The origin of the Hungarian language has been, and still is, a matter of great discussion between the students of philology. It is certain that Hungarian is not an Aryan, but an Ugor (Ugrian) language, belonging to a vast group of languages spoken in parts of China, in Siberia, Central Asia, Russia, and Turkey. We here adjoin the genealogy of the Hungarian language as given by Professor Simonyi, of Budapest, who is considered one of the greatest living authorities on the history and grammar of the Magyar language. He says that Hungarian, together with Vogul, Ostiak, Siryenian, Votiak, Lapp, Finnish, Mordvin, and Cseremiss (spoken in the north and north-east of Russia) form the Ugrian language-group. This group is closely akin to four other groups, viz., the Samojed; the Turkish or Tartar; the Mongolian; and the Tungusian, or Mandchu groups. These five large groups are called the Altaic languages, and are all derived from an original Altaic idiom. Their mutual relations are shown in the following diagram taken from Professor Simonyi’s work:
It will be seen that Hungarian is in near relation to Finnish and also to Lapp, as had been recognized already by the Jesuit John Sajnovics (1770), and proved by the great traveller, Anton Reguly. It is, however, also related to Turkish; and this explains why the leading neo-philologists of Hungary (Budenz, Paul Hunfalvy, and Arminius Vámbéry) are, the two former in favour of a Finnish, the latter in favour of a Turkish origin and kinship of both the Hungarians and their language. Amongst the numerous students of that vexed question, no one has done more to excite the admiration of his compatriots and foreigners, and the applause of scholars, than Alexander Csoma de Kőrős, who sacrificed his life in the monasteries of Thibet in the noble attempt at discovering, by the laborious acquisition of Central-Asiatic languages, the origin of the Magyars. We confess that we entertain but scant sympathy for the belief in races and racial persistency. Wherever the Hungarians may have come from, and whether or no every one living Hungarian can trace his descent to one of the clans invading Hungary at the close of the ninth century is, in our opinion, immaterial. As a matter of fact, very few Magyar noblemen can trace their family beyond the year of the battle of Mohács (1526). It is quite different with the language of the Hungarians. Its origin and character are, on the whole, pretty clear, and from the knowledge of its relations to kindred idioms, many a valuable conclusion may be drawn regarding the rise and nature of Hungarian Literature in the past and in the present. The greatest patriot of Hungary, Count Stephen Széchenyi, has tersely expressed the immense influence of language on the nation in the words: “Language carries the nation away with it.” Our whole view of Hungarian Literature would be different if for instance the opinion of erudite Matthew Bél (Belius) as to the Hebrew origin of the Hungarian language had proved to be true. It would likewise essentially alter our conception of Magyar literary works if the opinion of Podhorszky as to the close relation between Hungarian and Chinese would not have been found untenable. But the physical origin of the Hungarians themselves is, at best, only an idle inquiry into insufficient records of the past.
CHAPTER V.
896-1520.
The history of Hungarian Literature is divided into four distinct periods. The first comprises the time from the advent of the Magyars in Hungary to the Reformation (896-1520); the second, from the Reformation to the peace of Szathmár, or the termination and failure of Hungary’s revolt from Austria (1520-1711); the third, from 1711 to 1772, or the period of stagnation; and finally from 1772 to our own days, or the period of the full development.
896-1520. The first period is exceedingly poor in written remains of literature. In fact, the first and thus the oldest literary relic of the Hungarian language is a short “Funeral Sermon” (Halotti Beszéd), dating from the first third of the thirteenth century; and for 200 years after that date, we meet, with the exception of a Hungarian glossary of the year 1400, recently discovered at Schlaegl, in Upper Austria, with no example of a Hungarian literary work of even slight extent. From the middle of the fifteenth century we possess a fragment, called after the town where it was discovered, by Dr. Julius Zacher in 1862, the “Königsberg (in Prussia) Fragment.” Thus, the number of extant, or hitherto discovered Hungarian works of even slight literary merit is, down to 1450 A.D., an almost negligible quantity. Mr. Szilády in his “Collection of Ancient Hungarian Poets” (Régi Magyar Költők Tára) has indeed communicated six and fifty mediæval Hungarian church-poems and other fragments; but of that number scarcely a dozen are original poems, the rest being mere translations of the then current church-poetry. The philologist may no doubt find much to glean from even this scant harvest of Hungarian Literature in the first period. For literature proper, it is of no account whatever. Yet it would be unfair to leave this period without even a passing mention of its oral literature, or epic and legendary stories, of which there must have been no small quantity in those agitated times.
The Hungarian naïve epic is lost. A glance at the habits of the Finns will, however, suffice to satisfy the inquirer that the Hungarians, like their cousins in Russia, must have cultivated the art of recitation and oral handing down of the glorious deeds of their ancestors, to no small extent. We now know that the immense epic of the Finns, the Kalevala, has been transmitted from generation to generation by bards who had treasured up in their memories the endless runot recording the deeds of Lemminkäinen, Väinämöinen, and Jlmarinen. The Hungarians, too, had their bards, called igrigeczek, or hegedősök (violinists); and at the manors of the nobles or the courts of the kings, old heroic songs were recited about Attila, King of the Huns; his brother, Bleda; the fearful battle on the Catalaunian fields (Chalons-sur-Marne, 451 A.D.); the building of the castle of Buda; the siege of Aquileia; and the last fatal wedding of the terrible Hun. These Hun epics were widely known and recited in mediæval Hungary, as witnessed by the chronicles of those times. The people firmly believed themselves to be the successors of Attila’s hordes, and this belief, although absolutely discountenanced by modern historians, is still lingering in the spinning-halls of Hungarian villages, and in lecture halls in England and America.
The circle of those oral epics comprised also the Magyar heroes proper. There were stories about Álmos, father of Árpád, the conqueror of Hungary; others about the “Seven Magyars” (Hét Magyar); the conquest of Transylvania by doughty Tuhutum, one of Árpád’s generals; the flight of King Zalán, defeated by Árpád; the exploits of valiant Botond, Lehel (the Hungarian Roland), Bölscü, and other paladins of Árpád’s times, etc. In the fragments from Priscus, the Byzantine rhetorician and historian; in the chronicles of Ekkehard, the monk of St. Gallen; and in the “Anonymus,” or one of the chief, but hitherto, fatherless chronicles of Hungary, the above and some more heroic stories and epical records may be found.