Origins of the Hungarians

located in the heart of Europe the Hungarian people have played an important part in the history of the region yet are one of the few peoples of Europe not to speak in Indo-European language their identity has from time to time become a hotly debated Topic in the media sometimes they're called the descendants of the Huns at other times a lost tribe of the Finns but who really are the hungarians [Music] hi friends I'm Kevin McLean don't forget to like subscribe and consider supporting me on patreon or PayPal you gain access to exclusive content can message me directly and make video requests the name of Hungary is misleading because it appears similar to that of the earlier Huns who in the 4th and 5th Century came to situate themselves in the pannonian Basin where the Hungarian people would also later settle many medieval hungarians believe themselves to be related to the Huns but the name Hungary doesn't originate from them some believe that the name Hungary comes from the onagers the ethnic name for a grouping of turkic peoples who were linked to the bulgars who migrated West and formed the Old State of Bulgaria but the hungarians do not speak a Turkish language and the identification with the onagers may have been incorrectly foisted upon them by Byzantine and Roman Scholars due to a similarity of an earlier ethnic name and the practice by these Scholars of erroneously calling the magyar's Turks the name that hungarians call themselves is in the plural and the country majiro zag it is of uralic origin distantly related to Finnish and Estonian but more closely connected to the ugrian language spoken by peoples who reside in Siberia where Mansi and Kanti are still spoken by about 30 000 people in the region of kansi Mansi autonomous in the Russian Federation the people of that region have been known as the ugra since the earliest Russian records this is curiously close to the name ungri or ugri recorded by early sources as a name for the hungarians the ancient Greek historian Herodotus may have recorded their name as urugi when groups of these Forest dwelling ugrian Hunters began to move out of the forest steps sometime in the Bronze Age it was the Catalyst for a change in lifestyle one which would eventually lead to the birth of the people later known as magyars early Indo-European peoples in the region appear to have influenced these first step ugrian peoples during the Bronze Age some very archaic Hungarian words are of Indo-European origin horse LOL and honey Maize are of tokarian origin the tokarians were an early Eastward moving Indo-European group closely related to the yamnaya culture who dwelt on the steplands of Ukraine and Russia the tokorians must have resided for a time in the region of the urals perhaps associated with the afanasievo culture dated between 3300 and 2500 BCE this dates the interaction between uralic peoples and indo-europeans to one of the earliest periods of Indo-European expansion they introduced the ugrian peoples to the horse but also the forms of counting in high numbers the number 100 in all uralic languages is derived from proto-indo-iranian it was perhaps these early interactions with Indo-European step populations that inspired some of the ugrian peoples to adopt that lifestyle of the indo-europeans and move on to the step a recent genetic study by fourthy et al called genetic analysis of male Hungarian conquerors European and Asian paternal lineages of the Conquering Hungarian tribes has shown that the plurality 37.5 percent of original Magyar conquerors of Hungary possessed the n3a-l708 Y male haplogroup derived from the ugrian peoples of the urals the second most prominent was g2a l156 possessed by various Caucasian and iranian-speaking peoples and the third most prominent haplo group was r1a Dash Z93 associated with ancient east Iranian ancestry but finally in July 2022 Zoltan marotti at all published the genetic origins of Huns avars and conquering hungarians where full spectrum analysis was finally completed on these three populations it demonstrated that in the late Bronze Age the ancestors of the magyars who dwelt in the Ural Forest step was integrating genetically and culturally with the period of the rise of the sarmations around 600 BC and received the further edition of mancy scythian and hun ancestry between approximately 200 and 300 CE at the time of the hunnic expansion West the early Hungarian conquerors of the Carpathian Basin are classified broadly in the study as 50 percent mancy 35 percent early to late sarmation and 15 percent schizo Siberian or shungnu Han ancestries in comparative analysis they group together with modern bash gears and Volga tatars it concludes that this mixture of genetic ancestry corresponds best to the Dynamics of the Ural Forest step as the region where the magyars first developed this area was home to the Bronze Age proto-indo-iranian syntasta culture followed by the indo-iranian androvino culture which spread indo-iranian languages all across the steplands from the borders of Mongolia and down into India from the late Bronze Age the magyars were in close contact with Iranian peoples and likely they adopted the step lifestyle from them if this hypothesis is true we would expect to find many words in the Hungarian vocabulary of Iranian origin and we do many Hungarian words are of course native to uralic languages however not an insignificant number of words come from an ancient Iranian source the tense in which the later magyars lived called the sator a word acquired by both magyars and Turks from an Iranian language compared into Iranian meaning a covering the words for cow tahin milk they meat cheese shite all very important parts of the step lifestyle are derived from ancient Iranian the magyars carried both bow and sword and while the word for Beau is native to uralic sword card is cognate with osetian and Persian karate of the same meaning shirt Customs Castle Market bad smell to pay are all of Iranian origin kutia dog is also from ancient Iranian kuta the color green is of Iranian origin the numbers 10. hundred and thousand are also borrowed from Iranian gold silver Rich Gus dug Bridge [Music] young man legging even beer should from proto-indo-iranian Surah meaning an alcoholic drink these are just some of a wide range of words borrowed from Iranian languages it demonstrates significant early connections between the magyars and Iranians just as recent genetic Studies have demonstrated many of these words are connected to step lifestyle strongly suggesting they adopted that lifestyle from Iranians medieval myths of the origins of the magyars seem to correspond to the recent genetic studies the most fantastic account says that menroth a giant son of Thana of the seed of japhet began to build the Tower of Babel with his brothers when God cursed the tower and brought it down menroth the giant went into the lands of everleth which was the name of Persia at that time there by his wife eneth he had two sons honor and mogor from hunur came all the Huns and from mogor all the magyars menroth also had other Sons with other wives and those Sons remained in Persia resembling the Huns and stature and complexion but differing in speech as the Saxons from the thringunes the two eldest Brothers set out hunting and chased a white deer into the minotian swamps an old name for the wet region near the dawn River where it flows into the sea of Azeroth they lose track of the deer but they decide that they should make this place their home they abduct two women the daughters of the king of the alons and made them their wives and from these Atlantic princesses all the Huns and magyars descended after living north of the Caucasus for five years they'd grow in power and decide to move across the river into the steps at least some medieval magyars believed that they were closely related to both Iranians and Hans and recent genetic studies proved that they were right medieval hungarians describe Attila whom they believe was related to them as being darker of Hugh suggesting that they were aware of these features in their own history or even still possessed at that time as a genetically group with modern Volga tatars and Bash gears they would have had a similar physical appearance these characteristics were lost as they blended into the central European genetic pool over the centuries though there are still some six percent of male Y haplogroups in Hungary that can be traced directly back to the man sea people the proto-magyars are the Bronze Age where likely Those whom archaeologists identify as the measure of skya culture influenced by the earlier proto-indo-iranian androvino culture in the Bronze Age they dwelled in the forest steps near the urals they were likely semi-nomadic moving between winter homes and summer pastures for their winter locations they built small wooden houses in villages of approximately 10 to 15 houses and also produced metal artifacts hunting and fishing were very important to them they buried their dead and mounds lined with Timber with their heads facing Northwest alongside remnants of funeral feasting sometimes weapons or tools and other grave Goods by the time of our historical sources the magyars are described as being intensely warlike they would have needed to be in order to survive the Hostile competitive environment surrounded by scythians described by ancient Greeks as the most warlike of people Emperor Leo VI described them as only the nation of the bulgarians and also that of the magyars give thought to similar military organizations which make them stronger than the other scythian nations as they engage in close combat under one Commander the magyars and their battle formations differ from the bulgarians a little or not at all the Mad guys are very numerous and independent more than on wealth and other forms of extravagance they focus their attention only on conducting themselves bravely against their own enemies he further says that they are skilled at surprise attacks subterfuge and disrupting supply lines that they wear armor carried bows swords and lances and make great use of bows on horseback their horses are often armored at the front with metal or quilted armor and when an enemy they are fighting breaks they pursue without respite seeking to kill every last opponent he says that these traits are identical to the bulgars and the reason for that is because they share the same step culture which was more or less Universal to the region and not specific to a particular ethnic group that the magyars preserve their ugrik language despite living in close proximity with powerful and War inclined scythians for so long suggests that they were allied with them it would also explain how a large contribution of sarmatian ancestry was not accompanied by a language shift some of these new additions of course would have been women the word for wife woman or lady is Iranian in origin however it was not only women there is an archaic word for lad or young man which is also of Iranian origin it's possible that this originates from the practice of giving hostages upon making alliances another Factor would be the receiving of Runaways whenever Iranian peoples would have a factional fight the survivors of the defeated faction would have to flee on this step there's nowhere to hide except within other groups some of these people would have went to the magyars agreed to become part of their tribe and adopt their language as a means of saving their lives this process isn't just hypothetical for the exact same thing as recorded in the later history of the magyars now our earliest historical account that may refer to the hungarians is to be found in the work of Herodotus buried within his description of scythia after one has crossed the river tennis the country is no longer scythia but the first of the divisions belonged to the sarumatai who beginning at the corner of the maotian lake occupied land extending towards the north wind 15 days journey and holy bear of trees both cultivated and Wild above these holding the next division of land dwell The budinoi Who occupy a land wholly overgrown with forests consisting of all kinds of trees then beyond the bhutanoi towards the North First there is a desert for seven days journey and after the desert turning aside somewhat more to the East Wind we come to the land occupied by the thesagittai and numerous people and have separate race from the others these live by hunting and bordering upon them are settled also in the same region men who are called yurkai who also live by hunting which they practice in the following manner the hunter climbs up a tree and lies and wait there for his game now trees are abundant in all this country and each has a horse at hand which has been taught to lie down upon its belly in order to make itself low and also a dog and when he sees the wild animal from the tree he first shoots his arrow and then mounts upon his horse and pursues it and the dog sees his hold of it above these in a direction towards the east dwell other scythians who have revolted from the Royal scythians and so have come to this region this geography is a bit complex to work out but the myotian lake is the ancient Greek name for the Sea of Azeroth and the river tanayas is the Greek name for the dawn River from the same Indo-European root upon which the ancient Greek settlement of tanayas was located the urkai whom Herodotus name seems to mean the ugri the ethnic group to which the magyars belong later in the work he gives an account of Distance by saying that it would take 10 days to travel from the Nipper to the dawn which is about 300 kilometers in a straight line the distance to the Western Euro region from the corner of the maorian lake is about 1200 kilometers far exceeding the distance that Herodotus calculated meaning this is not the location that he meant he also makes no mention of crossing a river other than the dawn though he does mention the Volga later on showing that he knows its existence and its General location therefore the urukai must have been dwelling north of the dawn on the west side of the Volga during herodotus's time this is also why he primarily talks about heading north and a little East basically following the course of the Volga if this was where the magyars were located during this time it would not be surprising the summations dominated the region west of the Euros and they would begin pressing even further west incorporating all the scythians of the pondic step over the next few hundred years archaeological climate Studies have shown a serious arid shift on the steps east of the Euros at exactly this time and the Eastern Iranian tribes were seeking greener pastures quite literally we cannot of course be sure that Herodotus is describing the magyars at all but all of our other much later sources point to the magyars being present in much the same region west of the Volga one greatly misunderstood account are the magyars is by IBN rusta and he recounts between the country the petonex and the country of the eshko which belongs to the bulgars lies the first of the Magyar Frontiers their territory is vast extending to the Black Sea into which two rivers flow one larger than the axis their campsites are located between these two rivers they lorded over all the Slavs who neighbor them and impose a heavy tribute on them these sloths are completely at their Mercy like prisoners the bulgars that IBN is speaking of are not residing in the region of the modern state of Bulgaria but those who dwell near the Volga which he describes just prior to talking about the magyars the bull guys border the lands of the burdas they are camped on the bank of a river that flows into the Caspian and it's called the ITIL they live between the khazars and the sequalava the region is marshy and thickly forested in the middle of which camps the population they are composed of three hordes the barsula the ashku and the bulgars all living together in one place it is absolutely clear that when IBN travels to the lands of the magyars they are between the Western banks of the Volga and the Sea of Azeroth IBN records that the bulgars called the Volga River the ITIL this is the same name which the magyars knew it by although they may have also called the dawn River at times by the name Ethel the illuminated Chronicle says the region of scythia is located in Europe and spreads Eastward on one side the North Sea on the other the rafaeus bounded by mountains Asia on the East and the antil River on the west that is the dawn the dawn is a big river which originates in scythia and the hungarians call it etil it flows through the snow-covered mountains bordering the Flatlands and then changes its name to Dawn the course of the river described is actually a description of the Volga but to the hungarians that Dawn was considered only a southern offshoot of the Volga and both Rivers may have been known as etil at least in this later source the Volga River gives its name to the legendary living place of the magyars the ethercos recorded in all Hungarian accounts it must refer to the area between the Dawn and the Volga antil means the Volga River cause means something like Gap or space and in relation to Rivers it specifically means the area between two rivers [Music] emperor Constantine VII recorded that the magyars had of old then dwelling next to the kazars in a place called Liberia this location can be identified as the khazars dwelt along the Caspian Sea at the mouth of the Volga and laberias derived from an old name for the location of the maotian swamp the wet region around the dawn River in the illuminated Chronicle the legendary account of the origins of the magyars says one day after honor and mugur went hunting a stag in the wilderness appeared before them this they chased into the marshes of the maotes however when he completely disappeared from them there they searched a long time but there was no way they could find him then they wandered into the Marshland and found it to be suitable for grazing flocks so they returned to their father and received permission from him and they entered them out his marshes with all their goods and there they stayed that this place is believed to have been their original Homeland likely means they resided there for a long period of time both the ethelkos and lebedia may refer to the same place or labettia is a region south of the Dawn and the ethelkos is the region north of the Dawn along the west side of the Volga further proof If any is needed is to be found in a mythical tale retold by Herodotus he says that when the children of the scythian blind slaves were fleeing from them after having visited the medes they dug a great trench extending from the tautic mountains to the widest part of the myotian lake he later adds these reach southwards to the todic lands and eastwards to the trench which those who were begotten of the blind slave dug and to the trading station which is called kremnoy upon the myotian lake so what is this trench exactly the children of the blind slaves were coming up from the caucuses fleeing towards the tonic mountains which are those which run along the south of Crimea the land of Crimea used to be named for them there is a small Strait where an ancient Greek trading city was located named Kirk crem Noe refers to the edge of a trench or a cliff in ancient Greek it's the origin of the name Crimea taken through a Turkish version of the Greek the great trench then is nothing else than the Carrick Strait this small division between the Southeastern tip of Crimea Doug in mythical Tales by an ancient people in order to cut off Crimea from the mainland to save their lives from the scythians now compare that tale to the remarks made by IBN rusta a thousand years later they make per radical raids on the Slavs and follow the coast with their captives to a port in Byzantine territory named Carrick it said that the kazars used to be protected from Attack by the magyars and other neighboring peoples by a ditch when the magyars bring their prisoners to Carrick the Greeks go there to trade the magyars sell their slaves and they buy by Byzantine brocade Woolen rugs and other products at the Byzantine Empire this is exactly the same story about the character straight though with details replaced and updated in place of the sons of the blind slaves it's the kazars and instead of the scythians it's the magyars and others he brings up the account in direct relation to Carrick as well the location of the trench which is the straight so that the magyars were dwelling in this region at the Dawn and the Volga is certain but for how long one confusing fact when researching the magyars is that the Romans and Byzantine sources typically call the magyar's Turks in early sources they sometimes seem to be the only ones that they call Turks while groups that actually spoke a turkic language are referred to by their tribal names in the first century CE the Roman geographer pomponio smela recorded a people that he called the turkai and he located them north and east of the Sea of Azeroth just above the thyssagetai this appears to have been a mistaken correction of herodotus's Uruguay who dwelled north of the thyssagetai somewhere beyond the maotian sea Mello was extremely influential and his work remained in circulation well into the medieval period and it's likely that his identification of these people as turkai is the reason why Greeks and Romans always call the magyars Turks if this is the explanation then the magyars may have been dwelling on the west side of the Volga since the first century CE or even since Herodotus wrote his histories such a long dwelling period in that same region seems to be the origin for all of the Hungarian myths saying that they originated in this place emperor Constantine VII records that the magars were composed of seven tribes a detail echoed by later Hungarian accounts those seven tribes were according to IBN rusta led by an over King called the Kenda and a military commander the Gula at least the position of the Kenda may have been of turkic origin as IBN fadlan records that the khazars had a title called the kundur when the magyars were part of the khazar cognate the Kenda was likely a leader selected from the Magyar Elite by the khazar Khan to represent and command the magyars on his behalf the Hungarian accounts record exactly such a process in which the khazar Khan was responsible for selecting Alamos father of arapat to lead the magyars the emperor also recalls that at one time the khazars had a civil war and after being defeated the kabarue who were of the race of the khazars fled to the magyars these cabarroy became the friends of the magars and were adopted into their Nation being an honorary eighth tribe and they taught them their language so that the magyars spoke their own language and the language of the khazars that language was turkic this account is perhaps confirmed by the later Hungarian account where kumuns subjugate themselves to Lord Alamos and join the magyars before they Venture into pannonia it says that their descendants still live in various places in Hungary they also claim that many Russians join them at the same time but there is an opposite Trend that's recorded where the magyars were defeated in battle by the pechinex and forced to relocate they split into two groups one group went West and would eventually settle in modern Hungary but the other group went East into Persia it said that even in the 10th Century the hungarians would still send Merchants into Persia to trade and exchange messages with this other former part of their Nation called the sabaratoi nobody is quite sure who exactly these people were but as they decided to reside in Persia perhaps they were tribes of an Iranian background [Music] of their beliefs The Traveler IBN rusta said the magyaras are pagans worshiping fire while their beliefs were certainly more complex than this fire must have been of central importance as IBN was a Persian he may have had Zoroastrianism in mind many peoples on this step would have been influenced at some point by the customs of the Iranians from whose ancient beliefs Zoroastrianism emerged a law passed after the introduction of Christianity to the hungarians and it forbade sacrifice to trees rocks and Springs sometimes this is said to prove they were animus but the distinction between paganism and animism seems more of an intellectual creation than reality indo-europeans also sacrificed the spirits of the dead and spirits that dwelt in rocks trees and springs after all most likely the core of the Magyar religion is to be rooted in the beliefs of the man see people some of those beliefs are that the cosmos is divided into three levels upper middle and under the upper world where the sun and moon dwell is controlled by the God sometimes called nuntoramas the God above who directs human destiny the middle layer is inhabited by humans and other Spirit entities which are a mix of good and bad while the lower realm is inhabited by bad spirits and the cool author the underworld God now some Spirits go to reside on an island in the far north for a time and others are reborn still others reside at their burial places and are given respect there they also pay great respect to Totem animals from which they believe to have descended not unlike the Hungarian tale of the mother of Almos being impregnated by the total bird old man wind is the name of the wind God son woman is the sun goddess old man moon is the moon God and this word old man comes from us and the Hungarian word for God ishten is formed from the root OS meaning very old ancient and in the plural ancestors or forefathers so the term for God in Hungarian is derived from a title which is also applied to gods in the man see Pagan traditions the mad girls had a Seer priest called the taltos who made sacrifices practice divination and undertook shamanistic Otherworld Journeys the Andalusian medieval traveler Abu Hamed el-garnati traveled into the far north of Russia and lived for a time with the volda bulgars he says the merchants report that darkness is not far from them and that the people of Ura go there and enter into it with torches and find a huge tree there which is like a big Village but on top of the tree sits a large creature they say is a bird and they bring merchandise along and each Merchant sets down his Goods apart from those of the others and he makes a mark on them and leaves but when he comes back he finds Commodities they are necessary for his own country this seems to be an account of an other world Journey to the world tree where the traveler wins Boons from the god the bird perched on this world tree is known as turu in the Hungarian traditions total appeared in the dream of MSA the mother of Alamos either impregnating her in the dream or is connected to his birth the belief seems to be related to the totem animal of the ugrian people and how the progenitors of tribes were believed to be specific creatures the bird has strong similarities to the Persian simotic which bestows fertility on the land and is perched upon the hometry which stands in the middle of the world sea the Iranian far the Divine Aura and Authority possessed by a rightful King is also represented as a bird which is equated with the Homa tree when Divine Authority leaves King Jamshed it flies away in the form of a bird this is similar to how the turu of Hungarian myth is linked to the rule of the Magyar Kings but what must be stated here clearly is that much of what is said about pre-christian religion of the hungarians online from organizations or even in books that may appear reputable is built on imagination and sometimes lies normally I would not be this blunt but during my research on this topic I've come across so much absolute garbage everywhere in relation to Hungarian history and pre-christian beliefs that I feel obligated to warn people in the clearest way as the Casual person may get sucked into some of this stuff there are very few sources regarding the beliefs of pagan period magyars not enough to actually reconstruct anything from and this has given rise to a factory production line of quackery so one must be very Discerning about the sources that they use if they are trying to research this topic the final migration of the magyars before entering the pannonian Basin was caused by their defeat at the hands of the petonex after this the magyars moved further west a move that was Remembered in several historical accounts one being the Russian primary Chronicle it says that they passed by Kiev crossing the nippler and set up their tents on the western side of the river in this region between the nippur and the Danube they would resign for several years before Crossing into the pannonian Basin driven by further attacks by the pechinex it was during this period that Almos father of arpad was made leader of the magyars Almos is the son of erlord meaning ancestor synonym for OS the title for a God and given the peculiarities of his birth there seems to be a kind of implication here of a divine origin of the origin of the name of his son there is an interesting connection a myth of the scythians reported by Herodotus says that this targitaos they say the parents were Zeus and the daughter of the river Nipper of him were begotten three sons and the youngest kolachas the scythian suffix Cass is attached to all of these names and it means Lord arpo is cognate with arpa meaning barley or grain in Hungarian preserved in the Iranian Pashto language as urubase or arbesi it was borrowed into both Hungarian and Turkish languages from Iranian and its use as a kingly name appears to have Iranian roots settled his people in the pannonian Basin where they ruled over a population of heterogeneous tribes though they continued their raiding and warfare traditions for a number of generations gradually the lifestyle of the step was replaced with a feudal Agricultural Society many words were adopted into Hungarian from the large Slavic population that they ruled making Slavic the second highest known source of Hungarian vocabulary they adopted Christianity and their old beliefs slowly disappeared yet the magyars maintained Rule and thus the core of the language today is not descended from those ancient people who began to form their identity along the forest steps of the Ural Mountains they assimilated the vast populations of the Carpathian Basin into their nation and those who were once Slavs Turks vlox or Iranians became magyars the genetic descendants of those conquering magyars are still among the Hungarian people today spread out and Blended together over time with the populations they ruled for being Magyar is an evolving growing living thing shaped over Generations through environment and history and it's unfortunate that this glorious history of the Hungarian people is often warped and twisted instead of being honored cherished and hailed as the immensely interesting origin that it is [Music] well I hope you found this video interesting and if you did please like share subscribe and consider supporting me on patreon or PayPal thank you all for listening and as always stand tall [Music]

Channel: Fortress of Lugh

Views: 1,071,684

Keywords: Magyars, Huns, Hungary, Scythians, Sarmatians, ancient history, legends, mythology, Hungarian history, archeology, who are the hungarians, hungarian genetics

Id: ojbXGwFlmgw

Length: 40min 13sec (2413 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 27 2022