting crops, and fishing. The Bulgar-Turkish influence
on the
Magyars was significant, especially in agriculture. Most
Hungarian words dealing with agriculture and animal
husbandry
have Turkic roots. By contrast, the etymology of the word
Hungary has been traced to a Slavicized form of the
Turkic
words on ogur, meaning "ten arrows," which may have
referred to the number of Magyar tribes.
The Magyars lived on lands controlled by the Khazars (a
Turkish people whose realm stretched from the lower Volga
and the
lower Don rivers to the Caucasus) from about the seventh
to the
ninth century, when they freed themselves from Khazar
rule. The
Khazars attempted to reconquer the Magyars both by
themselves and
with the help of the Pechenegs, another Turkish tribe.
This tribe
drove the Magyars from their homes westward to lands
between the
Dnepr and lower Danube rivers in 889. In 895 the Magyars
joined
Byzantine armies under Emperor Leo VI in a war against the
Bulgars. However, the Bulgars emerged victorious. Their
allies,
the Pechenegs, attacked the weakened Magyars and forced
them
westward yet again in 895 or 896. This migration took the
Magyars
over the Carpathian Mountains and into the basin drained
by the
Danube and Tisza rivers, a region that corresponds roughly
to
present-day Hungary. Romans, Goths, Huns, Slavs, and other
peoples had previously occupied the region, but at the
time of
the Magyar migration, the land was inhabited only by a
sparse
population of Slavs, numbering about 200,000.
Tradition holds that the Magyar clan chiefs chose a
chieftain
named Árpad to lead the migration and that they swore by
sipping
from a cup of their commingled blood to accept Árpad's
male
descendants as the Magyars' hereditary chieftains. The
Magyars
probably knew of the lands in the Carpathian Basin because
from
892 to 894 Magyar mercenaries had fought there for King
Arnulph
of East Francia in a struggle with the duke of Moravia.
Estimates
are that about 400,000 people made up the exodus, in seven
Magyar, one Kabar, and other smaller tribes.
The Carpathian Basin and parts of Transylvania southsouthwest of the basin had been settled for thousands of
years
before the Magyars' arrival. A rich Bronze Age culture
thrived
there until horsemen from the steppes destroyed it in the
middle
of the thirteenth century B.C. Celts later occupied parts
of the
land, and in the first century A.D. the Romans conquered
and
divided it between the imperial provinces of Pannonia and
Dacia.
In the fourth century, the Goths ousted the Romans, and
Attila
the Hun later made the Carpathian Basin the hub of his
short-lived empire. Thereafter, Avars, Bulgars, Germans,
and
Slavs settled the region. In the late ninth century A.D.,
only
scattered settlements of Slavs occupied the Carpathian
Basin. The
Magyar forces, light cavalrymen who used Central
Asian-style
bows, quickly conquered the Slavs, whom they either
assimilated
or enslaved.
Romanian and Hungarian historians disagree about the
ethnicity of Transylvania's population before the Magyars'
arrival. The Romanians establish their claims to
Transylvania by
arguing that their Latin ancestors inhabited Transylvania
and
survived there through the Dark Ages. The Hungarians, by
contrast, maintain that Transylvania was inhabited not by
the
ancestors of the Romanians but by Slavs and point out that
the
first mention of the Romanians' ancestors in Hungarian
records,
which appeared in the thirteenth century, described them
as
drifting herders.
Data as of September 1989
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