Now, the present Bashkirs are the occupants of those parts beyond the Uralian Mountains from which the Majiars came: their language being Turk. But, as there is satisfactory evidence that this is an adopted tongue, and that their original speech was Ugrian, they are reasonably supposed to represent in the thirteenth century, not the Majiars of Hungary, but the Majiars of the mother-country from which the invaders of Europe proceeded. If so, how came they to be Mahometans? Were they not rather the Bulgarians last mentioned? Their florid complexion is the chief fact against it. On the other hand, it must be remarked that though Jakut says that they were called Bashkirs (“audiebant Baschgardi”) he does not say that they called themselves so. Again, the number of their chiefs is seven—the number of the so-called Majiar patriarchs; amongst whom it must remembered we find the Bulgarian Heten.
Hence, of a Bashkir intermixture, separate from the Bulgarians on one side, and the Majiars on the other, there is no satisfactory evidence.
The analysis as far as it has proceeded has given us—
| 1. | Ugrians | Majiars. | |
| 2. | Turks | a. Huns. | |
| ” | b. Avars. | ||
| ” | c. Petschenagi. | ||
| ” | d. Kumanians. | ||
| ” | e. Khazars. | ||
| ” | f. Bulgarians, | ||
| ” | α. Pagan, | ||
| ” | β. Mahometan. | ||
The Majiar conquest converted a Turk into a Ugrian area: its date being the tenth century.
The Hun conquest converted a semi-romanized into a Turk area; its date being the fifth century. A.D. 444 is a convenient epoch for this event. It was the year of the murder of Attila’s brother, and the sole supremacy of Attila himself.
We will first ask how Attila left Hungary: next how he found it.
I am not at all satisfied with the reasons generally given for believing that, as his power fell to pieces at his death, so did the Hun blood in Hungary become extinct. Still less am I satisfied with the reasons which give any particular nation the credit of having destroyed it. The recovery of the province of Pannonia never took place. I cannot find that either the Goths of the Lower, or the Germans of the Upper, Danube made any permanent conquest. That the Slavonic tribes of the surrounding frontier pressed towards the interior is certain; but it is not certain that they ever made the country their own.
That the political power of the descendants of Attila was broken is certain; and for that very reason, I believe that the ethnological influence of the Huns remained. The son of Attila was not the king of the Huns, because Hun seems to have been a collective name, and, perhaps, was not a native one. But he was king of several of the populations in detail, of which, along with others, the Hun power was made. The tribes most ready to avail themselves of the death of Attila were the Goths of the Lower Danube—Bulgaria, and (perhaps) Servia. Now these first attacked the Setagæ of Lower Pannonia; and when Dinzic, the son of Attila knew of it he opposed them with the few tribes that still acknowledged his dominion, the Ultzinzures, the Angesuri the Bitugures, and the Bardones. All these were particular Hun populations, who, as long as the Hun power was at work on a large scale were merged in one general name, but who afterwards step forth as separate substantive members of that great confederacy, or empire.
Still there was great encroachment; the invading populations of the Avars and the Bulgarians—so far as they were not Huns—being like the Ultzinzures, &c. of Turk blood.