Magyar tribes

The Magyar tribes or Hungarian clans (Hungarian: magyar törzsek) were the fundamental political units within whose framework the Hungarians (Magyars) lived, until these clans from the region of the Ural Mountains[1] invaded the Carpathian Basin in the late 9th century (the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin) and subsequently established the Principality of Hungary.[2][3]

The appearance of Hungarian tribe names in settlement names. It suggests where arriving Hungarians lived amongst other peoples and helped in reconstructing where arriving tribes settled

Etymology
See also: Name of Hungary

The ethnonym of the Hungarian tribal alliance is uncertain. According to one view, following Anonymus's description, the federation was called "Hetumoger" (Seven Magyars) ("VII principales persone qui Hetumoger dicuntur", "seven princely persons who are called Seven Magyars"[4]), though the word "Magyar" possibly comes from the name of the most prominent Hungarian tribe, called Megyer. The tribal name "Megyer" became "Magyar" referring to the Hungarian people as a whole.[5][6][7] Written sources called Magyars "Hungarians" before the conquest of the Carpathian Basin when they still lived on the Steppes of Eastern Europe (in 837 "Ungri" mentioned by Georgius Monachus, in 862 "Ungri" by Annales Bertiniani, in 881 "Ungari" by the Annales ex Annalibus Iuvavensibus). The English term "Hungarian" is a derivative of the Latin "Ungri" or "Ungari" forms.(citation needed)

In 2018 it was argued that Magyar literally means "strength from the womb", and is derived from the Indo-Aryan words ma/maha (mighty, strong) + dhara (womb, preserving).[8] Taken into account for this etymology is the Hungarian Legend of the Turul. In this legend the leaders wife has a dream in which she is impregnated by a bird, and from her womb spills forth a prosperous nation. The leaders son is given the name Almos which refers to the dream. Given the importance of this dream to the early Hungarians, it is only logical that the people too would refer to this dream when referring to themselves as a nation.(ibid)

History
Main article: Hungarian prehistory
The Blood oath in Etelköz.

According to András Róna-Tas the locality in which the Hungarians, the Manicha-Er group, emerged was between the Volga river and the Ural Mountains.[1] Between the 8th and 5th centuries BC, the Magyars embarked upon their independent existence and the early period of the proto-Hungarian language began.[1]

Around 830 AD,[9][10] when Álmos, the future Grand Prince of the Hungarians, was about 10 years old, the seven related tribes (Jenő, Kér, Keszi, Kürt-Gyarmat, Megyer, Nyék and Tarján)[11] formed a confederation[9] in Etelköz,[10] called "Hétmagyar" ("Seven Magyars"). Their leaders, the Seven chieftains of the Magyars, besides Álmos, included Előd, Ond, Kond, Tas, Huba and Töhötöm, who took a blood oath, swearing eternal loyalty to Álmos.[12] Presumably, the Magyar tribes consisted of 108 clans.[13]

The confederation of the tribes was probably led by two high princes: the kende (their spiritual ruler) and the gyula (their military leader). The high princes were either elected by the leaders of the tribes or appointed by the Khagan of the Khazars who had been exerting influence over the Magyars. Around 862 AD the seven tribes separated from the Khazars.

Before 881 AD three Turkic tribes rebelled against the rule of the Khagan of the Khazars, but they were suppressed. After their defeat they left the Khazar Empire and voluntarily joined the Hétmagyar confederation. The three tribes were organised into one tribe, called Kabar, and later they played the roles of vanguard and rear guard during the joint military actions of the confederation. The joining of the three tribes to the previous seven created the On-ogur (Ten Arrows),[11] one of the possible origins for the name Hungarian.

Social organization

The Hungarian social structure was of Turkic origin.[14]

See also

Sources
  • Korai Magyar Történeti Lexikon (9-14. század), főszerkesztő: Kristó, Gyula, szerkesztők: Engel, Pál és Makk, Ferenc (Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1994)
  • Kristó, Gyula: A Kárpát-medence és a magyarság régmúltja (1301-ig) (Szegedi Középkortörténeti Könyvtár, Szeged, 1993)
  • Magyarország Történeti Kronológiája I. – A kezdetektől 1526-ig, főszerkesztő: Benda Kálmán (Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1981)
  • Makkai, László (2001). Transylvania in the medieval Hungarian kingdom (896-1526), In: Béla Köpeczi, HISTORY OF TRANSYLVANIA Volume I. From the Beginnings to 1606, Columbia University Press, New York, 2001, ISBN 0880334797

References
  1. András Róna-Tas, Hungarians and Europe in the early Middle Ages: an introduction to early Hungarian history, Central European University Press, 1999, p. 319
  2. George H. Hodos, The East-Central European region: an historical outline, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999, p. 19
  3. S. Wise Bauer, The history of the medieval world: from the conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade, W. W. Norton & Company, 2010, p. 586
  4. Gyula Decsy, A. J. Bodrogligeti, Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher, Volume 63, Otto Harrassowitz, 1991, p. 99
  5. György Balázs, Károly Szelényi, The Magyars: the birth of a European nation, Corvina, 1989, p. 8
  6. Alan W. Ertl, Toward an Understanding of Europe: A Political Economic Précis of Continental Integration, Universal-Publishers, 2008, p. 358
  7. Z. J. Kosztolnyik, Hungary under the early Árpáds: 890s to 1063, Eastern European Monographs, 2002, p. 3
  8. Sandor, Frank (2018). "An indic-hungarian reconstruction" (PDF). International Journal of Sanskrit Research. 4 (1): 94–100. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  9. Carl Waldman, Catherine Mason, Encyclopedia of European peoples, Volume 1, Infobase Publishing, 2006, p. 508
  10. Paul Lendvai, The Hungarians: a thousand years of victory in defeat, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2003, p. 15-29, p. 533
  11. Kevin Alan Brook, The Jews of Khazaria, Rowman & Littlefield, 2009, pp. 163-164.
  12. http://www.kislexikon.hu/hetmagyar.html (Hungarian)
  13. John P. C. Matthews, Explosion: the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Hippocrene Books, 2007, p. 69
  14. Makkai 2001, pp. 415-416.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.