THE UNKNOWN HUNGARIANS: EARLY HISTORY

 

There is an imminent necessity to outline the origin, early history, chronology, and dialects of the Hungarians, for most libraries do not have any updated material on these. The present situation is a result of a long communist dictatorship in Hungary and in most of her neighbours. During those decades the Hungarian scholars were not allowed to publish their own conclusions, except that was acceptable under the umbrella of communist ideology. They had to follow an idealistic pattern, in which the ancestors of the Hungarians had originated in the areas that later belonged to the Soviet Union, supposing that they had always lived there in primitive communism, picking berries in order to survive.

The author of this chapter was born in Hungary, and knows well the huge bibliography about this enormous subject, written in many languages. In 1978, he published a nicely illustrated academic book about the origin of the Hungarians and their history until their first king, Saint Stephen. Afterwards, his historical and linguistic studies were published in many books, magazines, and periodicals, mainly in Canada (British Columbia and Ontario), Hungary, and Yugoslavia. He was a leader of the Hungarian Canadian Authors’ Association (Toronto) for years, then contributor and proofreader of the “Encyclopaedia Hungarica” (Calgary) for a decade. His main aim was to harmonize the totally different conclusions of the “communist” historians with those of many immigrant professors living in the West. Accepting a logical view somewhere in the middle between two opposite camps often means that neither camp is too keen on accepting those views quickly. Due to a lack if interest and contacts, the author published only a short part of this chapter in English, in 1984. It contained our present chronological table from the Huns to King St. Stephen. He has several studies available to be published in English. For example, his papers about the chronicler Anonymus or Great Moravia could be useful for historians, but may fill a separate volume. Readers seeking further good material on the origin of the Hungarians may find the books of professors Gyula (Julius) László, György (George) Györffy, István (Stephen) Erdélyi, or C.A. Macartney, Anthony Endrey, János (John) Harmatta, and András (Andrew) Róna-Tas extremely useful. (The latter four with web pages are in English.) The Internet also offers a “Hungarian Information Resources” web page, etc.

In short, many excellent studies of eminent professors already exist about the subject. However, the state of this ancient history as a science is quite liquid, since no authority has attempted to harmonize the very different theories in a finalized synthesis. It contributed to the lack of communication that most scholars of the then communist Hungary had no means and intentions to order books on history, archaeology, or linguistics from capitalist countries. Also, acknowledged professors of astronomy had offered valuable data and astronomical dates, but no one has utilized their conclusions officially in modern history books. (This is a recurring problem in the chronologies and absolute dates of Greece, Rome, China, and the Near East as well.) Part of our studies, as generally in all our chapters, cover interdisciplinary fields that formally do not exist yet, so they do not have appointed professional scholars either.

The Hungarians, undoubtedly, have an Asian origin. They called themselves Magyars since times immemorial. Unfortunately, most of the modern history books oversimplify this whole subject. The “official” conclusions regarding their origin, history, and language have been based on politically motivated pseudo-scientific studies.

In order to understand our claim, it is important to know that the Hungarians have been uninvited intruders that wanted to reoccupy the heritage of the ill-famed Huns. (The theory of the Hun-Magyar kinship is still popular.) Even after their conversion to Christianity, starting with the year 1001, the West still considered them for centuries a foreign and less civilized nation.

The kingdom of Hungary was an eastern bulwark of the Christian Europe since the rule of St. Stephen, the first king, around the year 1000. In 1241-42 the Mongolians called Tatars or Tartars occupied the Carpathian Basin, and massacred about 20% of the Hungarians. Three centuries later Hungary had a population of the same size than England did. The main difference and disadvantage was that the landlocked Hungary lacked a fleet, and it was located in the “busiest and worst intersection” of Europe. This meant that every conqueror passed through her area. For example, the strategically important Székesfehérvár (where the author has completed his college) changed owner thirteen times during World War II.

Between 1526 and 1699, Hungary was divided into three spheres: the central lowlands were ruled by the Ottoman Turkish Empire, the northwestern regions were controlled by the Habsburgs, and Transylvania on the east was an independent Hungarian state, although nominally a vassal of the Turks. From 1711 to 1918 Hungary was a province of Austria, except that with a limited autonomy after 1867. Hungary was drifted or dragged into two world wars without much intention of her population, despite of trying to stay neutral. From 1945 till the disappearance of communism in Europe the country suffered under the yoke of the Soviet Union.

These circumstances determined the direction of the social sciences in Hungary. Both the Austrian and the Russian oppressors propagated an ideology that reduced or eliminated the self-esteem and historical self-conscience of the Hungarians. A vital part of this political program was a brainwashing of the people.

From the second part of the 19th century half of the Hungarian scholars supported a Turkish origin of their nation, with a glorious past. However, the party supporting the Finno-Ugrian origin of their language had the financing and thus the upper hand. Although a relationship with the Finnish and Estonian nations (at least linguistically) is quite a privilege, most Hungarians are still reluctant to believe that their ancestors have originated in the Ural Mountains or Northern Siberia, surviving by fishing and collecting berries and mushrooms.

We do not wish to dwell on a few bizarre theories that “identified” the original Hungarian language as a dialect of the Sumerian, Etruscan, or Egyptian. Several books written by professors living in the West offered these dream-theories, without much scientific foundation. However, there are positive results of these researches. One of them is a scholarly and most useful Sumerian dictionary of Coloman (Kálmán) Gostony, published by Boccard as Dictionnaire D’Étymologie Sumérienne et Grammaire Comparée. Unfortunately, it is out of print. Another useful one is the book of Dr. József (Joseph) Aczél, entitled “Szittya-Görög eredetünk” (“Our Scythian-Greek origin,” in Hungarian), also F.A. Uxbond (a.k.a.Wilhelm or Vilmos Hevesi), “Munda-Magyar-Maori,” a comparison of these three languages in English.

The oldest legend of the Magyars or Hungarians is connected with a wonderful stag and a raid that ended with the carrying away of hundred women. The first chroniclers testified that this had been the original legend explaining the origin of this nation. The Illuminated Chronicle (Képes Krónika in Hungarian, originally written in 1358, by Mark of Kált), the Gesta Hungarorum of Simon de Kézaor Kézai Simon (1282-1285), The Chronicle of the Hungarians by János (John)Thuróczy (1487), the Tarih-i Üngürüs of Mahmud Terdjuman (from a Latin proto-chronicle found in 1453, written in Turkish in 1555), and finally the chronicle “Hungária” of Miklós (Nicholas) Oláh agree on this legend of origin.

According to these traditions, the ancestors of the Huns and the Hungarians once lived in Persia. Their king was Nimrod or Menroth, possibly a vague Assyrian king with the name of Ninurta, whose name became associated with the Tower of Babel by mistake. His main wife was Enech or Enéh (or Ankisa in Terdjuman). Their favourite sons were Hunor and Magor (or Magyar). This mythical Queen Enéh (Enech or Eneth in the chronicles) seems identical with the goddess Anahita of the Persians. Their hometown was Evilath, according to the chronicler, supposedly the modern Ewlach or Jewlach on the River Kura in Andrees Allgemeiner Handatlas (1907: 141). Please refer to our a detail of this map showing the eastern part of the Caucasus Mountains. There is no need to identify Evilath with the biblical Havilah.

These two princes selected fifty-fifty good mounted warriors, and made a decision to see the borders of their country. (Whence the Hungarians formed the verb “decide” from the roots “away” and “border.”) During this expedition of reconnaissance, they sighted a miraculous stag, with the sun, the moon, and the stars depicted on her two sides. They chased this stag for a long time, but she finally jumped into the Black Sea or Maeotis, and swam over the water. The hundred hunters swam through as well. They have missed the stag in that swampy area, but instead they discovered the Crimea. [In Terdjuman (1555), the stag disappeared in the Northern Caucasus, on the northern borders of Persia.] The princes returned to their father, and asked permission to settle in those recently discovered areas next to the Maeotis. The first Hungarian chronicles describe the peninsula of the Crimea quite accurately, adding that it had a single entrance by land. The stag must have crossed the Strait of Kerch that is about five kilometres wide there. (Modern hunting handbooks admit that several species of the stags are able to swim even much longer distances.) These Huns and Hungarians spent five years in those marshes, and left that area in the sixth year. During that year, in the wasteland they found the tents and the unguarded wives and daughters of Bereka, or, those of the sons of Bereka. The women were celebrating the feast of the horn, by drums and “dances with arms,” likely embracing each other’s arms, or dancing hand in hand. Those proto-Hungarians took all the women, with their wealth or belongings. Supposedly, the hundred warriors carried off hundred ladies. The chronicler adds, “In this battle they caught the two daughters of Dula [or Dul], prince of the Alans as well. One of them became Hunor’s wife, and the other the wife of Magyar. From these [people] originated all Huns or/and Magyars.” The chronicler Kézai calls them the daughters of Belar, instead of Bereka. The name Belar is interesting, since “bel” means “white” in the Slavic languages. The Hungarians used to call the women as “white-folk” (“fejér-nép”). The legend reminds us to the rape of the daughters of Leucippus by Castor and Pollux with the centaurs, although there are a few centuries of difference between the two events. The Greek word “leuko” means “white” as well. (It is unnecessary to emphasize the similarity between the cognate words “centaur,” “centurion,” and “century,” or between “hound,“ “hunter,” and “hundred.”)

The word Bereka in Hungarian sounds like Bereko. Therefore, we do not need a special licence to identify this ruler with Berico, the fourteenth ruler of the Goths that lived on the island of Gothia or Scandia (Gothland, also spelled Gotland). This ruler was the first one that moved to the south from Gotland, to the region of the modern Ukraine. The most important source for this identification is the list of Johannes (or Joannes) Magnus, archbishop of Uppsala (1488-1544). His work is entitled “Historia de omnibus Gothorum Sveonumque regibus” (Basel, 1558). According to the list of Johannes Magnus, the fourteenth ruler of these foreigner [Ukrainian] Goths, counted from Berico, was Queen Tamyris (Tamar or Tamara) of the Massagetae. She captured King Cyrus of the Persians, and made him executed in 529 BC.

The best chroniclers of the Goths’ history include Johannes Magnus, Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1200), and Vitus Bering (1698). According to them, the ninth king of Gothia was Othen or Odin, from the year 1038 BC. After him the rulers were as follow: Carolus, Biorno, Gethar, Siggo, and Berico. [This Berico was the Bereca in the Hungarian chronicle.] Saxo Grammaticus tells that the second ruler after Berico had a son named Dan, the denominator of the Danish nation. This Dan supposedly moved to the north with his people between 816 and 762 BC, during the reign of Phocas (812-789 BC) of the later Rome.

As for the archaeological support of all these, everything seems to fit. The homeland of the “Royal Scythians” was located exactly at the lower and middle course of the River Kuban. The ancient Onogoria and their capital named “Magyar” on the River Kuma were located in this region. Another supporting detail that the Onogurs had their own legend of a “wonderful stag.”

Herodotus recorded that the nomadic Scythians came from Asia, and expelled the Cimmerians from the regions of the Black Sea. The indirect evidence of the chronicles and the results of archaeology induced many scholars to place this Scythian invasion in the end of the 8th century BC. We agree with their conclusions: the Scythians may have melted and integrated the remnants of the local peoples into their nation. The earliest known archaeological representation of the “wonderful stag” is made of gold, namely the one found at Kelermes. The golden stags found at Kul-Oba and other places are from a bit later.

The Gothic and Hungarian chronicles and the archaeological proofs offer the best agreement if we include the information of Jordanes, bishop of the Goths as well. This author wrote in the sixth century, and he hated the Huns. His work named Gethica (chapter 24) tells that when Filimirus or Philimerus, king of the Goths and the son of Gandaricus the Great broke into Scythia, he found a few witches (called “alirumna” or “alioromna” in their language) in his nation. The Goths expelled them to a far-away wasteland. Certain unclean spirits raped them, and from these women were born the Scythian Huns. (The Hungarian chronicles of Thuróczy and Oláh also mention this story. Arnold Ipolyi, in his famous “Hungarian mythology” claims that Bonfini, on page 630 of his book, referred to Callimach that considered them as Scythians, “feminas alirumnas Scythae vocant.”) We suppose that the term “Sons of Bereca or Berico” can be interpreted widely as “descendants of Berico,” and the date of Jordanes is correct. Therefore, if we accept the nineteen rulers of the Goths from the list between Othen and Queen Tamar, they can be placed between 1038 and 525 BC. The difference is 513 years. Dividing this interval by 19, it yields us an average generation of 27 years that is very credible. Thus, the rule of King Filimir could be placed in 741-714 BC, so this would be the approximate date of the raid on those women, and the event with the marvellous stag. Justin (1.1) and other antique historians confirm this, telling that Tanaus was the real forefather of the Scythians, and he was the successor of Filimirus. Even an English book published a century ago, dealing with the origin of the Scandinavians, claims that the Hungarians represent a “bastard branch” of those nations.

Priscos Rhetor heard this story from the Huns of Attila in 448, with the detail that the Huns had seen a divine sign in the shape of an appearing and disappearing stag that had showed a new country for them. The story can be found in Procopius (c. 540) as well. The only difference is that Procopius called the leaders Utigur and Kutrigur, the sons of their king. He originated the Utigur Huns and the Kutrigur (Kutigur) Huns from these princes. Some chronicles identify the Huns with the Cimmerians, probably by mistake. Antoninus, archbishop of Florence offers the Hun version of the legend, with a male stag. Paulus Orosius gives a similar account.

Terdjuman (1555) wrote that after carrying off those women, the Persians made a military expedition against Byzantium, and the people of Hunor gave 20,000 soldiers, in order to help the Persians. During this war, the people of Hunor had been attacked. Therefore, this army separated from the leader of the Persians, and remained in the province of Pannonia. (Of course, the chronicler has updated the geographical names.) The correctness of this proto-chronicle saved by Terdjuman is supported by the archaeology of the Carpathian Basin. The most famous golden stag was found at Zöldhalompuszta, and it is exhibited in the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest. Based on the Scythian golden stags unearthed in the Carpathian Basin indicate the existence of a Scythian nation around 500 BC, and scholars accept this theory quite universally. A last interesting detail: the widespread tradition of the hunters chasing a stag can be found from Japan to the British Isles which circumstance can be a sign for its antiquity.               

The Byzantine historian Gazes claimed that the Hungarians came to the plain of the Danube from the Caucasus Mountains. The map of Robert Thorne (1527) depicts a second Hungary as “Hungaria” between the names “Georgia” and “Abasgia.” The Reverend Christopher (Kristóf) Lukácsy of Szamosújvár (now Rumania) was Armenian. He wrote a book of antique Armenian sources about the Huns or Hungarians. According to his research, following the offensive of Aram the Armenian ruler, those Huns were separated into two groups. One of them moved northwards to the hardly accessible valleys of the Caucasus, while the other part fled to the region of the River Oxus in Central Asia.

The poet Merobaudes in the fifth century hinted that the “barbarian Scythian hordes” of the Huns originated from the River Phasis at the eastern bay of the Black Sea. Asterius (c. A.D. 400) confirms that the Scythians lived on the opposite shore of the Black Sea, to the River Phasis. Pacatus in the fourth century wrote of the “armies of the Huns pouring out from the menacing Caucasus and the wild Taurus Mountains.” Jerome (c. 348-420) claims the Huns in 395 broke into Asia from the remote rocky peaks of the Caucasus Mountains. The antique Russian Primary Chronicle (Prolegomena) claims that once the Caucasus was called “Mountains of the Ugors.” Nowadays even the “Cambridge Medieval History” admits that the Onogurs that lived in the Caucasus region represented a significant component of the later Hungarians. Professor Unvala of India refers to J. Marquart, telling that this ancient “Turk” nation of the Huns and Avars split into three groups: the Huns of Attila, the Kidarite Huns of the Caucasus, and the Hephthalites that were also known as “White Huns.” 

Hungarian legends claim that their ancestors lived together with the Huns as a brother nation. Due to the shortage of food and animals, the Huns moved westwards, while the Magyars stayed. In our understanding, this separation took place in 373. The Huns entered the Carpathian Basin through the “Iron Gates” of the Danube in 381. The Huns or Magyars remaining in Scythia elected a judge from themselves. His name was Kadar, descendant of Torda. Kadar may have meant Kadi(er), judge-man in Turkish. This name is related to that of the Kidara-Kushans that have been identified by numismatists with the Gadahars. Dr. Bivar named them Kidarites. Some scholars say that they were Huns, not Kushans. Many historians claim that their Hun language is unknown, and they used the Iranian language only for administrative purpose. Coins bearing the names “Kidara” and “Piro” were unearthed together. They may have belonged to the same ruler that was called both “Kidara” for the Huns and “Bíró” that means “Judge” in Hungarian. From the treasure of Tepe Maranjan, a coin was unearthed, bearing the name “Varahran,” together with eleven coins marked “Kidara,” and with coins of Kings Shapur II (309-379), Ardashir (379-383) and Shapur III (383-388). Based on this finding, it is admitted that the coins were interred probably before 388. Therefore, the rule of Kidara or Kadar must have begun to rule before 388, and the year 373 for his appointment seems correct.

Many Hungarian chronicles (Thuróczy, Márk, Bonfini, Székely, and the Illuminated Chronicle or Képes Krónika) contain similar lists showing ancient Hungarian rulers. László Mezey, the modern commentator of the latter chronicle, claims that the list is fictitious, an arbitrary and haphazard collection of names. As we have seen, Kadar or Kidara can be the first identified ruler. We must omit the names Bendeguz [Mundzuchus], Etele [Attila, Etzil], Csaba, and Ed, because this section of descent was probably inserted only for a dynastic purpose, confirming the origin of Álmos [pron. Almosh, with a sound “a” as in the word “far”].

The successor of Kadar may have been Otmar (379-387). After them, some coins were unearthed with names “Prakasa” and “Tarika.” These allow their identification as having been coins of “Farkas” (“Wolf”) or “Tarkans.” After c. 395 possibly Bendekürt or Bondofard ruled, and Marcel Brion also mentions him. He has probably found this name in some old chronicle. His name may correspond to that of Kouridakos (Akatzir-Hun tribal chief) or Koursik. The latter and a Hun leader named Basich concerted the raid upon the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates about 395. Olympiodorus mentioned a king of the Huns named Karaton, around A.D. 412. Another possibility is that the chroniclers recorded here the names of the Persian overlords Yazdagart (399-420) and Bahram V (420-438) as “Bendekürt” and “Bukem.”

Several historians considered the Central Asian “Dzungaria” (also spelled as Dsungaria or Djungaria) as the ancestral home of the Magyars. It is true that the neighbourhood of Urumchi was under the control of the Huns. Modern handbooks show that Northern Liang was a Hun (Hsiung-nu) area from 397 to 439. Perhaps it is not coincidental to find a ruler called “Mu-chien” there in 433, because it reminds us the name “Bökény” of the chronicles’ list (that you can find on our page 94). This is acceptable, since the Chinese sources recorded the name “Boila” as “P’ei-lo,” and the name “Bayan” as “Mo-yen.” The above-mentioned “Mu-chien” shows up in the work of Hirth as “Mu-kién,” a ruler of the Huns between 434 and 447.

According to the Persian Firdausi, the Hun king that helped Feroze for the first time (in 457) was Faghanis, also known as Vahan. This Vahan is mentioned in 485 for the last time, when he was allied with Armenian cavalry, but perhaps he was too old to be the main Hun chief in 485. Pritsak and others assume that Donatus was the first king of the Huns around 410. He may correspond to our ruler “Csanad” or even “Sanoeces,” that was the prince of the Hun and Goth armies fighting in Africa. (If the young Attila studied in Italy in 403, other Hun leaders may have done similar travels.) Perhaps Csanad’s name was originally spelled “Khusanawadz,” that would be harmonious with the spelling forms of Tabari and Firdausi.

We find the name “Budli” around 46-464, and it may fit the name “Ebdal.” This king of the White Huns was the denominator of the Ephthalites or Hephthalites. His name is mentioned in Chinese sources as well. Many historians identify the White Huns with the Avars that attacked the Onogurs of Europe in 558, and moved westwards. The Ephthalites or White Huns regularly sent ambassadors to China between 516 and 558, but after 558 these contacts ended. This circumstance may indicate that the White Huns and the Avars were basically the same nation.

The next ruler on the list is “Beztur.” If we divide his name into the roots “b.z” and “t.r,” we may identify the first part with the name of Gobaz that ruled over the province of Lazica or Lazi in the Caucasus. (The word “Kopasz” means “bald” in Hungarian. The second part also means “bald” in a dialect of the Magyars, as “tar.”) The next rulers were Mike and Miske.

Procopius (c. 552) tells that in the time of Emperor Anastasius (491-518) the Sabir-Hun chief Ambazuk defended the Caspian Gates that is the pass of Derbend. This chief was very old and died earlier that the emperor did. Ambazuk may correspond to Ompod or Ompud in the list.

The next leader was Kölcse (517-528). The Greek historians must have had difficulties in pronouncing the sound “ö.” Therefore, Theophanes recorded his name as “Gorda” or rather “Gordas,” a king of the Huns living at the Strait of Kerch (in the Crimea). Procopius called this Christian Hun leader as Gourgenes who had ordered to melt the pagan statues made of gold and electrum. For this action his brother massacred him and his guards, including the Greeks, then disappeared from the region. However, the masses of that Hun nation may have remained on the shores of the Black Sea, under the leadership of Levente (528-546) and Lél (546-553).

Procopius mentions a king of the Saracens around 539-545 that was the most outstanding figure in the southern Caucasus region. Since the Huns and Saracens are mentioned as allies in the text, perhaps the Huns and Magyars recognised him as their leader. This is supported by the information that after the radical attempt of reform by Gourgenes, the Persians did not allow for these “barbarians” to elect their own kings. Thus, Alamoundaras was perhaps Levente. One of his Saracen subjects was named Ambrus, a Christian. (Ambrus is still a Hungarian surname.)

The next on the list is Zamor, from c. 553. His name appears in the work of Agathias as “Zabergan” or Zamergan (vulg.), the leader of the Kutrigur Huns. (The name “Kutrigur” may not come from the Bulgarian name “Kotrag,” but from the “Kadar-Ugor” of Kidara or Kadar.) This Zamergan attacked Constantinople, and afterwards retired to the Don area. In those days the Türks have already conquered most of the Ugors. The other part of the Ugors fled westward, under the name of Avars, while 300,000 of them were massacred, although they defended their homes heroically. The Greek Zemarchus, coming from the Aral Sea to their lands, after crossing the rivers Emba, Ural, and Volga, found their leader as a vassal of King Dizabul (Dizaboulos).

The name “Dizabul” reminds us to that of the Dacian king Decebal of the Dacians centuries earlier. Some historians identify him with Kaghan Silzibul. Its Arabic form “Sinjibool” sounds like the “Zamor” or “Zambor” of the list. The Eastern Turk Kaghan was Tsapar (572-581), again with a similar name. His successor was Isbara (581-587) that finally fled to the Gobi Desert. There was a time when “Persia and Byzantium trembled from their fear of the Turks,” but during the early 600s even Western Turkestan (or Turkistan) became a Chinese territory.

The half a dozen similar-sounding or distorted name makes the situation complicated. Also, Moravcsik (1958) mentions a ruler of the Avars named “Samour” about 585. According to Fehér (1969-70), this Western Turk ruler can be called Kaghan only from 586, based on Chinese sources that name him “Si-po-lo” or “I-si-po” that would allow an original form “Isbara.” The Chinese records tell that Shih-pi was a Khan, the most powerful ruler in Northeastern Asia. He must be the same as Ziebil, the king of the Khazars or Turks that came from the east, who fought against the Persians in 626 as a Byzantine ally. The two armies met each other, “Ziebil, sighting the Emperor, saluted him and kissed his shoulder, the Turk army bowed down to the ground. The Turks of higher rank climbed to rocks, and bowed down there. Heraclius embraced Ziebil, placed his own crown on Ziebil’s head, calling him his own son, showing him the picture of his daughter Eudokia. He promised her as wife for Ziebil who stayed enchanted by her beauty. The emperor presented him with royal robes, earrings and pearls, while Ziebil’s officers received the vessels and silverware used at the banquet. Ziebil sent 40,000 selected horsemen for the emperor, and he went home, but soon he was killed. Therefore, the princess (who is called Epiphania on the Internet) that had already left Byzantium, coming to Ziebil as the emperor had ordered, on her way was informed of the death of her fiancée, so she returned to the imperial palace.”

According to Byzantine sources, the nation of the Onogurs had a town called Onogur(is) in the sixth century. At the beginning of the next century the town of the Magyars is known from the same place, the “Magyar” on the River Kuma. Theophylactus (of)Simocatta wrote that in the victorious wars of Byzantine Emperor Heracleus (Herakleios), in 622-628, “Theodoros and Andreas repaired the neglected town of the Magyars (Matzarou).” This information does not refer to a military action, but rather shows the helpful gratitude of the emperor to his own daughter and Ziebil, as a payment for the effective military help of the Magyars or Hungarians.

There is an opinion that, around 635, Kaghan Sha-po-lo divided the Western Turk nation into ten tribes. Taking the above-mentioned paragraph in consideration, this date shall be shifted to a decade earlier. The notion of the ten tribes is perhaps connected with the Old Turkish name “on-Ogur” (“ten Ogurs” or “ten arrows”), but not necessarily.

After the name Balog or Bolug (629-640), we find “Bulcho” or “Bulchu” on the list. The Chinese sources mention him about 640 as the Western Turk “Wulicho.” Other Chinese records tell that in 643 envoys came to them from a country called “Fu Lin” that was located to the northwest of Persia. A ruler named “Potoli” or “Pheitoli” sent them. It appears that the full name of this ruler was originally “Bulcho Fejedelem.” (Both words are Hungarian, a personal name with a rank meaning “leader.” The latter “Fejedelem” was also the title of the famous Árpád.) “Fu Lin” may have been the country of the Magyars in the Caucasus, instead of the Byzantine Empire. We can add a detail here, according to which “Wu-che-lö,” Khan of the “Türgish” nation, became prisoner of the Qutlugh tribe in 689.

The name of Fu-lin was previously “Ta-chin.” Maybe this has something to do with the capital called Tarkhon that Rev. Lukácsy found in Armenian sources. The Chinese chroniclers described the population of this country as tall people with white or red face that appears similar to the Chinese, except their clothing. This is the reason why the other nations called them “another China.” [Our note: How would this description refer to the people of Constantinople?] This country used to have ten minor kings for a long time, but they do not have permanent rulers. They can read the foreign (Central Asian) books. They regulate the common and private affairs by law, and have official storage places for documents. They have bows and arrows, and white horses. They raise flags, just like the Chinese. They are honest in their businesses: there is no “two prices.” [That means that the prices are fixed, and there is no bargaining.] The men wear simple clothing, but the women embroidered silken dresses, decorated with pearls. The king wears a cap bordered by pearls that resembles a bird raising its wings. They make wine of grapes. [Therefore, they were not Moslems.] They love the sweet cookies. They are good eye-doctors and understand the trepanation of the skull. [Professor Gyula László confirms that the ancestors of the Magyars had the latter medical knowledge thousand years ago.]

Ta-chin is bordered with Persia on the southeast. To the west of them there is the Great [Black] Sea. On the north, their neighbours are the Ko-sa tribe of the Tu-ch’üeh nation [the Kazakh or the Khazar tribe of the Turks]. From the western border of the Parthians (likely from the eastern of the Caspian Sea), we have to travel to the north along the seashore, then to the west, and finally to the south, in order to reach this Ta-chin. [All these fit a “Magna Hungaria” on the northern slopes of the Caucasus.] Their lands lay to the west of a tribe called Chan [perhaps the Chun or Cuman nation]. This detail of Ju-Kua is similar to the one of El Bekhri, claiming that the Hungarians were neighbours of a people called “Ogona,” in the same region.

Westward from their capital, there is a town on their border called Ch’ih-san or Tse-san [this may refer to Cherson], its land previously belonged to Ta-chin. This region is flat and warm, laying in the middle of the sea. [This was the Crimea that belonged to the Huns, according to Procopius and the later Hungarian chronicles.] To the southwest from them, the area is unhealthy and desert land. To the east, we get to the nearby province of Lü-fen [this is “Lipan” in the work of the Armenian historian Mesrob (361-441), corresponds to Albania in the Caucasus]. The Chinese add that the Amazons lived in the western neighbourhood of Ta-chin. (Procopius also hints to the traditions about the original homeland of the Amazons, naming the place on the northern shores of the modern Turkey, namely Themiscyra above the Amazonius Mountain.)

The medieval travel descriptions of the Chinese and the Europeans agree well on many fabulous elements. These refer to the northern regions of the Caucasus: the ghost-market where the products change owners such manner that the seller and the buyer never see each other; the lamb that grows out of the soil by its umbilical cord that “fruit” has a shell as a pumpkin. [Later some sources even depicted this fantastic “lamb-plant” by a drawing. It must have been a metaphor to describe the plant of the cotton for the Chinese.]

The Arabs paid tribute for Ta-chin for a long time, and against them an army of 10,000 served for defence. King Po-to-li sent gifts and envoys to China in the year 643. The Arabs later attacked his country that eventually submitted herself to the Arabs. Between 666 and 701, and in 719 they sent gifts to China again. (Another Chinese chronicle, dealing with the years from 618 to 906, tells that this country made a peace treaty with the Arabs after the first war, but afterwards the capital and the whole country ended up under the rule of the Arabs. These details do not allow us to identify Ta-Chin with Byzantium or Jerusalem.)

The products of Ta-chin were the pine tree, cypress, bamboo, poplar and rush.They produce all kinds of corns that are cheap to buy, and their distribution is good. Their domestic animals are the donkey, the mule, the camel, and the mulberry-silkworm. They grow fine hemp. They have good looms and skilled weavers.

These sentences are cited from a Chinese chronicle that was written in A.D. 429 the latest. All historians accept that the manner of making silk was kept in secret in China until the beginning of the fifth century. According to Hsüan-cang, the great Chinese traveller, a Chinese princess smuggled out some silkworm-eggs and seeds of mulberry hidden in her hair. (She was married to the ruler of Khotan in the Tarim Valley, and she did not want to live without silken dresses in her new homeland.) The central Asian nations soon learned the procedure how to make silk. The first eggs of the silkworm got the Byzantium and the region of the Mediterranean Sea by smuggling again, hiding in the sticks of some monks, during the reign of the Emperor Justinian. These details themselves prove that it would be incorrect to place Ta-chin in Constantinople, Judea, Antiochia, or Baghdad. However, the friendly connections between the nations of Central Asia apparently allowed the Magyars to became familiar with the silkworm.

Even the Chinese travellers themselves acknowledge that some confusion happened in the later identification of Ta-chin, and the descriptions became controversial. Originally in A.D. 166 (or in 151) the Roma Emperor Antonin (138-161), “An-tun” in the Chinese text, sent ambassadors to Emperor Huan to China. Afterwards the connection ceased between the two empires, but the name “Ta-chin” was perhaps shifted to the region of the Caucasus. The strong Greek influence along the coasts of the Black Sea probably had a role in causing this confusion. Although the Chinese were good travellers (that left detailed descriptions in 1178 of Southern Spain, Sicily, or the volcano Etna), they were unable to follow the constant changes of power in the European politics. Most of the material shown in the previous paragraphs is taken from the reprint of the works of Chan Ju-Kua (1966). Philip (1998) thinks that Ta-chin was Syria.

The next names of our list of Hungarian leaders are Zsolta (pron. “Zholta”), probably ruling from 687 to 703, and Berend (Borun or Birut in some ancient sources). The next leader was Kadicha, around 717-730. This ruler may correspond to “Tesh” or “Ti-shö,” the vice-king of Tocharistan. The ruler of Ta-chin utilized him as intermediator, when he sent gifts to China, accompanied by a Manichean priest-astronomer, in 719. This event can be explained by the effect of the Arab offensive in 717 upon the homelands of the Khazars and Magyars. Otherwise, it would be hard to imagine that a Christian emperor of Constantinople would have sent a Manichaean missionary to China. Also, the historian Fehér (1969-1970) explains that the Manichaeanfaith was very popular amongst the ancient Hungarians. Zonaras (1570) recorded, “the Turks [Hungarians] originated from those Huns that inhabited the Caucasus Mountains, on its tramontana [northern wind] side.”

Finally, we arrived to the leader named Opos, “son of Magyar.” His person seems to be the firmest one in the first part of the list. He probably ruled from 730 to 750. The Chinese sources recorded a name at c. 730 as “Mei lu ch’o” that perhaps meant “Magyar.” The name Opos has a Greek origin, but it was still popular in Hungary during the next centuries. The Illuminated Chronicle mentions this name. The Hungarian historians Padányi and Csobánczi admit that the name “Upas ibn-Madar” in the Arab historical sources refers to a Hungarian leader. Between the years 735 and 743, the region of the Caucasus fell under the control of the Caliph of Damascus. Between 737 and 740 a major military uprising took place. According to the annals of the Arabs, the leader of the uprising was called “Upas ibn-Madar.” His name in Hungarian means the son (or descendant) of Magyar. This chief did not submit his people to the power of Merwan (Mervan Kru), the Arab leader. Around 740, one night he broke out with the Avars and Magyars of the neighbourhood of Sarir, and fled with his nation to the Khazars. In the first years of the twentieth century, Dr. Imre Karácson, a Hungarian historian, expressed his opinion that this second (lost) war may have caused the Magyars to leave the Caucasus region.

Some of the Hungarian chroniclers like Ransanus have kept the memory of this A.D. 744, directly mentioning this year as a historical turning point. Also, the antique Armenian sources of Rev. Lukácsy recorded that part of the surrounded Magyar population was so depressed that they committed suicide, by throwing themselves to the sea. Tu Huan testified similarly: he was a Chinese traveller that became prisoner of the Arabs in the battle of Talas in 751, with thousands of his compatriots. He mentions that the citizens of Ta-chin rather choose the death than to give up their own customs for that of the Arabs. (Many historians refuse to believe that the Chinese traveller would have meant the ancient Babylonian captivity of the Jews 1400 years earlier. The Chinese chronicler certainly did not mean the martyrdom of the Syrian Christians either, since his words refer to a nation, not to individuals. The army of these Christian missionaries could not have amounted to 10,000 soldiers, and “several tens of countries” could not have been under their rule. Let alone India that has never been under Christian rule before 751.)

The next names are Ethei (c. 750-770) and Semeny (c. 770-789). This Scemen orSzemény may have been the founder of the Samanide Dynasty. Saman was a prince near the town Termez that lay on the northern shore of the Oxus River, the modern Amu Darya that runs into the Aral Sea. The eldest grandchild of Saman died in 842. Therefore, the end of Semeny’s rule can be placed rightfully in c. 800. This could mean that the family of this Hungarian leader, who probably owned a large tract of land to the south of the Aral Sea, contributed to the development and flourishing of the medieval Persia.

Afterwards, Torda (c. 798-818) and Ügyek or Ugek (c. 818-847) may have been the chieftains of the Magyars. These two names follow each other not only in our list, but also in the Chinese chronicles: “To-lo-ssu” [Taras] and “A-chüeh.” The name Ügyek may correspond to the person of Wu-kiai (Uga), one of the last Ujhur kaghans that lost his life in the Altai Mountain during an unclear military action. These vague circumstances of his death still allow us the possibility that the town Ukek on the River Volga near the modern Saratov, mentioned by medieval travellers and on the map of Yule (1871), may have kept Ugek’s name. The Magyars supposedly left Uighuria or Ujguria due to a severe famine. (In the Hungarian chronicles, king Peter explained the etymology of the name of the Hungarians by the word “hunger.”)

Finally, the successor of Ugek was Álmos (born in 819, according to Anonymus), passed the leadership to his son Árpád, as a result for the popular vote. The seven leaders of the seven (or ten) tribes of the Hungarians elevated Árpád on a shield over themselves. Later they sealed their decision by an oath, cutting themselves, and each of them tasting the blood that was collected in a cup. Németh (c. 1994) offers more details of the “blood-drinking Hungarians.”

These paragraphs from Kadar or Kidara (AD 373) are preliminary only, with tentative dates and identifications. Our text is the first complete theory, but rather less than a theory. Neither the dates nor the identification of the names is final, only a preliminary suggestion. We may accept the probability that once some of the Hungarian tribes lived to the northwest of Persia. However, there is a significant factor of uncertainty, due to the dynamism of those semi-nomadic nations. Many of the tribes moved or have been dislocated several times. Also, a certain tribe may not have been dominant for centuries. While some of the tribes became stronger, others may have become insignificant by the passing centuries.

Armin(us) Vámbéry was a prominent Turkologist and historian of the 19th century. Wherever he mentions a number, he may have taken it from an ancient source or tradition that we do not have anymore. He tells, “twenty-two generations passed after the death of the two brothers [i.e., Hunor and Magor, the traditional ancestors of the Huns and Hungarians], when the Huns, out of unknown reasons, decided to leave their country.” These 22 generations are valid for our list, between the leaders Kadar and Opos (Upas ibn-Madar). However, we have to assume that the starting point was the split of the Huns from the Magyars in 373, while the other date, A.D. 744, refers to the departure of the Magyars from their ancient homes in the Caucasus region. According to Ransanus, the Sarmatians or Magyars left their homeland in 744. The medieval poets about Alexander the Great, and the description of the Caucasus by Marco Polo also mentioned those 22 nations of Gog and Magog with their kings that had been locked off from the rest of the world by an iron gate; Pagden (2001: 25) mentions a copper gate. Perhaps the number twenty-two referred to generations, instead of nations. The Latin words gens and generations may have been substituted for each other.                 

Orosius (1936: 39) was the first “western” historian of the Middle Ages that used the term “Scythian Huns” as “Chuni Scythians.” The annals of Benedictine abbot Regino of Prüm, written about A.D. 906, called the Hungarians “Scythians.” Pope Sylvester II (999-1003), in an epistle glorifying Emperor Otto III, called them “Scythians” as well. Popes Gregory IX (1227-1241) and Urban V (1362-1370) called the Hungarians as “Royal Scythians.”

Byzantine Emperor Leo VI the Wise (888-912) refers to the Hungarians as a “Scythian Turk” nation, and an anonymous 10th-century poet called them “Scythian Huns.” [Please note that we have adjusted the accession year of Leo, as we demonstrate it below.] According to The Legend of St. Clement of Byzantium, written at the beginning of the 10th century, the Hungarians or Magyars ravaging Bulgaria were known as “Makair Scythians.” The oldest world map exhibited in the British Library (London), the “Anglo-Saxon world map” from around AD 1000, shows a nation of the Huns (“Hunorum gen.”) in the Carpathian Basin.

The language of the ancient Scythians is unknown. However, Herodotus recorded an interesting linguistic feature about them. According to him, when the Scythians speak of “feather,” they actually mean the “snow.” Indeed, the Hungarian language has similar words for the snowflake, “(hó-)pehely” or “(hó-)pihe,” and for the soft feather (“pehely-toll” or “pihe”). Herodotus called the battle-axe of the Massageta Huns as “sagaris.” This reminds us to the old Hungarian word “szekerce,” an axe that was often used for fighting in the Middle Ages.

We do not agree fully with the Russian scholar Brasinsky, one of the best experts on the Scythians. Although he places the Royal Scythians correctly in the northwestern region of the Caucasus and in the Crimea, he thinks that the Sarmatians had completely assimilated the Scythians by the second century BC. The Scythians may have mingled with the Sarmatians, and borrowed some of their lifestyle, but it is hard to prove that they have disappeared so quickly. The New Testament still mentions Scythians, and the name of “John Cassian, a Scythian by race” or “Cassianus natione Scytha” (a historian between AD 360 and 435) proves the prolonged existence of the Scythians as a nation.

Theophanes (359, 12-17 C. de Boor) tells, “The sons of [the Bulgarian] Kobrat (Kuvrat) divived the Onogur-Bolgar tribes. One of them joined the Avars. The third one, Asparuch settled in Bulgaria in 679. He settled the Severis (Severjans) from the beginning of the Pass of Beregaba [Bereg county in the N.E. Carpathians] till Mesambria [?], subjugated and settled the “Hepta geneai” or “seven tribes” of the Sclavins towards the south and west as their allies.” Legends confirm that these were the seven tribes of the Székelys [pron. “say-kei” but without the inflecting y sound in the middle; called Siculi in Latin, and Sekler in German] in Transylvania since 454. They claimed themselves to be the remnants of King Attila’s scattered Hun army.

According to many early Hungarian chronicles (Illuminated Chronicle of Vienna or Bécsi Képes Krónika, Chronicle of Dubnic or Dubniczi Krónika, Teleki-Codex, Béldi-Codex, etc.) Attila or Atila (391-453) was elected ruler [prince] by a popular vote in the year 401 (Századok, 1899: 244). The entry of the Huns into the (southern edges of the) Carpathian Basin at the lower Danube can be dated to 381, based on some chronicles. The Illuminated Chronicle and Ranzanus claim that Attila became king 28 years after this entry of the Magyars or Huns. He was elected king in 409, using these chronicles again (let alone the different scholarly opinions). The difference between the arrival (381) and the election (409) is 28 years, indeed. (The only difference is that we must divide the numbers of some chronicles by two: Attila died at the age 62, instead of 124. The Huns perhaps used half years as a year, from equinox to equinox, just like the early Japanese chroniclers and the Hebrews in the days of Abraham.) Many entries of the Encyclopaedia Hungarica (1992-97) explain these details well, including the Huns’ first serious battle at Ceiselmauer (Cezumór) near Vienna in A.D. 408.

 

Historians are puzzled why the Romans withdrew their troops from Britain in the year 410. They do not understand why. None of them seems to consider the truthfulness of the early Hungarian chronicles that have incorporated the historic traditions of the remnants of the Huns surviving in the Carpathian Basin after A.D. 454. Most of those traditions and legends are releted to Attila and his youngest son named "Csaba" (pron. Chaba), the hero and saviour of the Siculy or Szekelys that survived in Transylvania until N. Ceausescu decimated them. But returning the battle of Ceiselmauer near Vienna in A.D. 408, it meant a turning point for the Romans: they fortified their eastern border along the Danube River, possibly transfering their troops there that had been stationing in Britain before A.D. 410. (Also, the Huns and the Irish-Scottish tribes may have had some kind of military agreement one with the other in those years against the Britons.)    

 

D. Sinor (1990: 185-6) tells that in 412-13 Olympiodorus was “sent to the Huns, and wrote a description of his experiences. For a part of his journey Olympiodorus traveled northwards by sea… and met the king of the Huns, called Kharaton… A more careful sifting of the available evidence suggests that … he sailed northwards on the Adriatic and that Pannonia was the place of his encounter with Kharaton.”

Attila apparently had been murdered on his nuptial night by rat poison administered to him by Hildegunde, (H)ildico, Grimhild, or Gudrun. These confused names may refer to a princess and her mother. The princess died on that day, although the Hungarian chroniclers deny it. The rat poison is called Warfarin. Its overdose may cause an internal bleeding, including that of the nose. The chroniclers claimed that Attila had suffocated by the bleeding of his nose. A web page claims that he had choked on his own vomit, which wording is a falsification of the original records. Joe (1999) and Tischner (2004) offer good web pages of the mythologies.

The burial place of Attila is somewhere along the rivers Danube or Tisza [pron. Tisa]. One day it may be found under the immense kurgan in the Danube that is forming the bulk of an island near Moldova Veche. Both the Rumanian and the Hungarian local population have this old tradition, as I heard it from a (now Canadian) geologist, Andrei Balogh, who used to live in Moldova Veche. He said that the island belonged to Rumania but it was within a special border zone, apparently without any village on it.

Attila’s vast empire fell apart after the battle of Nedao (at the Nedava, a tributary of the River Sava) in A.D. 454. The language of the Huns is quite unknown, and some of the chronicles even claim that the Medians belonged to his nation. It is fashionable to say that they spoke a sort of Turkish language. As a personal opinion, I believe that the Huns were a very mixed nation, and may have included some proto-Hungarian and proto-Slavic tribes as “Scythians.” For example, Priscos (or Priscus) Rhetor, visiting Attila at his royal court, recorded the word “strava.” This may mean a certain “food” in Slovakian and the word "strapachka" could be related to it. But rather, it was a form of the modern “zdravo” (meaning something like “Hi!” in English) that is common in Serbo-Croatian, and also a root for the Russian “zdrav-s-tvuytye,” for a common greeting. Some of the Slavic nations in or around the Carpathian Basin were Attila's vassals or allies.

Professor K. Czeglédy found an “al-qabar ya” nation on al-Ward’s map. The Arabic Ibn Hurradādbih (846-885) allows a Kabar-Magyar federation for three (not 300) years after 885.     

The last homelands of the Hungarians before their conquest of the Carpathian Basin were located somewhere in the modern Ukraine, as widely agreed by historians. They called one of these regions “Levédia” or “Levedia,” after one of their tribal chiefs named “Levedi.” He may have been the same person as “Előd” or “Eleved,” perhaps the uncle of Árpád. The army of Árpád traditionally consisted of seven tribes. However, a contemporary imperial Byzantine source claimed that the tribes of the Turks had united with the three tribes of the Kabars, and both nations had learned the language or dialect of each other. The emperor himself recorded from a Hungarian delegation that the names of their tribes were Nyék, Megyer, Kürt-Gyarmat, Tarján, Jenő, Kér, and Keszi. These names have been recorded in slightly different spellings, but all the seven of them can be identified with certainty. All the seven are still present in many compound place-names that contain them. There is no reliable record that would enable us to locate these names accurately in the Carpathian Basin. The earliest surviving Hungarian chronicles (from c. 1215) associate the names of their seven leaders with certain tribal areas, but it is hard to prove the veracity of such claim. Also, we cannot tell with certainty which leader belonged to which tribe. The traditional names of the seven leaders: Álmos, Előd, Ond, Kond, Tas, Huba and Töhötöm (or Tétény). Another version of the list includes Árpád and Szabolcs, but these two must have been the sons of Álmos and Előd, accordingly.

 

The reader may refer to Zoltan Andrew Simon's chronological table for the Huns and Hungarians, taken from the book entitled "Atlantis: the Seven Seals" (Vancouver, 1984).

 [CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE TO COME]

  

Levedia was situated on the plains to the west of the River Don. After they have left this region and migrated westward, they arrived to “Etelköz” (Etelkuzu in the Byzantine source). This meant “river-between.” The word “etil” probably stood for river and/or water, reminding one to the “atl” (“water”) in the Aztec language. There is hard to find any special feature in the northern neighbourhood of the Black Sea that would have allowed any distinction between Levedia and Etelkuzu. In my first book (Simon, 1978) I made an attempt to prove that Etelkuzu was the plain along the River Tisza’s upper flow. This area is rich in rivers, and it is separated from Levedia by the Carpathian mountain range.     

We show a condensed chronology with the activities of the Hungarians as follow:

839: Georgios Monachos (Hamartolos)mentions the first encampment of the Hungarians that helped to end the mutiny of the Byzantine war prisoners or Bulgarians at the lower Danube.

862: Their first incursion into the German Empire, according to the words of Hinkmar von Reims (Hincmarus Remensis, the archbishop of Reims), in the “Schwabische annalen.” We are unable to confirm the name of these annals by the Internet, but Hungarian historians called it simply “Schwab annals” (“Sváb Évkönyvek”) that may not be the correct translation. A modern web page tells, “Etelküzü Magyars in 862, fought in alliance with the Moravian ruler Rastislav (846-70) against the Franks. We may add: there is no proof that the bulk of the Magyars resided in Etelküzü (“Rivers-between”) as early as 862. They must have lived still in Levedia in Ukraine.

863 (or 862): the “Annales Alemannici” mentions the “Gens Hunorum.”

881: A united army of Kabars (or Kavars) and Magyars is fighting near Vienna, Austria, against the Franks. (Both raids also appear on the “History of Slovakia: Slav States” web page.)

888: In March, they devastate the town Metten in Bavaria, as recorded in the contemporary Chronica Benedictina. This could be accounted for an exploring army of the Magyarsthat had been sent out from Etelköz. The German Annals of Metz, and later the Codex Sambucus of Hungary (from the end of the fifteenth century, published in Vienna in 1564) assign the year 888 as the date of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin. Three chronicles (the ones of Pozsony – now Bratislava –, Buda, and Dubnic) also claim the year 888 for the same conquest. This “Dubnic chronicle” is a Latin chronicle written at Várad (now Oradea), in 1476. The “Chronicon Dubnicense” is placed in the 14th century. This slight confusion is perhaps caused by the different translations of the same source, or maybe continuations. They seem to give the same information as the collegiate of Várad, “the large mass of the Scythian people crossed the borders of Pannonia in 888.” Here the Scythians mean Hungarians, and Pannonia the Carpathian Basin in a wider sense, just as in many medieval sources, and not Pannonia of the Romans. Furthermore, the Chronicle of Zagreb gives the year 889 for the conquest of this “Pannonia.” The chronicle of István [Stephen] Székely was published in Krakow (Poland) in 1559. Székely places the conquest in 888-889.

It seems unlikely that all these sources, now located in five countries, would be all wrong. Therefore, the historian Károly [Charles] Szabó accepted already in 1883 that the majority of the Hungarians crossed the Carpathian Mountains in the year 888-889. The two Russian chronicles of Nestor and Nikon mention a great migration of the Ugors in 888, and it must refer to the Hungarians. Abbot Regino of Lorraine (Lothringen) wrote at the beginning of the 10th century that the Pechenegs (Patzinaks or Pacinacites) pushed out the Hungarians from Scythia in the year 889. Annalist Saxo also refers to this event, adding that in 890 Arnulf invited the ruthless Hungarians to help him.

In 890 the western world started to mention the menace of the pagans (“in minentibus paganis”) and the determination of the ways by which this danger could be prevented. This wording allows us to think that the Hungarians were already very active on the western side of the Carpathian Mountains.

James Howell published a book in England in 1664, entitled “Florus Hungaricus.” It is written in English, which version is unknown in Hungary. (I have found them on microfilms in two university libraries of British Columbia.) The most likely author of the Latin original is János [John] Nadányi, a professor of Enyed or Nagyenyed in Transylvania that caused some troubles for the governor Miklós (Nicholas) Bethlen, according to the autobiography of the latter. The “Florus Hungaricus” offers a good amount of hiding information about the Huns and Magyars. It would deserve the attention of historians, for the ancient “Scythian Hun” or “Székely” runic writing was still known for a few persons and very old records may have existed in Transylvania in those days. The “Florus Hungaricus” also claims that the Hungarians crossed the mountain chain of the Carpathians and occupied Transylvania in the same year. Professor Macartney, the renowned English historian and poet wrote the same a few decades ago. Perhaps he also had found and used this antique source.

It is well accepted that the Hungarians were fighting in 892 as allies of Arnulf. The Annals of Fulda recorded that they were federated with King Arnulf and attacked the Slavs. The most detailed chronicle about the Hungarian conquest is the Gesta Hungarorum of Anonymus, also known as P. Magister. In an earlier paper (entitled “Anonymus again?!”), published in an anthology of the Canadian Hungarian Authors’ Association, I demonstrated that Anonymus must have written his chronicle around 1215. Previously he had been the notary of King Béla III (1173-96) as “Belae Regis Notarius.” He may have been either Peter, bishop of Győr, or, Paulus Hungarus that had studied in Paris and Bologna. This chronicler claimed that the Árpád’s Hungarians had established their border near the River Morava and the fortress of Borona (the modern Brno, Brünn in German). Historians accept that Brno had a fortress in those days. Although Anonymus does not mention the year, it fits well the year 892 and the federation with Arnulf. Most historians assume that the Hungarians destroyed Great Moravia and occupied the whole Carpathian Basin by 907. This date came from Anonymus, but it did not mean a rigid date. Since 892 the Magyars raided this “Great Moravia” and it was under their military control to the River Morava, although the Moravians may have kept their own administration till 907.

All sources and the modern historians, including Prof. Györffy, place the Hungarian attack on Moravia in the year 892, when the Hungarians fought on Arnulf’s side. The Annales Sangallensis Maiores recorded that Arnulf let the Hungarians out only in 892, letting them free from the places where they had been closed [by the Moravians, from the German point of view]. There is a record at the year 894, “Arnulfos Ungarios eduxit,” that would allow an interpretation for a second invitation of the Hungarians by Arnulf. The chronicle of Anonymus would provide accurate dates for the invasion led by Árpád’s captains into the mountains of Northern Hungary (now most of it in Slovakia). More than a century ago, the report of the historical committee in the Academy [of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences] dated the Hungarian military offensive in the valleys of the Hron (Garam), Nitra (Nyitra) and the Váh (Vág), recorded by Anonymus, to the year 892. (From an article entitled “A Millenárium az Akadémiában – A Történelmi Bizottság jelentése” cited from the serial publication “Századok.”)

Johannes Turmair (1477-1534), a German authority, also known as Aventinus, wrote at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, based on old sources, “The envoys of the Hungarian king Kusal (Kurszán in the Hungarian tradition) travelled to the Imperial Council summoned by the Bavarian king in 892, and they offered to send their armies to help them against the Moravian kings Svatopluk II and Mojmir II. (We must note here that the latter rulers must have been only princes then, since Svatopluk I or Sventibold was still alive till 894.) Their only condition was to receive the lands of those Moravians, in case of a Hungarian victory. According to Aventinus, Arnulf accepted this offer gladly, and after the agreement both the Bavarians and the Hungarians commenced a coordinated attack on the Moravians. Aventinus adds, “the Hungarians previously ravaged the regions of the plain [of the Tisza and the Danube], and they had been already settled there permanently.” In short, a German source confirms that the Hungarian Plain (the Alföld) had been a permanent property of the Hungarians in 892. After these military actions they conquered the proper Pannonia that lay to the west of the Danube. This conquest was introduced by a destructive “Blitzkrieg” in 894 over the whole Pannonia that is confirmed by The Annals of Fulda. The historian Henrik Marczali was convinced in 1895 that the Hungarians were already the lords of the whole Hungarian Plain in 894 (Erdélyi, 1986: 88).

We cannot agree with many dates of Scaruffi (1999), but he claims that the Moravians under Svatopluk invaded the Vistula basin in 874, and invaded Bohemia and Pannonia in 882. These agree with an early Hungarian chronicle claiming that Svatopluk was a king of Poland, (other sources add that he devastated Pannonia with the Hungarians as allies), and when Svatopluk lost his life in the Danube, fleeing from the Magyars, his old father also died in sorrow in Veszprém, for Svatopluk had ruled in Pannonia just for a short time. (Therefore, Pannonia could not have been Svatopluk’s property before 892; he did not devastate his own kingdom.)

Symeon, Tsar of Bulgaria accessed to his throne in the autumn of 893 (Encyclopedia Italiana, 1958-66). Within a few months following his accession he initiated a war against the Greeks, apparently ignoring a previous peace treaty, for the unjust treatment of his merchants. The Byzantine emperor wrote about these events and the Bulgarians, “for breaking their oath against Byzantium, the immediately revenging justice quickly rushed to send a punishment to them [to the Bulgarians], because the Saracens having been tied down our [Byzantine] armies, the divine providence arose the Turks [Hungarians] instead of the Romans [Germans] into arms against the Bulgarians.” The “breaking their oath” may mean that previously the Greeks and the Bulgarians were allies. Anonymus’ chronicle confirms this circumstance.         

It is certain that the main military operations of the Hungarians against the Bulgarians began only in the year of a solar eclipse, or shortly afterwards. This eclipse of the sun took place on August 8, 891. The catalogue of eclipses written by Theodore von Oppolzer (1962) shows on map #100 that in those years only the above-mentioned annular eclipse was visible in Greece. Ferenc Lakits (1850-1920) Hungarian astronomer has arrived to the same conclusion. The chronicler of Emperor Leo VI (the Wise) recorded that the eclipse took place about noon, and the stars became visible. Lakits calculated a magnitude of 93% for this eclipse, but it must have been 99 or 100%. Stars would not be visible during a solar eclipse with a magnitude of 93%. Astronomer Professor A. Ponori Thewrewk, retired director of the Planetarium of Budapest, gives more details and illustrating maps on his web pages.

The Byzantine contemporary chronicler, Symeon Magister (fl. 963-69), also testified that the Hungarian-Bulgarian war could be dated between 891 and 895. Emperor Leo the Wise reigned from 888 [not from 886] in our chronology, and that war lasted from the third year to the seventh regnal year of Leo. The above-mentioned eclipse of the sun in the second year of Leo the Wise fixes his accession date to September 1, 889. The Bulgarian leader named Zalan (Salan of Titel in Anonymus, the denominator of Slankamen; both towns are near Beograd) suffered a decisive defeat from the Hungarians at Alpár near the River Tisza. Therefore, the chronicle of Anonymus places the beginning of the Bulgarian-Hungarian war (that culminated in the battle at Alpár) between the 1st of September 891 and the 1st of September 892, and the end of the same war between September 1, 895 and September 1, 896. The words of Leo the Wise claim, “the Hungarians defeated the Bulgarians three times.” According to the information of The Annals of Fulda, the Hungarians defeated Tsar Symeon twice. These two sources are harmonious, and could mean that at first the Hungarians defeated Vladimir, the predecessor of Symeon, and afterwards gained victory over Symeon twice. Also, the historian Gyula [Julius] Pauler proposed in 1900 the above-mentioned interpretation. Based on all these, Professor Macartney agrees that the Hungarian chronicles really counted their conquest from the year 892, or 894 the latest.

We cannot deal here with a detailed Byzantine chronology, but we must note that historians of most nations do not pay enough attention to absolute dates. The majority have never seen the astronomical work of Oppolzer or others. Apparently, they are afraid to look at any map that shows the lines of centrality of solar eclipses. After all, astronomy is not witchcraft, rather the best tool for an absolute chronology. It is easier to understand these maps as anyone thinks. Therefore, no wonder that officially the accession of Emperor Leo the Wise is still placed in 886, and not in 888 that would be given by the eclipse mentioned above. 

 The Cistercian monk Albericus Monachus of Trois-fontaines, in the 13th century, placed the Hungarian conquest in 893. Likely the decisive victory of the Hungarians at Alpár meant the turning point for him. Georgius Continuatus (the continuation of friar George’s chronicle) claims, “[in 894] Byzantine Emperor Leo the Wise sent an envoy (or ambassador) to the Hungarians in order to instigate (and bribe) them to attack the Bulgarians. The envoy took some ships and navigated to the River Danube where he met two princes of the Turks [Hungarians], named Árpád and Kusan, and convinced them to wage war on the Bulgarians. Árpád entrusted his son Levente or Liuntika, prince of the Kabars, withthe leadership of the raid. Byzantine sources mention these events after the solar eclipse of 891 and the death of Patriarch Stephen (in May 893), so we have to place this military expedition in the year 894, because after the expedition but before the Pecheneg’s attack upon the Hungarians in 895 Emperor Leo and Tsar Symeon implemented such orders and arrangements that required considerable maritime travels.

Of course, modern and politically motivated Hungarian history books are silent about a detail provided by Emperor Constantine VII (Porphyrogenetos). According to their earlier promise, the Byzantine navy blockaded the lower Danube, and the ships of Admiral Eustathios picked up an army of Hungarian warriors from the Hungarian headquarters on the River Danube. (It is very probable that the Hungarians did not have any navy.) The main aim of the Bulgarians was also to block the River Danube by several thick ropes, thus trying to prevent the landing of the Hungarians on Bulgarian territories. However, the Greek helmsman Michael Barkalas has opened a way for them by cutting the ropes of the Bulgarians. We can locate this event probably near Orsova, instead of the delta of the Danube. Constantine Porphyrogenetos tells that the incident took place when his fleet floated downstream on the River Danube, and that he later appointed him as the second navigator of the imperial ship, for his bravery.(Only Hegedűs mentions Barkalas on the Internet.) This humble detail of the emperor proves that the ships arriving to Bulgaria, laden with Hungarian soldiers, moved downstream and not upstream. In other words, the Hungarian headquarters were already to the west of Bulgaria, and not to the east of the Danube’s delta in Ukraine. Another illustrated Greek record supporting this solution is that Tsar Symeon fled from the Hungarians to his eastern fortress of Dristra (Dorostolum, Silistra) at Dobrogea or Dobrudja. He did not flee towards the Hungarians that had attacked from the west.

It is clear for us that the Hungarian and Greek military leaders had a good stratagem. If the Hungarian army were stationing near Odessa (along the coasts of the modern Ukraine), then the Greek ships could have picked up the whole Hungarian army easily. They could have taken them to the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea, landing them in the night at several towns simultaneously. Thus, the Hungarians could have conquered the whole Bulgaria within a few days. Instead, they made a silly choice: they struggled through the maze formed by several branches of the Danube, a treacherous swampy region with tall reed, swarmed with insects. Allegedly, they moved upstream against the flow, without causing any surprise attack upon the Bulgarians. This strange scenario existed in the theories of the communist historians.

All circumstances indicate that in 894 the court of Árpád was located at Bodrogvár (as Anonymus wrote), near Titel and Zalánkemén [now Slan-kamen, “Salan’s stone(s)”]. The Greek ships were needed for the Hungarians in order to eliminate a long expedition to the heart of Bulgaria, and enabling them to deliver a surprise attack there. Otherwise, the ancestors of the Hungarians used inflated skins of animals for crossing rivers, just like the Avars (or the Assyrians) earlier. However, in a major military operation and with a great river involved they could not take such risk, for the water would have rendered their bowstrings useless.

These data had to be mentioned, in order to prove that the theory of the Hungarian conquest in A.D. 896 seems very inaccurate and haphazard. The main reason of its existence was practical. The political and spiritual leaders of the country near the end of the nineteenth century left their home works to the last minute. When they woke up, it became obvious that 895 or 896 were not the year of the conquest. Yet the whole Hungary was in a commotion, waiting for their decision about the magic date that turned out to be the opportunist 896. It was a totally uneventful year, but such shift of the deadline allowed the country to prepare decent celebrations of the millennium spent in the Carpathian Basin.

The consenus of ultraorthodox historians oversimplifies all these events. They claim that the Pechenegs had a raid on the Magyars in 895 or 896. Therefore, the Magyars supposedly fled westward, and accidentally found and occupied the Carpathian Basin. It is hard to imagine that the scattered and confused remnants of a nation, after a grave loss, would have been able to conquer an area larger than England, wiping out the kingdoms of “Great Moravia” and half of “Great Bulgaria.” Finally, Professor J. Harmatta (2000), an outstanding expert on old languages, demonstrated the absurdity of this Pecheneg theory. We add some further data to it as follows:

Emperor Leo the Wise, in his “Tactica” (Constitution XVIII. 42, 44) testifies, “Our Majesty’s fleet ferried them [the Magyars] across the Danube and assisted them and they overwhelmingly defeated the army of the Bulgarians” (Shepard, 2003). They progressed as far as Prestlabos, enclosed Symeon into his fortress called Mundraga, then returned [to Hungary]. There is no mentioning of the Pechenegs. The Russian “Povĕsti vremennych lĕt” or the “Annales of Fulda” are also silent. According to the Byzantine chronicler Skylitzes, Tsar Symeon begged for peace from the emperor, through “Eustathios drungarios.” After these events [during which the Hungarians defeated the Bulgars in three battles, although losing their leader Levente, Árpád’s son], Symeon made peace with Byzantium again, and became encouraged to instigate the Pechenegs to attack the Magyars. When the Magyars went out for a raid, the Pechenegs and Bulgars attacked them. (Most of this is based on Constantine, “De Administrando Imperio.”) However, Harmatta observed a serious problem. Namely that Symeon and Byzantium could have made a peace treaty only after the Byzantine defeat at Bulgarophygon (896) that would shift the date of the Bulgarian-Pecheneg rain on the Magyars to 897 the earliest. [This would imply that Etelkuzu, where the Magyars lived during the Pecheneg’s raid, was inside the Carpathian Basin.]                 

After the conquest of the whole Carpathian Basin, in 900 the Hungarians temporarily occupied Bavaria as far as the River Enns, according to The Annals of Fulda.

In 901 they raided Kärnten or Carinthia and the southern part of Moravia.

Árpád was the military leader of an immense army and founder of a new dynasty, the House of Árpád or “Árpád-ház” that became extinct in 1301. The conquering Hungarians formed a great wedge within the immense block of the Slavic nations in Central-Eastern Europe, just as the Anglo-Saxons cut the Cornish people off the British-Welsh nation. The Hungarian wedge separated the Slavic nations into Northern and Southern Slavs, as if they wanted to help the classifying work of the modern linguists. It is easy to imagine that the Slavic and other (Austrian and Wlach or Wallachian) neighbours of the Hungarians did not like this arrangement that lasted for more than 1,000 years. Therefore, Hungary has lost two-thirds of its territory in the “Treaty of Trianon” in 1920, for the benefit of all her neighbours.

Here we can make a short diversion to discuss the military expeditions of the Hungarians. According to Macartney (1962), they made 33 expeditions between 898 and 955. It seems to us that the Hungarian traditions confuse two persons, and J. Pauler observed this still in 1899. These kind of mix-ups may have happened, for more than one person wore the same name. An example for this situation is the person of Botond. The first Botond was a contemporary of the conquering military leaders Árpád, Lél, and Bulcsu. Therefore, Anonymus told the truth when he wrote, “I have not found in any of the books of the chroniclers that Botond crushed the gate of Constantinople.” This traditional event did not refer to a leader, but a common soldier called Botond to whom in 958 Captain Apor ordered to hit the gate of that city, probably by his mace. The chronicler adds that this Botond “was the smallest amongst the Hungarians” (from the Illuminated Chronicle, 1358). This second Botond could not have been contemporary with Árpád that was the chief military leader from 886 to 907.

The chronicler Thuróczy and the Illuminated Chronicle (or “Képes Krónika”) agree on the detail that the Hungarians relaxed for six years (apparently 888-894) after coming in by crossing the Carpathian Mountains. After this break they ransacked the whole country of the Moravians of Prince Vratislav. (He may have been Bratislava’s denominator.) The Hungarians raided Lombardy in 899-900. They killed Lindward, bishop of Vercelli during this expedition. After this raid, they stayed quiet for ten years, but they went against Thüringia (Thüringien) in the eleventh year, that yields 911. In the eighteenth year (918) the Germans gave them a serious defeat in Bavaria, at the fortress of Abach. Although the traitor king, Conrad I, also died at this event, the Germans executed the Hungarian Captain Vérbulcsu (“Blood-Bulcsu”). The name Bulcsu may have been a name just as common as Géza, László, or Béla afterwards. The second Bulcsu was baptized in Constantinople in 948 and died in 955. According to Hungarian traditions, Prince Conrad died due to the injury on his skull, caused by a captive Hungarian leader Lehel or Lél. The last request of Lehel was to blow his horn, and when the sound of the horn amazed all Germans, he jumped ahead and administered a heavy blow on the head of the prince. Of course, Lehel was executed. “His horn” is still on exhibit in Hungary.

Anonymus recorded that the leader Álmos, the father of Árpád, was born in 819. His grandson, Zolta (or Solt) was born in 894, during the conquest of Pannonia. When Árpád died in 907, his son Zolta was not yet thirteen years old. The son of Zolta was Taksony. He was born in 931. Zolta ruled from 907 to c. 945, and afterwards Taksony from 950 to c. 970. This ruler, also called Toxun, sent emissaries to Pope John XII in 962. Géza, the first uncrowned king of the Hungarians ruled from 972 to the autumn of 997.

  

The life of St. Stephen, the first Hungarian king

Stephen, called originally Vajk by a pagan name, was the son of Géza. Géza moved his seat or capital to Esztergom. The smaller legend of St. Stephen tells that Stephen (István in Hungarian) was born there after 975. The modern commentator of the Illuminated Chronicle claims 969 for his birth date. There are surviving dates for his birth from manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as 967, 969, or 975. In our opinion the best fit is 975. Annals from the thirteenth-century Poland and the fourteenth-century record of the Cistercites of Heinrichau claim that King Stephen was born in 975. Herman of Reichenau recorded at the year 995 that the Bavarian princess Gisellawas given to King Stephen, “Stephano regi” in the text. This circumstance may indicate that Stephen was already co-regent with his father.

Gerbert (afterwards called Pope Sylvester) recorded in his letters that, after the death of Géza, the fight for inheriting the throne of the countries of the Scythians was still on in October 997, but in November the news arrived about Stephen’s victory over the pretender Koppány. The Illuminated Chronicle placed this victory in “the early youth of Stephen.”

The three manuscripts of the Annales Polonorum tells that Stephen sent bishop Asrik to Pope Sylvester only 1001, with his petition in order to get a crown, “1001. Stephanus rex Ungarie misit Assricum episcopum Romam ad papam Silvestrum pro corona petenda.” The modern historian Dr. János (John) Karácsonyi János emphasized, “according to the information of the smaller legend of St. Stephen, recorded and saved by Thuróczy, August 15 of 1038 fell in the thirty-seventh regnal year of Stephen. Consequently, Stephen was in his first year of rule on August 15, 1002. Therefore, his coronation could not have taken place before August 15, 1001.”

Asrik, also known as Aserik and Anastasius, appears in the Easter of 1001 only as an abbot of Sclavinia that, together with Pope Sylvester, participated in the synod of Ravenna, but he was proceeding already in matters regarding the Hungarian crown. The foundation letter of Pannonhalma is dated at the year 1001 or 1002, and this document mentions Asrik, implying to his rank as a legate of the pope. According to the verifying part of this document, Stephen announced, “By the advice and due to the continuous assistance of abbot-lord Anastasius, we [royal plural for “I”] have been confirmed (or fortified) and crowned.” 

            Our conclusion is that the envoy of Stephen may have arrived to the pope around January 1, 1001, in order to file a petition for the Hungarian crown. Another detail is harmonious with this solution. Namely, King Otto III, that supported the matter of Stephen’s coronation by the pope, resided in Rome from about August 14, 1000 to February 15, 1001. (Professor Macartney observes that a unique relationship existed between Otto III and Pope Sylvester II, who had been Otto’s tutor and mentor.) 

            However, the preparation of a crown must have needed some time. The pope had probably confirmed formally, by a letter, the position of Stephen as a king, but the physical coronation must have taken place a bit later. Thus, the data of Thuróczy and the smaller legend of Stephen about the “almost 37 regnal years” would fit into this chronology pretty well. 

            The death of Géza probably occurred in July or August 997, definitely before October. Therefore, the record of bishop Hartvik seems correct, “after the death of his father [Géza], in the fourth year, by the divine warning, he [Stephen] sent the same bishop Asrik, called by another name as Anastasius, to the threshold of the saint apostles, in order to make a petition to the heir of St. Peter, the prince of the apostles: … that give him also the privilege of reinforcing him by a royal diadem …” The major legend of St. Stephen tells about the coronation that it took place “in the fifth year after the death of his father.”

            Professor Macartney placed the marriage of Stephen and Gisella in 996, and the coronation on Christmas Day of the year 1000. However, since the publication of his books about half a century has passed, so he must have been unaware of important new data. The year 1000 contradicts some German and Polish sources. For example, if Herman of Reichenau recorded at the year 995 that Stephen and Gisella had got married in 995, then their marriage could not have taken place in 996.

The composition of the legend recorded by bishop Hartvik tells that Géza got a revelation in the night. In it, he saw a young man with a wonderful appearance that told him, “Peace be with you, the chosen one of Christ, I order that your problems shall be ceased. It has not been given to you the privilege to accomplish that you have in your mind, because your hands are stained with human blood. From you will descend the boy-to-be-born whom the Lord will entrust with ordering (or arranging) all these things, according to the divine providence. He will be one of the kings chosen by the Lord, and once he will trade the crown of the earthly life into the crown of eternity.”  

            The Bible (Chronicles 1, 22:8-10) tells about King David, “You have shed much blood and have fought many years. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight. But you will have a son who will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side. His name will be Solomon, and I will grant Israel peace and quiet during his reign. He is the one who will build a house for my Name. He will be my son, and I will be his father. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever.” (Solomon sounds like and may be derived from the Hebrew for peace.)

            The sentences of bishop Hartvik above follow so closely the words of the Scriptures that we may not suppose a mere coincidence. A Scottish chronicler, John of Fordun (died c. 1384) gives some evidence for this. The biblical equivalent here is David, and Stephen corresponds to Solomon. The whole revelation or dream makes sense, from the addressing “Peace be with you!” to the peace and quiet. Our impression is that the wise King Solomon later became the biblical ideal of King Stephen.

            The Scottish chronicler does not say that mentioning King Stephen of Hungary as King Solomon would have been his own etymology. He does not explain the motive of his usage, and passes without any remark. He plainly states it as he was using that king’s usual name. Therefore, there must have been a record or tradition in Scotland that equated these two names, or, that the original name of King Stephen was Solomon. (Perhaps a tradition existed through Edward, the son of Edmund Ironside, who found refuge in Hungary, and afterwards his daughter Margaret, Margit in Hungarian, become a queen of Scotland.) The form Solomon is Salamon in Hungarian. The latter spelling may have been in use for a while in Latin, German, or Hungarian sources as well, and the Scottish chronicler may have borrowed it from those sources. Fordun would have found the spelling Solomon in an English chronicle, not Salamon.

            A Manx chronicle, Chronicle of the kings of Mann and the Isles (1066-1266) calls King Stephen the same way. This intriguing circumstance gives evidence that the Scottish and Manx chronicles are authentic, and the motive of revelation or dream in the major legend of St. Stephen is not a fictitious one, but has built on real historical foundations.

            The death of Gisella is mentioned in Richter and Kohl’s modern edition (1890) of the German annals, dated to February 15, 1043. This probably refers to an Empress Gisella, and not to the wife of King Stephen I.

            In a short summary, King (St.) Stephen I was born in Esztergom, probably in 975. He was crowned on August 20, 1001. He ruled for 36 years, and died in his 37th regnal year, on August 15, 1038. He lived for 63 years, and he was buried in Székesfehárvár (Alba Regia). 

            According to the foundation letter (document) of the bishopric of Pécs (Fünfkirchen), King Stephen was in the ninth year of his rule on August 23, 1009. Therefore, his coronation cannot be dated after August 23, 1001. As we have demonstrated above, the coronation cannot be dated before August 15, 1001 either. It is possible that the coronation took place on his birthday that seems to be August 20. This day is still celebrated in Hungary in each year.

            The following is a short compilation tabulating the Hungarian chief captains and kings, based on ancient Hungarian chronicles. This summary, the first in its category, also shows the exact dates and the days of the week, wherever such information was available. In those cases we have checked the correctness of the dates, using a perpetual calendar of Bickerman (1980: 60). Some previous historians that had ignored the possibility of such dating, have often “poured the baby with the bath water,” so to speak, and arrived to incorrect conclusions.

[The promised short compilation is the same as the chronological table referred to above: TO BE INSERTED SOON -- Thank you for your patience.]

 

  

 An updated chronology of the early Hungarian kings

 

1001. August 20 – 1038. August 15: King (Szent) István I or (Saint) Stephen I. He died in his 37th regnal year (Thuróczy, 1980: 102). He ruled for 36 years, lived for 63 years, and died on August 15, 1038 (Ransanus, 1985: 119). According to the foundation letter (document) of the bishopric of Pécs, King Stephen was in the ninth year of his rule on August 23, 1009. Therefore, his coronation cannot be dated after August 22, 1001 (Györffy, 1977: 148). Here we note that the year of his death is 1039 in the Turkish chronicle written in 1555 by Terdjuman (1982: 443.) This Turkish source shows regularly all the years of the dates a year higher than other Hungarian chronicles. These dates are shown below in italics.

 

1038. August 15 or later – July 1041: King Peter for the first time. He ruled for 3 years (Ransanus, 1985: 122). In the third year of his reign, the Hungarians chose Aba as their king (Thuróczy, 1980: 104; Képes Krónika, 1986: 96; Ransanus, 1985: 120). When he was expelled, a person called Buda was also massacred. This event is placed to 1041 in the Annals of Altaich (commentator for Thuróczy, 1980: 477). For Péter’s struggle with the Germans in 1041 see Annales Altahenses, Mon. Germ. XX. 772-824, written in Nieder-Altaich, Bavaria in 1073; Hermannus Contractus Ann. Wircburgenses Mon. Germ. II. 244. (Marczali, 1901: 5.)

 

1041. July – 1044. July 5: King Aba Sámuel. The date July 5, 1044 is the day of the battle of Ménfő (Magyarország történeti kronológiája, Volume I. 1986: 84.) “In the third year of your reign, the sword of the revenge will terminate your life,” according to the Legend of St. Gellért or Gerhard (Lengyel, 1976: 113). Aba reigned for three years (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 119; Thuróczy, 1980: 124). For the election of Aba (in 1041), see Alberic. Trium Font. Vita S.Gerardi 17. The Annales Sangallensis Maiores tells at 1043: national injuries in Hungary (Marczali, 1901: 5). Professor Macartney (1962) also places his accession in 1041.

 

1044. July 5 – 1046. November: King Peter for the second time. He ruled for two years and six months (Ransanus, 1985: 122). The total of his first and second reign lasted for five and a half years (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 119; Thuróczy, 1980: 124). His second reign terminated in its third year (Thuróczy, 1980: 117; Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 113). From the death of Stephen I to the accession of András I eleven years and four months passed; here the chroniclers may have included accidentally twice the overlapping three years of King Aba (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 119; Thuróczy, 1980: 124). The correct interval shall be 8 years and 4 months.

            Emperor Henrik comes to Hungary, and accepts Peter’s subjection to him. The Annales Altahenses and Hermannus Contractus place this event in 1045, on the day of Pentecost; the former annals place the uprising of the Hungarian pagans and the fall of Peter in 1046. (Marczali, 1901: 6.) In 1046 the pagans stop King Peter in his flight, and blind him at Zámoly (Györffy, 1987: 417; Magyarország történeti kronológiája, Volume I, 1986: 85).

 

1046. November – 1058. early September: King András I (Andrew). He received the crown in 1046, according to the Annales Altahenses (commentator for the Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 327). In reality, he was crowned only in 1047 (Thuróczy, 1980: 118; Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 113; Ransanus, 1985: 122). Heylyn, Part II (1677:157) places his accession in 1047.

            In the beginning of December 1057 a peace treaty took place with the German emperor, with the betrothal, or rather the discussion of the wedding, and three days later the child Solomon (Salamon) was crowned (Magyarország történeti kronológiája, Volume I, 1986: 87). In these days King András begins to feel ill, according to the Pozsonyi Évkönyv or Annals of Bratislava (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 331, paragraphs 343-345).

            Beginning of December 1057: three days after the conference, the event of the “Crown or sword?” to choose. The modern commentator of Thuróczy (1980: 483) says, according to the Annales Altahenses, the ceremonial betrothal of the daughter of Emperor Henrik III with the child Solomon took place only in 1058. This means that the ill king appointed his child as king in his twelfth regnal year. The event in Vázsony is shown by a the little painting in the chronicle, and it depicts an ill king laying in bed, when asking prince Béla to choose either the crown or the sword. (Béla was warned to chose only the sword, the symbol of princedom, instead of the kingdom, otherwise he would have been murdered there.)  See Thuróczy (1980: 124, 120 and 483); Illuminated Chronicle (1986: 119); and Ransanus (1985: 123). We cannot place this event after 1058, because Prince Béla fled to his brother-in-law, King Kazimir I of Poland to get help. However, according to the Polish chronology, this King Kazimir (Casimir the Restorer) died in 1058, and from that year King Boleslaw II ruled (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 122, 333).

 

1058. beginning of September - 1061. September 11: King Béla I. His coronation is dated to 1058 (Bartoniek, 1987: 34-35). He became king in 1059 (Terdjuman, 1982: 442.). He died after completing his third year of rule (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 126; Thuróczy, 1980: 129). He ruled for three years (Ransanus, 1985: 125). King Béla had his minted coins in 1058.

 

1061. September 24 (approx.) – 1074. March 14: King Salamon or Solomon. Prince Géza crowned him on the day of Easter (Thuróczy, 1980: 131; Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 128): this must be the Easter of 1062. Heylyn, Volume II (1677:157) places his accession in 1062.

            “There was a quiet peace for about 13 years between Solomon and Géza” (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 130; also Thuróczy, 1980: 132).

            February 26, 1074: The battle of Kemej was fought on a Wednesday, just before the great fast (Thuróczy 1980: 144 and 489; Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 148). This battle took place three days after the eight Sunday before Easter. The commentator for the Illuminated Chronicle (1971: 194) agrees with this date.

            1074. March 14, Friday: the battle of Mogyoród (Thuróczy, 1980: 146; Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 150). In this battle the larger part of Hungary’s warriors fell (Thuróczy, 1980: 147). The majority of the Hungarian historians ignore this important detail, placing this tragic battle during the period of 13 quiet and peaceful years. After these events there is a mentioning of the Adventist Benedictine monastery and the offensive of Emperor Heinrich (Henry) as far as the town of Vác that took place in 1074, according to western sources. The remark of Ransanus (1985: 125) that “Solomon ruled for 15 years” is absolutely understandable for us, because exactly fifteen years passed between the end of 1058 (when Solomon’s father died) and the beginning of 1074. Anna Comnena, in The Alexiad mentions a Scythian leader Solomon, in the war of 1087.

 

1074. March 14 or later – 1077. April 25: King Géza I (actually II, if we include the father of Stephen I). He ruled for three years, he died on April 25 (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 164; Thuróczy, 1980: 155). He reigned for 3 years (Ransanus, 1985: 126). Prof. Macartney (1962) also places his reign in 1074-1077. According to Si/ge/ibert of Gembloux, in 1075 the Magyars revolted against Emperor Henry, deposed king Solomon, and imprisoned him in Visegrád.

1077. April 25 – 1095. July 29, Sunday: King (Saint) László I (Ladislas). This important date of his death is preserved in the family of the Chronicle of Buda or Budai Krónika (see Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 179 and 351). He died in the nineteenth year of his rule (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 179). The Chron. Hungar.-Polonorum (first part of the thirteenth century) claims that Ladislas was crowned in 1077 (Györffy, 1987: 365). Prof. Macartney (1962) also places his reign in 1077-1095.

 

1095. July 30 – 1114. February 3, Tuesday: King Kálmán (“Coloman the Book-lover”). This date of his death is correct, but his reign of 25 years, 6 months, and 5 days seems incorrect; the number of the years has a rough scribal error (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 190, 357, Thuróczy, 1980: 172, and Ransanus, 1985: 133). Györffy (1987: 365) cites, “Chron. Zagr(abiensis) et Varad., 1114: Colomanus rex... cuius corpus Albe quiescit. (Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum I., 209. old.).” According to this, the body of King Coloman already rested in Alba (Székesfehérvár) in 1114. Therefore, Hungarian historians should not place his death in the year 1116.

 

1114. February 3 or later – 1131. March 1: King István II (Stephen II). Refer to Magyarország történeti kronológiája, Volume I (1986: 105). He died in the 18th year of his reign (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 197; Thuróczy, 1980: 179; Magyarország történeti kronológiája I, 1986:105). His accession to the throne is placed in 1115 (Terdjuman, 1982: 443), but we have to deduct a year for correction, as almost everywhere else.

 

1131. March 2 – 1141. February 13, Thursday: King Béla II or Vak Béla (the Blind). He ruled for 9 years, 11 months, and 12 days (Thuróczy, 1980: 183; Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 204; Illuminated Chronicle, 1971: 115; Magyarország történeti kronológiája I, 1986: 107). He ruled almost ten years, till 1141 (Ransanus, 1985: 136). According to Terdjuman (1982: 443.), he ruled from 1132. Simon of Kéza also places his death in 1141. According to the “Chron. Zagr. et Varad,” 1141: “rex Bela II... cuius corpus Albe quiescit (SRH. I. 210.)” For its source refer to Györffy (1987: 365).

 

1141. February 16 – 1161. May 31, Wednesday: King Géza II. He ruled for 20 years, 3 months, and 15 days. “His soul moved to the Lord in 1161, on the day before the Kalends of May, on Wednesday” (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 211; Thuróczy, 1980: 188; Ransanus, 1985:136). He was buried in 1161, in Székesfehérvár: “1161: Geycha rex II. ...cuius corpus Albe quiescit (SRH. I. 210).” For the source, see Györffy (1987: 365).

 

1161. June 1 – 1173. March 4, Sunday: King István (Stephen) III. He reigned for 11 years, 9 months, and 3 days (Thuróczy, 1980: 189-190; Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 211-213). He ruled for almost 12 years, and he died in 1172 (Ransanus, 1985: 136). He ruled from 1162 (Terdjuman, 1982: 443, but this chronicle is generally one year “too fast.”)

 

1173. March 5 – 1196. April 23, Tuesday: King Béla III. He died on April 23, 1196, after a reign of 23 years, 1 month, and 19 days (Illuminated Chronicle, 1971: 120; Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 214, 368). The archbishop of Kalocsa crowned him [about ten months] after his election to the kingdom, on the Ides of January 1174, that is on the 13th of January, on Sunday (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 214, 368; from the Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum I, 1937: 462). He died on the sixth day before the Kalends of May [in which the account is inclusive], on Tuesday (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 214). Confirming these data with a calendar, we find that everything is perfect. However, although the Magyarország történeti kronológiája I (1986: 117) accepts the interval of ten months from the election to the coronation, is placing the events to a year later, without any explanation. According to Terdjuman (1982: 443), he became king in 1173. This King Béla provided houses for the crusaders of Frederick I (Barbarossa) in 1187 (Györffy, 1987: 276). The Magyarország történeti kronológiája I (1986: 121) places the event in 1189. The Italian historical atlas (Atlante Storico, 1974: 32) agrees with the latter, and dates the beginning of the crusade at 1189.

 

1196. April 24 – 1204. November 30, Tuesday: King Imre I (Emerich). He ruled for 8 years, 7 months, and 6 days (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 214, 368; Thuróczy, 1980: 192; Ransanus, 1985: 137).

 

1204. December 2 – 1205. May 7: King László III (Ladislas). He reigned for 6 months and 5 days. He was appointed as king still during the life of his father, on August 26, 1204, on Thursday (Magyarország történeti kronológiája I, 1986: 127; Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 215; Thuróczy, 1980: 193).

 

1205. May 29 – 1235. September 21: King András II (Andrew). He was crowned on the day of Pentecost (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 369; Thuróczy, 1980: 194). He died in the thirtieth year of his reign (Thuróczy, 1980: 196; Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 221). He ruled for thirty years (Ransanus, 1985: 137).

 

1235. October 14, Sunday – 1270. May 3, Friday: King Béla IV. He was the second founder of Hungary, the builder of the country after the invasion of the Tatars. His reign lasted for 35 years (Thuróczy, 1980, 196; Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 221-225).

 

c. 1270. May 10 – 1272. August 6: King István V (Stephen). He ruled for two years, and died in the third year (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 228).

 

1272. September 3 or before – 1290. July 10, Monday: King László IV (Ladislas). He was elected king in 1273 (Terdjuman, 1982: 444). The Cumans or Kuns killed him in 1290 (Ransanus, 1985: 152). This king renewed his donation [of land] in 1191 [sic.], for the sons of Syster (Györffy, 1987: 358). Perhaps the document of endowment was written only after the death of the king, or, Ladislas was a pretender yet in 1291.

 

1290. July 23 – 1301. January 14: King András III (Andrew). They brought him to Hungary still during the life of Ladislas, his predecessor (Thuróczy, 1980: 203). He ruled for 11 years, and died in 1301 (Ransanus, 1985: 152-3). By his death, the House or Dynasty of the Árpáds became extinct. He was elected king in 1291-ben (Terdjuman, 1982: 444).

 

1301. May 13 or before – 1342. July 16/17: King Károly Róbert I (Charles Robert of Anjou). The day of his death fell on July 16, and the 30 t h day of mourning on Wednesday (August 14, 1342), see (Thuróczy, 1980: 226-232). He was crowned with the Holy Crown on August 27, 1310 (Magyarország történeti kronológiája I, 1986: 192). He ruled for 32 years after his coronation, and his burial took place three days after his death, on Friday, on the nineteenth of the month. On the third day after the latter, on Sunday, Lajos (Louis) was crowned king (notes of Illuminated Chronicle, 1971: 142 and 198, cited from other chronicles; Thuróczy, 1980: 231-2). The above-mentioned modern commentary on page 198 seems incorrect, because its author ignored the importance of the days of the week: July 18 did not fall on Friday, and the second day after that was not Sunday. Ransanus (1985: 155-6) dates the day of his death on July 16, 1342 [Tuesday; the king perhaps died about midnight], adding that he ruled for 42 years.

 

We do not mention here the details of the reigns of Vencel and Ottó, two pretender kings.

 

1342. July 21, Sunday – 1382. September 11: Lajos I (Louis the Great) He was born on March 5, 1326 (Illuminated Chronicle, 1986: 253 and 380). He was crowned on the Sunday following July 15, 1342, in his seventeenth year of age; he ruled for 40 years, 1 month, and 22 days; shortly before his death a wonderful comet was seen on the sky (Thuróczy, 1980: 235-6, 270, 514). His reign lasted for 40 years; on the approach of his death a comet appeared (Ransanus, 1985: 158-159). Hasegawa (1980: 82) dates the appearance of this comet at August 19, 1382. It was visible in the northwestern sky. It was recorded in Europe and Korea. (The king probably died before sunrise of September 11.) After the death of King Louis, his daughter Mária (Mary) became queen, whose guardian wasErzsébet (Elizabeth), the widow of Louis.

 

1382. September 17 – 1385 (autumn, or, May 17): Queen Mária (Mary). She hardly sat on his father’s throne for two years, when the opposition party sent emissaries to Apulia, in order to ask Kis Károly (Charles the Little), in order to make him Hungarian king (Thuróczy, 1980: 276-277). Therefore, this invitation must have taken place in the August of 1384, and not a year later as claimed in Magyarország történeti kronológiája I, 1986: 227).

 

1385. (autumn) – 1386. February 24: King Károly (Charles the Little). He probably gave an answer for the envoys’ request about the Christmas of 1384. In 1385, on the approach of the summer, he left his country, and started to move towards Hungary (Thuróczy, 1980: 280-1). He left Neaples on the fifteenth of September 15, leaving Italy around the end of October (modern notes for Thuróczy, 1980: 522). This statement contradicts the following record: Charles arrived to Zengg in Dalmatia on September 12, 1385, after taking the route from Šibenik to Zadar (Terdjuman, 1982), and became Hungarian king on December 31, 1385, ruling till February 24, 1386 (Magyarország történeti kronológiája I, 1986: 228). Charles died on February 24 or 27, 1385 (Thuróczy, 1980: 294, 522). There are further data for these years: Queen Mary ruled for at least two years, then her brother Charles the Little reigned for another full year, till the Hungarians became angry at him (Terdjuman, 1982: 316-7, 324). Thuróczy (1980: 292) supports our chronology, testifying that King Charles did not reign only in January and February, but “in the middle of the autumn” as well. Also, Thurózcy (1980: 302) tells later, at the beginning of King Zsigmond’s reign, “all these events happened during a bit less than three years.”

 

1386. February 24 – 1387. March 31: Queen Mária (Mary) again. She was a prisoner between the 25th of July 1386 and the 4th of June 1387 (Magyarország történeti kronológiája I, 1986: 228-229), but here we do not agree with this modern handbook.

 

1387. March 31 – 1437. December 9: King Zsigmond (Sigmund). For this date of his death, refer to Thuróczy (1980: 337 and 526). In a royal document of King Zsigmond, dated at 1386, the fortress of Lugos in Transylvania appears for the first time (Encyclopaedia Hungarica, Volume II, under the word “Lugos”). Zsigmond was crowned at his age of twenty, in 1386, and he ruled for 55 [sic!] years. We note that this interval may refer to the period from the death of King Louis to the death of Zsigmond. Zsigmond became king of the Czechs (Bohemia) in the year 1420; he lived for 70 years (Ransanus, 1985: 159-160). In 1386, he was crowned around Pentecost, in his twentieth year of life, the tenth year of his reign fell in 1396, he was elected German-Roman emperor after 23 years of rule as Hungarian king, on September 20, 1410, but he was crowned only in 1414 (Thuróczy, 1980: 522). In 1420 he was king for 34 years; he died in his 51st regnal year as Hungarian king, in his 27th year as “Roman” king, 17th year as Bohemian king, in the fifth regnal year as an emperor, and he was emperor from [May 31] 1433 (Thuróczy, 1980: 302, 304, 312, 331, 337, 522-4). He was appointed king in 1386, and ruled for 50 years (Terdjuman, 1982: 343 and 445). The above-mentioned “Pentecost” seems incorrect. In reality, he was crowned as Hungarian king on March 31, 1387 (Magyarország történeti kronológiája I, 1986: 229, also Thuróczy, 1980: 520).

 

1438. January 1 – 1439. October 28: King Albert I. He ruled for 1 year, 9 months, and 28 days (Thuróczy, 1980: 337, 342). Terdjuman (1982: 345 and 447) gives 1 year, 9 months, and 8 days for his reign, adding that when Albert died, his son was four years old, and that son became king in 1438. According to Ransanus (1985: 160), Albert ruled hardly two years, and died in 1439.

 

1440. March 8 – 1444. November 10: King Ulászló I (Wladyslaw III). The representatives of the Hungarians elected this Polish-Lithuanian king in Krakow as Hungarian king, under the name Ulászló I (Magyarország történeti kronológiája I, 1986: 259). He sat on the throne before Pentecost, and he died in the fourth year of his rule, in 1444 (Thuróczy, 1980: 344 and 370).

 

1444. November 10 or after – 1457. November 23: King László V (Ladislas). The source for the date of his death is Magyarország történeti kronológiája, Volume.I (1986: 273). He died in his eighteenth year of life, at the end of autumn, in 1458 [that seems to be an error for the approaching 1458], according to Thuróczy (1980: 407-8). He was the posthumus son of Albert, and he became king at his age five (Terdjuman, 1982: 447; Ransanus, 1985: 165). Bél Mátyás (Mathias Bél) has seen it yet in the Charta of Pozsony (now Bratislava), where Ladislas was present in the Hungarian Parliament that the feast of Dorothy the Virgin and Martyr in 1453 fell in the tenth regnal year of Ladislas (Bél, 1984: 255). The commemorative day of Saint Dorothy (Dorottya in Hungarian) was the sixth of February (Thuróczy, 1980: 522).

            Pentecost of 1445: János (John) Hunyadi became the elected Governor of Hungary (Thuróczy, 1980: 371-372). The battle of Rigómező (now in Yugoslavia) against the Turks began on the Thursday [the seventeenth], between the 16th and 18th of October [1448], lasting till Saturday, in the fourth year of Hunyadi’s governorship (Thuróczy, 1980: 373-374 and 529).

            A comet appeared in the east, and a few days later John Hunyadi became ill. After the disappearance of this comet, on the eleventh of August 1456, Hunyadi died (Ransanus, 1985: 180 and 245). For the day of his death also refer to Magyarország történeti kronológiája, Volume I (1986: 272).

In Ichiro Hasegawa's paper in the Vistas in Astronomy (1980: 83), this comet appeared in the constellation Aries (Ram) on the 27th of May 1456; it was observed in Europe, China, Korea, and Japan. (It was Halley’s comet.)

 

 

Bibliography and further reading

[Note: it includes a few entries for our paper about the 38 Hungarian dialects as well.]

 

Ancient Ancestors (pages 130-139) and The Family of Heraclius (Byzantine-Greek web page)

Andrees Allgemeiner Handatlas (Bielefeld and Leipzig: Verlag Von Velhagen & Klasing, 1907)

Annales Sangallensis maiores, till 1056.

The Annals of Fulda, or Annales Fuldenses antiqui,or Fuldai Évkönyvek in Hungarian (ninth-century histories, translated by Timothy Reuter)

Anonymus, Anonymi Gesta Hungarorum. Facsimile edition of the chronicle of “P. dictus Magister,” written c. 1215 (Budapest, 1975); also the “Author of Gesta Hungarorum” web page

Atlante Storico (Novara: Istituto Geografico de Agostini, 1974)

Baldi, Philip. An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983)

Bartoniek, Emma. A magyar királykoronázások története (Budapest: 1939, reprint of 1987)

Bél, Mátyás. Hungáriából Magyarország felé (Budapest, modern reprint of 1984)

Bickerman, E.J. Chronology of the Ancient World (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980)

Bingham, W. The founding of the T’ang Dynasty (1941, pp. 91, 99, 100)

Blakeley, Leslie. Old English (London: Teach Yourself Books, 1970)

Brasinszkij (Brashinsky), I. B. Szkíta kincsek nyomában (Budapest: Helikon Kiadó, 1985)

Brook, Kevin. Menmarot of the Khazars of Bihar (Transylvania) (Internet web page, 2003)

Byzantine Empire 610-1095 (good web page for Byzantine history)

Chattopadhyay, B. The Age of the Kushanas (1967, pp. XXIV, 115-117)

Chronicle of the kings of Mann and the Isles, or, Recortys Reeaghyn Vannin as ny hEllanyn, 1066-1266 (Edinburgh: George Broderick, 1973, p. 2)

Chronological Historical References to the dynamic history of the horsemen of Western Asia (Internet web page)

Comnena, Anna. The Alexiad (in Medieval Sourcebook web site)

Constantine VII Porphyrogenetos (912-959). De Administrando Imperio

Cook, Gareth. Common root: Scientist says he has found the origin of Indo-European languages (article in National Post, Canada, November 28, 2003, after The Boston Globe)

Cunningham, A. Coins of the Indo-Scythians, Sakas, and Kushanas (1971, p. 71)

Dienes István. A honfoglaló magyarok (Budapest, 1972)

Dunlop, D.M. The History of the Jewish Khazars (1954, pp. 27, 85)

Dümmerth, Dezső. Álmos, az áldozat (Budapest, 1986)

Dümmerth, Dezső. Az Árpádok nyomában (Budapest: Panoráma, 1980)

Elcock, W.D. The Romance languages (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1960)

Éledő Őrtűz Antológia (Toronto: Kanadai Magyar ĺrók Szövetsége, 1980, pp. 20-31)

Enciclopedia Italiana (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1958-1966)

Encyclopaedia Hungarica, Volumes I-IV(Calgary: Hungarian Ethnic Lexicon Foundation, edited by László Bagossy et al, 1992-1997)

Endrey, Anthony. Hungarian history (Melbourne: The Hungarian Institute)

Endrey, Anthony. Sons of Nimrod: The origin of the Hungarians (Hawthorn Press, 1975)

Erdélyi István. A magyar honfoglalás előzményei (Budapest, 1986)

Erdélyi Magyar Szótörténeti Tár [Transylvanian Hungariam Etymological Dictionary], several volumes in Hungarian (Bucharest, c. 1985)

Fehér, Mátyás Jenő (ed., 1913-1978), Magyar Történelmi Szemle (Buenos Aires: Eugenio Mathias Feher, serial in several volumes, particularly 1969-1970, pp. 16, 17, 19)

A finnugor őshaza nyomában (Budapest, 1973, pp. 214, 238, 263, 360)

Fordun, John (died 1384?). John of Fordun’s Chronicle of the Scottish Nation, Volume II (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1872)

Freeborn, Dennis. From Old English to Standard English (Ottawa: University of Ottawa, c 1992)

Frye, R.N. Bukhara – The medieval achievement (1965, p. 35)

Frye, R.N. The golden age of Persia (1975, p. 39)

Gostony, Coloman. Dictionnaire D’Étymologie Sumérienne et Grammaire Comparée (Paris: Éditions Boccard, 1975)

Great Books Online: The Encyclopedia of World History. 2001. (Web pages of Bartleby.com)

Grousset, R. The Empire of the Steppes (1970, pp. 79, 89, 93, 107, 567-569)

Györffy, György. Az Árpád-kori Magyarország történeti földrajza, Volume II (Budapest, 1987)

Györffy, Gy. – Kurcz, Ágnes. István király emlékezete (Budapest, 1973)

Györffy, György. István király és műve (Budapest, 1977)

Györffy, György, Tanulmányok a magyar állam eredetéről (Budapest, 1959)

Hambly, G. Central Asia (1969, pp. 54, 55, 57)

Hankó, Ildikó. Számítógépen a Magyar nyelvjárások [The Hungarian dialects on computer], in the newspaper Magyar Nemzet (Budapest, December 10, 1990)

Harmatta, János, A Volgától a Dunáig. A lecture presented for the plenary session of the Magyar Nyelvtudományi Társaság [Hungarian Linguistic Society], (Budapest, December 13, 2000) 

Hasegawa, Ichiro. Catalogue of Ancient and Naked-Eye Comets in Vistas in Astronomy (1980)

Hegedűs, Gyula. Keletiek Nyugaton (Internet web site in Hungarian, of the Nyugat, #23, 1908)

Herodotus. The Histories (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1960)

Hervás y Panduro, Lorenzo, Vocabolario Poligloto (1787, reprinted in Buenos Aires)

Heylyn, Peter. Cosmography in Four Books Containing the Chronography and History of the Whole World (London, 1677)

Hirth, F. China and the Roman Orient (1966, pp. 60, 84, 89, 91)

Hirth, F. Hunnanforschungen in Keleti Szemle (1901/II, reprint of 1966, pp. 88-90)

Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle, The (Budapest: Corvina, 1969)

Illuminated Chronicle or Képes Krónika (Hungarian), written in 1358 (Budapest, 1986 and 1971)

Johannes (Joannes) Magnus (1488-1544), Historia de omnibus Gothorum Sveonumque regibus (Basel: Ising Verlag, 1558)

Ju-Kua, Chau. His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, originally Chu-fan-chi (1225), translated by Friedrich Hirth and W.W. Rockhill  (St. Petersburg, 1991, and Amsterdam, 1966, pp. 109, 142, 153)

Kwanten, L. Imperial Nomads (1979, pp. 22, 63, 108, 292)

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Lengyel, Dénes. Régi magyar mondák (Budapest: Móra Kiadó, 1976 and 1991)

Lord, Robert. Comparative Linguistics (London: The English Universities Press Ltd., 1966)

L’Oro degli Sciti (Venice/Venezia: Alfieri, 1977)

Maenchen-Helfen, Otto. The world of the Huns (1973, pp. 52, 73, 77, 101, 164, 249, 392-395)

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Macartney C.A. The Magyars in the ninth century (Cambridge University Press, 1930)

Macartney C.A. Studies on the earliest Hungarian sources – The Hun Chronicle (1938)

A Magyar Nyelvjárások Atlasza [Atlas of the Hungarian dialects], in six volumes (Budapest: MTA – Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1949-1969), with French translations of the entries.

Magyarország történeti kronológiája, Volume I (Budapest: Akadémia Kiadó, 1986)

Magyar őstörténeti tanulmányok (Budapest: Akadémia Kiadó, 1977)

Marczali, Henrik. A magyar történet kútfőinek kézikönyve or Handbook of the Sources of Hungarian History, in Hungarian (Budapest: Athenaeum Irodalmi és Nyomda Rt., 1901-1902)

Moravcsik, Gyula. Byzantinoturcica, Volume II(1958, pp. 128, 265)

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Ponori Thewrewk, Aurél. A farkas felfalja a napot – The wolf swallows the sun (web page, 1999)

Ponori Thewrewk, Aurél. Napfogyatkozások és történelem [Solar eclipses and history] web page

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Procopius. History of the wars (1953-61), Volume I, p. 97; Volume II, pp. 75, 229

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Saxo Grammaticus. The History of the Danes (early 13th century)

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Sebestyén, Gyula. Rovás és rovásírás (New York: Evilath Publications,1969)

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Sinor, Denis (editor). The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)

Sourasky Central Library – AAC Database (good web page about Byzantine sources)

Sykes, P. A History of Persia, Volume I (1930, p. 438)

Századok (Budapest, volumes of 1880, 1881 and 1883, for the Hungarian conquest)

Századok (Budapest, volumes of 1879 and 1901, for the life of St. Stephen)

Székely, István. Chronica ez világnak jeles dolgairól (Krakow, 1559)

Terdjuman, Mahmud (1510-1575). Tárih-I Üngürüsz (or Ungurus), translated from Latin to Turkish in 1543. Translated to Hungarian by Prof. Joseph Blaskovics (Prague, 1982)

Thuróczy, János. A magyarok krónikája, written in 1488 (Budapest, 1980)

Unvala, J.M. Hephtalita coins with Pahlavi legends in The Journal of The Numismatic Society of India, Volume IV (1942, p. 37)

Uxbond, F.A., a.k.a. Wm./Vilmos Hevesi, Munda–Magyar–Maori (London: Luzac & Co., 1928)

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Walter, Anna. Az ékírástól a rovásírásig,Volumes I-II(Buenos Aires: E. M. Fehér, 1975)

Zonaras, Joannes. La prima [– terza] parte del l’ historie di Giovanni Zonara (1570)

Yule, H., Ser Marco Polo (1871, pp. 8, 52-54)