There are an estimated 14.5 million ethnic Hungarians and their descendants worldwide, of whom 9.6 million live in today's Hungary.[1] About 2 million Hungarians live in areas that were part of the Kingdom of Hungary before the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 and are now parts of Hungary's seven neighbouring countries, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria. In addition, significant groups of people with Hungarian ancestry live in various other parts of the world, most of them in the United States, Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Chile, Brazil, Australia, and Argentina, and therefore constitute the Hungarian diaspora (Hungarian: magyar diaszpóra).
The Hungarians' own ethnonym to denote themselves in the Early Middle Ages is uncertain. The exonym "Hungarian" is thought to be derived from Oghur-Turkic On-Ogur (literally "Ten Arrows" or "Ten Tribes"). Another possible explanation comes from the Old East Slavic "Yugra" ("Югра"). It may refer to the Hungarians during a time when they dwelt east of the Ural Mountains along the natural borders of Europe and Asia before their conquest of the Carpathian Basin.[26]
In the Hungarian language, the Hungarian people name themselves as "Magyar".[27] "Magyar" possibly derived from the name of the most prominent Hungarian tribe, the "Megyer". The tribal name "Megyer" became "Magyar" in reference to the Hungarian people as a whole.[29][30][31]
The obscure name kerel or keral, found in the 13th-century work the Secret History of the Mongols, possibly referred to Hungarians and derived from the Hungarian title király 'king'.[37]
The historical Latin phrase "Natio Hungarica" ("Hungarian nation") had a wider and political meaning because it once referred to all nobles of the Kingdom of Hungary, regardless of their ethnicity or mother tongue.[38]
History
Origin
The origin of Hungarians, the place and time of their ethnogenesis, has been a matter of debate. The Hungarian language is classified in the Ugric family, and Hungarians are commonly considered an Ugric people that originated from the southern Ural Mountains.[39] The relatedness of Hungarians with other Ugric peoples is confirmed by linguistic and genetic data, but modern Hungarians have also substantial admixture from local European populations.[40] The Ugric languages are a member of the Uralic family, which originated either in the Oka-Volga region, the Southern Uralic, or Western Siberia. Recent linguistic data support an origin somewhere in Western Siberia. Ugric diverged from its relatives in the first half of the 1st millennium BC, in western Siberia, east of the southern Urals. The ancient Ugrians are associated with the Mezhovskaya culture, and were influenced by the IranianSarmatians and Saka, as well as later Xiongnu. The Ugrians also display genetic affinities to the Pazyryk culture. They arrived into Central Europe by the historical Magyar or Hungarian "conquerors", in the Hungarian landtaking.[39][41]
The historical Magyar conquerors were found to show significant affinity to modern Bashkirs, and stood also in contact with other Turkic peoples (presumably Oghuric speakers), Iranian peoples (especially Jaszic speakers), and Slavs. The historical Magyars created an alliance of steppe tribes, consisting of an Ugric/Magyar ruling class, and formerly Iranian but also Turkic (Oghuric) and Slavic speaking tribes, which conquered the Pannonian Steppe and surrounding regions, giving rise to modern Hungarians and Hungarian culture.[42]
"Hungarian pre-history", i.e. the history of the "ancient Hungarians" before their arrival in the Carpathian basin at the end of the 9th century, is thus a "tenuous construct", based on linguistics, analogies in folklore, archaeology and subsequent written evidence. In the 21st century, historians have argued that "Hungarians" did not exist as a discrete ethnic group or people for centuries before their settlement in the Carpathian basin. Instead, the formation of the people with its distinct identity was a process. According to this view, Hungarians as a people emerged by the 9th century, subsequently incorporating other, ethnically and linguistically divergent, peoples.[43]
During the 4th millennium BC, the Uralic-speaking peoples who were living in the central and southern regions of the Urals split up. Some dispersed towards the west and northwest and came into contact with Turkic and Iranian speakers who were spreading northwards.[44] From at least 2000BC onwards, the Ugric-speakers became distinguished from the rest of the Uralic community, of which the ancestors of the Magyars, being located farther south, were the most numerous. Judging by evidence from burial mounds and settlement sites, they interacted with the Indo-IranianAndronovo culture and Baikal-Altai Asian cultures.[45][42]
4th century to c. 830
In the 4th and 5th centuriesAD, the Hungarians were an "[e]thnically mixed people"[46] who moved to the west of the Ural Mountains, to the area between the southern Ural Mountains and the Volga River, known as Bashkiria (Bashkortostan) and Perm Krai. In the early 8th century, some of the Hungarians moved to the Don River, to an area between the Volga, Don and the Seversky Donets rivers.[47] Meanwhile, the descendants of those Hungarians who stayed in Bashkiria remained there as late as 1241.
The Hungarians around the Don River were subordinates of the KhazarKhaganate. Their neighbours were the archaeological Saltov culture, i.e. Bulgars (Proto-Bulgarians, Onogurs) and the Alans, from whom they learned gardening, elements of cattle breeding and of agriculture. Tradition holds that the Hungarians were organized in a confederacy of seven tribes. The names of the seven tribes were: Jenő, Kér, Keszi, Kürt-Gyarmat, Megyer, Nyék, and Tarján.
c. 830 to c. 895
Around 830, a rebellion broke out in the Khazar khaganate. As a result, three Kabar tribes[48] of the Khazars joined the Hungarians and moved to what the Hungarians call the Etelköz, the territory between the Carpathians and the Dnieper River. The Hungarians faced their first attack by the Pechenegs around 854.[47] The new neighbours of the Hungarians were the Varangians and the eastern Slavs. From 862 onwards, the Hungarians (already referred to as the Ungri) along with their allies, the Kabars, started a series of looting raids from the Etelköz into the Carpathian Basin, mostly against the Eastern Frankish Empire (Germany) and Great Moravia, but also against the Balaton principality and Bulgaria.[49]
The Hungarians arrived in the Carpathian Basin, a geographically unified but politically divided land, after acquiring thorough local knowledge of the area from the 860s onwards.[50][51][52][53][54][55][56]
After the end of the Avar Kaganate (c. 822), the Eastern Franks asserted their influence in Transdanubia, the Bulgarians to a small extent in the Southern Transylvania and the interior regions housed the surviving Avar population in their stateless state.[51][57] The downfall of the Avar Khaganate at the beginning of the 9th century did not mean the extinction of the Avar population, contemporary written sources report surviving Avar groups.[52] According to the archaeological evidence, the Avar population survived the time of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin.[51][55][58] In this power vacuum, the Hungarian conqueror elite took the system of the former Avar Kaganate, there is no trace of massacres and mass graves, it is believed to have been a peaceful transition for local residents in the Carpathian Basin.[58] The Hungarian conquerors together with the Turkic-speaking Kabars integrated the Avars and Onogurs.[59]
In 862, Prince Rastislav of Moravia rebelled against the Franks, and after hiring Hungarian troops, won his independence; this was the first time that Hungarians expeditionary troops entered the Carpathian Basin.[60][61] In 862, Archbishop Hincmar of Reims records the campaign of unknown enemies called "Ungri", giving the first mention of the Hungarians in Western Europe. In 881, the Hungarian forces fought together with the Kabars in the Vienna Basin.[60][62] According to historian György Szabados and archeologist Miklós Béla Szőke, a group of Hungarians were already living in the Carpathian Basin at that time, so they could quickly intervene in the events of the Carolingian Empire.[50][51][52][57][62] The number of recorded battles increased from the end of the 9th century.[57] In the late Avar period, a part of Hungarians was already present in the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century, this has been supported by genetic and archaeological research, because there are graves in which Avar descendants are buried in Hungarian clothes.[63][62] The contemporary local population is descended from previous peoples of the Carpathian Basin, and a large number of people survived to the 10th century from the previous Avar period.[64] An important segment of this Avar era Hungarians is that the Hungarian county system of King Saint Stephen I may be largely based on the power centers formed during the Avar period.[63] Based on DNA evidence, the Proto-Hungarians admixed with Sarmatians and Huns, this three genetic components appear in the graves of the Hungarian conqueror elite of the 9th century.[65] Based on the DNA in the Hungarian conqueror graves, the conquerors had eastern origin, but the vast majority of the Hungarian conquerors had European genome.[66][58] The remains in cemeteries of the Hungarian commoners had fewer Eastern Asian ancestry than the remains in cemeteries of the Hungarian elite, which displasey around 1/3 Eastern ancestry. Commoners clustered with surrounding non-Hungarian groups, while elite remains clustered with modern day Volga Tatars and Bashkirs, who are regarded as turkified formerly Uralic/Ugric-speaking ethnicities.[65][64][58][67] According to some genetic studies, there is a genetic continuity from the Bronze Age, a continuous migration of the Steppe folks from east to the Carpathian Basin.[58][68] Other studies point out that the Hungarian conqueror group and the local population started admixing only on the second half of the 10th century, and that research done of the first and second generation cemeteries in the Carpathian basin show uniparental lineages can be derived from Iron Age Sargat culture's population, suggesting "only limited interaction with the local population of the Carpathian Basin".[69]
The Hungarians took possession of the Carpathian Basin in a pre-planned manner, with a long move-in between 862 and 895.[50][51][53][54][55][57][62][74] This is confirmed by the archaeological findings, in the 10th-century Hungarian cemeteries, the graves of women, children and elderly people are located next to the warriors, they were buried according to the same traditions, wore the same style of ornaments, and belonged to the same anthropological group. The Hungarian military events of the following years prove that the Hungarian population that settled in the Carpathian Basin was not a weakened population without a significant military power.[55] Other theories assert that the move of the Hungarians was forced or at least hastened by the joint attacks of Pechenegs and Bulgarians.[55][75] According to eleventh-century tradition, the road taken by the Hungarians under Prince Álmos took them first to Transylvania in 895. This is supported by an eleventh-century Russian tradition that the Hungarians moved to the Carpathian Basin by way of Kiev.[76] Prince Álmos, the sacred leader of the Hungarian Great Principality died before he could reach Pannonia, he was sacrificed in Transylvania.[60][77]
In 895/896, under the leadership of Árpád, some Hungarians crossed the Carpathians and entered the Carpathian Basin. The tribe called Megyer was the leading tribe of the Hungarian alliance that conquered the centre of the basin. At the same time (c. 895), due to their involvement in the 894–896 Bulgaro-Byzantine war, Hungarians in Etelköz were attacked by Bulgaria and then by their old enemies the Pechenegs. The Bulgarians won the decisive battle of Southern Buh. It is uncertain whether or not those conflicts contributed to the Hungarian departure from Etelköz.
From the upper Tisza region of the Carpathian Basin, the Hungarians intensified their campaigns across continental Europe. In 900, they moved from the upper Tisza river to Transdanubia, which later became the core of the arising Hungarian state. By 902, the borders were pushed to the South-Moravian Carpathians and the Principality of Moravia collapsed.[78] At the time of the Hungarian migration, the land was inhabited only by a sparse population of Slavs, numbering about 200,000,[47] who were either assimilated or enslaved by the Hungarians.[47]
Archaeological findings (e.g. in the Polish city of Przemyśl) suggest that many Hungarians remained to the north of the Carpathians after 895/896.[79] There is also a consistent Hungarian population in Transylvania, the Székelys, who comprise 40% of the Hungarians in Romania.[80][81] The Székely people's origin, and in particular the time of their settlement in Transylvania, is a matter of historical controversy.
The Pope approved Hungarian settlement in the area when their leaders converted to Christianity, and Stephen I (Szent István, or Saint Stephen) was crowned King of Hungary in 1001. The century between the arrival of the Hungarians from the eastern European plains and the consolidation of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1001 was dominated by pillaging campaigns across Europe, from Dania (Denmark) to the Iberian Peninsula (contemporary Spain and Portugal).[citation needed] After the acceptance of the nation into Christian Europe under Stephen I, Hungary served as a bulwark against further invasions from the east and south, especially by the Turks.
At this time, the Hungarian nation numbered around 400,000 people.[47]
Early modern period
The first accurate measurements of the population of the Kingdom of Hungary including ethnic composition were carried out in 1850–51. There is a debate among Hungarian and non-Hungarian (especially Slovak and Romanian) historians about the possible changes in the ethnic structure of the region throughout history. Some historians support the theory that the proportion of Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin was at an almost constant 80% during the Middle Ages.[84][85][86][87][88] Non-Hungarians numbered hardly more than 20% to 25% of the total population.[84] The Hungarian population began to decrease only at the time of the Ottoman conquest,[84][85][88] reaching as low as around 39% by the end of the 18th century.
The decline of the Hungarians was due to the constant wars, Ottoman raids, famines, and plagues during the 150 years of Ottoman rule.[84][85][88] The main zones of war were the territories inhabited by the Hungarians, so the death toll depleted them at a much higher rate than among other nationalities.[84][88] In the 18th century, their proportion declined further because of the influx of new settlers from Europe, especially Slovaks, Serbs and Germans.[89] In 1715 (after the Ottoman occupation), the Southern Great Plain was nearly uninhabited but now has 1.3 million inhabitants, nearly all of them Hungarians. As a consequence, having also the Habsburg colonization policies, the country underwent a great change in ethnic composition as its population more than tripled to 8 million between 1720 and 1787, while only 39% of its people were Hungarians, who lived primarily in the centre of the country.[84][85][86][88]
19th century to present
In the 19th century, the proportion of Hungarians in the Kingdom of Hungary rose gradually, reaching over 50% by 1900 due to higher natural growth and Magyarization. Between 1787 and 1910 the number of ethnic Hungarians rose from 2.3 million to 10.2 million, accompanied by the resettlement of the Great Hungarian Plain and Délvidék by mainly Roman Catholic Hungarian settlers from the northern and western counties of the Kingdom of Hungary. Spontaneous assimilation was an important factor, especially among the German and Jewish minorities and the citizens of the bigger towns. On the other hand, about 1.5 million people (about two-thirds non-Hungarian) left the Kingdom of Hungary between 1890–1910 to escape from poverty.[90]
The years 1918 to 1920 were a turning point in the Hungarians' history. By the Treaty of Trianon, the Kingdom had been cut into several parts, leaving only a quarter of its original size. One-third of the Hungarians became minorities in the neighbouring countries.[91] During the remainder of the 20th century, the Hungarians population of Hungary grew from 7.1 million (1920) to around 10.4 million (1980), despite losses during the Second World War and the wave of emigration after the attempted revolution in 1956.
The number of Hungarians in the neighbouring countries tended to remain the same or slightly decreased, mostly due to assimilation (sometimes forced; see Slovakization and Romanianization)[92][93][94] and to emigration to Hungary (in the 1990s, especially from Transylvania and Vojvodina). After the "baby boom" of the 1950s (Ratkó era), a serious demographic crisis began to develop in Hungary and its neighbours.[95] The Hungarian population reached its maximum in 1980, then began to decline.[95]
For historical reasons (see Treaty of Trianon), significant Hungarian minority populations can be found in the surrounding countries, most of them in Romania (in Transylvania), Slovakia, and Serbia (in Vojvodina). Sizable minorities live also in Ukraine (in Transcarpathia), Croatia (primarily Slavonia), and Austria (in Burgenland). Slovenia is also host to a number of ethnic Hungarians, and Hungarian language has an official status in parts of the Prekmurje region. Today more than two million ethnic Hungarians live in nearby countries.[96]
There was a referendum in Hungary in December 2004 on whether to grant Hungarian citizenship to Hungarians living outside Hungary's borders (i.e. without requiring a permanent residence in Hungary). The referendum failed due to insufficient voter turnout. On 26 May 2010, Hungary's Parliament passed a bill granting dual citizenship to ethnic Hungarians living outside of Hungary. Some neighboring countries with sizable Hungarian minorities expressed concerns over the legislation.[97]
Modern Hungarians stand out as linguistically isolated in Europe, despite their genetic similarity to the surrounding populations. The population of the Carpathian Basin has the common European gene-pool which formed in the Bronze Age through the admixture of three sources: Western Hunter-Gatherers, who were the first Homo sapiens appearing in Paleolithic Europe, Neolithic farmers originating from Anatolia, and Yamnaya steppe migrants that arrived in the late Neolithic to early Bronze Age. This common European gene pool in the Carpathian Basin, has been overlaid by migration waves originating from the east since the Iron Age.[39] According to genetic studies, the Carpathian Basin was continuously inhabited from at least the Bronze Age.[98][39] There is a genetic continuity from the Bronze Age, a continuous migration of the Steppe folks from east to the Carpathian Basin.[99][39] The foundational population of the Carpathian Basin carrying the common European gene pool remained in a significant majority throughout the migratory periods in the Carpathian Basin.[39] During the 9th century BC, smaller groups of pre-Scythians (Cimmerians) of the Mezőcsát culture appeared. The classic Scythian culture spread across the Great Hungarian Plain between the 7th–6th century BC, their genetic data represent the genetic profile of the local European population. The Sarmatians arrived in multiple waves from 50 BC, leaving a significant archaeological heritage behind, the examined Sarmatian individuals genetically also belong to the genetic legacy of the local European population. Various groups of Asian origin settled in the Carpathian Basin, such as Huns, Avars, Hungarian conquerors, Pechenegs, Jazyg people, and Cumans. The military leadership of the European Huns descended from the Asian Huns (Xiongnus), while the majority of them consisted of subjugated Germanic and Sarmatian populations. The most significant influx of genes from Asia occurred during the Avar period, arriving in multiple waves. The ruling elite of the Avars originated from the Rouran Khaganate in Mongolia, but a significant portion of the masses they brought in consisted of mixed-origin populations that had emerged in the Pontic-Caspian steppe during the Hunnic era.[39] Foundation of the Hungarian state is connected to the Hungarian conquerors, who arrived from the Pontic steppes as a confederation of seven tribes.[71][72] According to genetic study, the proto-Ugric groups were part of the Scytho-Siberian societies in the late Bronze Age to early Iron Age steppe-forest zone in the northern Kazakhstan region, near of the Mezhovskaya culture territory. The ancestors of the Hungarian conquerors lived in the steppe zone during the Bronze Age together with the Mansis. During the Iron Age, the Mansis migrated northward, while the ancestor of Hungarian conquerors remained at the steppe-forest zone and admixed with the Sarmatians. Later the ancestors of the Hungarian conquerors admixed with the Huns, this admixture happened before the arrival of the Huns to the Volga region in 370. The Huns integrated local tribes east of the Urals, among them Sarmatians and the ancestors of the Hungarian conquerors.[65][39] The Hungarians arrived in the frame of a strong centralized steppe-empire under the leadership of Grand Prince Álmos and his son Árpád, they became founders of the Árpád dynasty, the Hungarian ruling dynasty and the Hungarian state. The Árpád dynasty claimed to be a direct descendant of the great Hun leader Attila.[100][71][72] The elite of the conquering Hungarians established the Hungarian state, genetic studies revealed, the conqueror elite in both sexes has approximately 30% Eastern Eurasian components, while the commoner population appears to have carried the overlaid local European gene pool from previous eastern immigrations.[39] In medieval Hungary, a legend developed based on foreign and Hungarian medieval chronicles that the Hungarians, and the Székely ethnic group in particular, are descended from the Huns. The basic premise of the Hungarian medieval chronicle tradition was that the Huns, i.e. the Hungarians coming out twice from Scythia, the guiding principle was the Hun-Hungarian continuity.[101] The 20th century mainstream scholarship dismisses a close connection between the Hungarians and Huns.[102] However, the archaeogenetics studies revealed the Hun heritage of the Hungarian conquerors, it was a significant Hun-Hungarian mixing around 300 AD, and the remaining Huns were integrated into the conquering Hungarians.[65][103][104][68] The genomic analyses of the Hungarian royal Árpád family members are in line with the reported conquering Hungarian-Hun origin of the dynasty in harmony with their Y-chromosomal phylogenetic connections.[105] According to the growing archaeological evidence that the Avar population lived through the period of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin. The Carpathian Basin was demonstrably not empty when the Hungarian conquerors led by Árpád arrived. The conquering Hungarians mixed to varying degrees on individual level with the Avar population living in the Carpathian Basin, but they had Avar genetic heritage as well.[98] According to Endre Neparáczki, it is no longer possible to narrow down the Hungarian population of the Carpathian Basin only of people of Árpád.[98] Following the devastations caused by the Mongol and Turkish invasions, settlers from other parts of Europe played a significant role in establishing the modern genetic makeup of the Carpathian Basin.[39]
Archeological mtDNA haplogroups show a similarity between Hungarians and Turkic-speaking Tatars and Bashkirs, while another study found a link between the Mansi and Bashkirs, suggesting that the Bashkirs are a mixture of Turkic, Ugric and Indo-European contributions. The homeland of ancient Hungarians is around the Ural Mountains, and the Hungarian affinities with the Karayakupovo culture is widely accepted among researchers.[113][114] A full genome study found that the Bashkirs display, next to their high European ancestry, also affinity to both Uralic-speaking populations of Northern Asia, as well as Inner Asian Turkic groups, "pointing to a mismatch of their cultural background and genetic ancestry and an intricacy of the historic interface between Turkic and Uralic populations".[115]
The homeland of the proto-Uralic peoples may have been close to Southern Siberia, among forest cultures in the Altai-Sayan region and may be linked to an ancestry maximized in the early Tarim mummies. The arrival of the Indo-European Afanasievo culture and Northeast Asian tribes may have caused the dispersal and expansion of proto-Uralic languages along the Seima-Turbino cultural area.[116]
Neparáczki et al. argues, based on archeogenetic results, that the historical Hungarian Conquerors were mostly a mixture of Central Asian Steppe groups, Slavic, and Germanic tribes, and this composite people evolved between 400 and 1000 AD.[117][118] According to Neparáczki: "From all recent and archaic populations tested the Volga Tatars show the smallest genetic distance to the entire Conqueror population" and "a direct genetic relation of the Conquerors to Onogur-Bulgar ancestors of these groups is very feasible."[119] Genetic data found high affinity between Magyar conquerors, the historical Bulgars, and modern day Turkic-speaking peoples in the Volga region, suggesting a possible language shifted from an Uralic (Ugric) to Turkic languages.[120]
Hunnish origin or influences on Hungarians and Székelys have always been a matter of debate among scholars. In Hungary, a legend developed based on medieval chronicles that the Hungarians, and the Székely ethnic group in particular, are descended from the Huns. However, mainstream scholarship dismisses a close connection between the Hungarians and Huns.[121][122][123] A genetic study published in Scientific Reports in November 2019 led by Neparáczki Endre had examined the remains of three males from three separate 5th century Hunnic cemeteries in the Pannonian Basin. They were found to be carrying the paternal haplogroups Q1a2, R1b1a1b1a1a1 and R1a1a1b2a2. In modern Europe, Q1a2 is rare and has its highest frequency among the Székelys. It is believed that conquering Magyars may have underwent Avar, Hunnish and Xiongnu influences.[124]
Paternal haplogroups
Hungarian males possess a high frequency of haplogroup R1a-Z280 and a low frequency of haplogroup N-Tat, which is uncommon among most Uralic-speaking populations.
In the case of the Southern Mansi males, the most frequent haplogroups were N1b-P43 (33%), N1c-L1034 (28%) and R1a-Z280 (19%).The Konda Mansi population shared common haplotypes within haplogroups R1a-Z280 or N-M46 with Hungarian speakers, which may suggest that the Hungarians were in contact with the Mansi people during their migration to the Carpathian Basin.[125]
According to a study by Pamjav, the area of Bodrogköz suggested to be a population isolate found an elevated frequency of Haplogroup N: R1a-M458 (20.4%), I2a1-P37 (19%), R1a-Z280 (14.3%), and E1b-M78 (10.2%). Various R1b-M343 subgroups accounted for 15% of the Bodrogköz population. Haplogroup N1c-Tat covered 6.2% of the lineages, but most of it belonged to the N1c-VL29 subgroup, which is more frequent among Balto-Slavic speaking than Finno-Ugric speaking peoples. Other haplogroups had frequencies of less than 5%.[126]
Among 100 Hungarian men, 90 of whom from the Great Hungarian Plain, (including Cuman descendants from Kunság region) the following haplogroups and frequencies are obtained: 30% R1a, 15% R1b, 13% I2a1, 13% J2, 9% E1b1b1a, 8% I1, 3% G2, 3% J1, 3% I*, 1% E*, 1% F*, 1% K*. The 97 Székelys belong to the following haplogroups: 20% R1b, 19% R1a, 17% I1, 11% J2, 10% J1, 8% E1b1b1a, 5% I2a1, 5% G2, 3% P*, 1% E*, 1% N.[127] It can be inferred that Szekelys have more significant German admixture. A study sampling 45 Palóc from Budapest and northern Hungary, found 60% R1a, 13% R1b, 11% I, 9% E, 2% G, 2% J2.[128] A study estimating possible Inner Asian admixture among nearly 500 Hungarians based on paternal lineages only, estimated it at 5.1% in Hungary, at 7.4 in Székelys and at 6.3% at Csángós.[129]
An analysis of Bashkir samples from the Burzyansky and Abzelilovsky districts of the Republic of Bashkortostan in the Volga-Ural region, revealed them to belong to the R1a subclade R1a-SUR51, which is shared in significant amounts with the historical Magyars and the royal Hungarian lineage, and representing the closest kin to the Hungarian Árpád dynasty, whose ancestry is traced to 4500 years ago, in modern day Northern Afghanistan.[130][131] In turn, R1a-SUR51's ancestral subclades R1a-Y2632 are found among the Saka population of the Tien Shan, date: 427-422 BC.[132]
Modern Hungarians show relative close affinity to surrounding populations, but harbour a small "Siberian" component associated with Khanty/Mansi, as well as the Nganasan people, and argued to have arrived with the historical Magyars. Modern Hungarians formed from several historical population groupings, including the historical Magyars, assimilated Slavic and Germanic groups, as well as Central Asian Steppe tribes (presumably Turkic and Iranian tribes).[42][133][115][134][39][107]
The historical Magyar genome corresponds largely with the modern Bashkirs, and can be modeled as ~50% Khanty/Mansi-like, ~35% Sarmatian-like, and ~15% Hun/Xiongnu-like. The admixture event is suggested to have taken place in the Southern Ural region at 643–431 BCE. Modern Hungarians were found to be admixed descendants of the historical Magyar conquerors with local Europeans, as 31 Hungarian samples could be modelled as two-way admixtures of "Conq_Asia_Core" and "EU_Core" in varying degrees. The historical Magyar component among modern Hungarians is estimated at an average frequency of 13%, which can be explained by the relative smaller population size of Magyar conquerors compared to local European groups.[42][133]
Ottomans, who occupied the central part of Hungary from c. 1526 until c. 1699, inevitably exerted an influence, as did the various nations (Germans/Banat Swabians, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, and others) that resettled the depopulated central and southern territories of the kingdom (roughly present-day South Hungary, Vojvodina in Serbia and Banat in Romania) after their departure. Similar to other European countries, Armenian, and Roma (Gypsy) ethnic minorities have been living in Hungary since the Middle Ages. Jews have been living in Hungary since the Roman era, as the archeological evidence of Jewish gravestones dating from this period demonstrates.
Kniezsa's (1938) view on the ethnic map of the Kingdom of Hungary in the 11th century, based on toponyms. Kniezsa's view has been criticized by many scholars, because of its non-compliance with later archaeological and onomastics research, but his map is still regularly cited in modern reliable sources. One of the most prominent critics of this map was Emil Petrovici.[136]
Ethnic map of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1495 (Magyars/Hungarians are depicted in orange)
The "Red Map",[137] based on the 1910 census. Regions with population density below 20 persons/km2 (52 persons/sqmi)[138] are left blank and the corresponding population is represented in the nearest region with population density above that limit. Red colour to mark Hungarians and light purple colour to mark Wallachians/Romanians.
Map of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1910, based on the Hungarian census of the same year. Hungarians are marked in dark green.
Ethnic map depicting the contemporary ethnic distribution of Hungarians across the Pannonian Basin (also known and referred to as the Carpathian Basin). Legend:
Hungary proper where Hungarians are the ethnic majority people
Regions outside Hungary where there are notable ethnic Hungarian minorities
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part of Scythia at the time; the Huns' arrival in Europe is associated with the migration westward of an Iranian people, the Alans. By 370 AD, the Huns had arrived on the Volga, and by 430, they had established a vast, if short-lived, dominion in Europe, conquering the Goths and many other Germanic peoples living outside of Roman borders and causing many others to flee into Roman territory.
The Slavs or Slavic people are an ethnolinguistic grouping of related ethnic groups which speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia and Oceania, incl. Israel, Japan and Australia. They predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Southeastern Europe, though there is a large Slavic minority scattered across the Baltic states, Northern Asia, and Central Asia. Continued immigration has resulted in the development of a substantial Slavic diaspora in the Americas, Western Europe, and Northern Europe incl. France, Denmark, Finland, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
The Pannonian Avars were an alliance of several groups of Eurasian nomads of various origins. The peoples were also known as the Obri in chronicles of Rus, the Abaroi or Varchonitai, or Pseudo-Avars in Byzantine sources, and the Apar to the Göktürks. They established the Avar Khaganate, which spanned the Pannonian Basin and considerable areas of Central and Eastern Europe from the late 6th to the early 9th century.
The Sarmatians were a large confederation of ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples of classical antiquity who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th century AD.
The Bashkirs or Bashkurts are a Kipchak Turkic ethnic group indigenous to Russia. They are concentrated in Bashkortostan, a republic of the Russian Federation and in the broader historical region of Badzhgard, which spans both sides of the Ural Mountains, where Eastern Europe meets North Asia. Smaller communities of Bashkirs also live in the Republic of Tatarstan, the oblasts of Perm Krai, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Tyumen, Sverdlovsk and Kurgan and other regions in Russia; sizable minorities exist in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
The Rouran Khaganate, also known as Ruanruan or Juan-juan was a tribal confederation and later state founded by a people of Proto-Mongolic Donghu origin. The Rouran supreme rulers used the title of "khagan", a popular title borrowed from the Xianbei. The Rouran Khaganate lasted from the late 4th century until the middle 6th century, when they were defeated by a Göktürk rebellion at the peak of their power, which subsequently led to the rise of the Turks in world history.
The Székelys, also referred to as Szeklers, are a Hungarian subgroup living mostly in the Székely Land in Romania. In addition to their native villages in Suceava County in Bukovina, a significant population descending from the Székelys of Bukovina currently lives in Tolna and Baranya counties in Hungary and certain districts of Vojvodina, Serbia.
The Árpád dynasty consisted of the members of the royal House of Árpád, also known as Árpáds. They were the ruling dynasty of the Principality of Hungary in the 9th and 10th centuries and of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1000 to 1301. The dynasty was named after the Hungarian Grand Prince Árpád who was the head of the Hungarian tribal federation during the conquest of the Carpathian Basin, c. 895. Previously, it was referred to as the Turul dynasty or kindred.
The Mansi are an Ugric Indigenous people living in Khanty–Mansia, an autonomous okrug within Tyumen Oblast in Russia. In Khanty–Mansia, the Khanty and Mansi languages have co-official status with Russian. The Mansi language is one of the postulated Ugric languages of the Uralic family. The Mansi people were formerly known as the Voguls.
The history of Hungarybefore the Hungarian conquest spans the time period before the Hungarian conquest in the 9th century of the territories that would become the Principality of Hungary and the Kingdom of Hungary.
Hungarian prehistory spans the period of history of the Hungarian people, or Magyars, which started with the separation of the Hungarian language from other Finno-Ugric or Ugric languages around 800 BC, and ended with the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin around 895 AD. Based on the earliest records of the Magyars in Byzantine, Western European, and Hungarian chronicles, scholars considered them for centuries to have been the descendants of the ancient Scythians and Huns. This historiographical tradition disappeared from mainstream history after the realization of similarities between the Hungarian language and the Uralic languages in the late 18th century. Thereafter, linguistics became the principal source of the study of the Hungarians' ethnogenesis. In addition, chronicles written between the 9th and 15th centuries, the results of archaeological research and folklore analogies provide information on the Magyars' early history.
South Slavs are Slavic people who speak South Slavic languages and inhabit a contiguous region of Southeast Europe comprising the eastern Alps and the Balkan Peninsula. Geographically separated from the West Slavs and East Slavs by Austria, Hungary, Romania, and the Black Sea, the South Slavs today include Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes.
Transylvania is a historical region in central and northwestern Romania. It was under the rule of the Agathyrsi, part of the Dacian Kingdom, Roman Dacia (106–271), the Goths, the Hunnic Empire, the Kingdom of the Gepids, the Avar Khaganate, the Slavs, and the 9th century First Bulgarian Empire. During the late 9th century, Transylvania was part of the Hungarian conquest, and the family of Gyula II of the seven chieftains of the Hungarians ruled Transylvania in the 10th century. King Stephen I of Hungary asserted his claim to rule all lands dominated by Hungarian lords, and he personally led his army against his maternal uncle Gyula III. Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1002, and it belonged to the Lands of the Hungarian Crown until 1920.
The Magyar or Hungarian tribes or Hungarian clans were the fundamental political units within whose framework the Hungarians (Magyars) lived, before the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin and the subsequent established the Principality of Hungary.
Slavs began migrating to Southeastern Europe in the mid-6th century and first decades of the 7th century in the Early Middle Ages. The rapid demographic spread of the Slavs was followed by a population exchange, mixing and language shift to and from Slavic.
The Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, also known as the Hungarian conquest or the Hungarian land-taking, was a series of historical events ending with the settlement of the Hungarians in Central Europe in the late 9th and early 10th century. Before the arrival of the Hungarians, three early medieval powers, the First Bulgarian Empire, East Francia, and Moravia, had fought each other for control of the Carpathian Basin. They occasionally hired Hungarian horsemen as soldiers. Therefore, the Hungarians who dwelt on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe east of the Carpathian Mountains were familiar with what would become their homeland when their conquest started.
Although the Hungarian language is currently widely acknowledged scientifically and by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as a member of the Uralic language family, there is a history of other theories from before and after the Uralic connection was established, as well as some fringe theories that continue to deny the connection.
As with all modern European nations, a large degree of 'biological continuity' exists between Bosnians and Bosniaks and their ancient predecessors with Y chromosomal lineages testifying to predominantly Paleolithic European ancestry. Studies based on bi-allelic markers of the NRY have shown the three main ethnic groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina to share, in spite of some quantitative differences, a large fraction of the same ancient gene pool distinct for the region. Analysis of autosomal STRs have moreover revealed no significant difference between the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina and neighbouring populations.
The origin of the Huns and their relationship to other peoples identified in ancient sources as Iranian Huns such as the Xionites, the Alchon Huns, the Kidarites, the Hephthalites, the Nezaks, and the Huna, has been the subject of long-term scholarly controversy. Ancient Greek and Roman sources do not provide any information on where the European Huns came from, besides that they suddenly appeared in 370 CE. However, there are some possible mentions of the Huns or tribes related to them that pre-date 370. Chinese sources, meanwhile, indicate several different, sometimes contradictory origins for the various "Iranian Hun" groups. In 1757, Joseph de Guignes first proposed that the Huns and the Iranian Huns were identical to the Xiongnu. The thesis was then popularized by Edward Gibbon. Since that time scholars have debated the proposal on its linguistic, historical, and archaeological merits. In the mid-twentieth century, the connection was attacked by the Sinologist Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen and largely fell out of favor. Some recent scholarship has argued in favor of some form of link, and the theory returned to the mainstream, but there is no consensus on the issue. It also remains disputed whether the various “Iranian Huns” belonged to a single or multiple ethnic groups.
R1a-SUR51 - Y-chromosomal paternal line, found in modern Bashkirs, Mishars, Hungarians and Serbs.
↑ Széchely, István (3 January 2023). "Mintha városok ürültek volna ki"[As if cities had been emptied]. Székelyhon (in Hungarian). Retrieved 24 January 2023.
↑ Discrimination in the EU in 2012(PDF). Special Eurobarometer (Report). 383. European Commission. November 2012. p.233. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2 December 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2013. The question asked was "Do you consider yourself to be...?" With a card showing: Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Other Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist, and Non-believer/Agnostic. Space was given for Other (SPONTANEOUS) and DK. Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu did not reach the 1% threshold.
↑ "Magyar". Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
↑ OED, s. v. "Ugrian": "Ugri, the name given by early Russian writers to a Finno-Ugric people dwelling east of the Ural Mountains".
↑ Köpeczi, Béla; Makkai, László; Mócsy, András; Kiralý, Béla K.; Kovrig, Bennett; Szász, Zoltán; Barta, Gábor (2001). Transylvania in the medieval Hungarian kingdom (896–1526) (Volume 1 of History of Transylvaniaed.). New York: Social Science Monographs, University of Michigan, Columbia University Press, East European Monographs. pp.415–416. ISBN0880334797.
↑ A MAGYAROK TÜRK MEGNEVEZÉSE BÍBORBANSZÜLETETT KONSTANTINOS DE ADMINISTRANDOIMPERIO CÍMÛ MUNKÁJÁBAN – Takács Zoltán Bálint, SAVARIAA VAS MEGYEI MÚZEUMOK ÉRTESÍTÕJE28 SZOMBATHELY, 2004, pp. 317–333
↑ Róna-Tas, András (1999). Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages. p.273.
↑ Nora Berend; Przemysław Urbańczyk; Przemysław Wiszewski (2013). "Hungarian 'pre-history' or 'ethnogenesis'?". Central Europe in the High Middle Ages: Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, c.900–c.1300. Cambridge University Press. p.62.
↑ Róna-Tas, András (1999). Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages. p.96.
1 2 3 4 Szabados, György (May 2022). "Álmostól Szent Istvánig"[From Álmos to Saint Stephen]. Rubicon (Hungarian Historical Information Dissemination) (in Hungarian).
1 2 3 Bóna, István (2001). "Conquest, Settlement, and Raids". History of Transylvania Volume I. From the Beginnings to 1606 - II. From Dacia to Erdőelve: Transylvania in the Period of the Great Migrations (271-896) - 7. Transylvania in the Period of the Hungarian Conquest and Foundation of a State. New York: Columbia University Press, (The Hungarian original by Institute of History Of The Hungarian Academy of Sciences). ISBN0-88033-479-7.
↑ Kosáry Domokos, Bevezetés a magyar történelem forrásaiba és irodalmába 1, p. 29
↑ Tóth, Sándor László (1998). Levédiától a Kárpát-medencéig[From Levedia to the Carpathian Basin] (in Hungarian). Szegedi Középkorász Műhely. ISBN963-482-175-8.
↑ Kovrig, Bennett (2000), Partitioned nation: Hungarian minorities in Central Europe, in: Michael Mandelbaum (ed.), The new European Diasporas: National Minorities and Conflict in Eastern Europe, New York City: Council on Foreign Relations Press, pp. 19–80.
↑ Raffay Ernő: A vajdaságoktól a birodalomig. Az újkori Románia története (From voivodeships to the empire. The modern history of Romania). Publishing house JATE Kiadó, Szeged, 1989, pp. 155–156)
↑ Keyser, Christine; Zvénigorosky, Vincent; Gonzalez, Angéla; Fausser, Jean-Luc; Jagorel, Florence; Gérard, Patrice; Tsagaan, Turbat; Duchesne, Sylvie; Crubézy, Eric; Ludes, Bertrand (30 July 2020). "Genetic evidence suggests a sense of family, parity and conquest in the Xiongnu Iron Age nomads of Mongolia". Springer Nature. 140 (2): 349–359. doi:10.1007/s00439-020-02209-4. PMID32734383. S2CID253981964. East Eurasian R1a subclades R1a1a1b2a-Z94 and R1a1a1b2a2-Z2124 were a common element of the Hun, Avar and Hungarian Conqueror elite and very likely belonged to the branch that was observed in our Xiongnu samples. Moreover, haplogroups Q1a and N1a were also major components of these nomadic groups, reinforcing the view that Huns (and thus Avars and Hungarian invaders) might derive from the Xiongnu as was proposed until the eighteenth century but strongly disputed since.
↑ Engel, Pál (2001). Ayton, Andrew (ed.). The realm of St. Stephen: a history of medieval Hungary, 895 - 1526. International library of historical studies. London: Tauris. ISBN978-1-86064-061-2.
↑ "J . SZŰCS: THEORETICAL ELEMENTS IN MASTER SIMON OF KÉZA'S GESTA HUNGARORUM (1282-1285)", Gesta Hungarorum, Central European University Press, pp.xxix–cii, 1 January 1999, doi:10.1515/9789633865699-005, ISBN978-963-386-569-9
↑ Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (31 December 1973). Knight, Max (ed.). "The World of the Huns". University of California Press: 386. doi:10.1525/9780520310773. ISBN9780520310773.
↑ Keyser et al. 2020, pp.1, 8–9. "[O]ur findings confirmed that the Xiongnu had a strongly admixed mitochondrial and Y-chromosome gene pools and revealed a significant western component in the Xiongnu group studied.... [W]e propose Scytho-Siberians as ancestors of the Xiongnu and Huns as their descendants... [E]ast Eurasian R1a subclades R1a1a1b2a-Z94 and R1a1a1b2a2-Z2124 were a common element of the Hun, Avar and Hungarian Conqueror elite and very likely belonged to the branch that was observed in our Xiongnu samples. Moreover, haplogroups Q1a and N1a were also major components of these nomadic groups, reinforcing the view that Huns (and thus Avars and Hungarian invaders) might derive from the Xiongnu as was proposed until the eighteenth century but strongly disputed since... Some Xiongnu paternal and maternal haplotypes could be found in the gene pool of the Huns, the Avars, as well as Mongolian and Hungarian conquerors."
↑ Pamjav, Horolma; Fóthi, Á.; Fehér, T.; Fóthi, Erzsébet (1 August 2017). "A study of the Bodrogköz population in north-eastern Hungary by Y chromosomal haplotypes and haplogroups". Molecular Genetics and Genomics. 292 (4): 883–894. doi:10.1007/s00438-017-1319-z. PMID28409264. S2CID10107799.
↑ Csányi, B.; Bogácsi-Szabó, E.; Tömöry, Gy.; Czibula, Á.; Priskin, K.; Csõsz, A.; Mende, B.; Langó, P.; Csete, K.; Zsolnai, A.; Conant, E. K.; Downes, C. S.; Raskó, I. (July 2008). "Y-Chromosome Analysis of Ancient Hungarian and Two Modern Hungarian-Speaking Populations from the Carpathian Basin". Annals of Human Genetics. 72 (4): 519–534. doi:10.1111/j.1469-1809.2008.00440.x. PMID18373723. S2CID13217908.
↑ Bíró, András; Fehér, Tibor; Bárány, Gusztáv; Pamjav, Horolma (March 2015). "Testing Central and Inner Asian admixture among contemporary Hungarians". Forensic Science International: Genetics. 15: 121–126. doi:10.1016/j.fsigen.2014.11.007. PMID25468443.
↑ Nagy, P.L.; Olasz, J.; Neparáczki, E.; etal. (2020), "Determination of the phylogenetic origins of the Árpád Dynasty based on Y chromosome sequencing of Béla the Third", European Journal of Human Genetics, 29 (1): 164–172, doi:10.1038/s41431-020-0683-z, PMC7809292, PMID32636469
1 2 Maróti, Zoltán; Neparáczki, Endre; Schütz, Oszkár; Maár, Kitti; Varga, Gergely I. B.; Kovács, Bence; Kalmár, Tibor; Nyerki, Emil; Nagy, István; Latinovics, Dóra; Tihanyi, Balázs (20 January 2022). "Whole genome analysis sheds light on the genetic origin of Huns, Avars and conquering Hungarians". bioRxiv10.1101/2022.01.19.476915.
Korai Magyar Történeti Lexicon (9–14. század) (Encyclopedia of the Early Hungarian History (9th–14th Centuries)) Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó; 753. ISBN963-05-6722-9.
Szűcs, Jenő (1999). "Theoretical Elements in Master Simon of Kéza's Gesta Hungarorum (1282–1285)". In László Veszprémy; Frank Schaer (eds.). Simon of Kéza: Deeds of the Hungarians. Central European University Press. pp.xxix–cii.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.