Magyar News, 1995. szeptember-1996. augusztus (6. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1996-02-01 / 6. szám
THE CONQUEST OF THE CARPATHIAN BASIN BY THE HUNGARIANS IN THE UATE NINTH CENTURY In the year 1996, Hungary will celebrate the elevenhundredth anniversary of the conquest of land in the Carpathian Basin which was to remain the homeland of the Magyars/Hungarians for eleven centuries. The Hungarians from the Ugrian branch of the Finno-Ugor people quite early left their ancient relatives, the Voguls in the Northern and Eastern slopes of the Ural. They moved to the steppe west from the Ural along the rivers Kama and the Volga, the present-day Baskiria. Here they became neighbors of people of Turkic origin, like the Volga-Bulgars, and later - further to the South - in the lower Don region, might have become in tribal alliance with the Onogurs. Eventually all these tribes, the Hungarians (or Magyars) included, came subordinated to the Kazar Khaganate, a centrally organized primitive state system, where the ruling class adopted the Jewish faith. A few generations later the Bulgars threw off the Kazar rule and moved West to the lower Danube area and the Balkans, while the Magyar tribes, joined by three Turkic tribes of the Kabars wandered Northwest to the Don and Dnjester area called "Levedia". Around the mid-ninth century, the Pechenegs (in Hungarian Besenyőks), a Turkic people started their attacks from the East against the Kazars and also against the Hungarians. Under pressure of these attacks, the Hungarians and Kabars moved further West in the area of several rivers between the Dnjeper and the lower Danube, called in Hungarian the "Etelköz". Here it happened that the Hungarians came the first time in contact with a European and Christian power, the Byzantine empire which had two-fold significance. It was the Byzantine emperor Leo VI who provided the first reliable contemporary information about the Magyars or Hungarians, whom he consistently calls Turks because of the similarity of their appearance and way of life to the Turkic people. He transmitted his information to his son and successor, the Emperor Constantine VII. He included these information in his major political and historical work "De Administrando Imperio" (About the Administration of the Empire). It is from this work that we learned about the tribal alliance of the Hungarians and Kabars. They were speaking two languages, the Magyar of Ugrian origin and a Turkic language, probably the Kabar. The Kabars were Page 3
