After the lapse of many years the descendants of the two brothers had increased to such an extent that the territory they dwelt in proved too small to support them all. North of their homes lay blessed Scythia, bounded on the east by the Ural mountains, on the southeast by the sandsteppes, rich in salt, and the Caspian Sea, and on the south by the Don river. After having thoroughly reconnoitred this country they drove out the inhabitants, one portion of the people spreading over their newly acquired home and taking possession of it, whilst the remaining portion continued to occupy their former country. The progeny of Hunyor settled in the northeastern part of the country beyond the Volga, whilst the descendants of Magyar, pushing upwards along the Don, pitched their tents on the left bank of the river. The latter were afterwards known by the name of the Don-Magyars, and their country by that of Dontumogeria—that is, the Don Magyarland.
In proportion as the two kindred races increased and came in contact with various other nations, they began to differ from each other more and more widely in their ways and manners. The Huns being more exposed to the attacks of the roving populations than the Magyars, who were protected by the Caspian Sea and endless steppes, became, in consequence, more warlike, and adopted ruder manners. Twenty-two generations had passed away since the death of the two brothers, who had been the founders of their nations, when for reasons unknown the Huns resolved to emigrate from their country. Whilst the Magyars continued to dwell quietly along the Don, the Huns proceeded with an immense army, each tribe contributing ten thousand men, against Western Europe, conquering and rendering tributary, in the course of their wanderings, numerous nations, and finally settled in the region of the Theiss and Danube. Later on, however, in the middle of the fifth century, when the world-renowned Attila, “the scourge of God,” came into power, the Huns carried their victorious arms over a great part of the western world.
The immense empire, however, which had been founded by King Attila, was destined to be but of short duration after the death of its founder. His sons Aladar and Csaba, in their contention for the inheritance, resorted to arms. The war ended with the utter destruction of the nation. All of the followers of Aladar perished; Csaba, however, succeeded in escaping from the destroying arms of the neighboring nations who had fallen on the quarrelling brothers, with but about fifteen thousand men to the territories of the Greek empire. A few thousands, who had deserted Csaba, fled to Transylvania, and settled there in the eastern mountain-regions. The descendants of the latter became subsequently merged with the immigrating Hungarians, and formed with them a homogeneous family under the name of Szeklers, which continues to exist to this day. Csaba, whose mother was an imperial daughter of Greece, met with a friendly reception at the hands of the Greek emperor, Marcianus, and remained in that country for a few years. He returned afterwards with the remainder of his people to the home of his ancestors, on the banks of the Don, where, up to the time of his death, he never tired of inciting the Magyars to emigrate to Pannonia and to revenge themselves on their enemies by reconquering the empire of Attila.
HUNGARIAN SHEPHERD.
In turning to the second source of the history of the origin of the Hungarians, we are treading upon the firmer ground of scientific inquiry; we can penetrate the hazy light of remote antiquity, and venture the assertion that it is far away in the distant East—namely, in the Altai mountains, that we may look for the cradle of the Magyar race. Here was, as the reader may be aware, the coterminous frontier of the three principal branches of the Uralo-Altaic race—namely, the Mongolians in the east, the Finn-Ugrians in the north, and the Turks in the south. With a population of strictly nomadic habits and of eminently roaming propensities, it needs scarcely to be said that the three branches lived in continual feud and warfare near each other. A great convulsion in the life of these nomads happened, as we presume, in the second or third century after Christ. The Turks, on seeing the more flourishing state of things with their Finn-Ugrian neighbors in the north, fell upon them suddenly, drove them from their homes in the valleys of the Altai mountains, where traces of their industry are still extant, and scattered the various tribes and families, partly to the north—namely, to Siberia; partly to the west—namely, to Southern Russia.
From that extraordinary throng and revolutionary migration emerged the Voguls and Ostyaks, who live at this day on both sides of the great Obi river; the Zyrians, who now live in the governments of Archangel and Vologda; farther the Votyaks and Tcheremisses, a motley crowd of men who are of Finn-Ugrian extraction, but strongly intermixed with Turco-Tartar blood.
Now, of similar origin are the Hungarians, with this difference, that with them the Turco-Tartar origin forms the basis of their ethnical character, and that the Finn-Ugrians who amalgamated with them afterward, being a subjugated population, remained always in a moral inferiority, although they greatly influenced the governing class. We do not know precisely whether the amalgamation took place in the valleys of the Altai, or farther west on the Volga, at some later period, nor can we form an accurate idea as to the part the Hungarians took in the irruption of the Huns, with which event they are associated in national tradition. The Huns were unquestionably Turks by extraction. Their mode of warfare, their religion, and social life present full evidence of this, and admitting that they had in their ranks either pure Finn-Ugrian elements or portions of the above-mentioned amalgamated populations, we may fairly claim that the ancestors of the Hungarians took part in the great devastating campaigns which Attila carried on against Rome and the Christian West as far as France. In this sense, the claim of the Hungarians to descent from the Huns is fully justified. But, as the plan of this work excludes the discussion of questions wrapped in the clouds of scientific speculations we will turn to that portion of the history of the Hungarians which is cleared up by historical evidence, and will begin with the ninth century, when they emerged from the banks of the Volga and began their march toward the West, a march which resulted in their occupation of Hungary.
Before entering into the details of the march of the Magyars towards their present home, we must try to sketch as briefly as possible the geographical and ethnographical conditions of the country between the Volga and the Danube in the ninth century. It must be borne in mind that at that time the Russians were in a considerable minority in those regions. East of the Volga, as far as the Ural River, and even beyond, roamed various tribes of the vast Turkish race, amongst whom the Petchenegs occupied the foremost rank. On the lower course of the Volga and further west, lived the Khazars, a Turkish tribe of advanced culture, who carried on a flourishing trade on the Caspian and Black seas, and had embraced the Jewish religion. These Khazars were the mightiest of the Turkish races of that time, and their wars with Persia and with the rising Mohammedan power became of historic importance. Westward of the Khazars dwelt another fraction of the Petchenegs, the frontiers of whose country extended across Moldavia to the borders of Transylvania, whilst the Magyars or Hungarians, who had occupied a country called Lebedia, were compelled by the Petchenegs to emigrate to Etelkuzu, not remaining there, however, for any great length of time. In fact the whole of Southern Russia of to-day was teeming, during the ninth century, with nomadic populations. These pressed upon each other in the search for pasture grounds for their numerous cattle. There is a great likelihood that the fame of the rich plains of Hungary had remained in the memory of the Magyars from the time when their forefathers fought under the banners of Attila. Suffice it to say that, compelled by circumstances, they made up their minds to go westward, and the seven dukes who stood at that time at the head of the nation, and whose names were Álmos, Elöd, Kund, Huba, Tas, Und, and Tuhutum, united in a solemn league and covenant, and putting Álmos, as the oldest amongst them, at their head, they sealed that union with the old Turkish form of oath, by drinking each of the blood of all, obtained by cutting open the veins of their arms. This form of oath was for a long time a custom in Hungary. The union of the Hungarians was based upon the following five conditions: