Magyar News, 1995. szeptember-1996. augusztus (6. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1996-02-01 / 6. szám

To Iceland

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Europe in the year 888

sources, an isolated Hungarian (perhaps Kabar) tribe, which was cut off from the others entering the Transylvanian passes, followed the lower Danube and subsequently its tributary the Sava River to the west. Eventually they reached Northern Italy and the Kingdom of Berengar also an adversary of Arnulf. Here the Hungarians won a battle on the Brenta River against Berengar. In their return to the East, crossed the border of Pannónia where Amulf invited them to join him as allies in the war against Svatopluk. He offered, as reward for their services, the possession of the territory of the Eastern Carpathian highlands east of the river Garant and the Danube, a territory which Svatopluk also intended to take under his power. With the support of his new allies, Amulf defeated Svatopluk decisively in a battle in Northeastern Pannónia. While Svatopluk tried to escape across the Danube to the left bank, he fell in the river and drowned.

With Svatopluk's death in 894, his sons continued for some time the war against Amulf, but the Moravian resistance soon collapsed and Amulf was able to take over the control over the whole Pannónia. The major part of the population, Moravians and Germans during the war fled already earlier to the Frankish provinces of Styria and Carinthia. The rest, like Czechs, Croates, and other Slavs moved across the Drava into Slavonia. The Hungarian (or perhaps Kabar) tribe which participated as Amulfs ally in the war against Svatopluk, joined Árpád's recently arriving forces in the Great Plains. The seven tribes of the Magyars which entered through the Verecke pass, occupied in a general line east to west the northern part of the Great Plains at the foothills of the Northeastern Carpathians. In this region, several place-names of present-day towns or villages are reminiscent of the names of the first occupying tribes like Kiirt, Nyék, Megyer (i.e. Magyar, Árpád's tribe) also Gyarmat (Balassa-gyarmat), Tatján (Salgótarján), Kari (Kér), Kazi (Keszi). Further down south, the scattered groups of Avar and Jazyg (Jász) population between the Danube and the Tisza were easily absorbed by the Hungarians, perhaps because the similarities of their earlier steppe lifestyle. In the middle section of the plains around the present Szeged region and the Temes valley, the predominant ethnic group were the Bulgarians part of the Bulgarian empire on the

Balkans. The Bulgarian's power was in decline because of its constant conflicts with the Byzantine empire. Thus, when the second group of the Hungarians coming through the southeastern passes of the Carpathians and Maros valley in Transylvania appeared on the Tisza, the Bulgarians could present only scattered resistance to the simultaneous pressure of the Hungarians from the North and the East. After Svatopluk's death, his sons, Mojmir and Svatopluk II concluded peace with Amulf, who since 896 was recognized as emperor by the Pope, and restored the province of Pannónia to the suzerainty of the Frank Empire. Árpád, already in control of the eastern half of the Carpathian basin, with cautious policy did not challenge the power of the emperor. He did not press the occupation of the northwestern Carpathian highlands and the Small Plains, as well as Pannónia, as parts of Svatopluk's former empire in the destruction of which the Hungarians supported Amulf. However, at the unexpected death of Amulf in 899, Arpad decided to intervene. The first step was around 900-902, the occupation of the Small Plains from the Gar am River in the East to the Small Carpathians and the border of the old Moravia in the West. The occupying forces penetrated in the river valleys, tributaries of the Danube, like the Vág, as far as the edge of the forest-covered mountains. The predominantly Slavic population did not offer resistance and its majority retreated in the

highlands of the northwestern Carpathians. Around the same years the occupation of the entire territory of Pannónia took place in which Arpad's own tribe (the Megyeri or Magyar) and parts of four other tribes participated. This time the Hungarians appeared with two armies prepared for a strong reaction on the part of the Franks, but this became serious only in 907. Meanwhile, Arpad himself entered Pannónia during the start of the occupation. He died in the same year. The first attempt to stop the Hungarian invasion came when the Bavarian margrave Liutpold, on behalf of Amulfs son and successor, the young King Louis the Child, tried to force back the Hungarians at the border of the old Moravia, but his army was almost completely destroyed.

A second attempt by Louis the Child himself in 910, albeit supported by the other German tribes, ended also in defeat of the Bavarians. Moreover, the Hungarians crossing the border at Pozsony (presently Bratislava) entered the Viennese basin (the former Ostmark) which they kept for some time as a defensive border area ("Gyepu") under constant military observation. Eventually, the Hungarian occupation was extended to the region of the Upper Enns River (Ober-Enns in German; allegedly the name "Operencia" which frequently occurs in old Hungarian folktales, takes its origin from that time). The unsuccessful attempt of Louis the Child to stop, or drive back, the

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