The Eighth Tribe, 1977 (4. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1977-05-01 / 5. szám
Page 8 THE EIGHTH TRIBE May, 1977 Magyar languages, both in terms of their structure, as well as the similarity and identity of numerous basic terms and their meanings. Some of them go as far as to declare that the Magyar and the Sumerian are basically identical languages, and a few of them actually read ancient Sumerian scripts witli the help of the Magyar language and the ancient Hungarian runic writing. While the high point of Sumerian-Magyar “identity studies” was reached in our own days, the roots of this attempt reach back at least to the early nineteenth century. These roots can be found both in Hungary, as well as in the works of a number of Western scholars of the ancient Near East. As pointed out in an earlier chapter, the Magyars or Hungarians have generally been convinced of their Eastern and even Near Eastern origins; and this conviction was based largely on the Magyar national traditions incorporated in several medieval chronicles. As an example, these traditions take Magyar origins back to the Biblical times, and name the Biblical Nimrod (Menrot) as one of their earlier forefathers. This Biblical Nimrod (which, by the way is also mentioned in various Sumerian texts) allegedly stemmed from the family of Jafet. He left for the land of Evilat (later Persia) before the Tower of Babel incident. It was in Evilat where two sons were born to him from his wife Eneh. These sons were named respectively Hunor and Magor, and subsequently they became the progenitors of the two “sister nations” of the Huns and the Magyars or Hungarians. These traditions have persisted for centuries in the Magyar lore. But not until the rise of the romantic historian István Horvát (1784- 1846) was there an attempt to make them into the cornerstone of Hungarian proto-history. Horvát was convinced that the Magyars were the direct descendants of a number of ancient Near Eastern peoples, including the Egyptians, the Sumerians, the Parthians, the Assyrians, the Hittites, and a number of others. To prove his point, Horvát engaged in comparative linguistic studies, and tried to find parallels between Magyar and ancient Near Eastern terms, mostly names. Many of his examples, however, appeared so naive that they would usually elicit only a smile from most scholars (e.g. Karthago/Carthage = Kardhágó — Saber climber or Saber Pass; Borysthenes = Bor-isten-ez this is the god of wine; Dareios/Darius = Tarajos Crested; Nabu-kodonozor/Nebuchadnezzar = Ne-bolondozzon-az-úr Let the Lord not fool around/Let us not fool around; etc.) 28 qualified candidate to participate in the joint American Hungarian visiting scholar program. He went to Budapest in the academic year 1969-1970 as an IREX Fellow and visiting scholar. It was the realization that the results of Hungarian historical scholarship were largely unknown and misunderstood in the Western World, a realization shared by his colleagues in Hungary, that led him to the present work. Results of his research were first recounted in a number of shorter studies in various publications and at a regular, annual meeting of the Árpád Academy of Hungarian Scientists, Writers and Artists Abroad in Cleveland, Ohio. A substantially expanded version was published separately by the same Academy in 1974. Entitled “Hungarian Historiography and the Geistesgeschichte School” the work, in the series “Studies by Members of the Árpád Academy,” was published in the Hungarian language The MODERN HUNGARIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY volume is the direct outgrowth of the previously mentioned work, with extensive revisions and voluminous additions. As the author points out in the preface, three Hungarian and two Hungarian-American scholars reviewed the manuscript, but the final interpretation remains his own. The book is divided into two major parts and a total of 21 chapters. In addition to the 217 page body of the work, 65 pages are devoted to a comprehensive, extremely valuable collection of notes and references by chapter, 8 pages to a detailed bibliography, and 10 pages to a listing of significant source publication series since 1857. A 22 pages index completes the book. The first part of Professor Várdy’s book is divided into five chapters, covering the beginnings, growth and evolution of Hungarian historical science, dealing particularly with the development of the Humanist, then Baroque, source collecting and “scientific” historiographies. These are presented in a clear, exact manner. After briefly setting forth and discussing the underlying concepts of the Positivist, Economic, Cultural and Sociological Schools, which led to modern Hungarian historiography, the author delves into the major substance of the book, the so called “Geistesgeschichte” (spiritual) School. In the second part of the book, he develops and details the efforts of the Geistesgeschichte School with surprising self-assurance, from a “western” viewpoint, and with total impartiality. He covers such topic areas as the emergence of Szekfii, the “Minerva Circle,” the rise of a young generation, the Hungarian Ethnohistory School, the National Romantic School, the populists, the interwar positivism, East European studies in Interwar Hungary and the Kulturgeschichte School. The wealth of information and the level of detail represented in the work is tremendous. The material presented reveals a diverse, richly textured Hungarian historiography. The concepts behind the written history, made understandable by this work, add substance to the historical facts and greater meaning to the words written by such historians as Gyula Szekfii, Kunó Klebelsberg, Elemér Mályusz, Sándor Domanovszky, László Erdélyi, Bálint Hóman, Ákos Timon and Ferenc Eckhart. While Professor Várdy does delve into general European and world history studies and other auxiliary or allied sciences, elaborating on the work of such historians as Macartney, the British historian of Hungary, he does
