Barbarian Europe

The Magyars were horsemen from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, but horsemen with less-than-usual origins, and they were far from being typical Turkic mounted warriors.

They spoke a Uralic language which is ultimately related to the Finno-Ugric of Finns, Estonians, and many other Northern European groups.

For them to have reached the Pannonian plain - which would become Hungary - via their long-accepted steppeland home, they must have spent some time living amongst early-form Turkic-speaking tribes on the steppe. For a century or so those steppe tribes were certainly under the control of the Western Göktürk empire, another Turkic creation.

The modern Hungarian language does indeed contain a great number of words which betray a Turkic origin. This influence may have come primarily through the Bulgar tribal state of Great Bulgaria in the seventh century AD.

It has taken a long time for this view of Magyar origins to be accepted thanks to only a late beginning in the study of the Finno-Ugric connections in the Hungarian language rather than Turkic connections.

Magyars in Pannonia

The Magyars in the late ninth century AD found their way to the Pannonian plain along the Danube. Pannonia as a name was already falling out of use, and 'Hungary' eventually came to replace it, but how?

The traditional view is that the people of this region simply inherited the new name from the Huns who had previously controlled it.

With the Magyars themselves being linked in part to Turks, this may be seen as a reasonable move, but it ignores complexities which are too extensive to cover here anything more than briefly.

In western languages the Magyars went by names such as 'Hungarians', 'Hongrois', 'Ungar', and more, all of which could be traced back to the Latin plural 'Ungri' which was first attested in AD 862, and the Greek 'Ungroi' which was in use within the Eastern Roman empire from the tenth century onwards.

It is generally thought that all these forms derive from the name of a Turkish tribe, the Onogur, known since the middle of the fifth century, linked with the early Bulgars and, also, tentatively, to the Vistula Venedi.

The general theory is that the Onogur name passed through Slavic to reach European ears where it was applied to the Magyars simply because they came from roughly the same region as the Onogur.

However, the name 'Ugria' was also applied by the Rus of the eleventh century to all Finno-Ugric peoples, and this seems much more to be the most likely source of the name which was given to the Magyars and their newly-settled lands.

Once established on the Pannonian plain, the Magyars plagued Europe's established kingdoms for several decades before being forced through defeat in battle at Lechfield in 955 to concentrate on establishing their own medieval kingdom in what would become Hungary

If Pannonia had been renamed after the Huns it would be called Hunia, not Hungaria. Hungary most definitely is not named for the Huns.

Even so, it is quite possible that there is some influence from the Huns in this despite there being no direct responsibility, in that the 'h' and 'n' were added on either side of the 'u' in Ugaria either as some form of respect to the Huns or, more likely, ignorance of history and confusion which was created thanks to that lack of knowledge.

Generally, though, the core name of 'Hungary' is an adaptation of 'Ugrian', the ethnic origin of the Magyars themselves.

The (First) Bulgarian empire had controlled a great swathe of the Balkans during its existence, but its termination in 971 was in the face of continual hostility by the Eastern Romans to the south and east, and by the Magyars to the north (click or tap on map to view full sized)

Main Sources

Alex Imreh - The genocide of the Old Scythian writing, 2011

András Róna-Tas - Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: An Introduction to Early Hungarian History (Central European University Press, 1999)

David Rankin - Celts and the Classical World (1996)

Denis Sinor - Journal of World History 4(3), 513-540: The Outlines of Hungarian Prehistory

Fritz Hommel - The Civilisation of the East (Translated by J H Loewe, Elibron Classic Series, 2005)

Gene Gurney - Kingdoms of Europe (New York, 1982)

Hammond Historical Atlas (Maplewood, New Jersey, 1963)

Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski - Poland: A Historical Atlas (New York, 1987)

Kristian Kristiansen - Europe Before History

Nicolas Cheetham - Keepers of the Keys: A History of the Popes from St Peter to John Paul II (New York, 1982)

The Outlines of Hungarian Prehistory

Times Atlas of World History (Maplewood, 1979)

Images and text copyright © P L Kessler & Edward Dawson. An original feature for the History Files.