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

1996-02-01 / 6. szám

usually called the "black" Hungarians while the Magyars were the "whites".

The second important historical significance of the Byzantine connection was that the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI, invited the Hungarians into his service to fight in his war against the Bulgarians who endangered the northern borders of the empire. The Hungarians fought successfully against the Bulgarians. When the emperor restored peace with the Bulgarians and the Hungarian warriors returned to their settlement in the Etelköz, they found that in their absence this settlement was completely destroyed by a raid of the Pechenegs. Under the impact of this disaster, the heads of the Magyar and the Kabar tribes recognized the necessity to strengthen the rather loose tribal alliance. Probably in 895 they concluded a so called Compact of Blood (vérszerzódés) whereby they consolidated their loose alliance into a tribal confederation, elevating as its supreme leader Árpád the head of the Magyar tribe.

It would be a futile attempt to point out an exact date of the conquest of the land by the Hungarians in the Carpathian basin. We can safely state only that it probably happened some time around 895, the year when the people of Arpad left their former settlement in the Etelköz and started out on the journey to find a new homeland beyond the Carpathians. The bulk of the Hungarian people was estimated by historians to be about 20,000 mounted warriors. With their families and other non-combattant persons at the most 500,000 persons in all. They took the general direction to the North between the Dnjeper and the eastern Carpathians towards the area of Kiev. It was from here that Arpad led his warriors probably in 896 through the Verecke pass of the northeastern Carpathians into the low lands of the upper Tisza valley. In absence of a contemporary written Hungarian source, we have to accept 896 as the most probable point of time for the beginning of the conquest. This year lived ever since in the memory of the Hungarian people and was recognized as most likely by a special committee of modem Hungarian historians at the millennial celebration of the conquest in 1896.

There was an episode in connection with the conquest which lived on in the memory of the people as a legend. It was about an alleged encounter between Arpad, the Magyar leader, and Svatopluk,

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the prince of "Greater Moravia" who claimed suzerainty over the great plain between the Danube and the Tisza. According to the legend, Arpad offered Svatopluk a white horse equipped with a magnificent set of red harness decorated with many precious stones and added to it other many valuable gifts of gold and silver in exchange for the possession of the plains. Svatopluk rejected the offer whereupon Árpád attempted to take over the land by force. In the ensuing battle, Svatopluk lost his life, thus the land became land of the Magyars. The legend had to be rejected by modem historians as romantic product of national folklore. It was anyway historically contradicting since Svatopluk was already dead when the alleged encounter between him and Árpád would have taken place; Svatopluk died in a battle against the German King Amulf in 894. It is though possible that in battle some Hungarian tribe also participated. More detail about this alleged participation of a Hungarian tribe in the war of Amulf against Svatopluk follow in a subsequent discussion concerning Pannónia.

There is a dispute between modem Hungarian historians over the question whether Árpád's entry with his seven tribes in 896 through the Verecke pass was the only action and place where the actual conquest of the Carpathian basin started. From this time, no Hungarian written source or other contemporary evidence survived. The earliest existing written source, the Chronicle of Anonymus, royal notary and nameless author of this Chronicle from the late 12th century about 300 years after the event. This refers to an earlier historical work written probably around 1080 A.D. which is lost. Anonymus describes Árpád's entry at Verecke in accordance with the popular tradition. His only deviation from the traditional story is his account about the conquest of Transylvania.

According to his account, when Árpád crossed the Verecke-pass with his army, a tribal leader Töhötöm or Tarkány (in the Chronicle Tuhutum) left with his tribe the main force of Árpád and turning to the South crossed the pass of the Meszes mountain and entered the province. Here he defeated the armed resistance of some local voivod, head of a mixed Slav and "Blac" (or Vlach) community and continuing southwards occupied the central lowlands. Modem Hungarian historians

reject this information of Anonymus on the ground that neither archeological and documentary investigation, nor excavations, produced any evidence for the existence of larger organized settlements in the territory indicated by the chronicle of the late 12th century author. Anonymus credibility was undermined by the fact that in composing his story, he frequently was flashing back situations of his own time into the past of several centuries before.

The later Hungarian chronicles of the 13 th and 14th centuries in general follow the traditional story of the conquest with Árpád's entry at the Verecke pass, but are rather extensively dealing with Attila and the history of the Huns. They want to trace the origin of the Magyars from the Huns. Accordingly, (like the chronicle of Kezai in the 13th c.) they consider the conquest of the Carpathian basin as a second conquest or rather a reconquest of Attila's heritage by the Hungarians. Another version of the dual conquest accepted by modem historians which can be corroborated by contemporary Byzantine and western sources too, informs us that in 895 when the attacks of the Pechenegs forced the Hungarians in the Etelköz to leave their settlements, they were cut off from the forces of Árpád. Harassed by the continuos attacks of the Pechenegs, they sought refuge by entering through the nearer southeastern passes of the Carpathians into the Transylvanian basin and the Maros valley. Following the rivers Maros and Koros, they eventually reached the Great Plain of the Danube and Tisza. They occupied the southern part of the plain and making contact with Árpád's forces in the North, they completed the conquest of the central basin with the exception of Pannónia (or Transdanubia, the present Dunántúl).

In the area since the late 880's, a war was going on between Amulf, the German King (later emperor) of the post- Carolingian Frankish kingdom and its vassal, the Prince of Moravia, Svatopluk who in his quest for independence extended his power and influence into the northwestern part of the Carpathian highlands. He established his power center in Nyitra, on the edge of the Small Plains and even crossed the Danube and entered the province of Pannónia which was under the suzerainty of the Frankish Kingdom. According to some Byzantine and other western, frequently contradicting,