The Ethnology of Europe

by R. G. Latham

From about A.D. 889 to A.D. 955, the Majiars were the scourge of the countries along the Danube; and in Bavaria, Saxony, Thuringia, Franconia, Hesse, Alsatia, and even France, they fought battles with various success—at first as conquerors. Afterwards, however, the tide of success turned against them, and a signal victory near Merseburg, in A.D. 934, first broke their power, which was afterwards limited to their present area by a more decisive victory on the Lech in A.D. 955.

I have remarked upon the extent to which the division of the Majiars into tribes, families, clans, or generations, has a Turk or Mongol look; and I now add that it is possible that it may actually be so. There are numerous proofs of the presence of Turk tribes in Hungary—the three most, important of which are—1. The Avars; 2. The Petschenagi; and 3. The Kumanians.

This is no more than we expect: since there were not only the descendants of the Huns of Attila settled in the country, but several separate subsequent invasions from the east had occurred in the interval.

1. The Avars, for more than three centuries after the death of Attila, continued to be the chief population of Pannonia; a population engaged in perpetual wars with their neighbours in Croatia, Moravia, and Transylvania, and, frequently, extending their invasions to Bohemia, Germany, and even France. Whether they were the absolute descendants of the Huns of Attila, under a new name, or not, is unimportant; since, if they were not Huns in the strict sense of the term, they were a very closely allied population. I think they formed the bulk of the Pannonians during the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries. But, as the strength of the Slavonians of Moravia, Upper Hungary, Croatia and Servia increased, the power of the Avars waned, and, weakened as they were at the time of the Majiar invasion, they lost their language and nationality and name soon after that event. Till then, however, they had a separate existence, though reduced in importance. In the time of Nestor the extinction of the Avars, whom the Russians call Obri, was indicated by the following bye-word,—“they are gone even as the Obri; neither kith nor kin remains.” Whether they were most amalgamated with the Slavonians or the Majiars is doubtful. Such Hun blood as runs in the veins of the present Hungarians is referable to the Avars; at least it is certain that unless we supposed the Huns of Attila to have remained in Hungary (Pannonia) under the name of Avar, we cannot well trace their continued existence in that country; besides which the words Hun and Avar, are frequently used as synonymous—“Huni qui et Avares dicuntur.”

2. The Petschenagi, a branch of the great Turk family, were, even in Asia, the nearest neighbours of the ancestors of the Majiars; their locality being the parts between the Jaik and the Uralian Mountains. Their invasion of Russia is placed by Nestor in A.D. 915; their settlements being the parts between the Lower Dnieper and the mouths of the Danube. We find them in Hungary under the name of Bisseni.

3. The Kumanians appear in Europe rather later than the Petschenagi and Majiars, i.e., in the latter half of the eleventh century. Volhynia is the country where they more especially settled. Like the Petschenagi they were Turk, but not Mahometan. On the contrary, they are described as unclean Pagans, who ate all sorts of meat, and some of it raw.

4. The fourth section of the Turk stock which made settlements in Hungary were the Khazars. I should not, however, like to assert positively that they were not Avars under another name, or, at any rate, a closely allied population.

5. The fifth were the Bulgarians. Without fixing the date of their advent, we may safely assume that it was subsequent to the conversion of some portion of the nation to Mahometanism, although previous to their adoption of the Slavonic language.

But the remarkable fact is the name of one of their leaders Heten,[26] a name which we see in the list of the proper Majiar patriarchs. This confirms the notion that the division into tribes and sub-tribes may have been less Majiar and more Turk than it seems to be.

The Bashkirs of Hungary are a difficult population. In the thirteenth century, the Arabian writer Jakut, writes that he found in the city of Aleppo some florid-faced Mahometans, who were called Bashkirs, and came from Hungary.