Published: 2023-12-29

“A kingdom of one language and one law is weak”: the Multiethnicity of Early Medieval Hungary

Ryszard Grzesik Logo ORCID

Abstract

Before the eighteenth century, ethnicity was not a criterion for determining nationality. However, there was an awareness of ethnic diversity within one state, and of the fact that it could enrich them. Among the early medieval countries of Central Europe, Hungary stood out from the very beginning due to its ethnic mosaic. This was the legacy of the period when Hungarian tribes belonged to the world of the Great Steppe, where the emerging political relationships were held together by a charismatic leader or a dynasty with sacred legitimacy. The cessasion of the factors made these ties disappear as well, yet they may have left traces in the collective memory, as in the case of Attila. The individual tribes dispersed and found their place in new relationships, usually multi-tribal ones.
Such was also the tribal character of Hungarian union, which, besides the Finno-Ugric Magyars, included the Kabars, a faction of the Khazars, who rebelled against their tribesmen, and the Székelers, who, as alleged bearers of the tradition of Attila, could have been descendants of the Huns, relatives of the Onogurs, i.e., Proto-Bulgarians. Both these groups underwent a fast process of Magyarization, and in the new place they settled at the borders of the state, creating its first defensive line. This role was also played by later arrivals to the Carpathian Basin: Pechenegs, Cumans and not discussed in this article: Saxons, Muslims and Ruthenians. They were the first contributions to the Hungarian ethnic mosaic. The other source were Slavic or Slavic-Avar natives inhabiting these lands at the time of the arrival of the Hungarians. The appearance of the Hungarians was not tantamount to the extermination of this population, which became part of the emerging Hungarian society but which, as a peasant population, occupied the lower strata of the social hierarchy. Moreover, the existing elites cooperated with the invaders, and their descendants became part of the Hungarian elite, such as the Hont-Pázmány family or the Miskolcs. Contacts between newcomers and natives added new elements to the Hungarian historical tradition, such as the memory of Roman shepherds, in whom Gyula Kristó saw Frankish (Salzburg) shepherds (also in the spiritual sense) operating in the Duchy of Pannonia.

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Grzesik, R. (2023). “A kingdom of one language and one law is weak”: the Multiethnicity of Early Medieval Hungary. Średniowiecze Polskie I Powszechne, 15, 9–22. https://doi.org/10.31261/SPiP.2023.19.06

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Vol. 15 (2023)
Published: 2023-12-31


ISSN: 2080-492X
eISSN: 2353-9720

Publisher
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego | University of Silesia Press

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