Hello r/Hungary, i wrote this article about the two geopolitical “souls” of Hungary and i’m very curious to see what you think about it. I’m partly hungarian, but unfortunately i don’t know the language (yet!) so an automated translation is the best i can do.
Thanks in advance
oooh boy
I think it is mostly dead wrong, budapest bro here (who actually is into history and politics but works in finance)
1, Hungarians being asian: yes and no, “hungarian” tribes arriving here were not a coherent group (i.e. you do not need a blood pact with your own people), parts of it was finno-ugric, part turkic inculding probably some people as far into the east as modern xinjiang (chinese diplomacy used to be proud of it, now they don’t talk about it for obvious reasons) and after that multiple other groups moved in from kuns, jász, úz people etc., also the local slavs, romanians etc. were also part of it. After the mongol invasions, then turks invading, germans moving in and so forth barely any hungarians are decendents of the original arrivals. (as far as I read the number might as be as low as 10%), so aside a few things (name order, love of soups maybe) there is barely anything asian about us
2, Turanism is a made up ideology, usually backed by people who either challenge the finno-ugric language or due ti ideological reasons have a hard time accepting that you can have a melting-pot nation (i.e. lot of different origins, some influencing grammar more, some the vocabulary more etc.)
3, The aftermath if WW1 still divides political left and right. But most of the grievences come from the fact that a lot of ethnic hungarians were stuck on the other side of the borders due to greed (other countries wanted those settlements for mostly infrastructural/economic and sometimes imperial (although that was not that common, but look at the claims) reasons. Their ideology was, hungary did not respect our minority rights (somewhat true, although in historical context, great britain judging over the defeated was far worse vis-á-vis ireland and other dependiencies, but who gives a shit), and even in hungarian canon this is accepted as actually true. However once given control, they went hardcore on the hungarian minority now, somehow not giving a shit about the same principles. (what you mention later, but historically it has often been more brutal)
4, Further discussion of panturanism…I would drop it, it was a subculture in the horthy era, but not that influential, especially not after that….the horthy era was about 1, trying to get a revision of the borders, 2, trying to address the leftist grievences (1918-19 left wing movements had a point) and still be conservative, 3 stability (even is force must be used to keep it) trying to rebuild hungary economically after the war
5, The rákosi era was a soviet occupation basically, hence the uprising of 1956. Weirdly the main elements of the uprising were often left wing (Nagy Imre, Kádár János as minister of the interior, pay attention he will return, it started with the Rajk funeral, also hard leftist, you can look up how hostile the soviet/commie wing was to unions, there was a lot of tensions) although right wingers joined of course. I would not bring in turanism in this, makes no sense here.
6, Not mentioned in your arcticle but the happiest barrack/goulash communism under Kádár (he did return didn’t he) was extremely influential in modern Hungary, you can look up the post 1956 deal, you can have a quasi-free economy compared to the rest of us, travel to the west sometimes and vice versa as long as you stay in the warsaw pact and do not challenge it
It was a money for principles kind of deal and was quite popular to be honest, Kádár could have won a free election, easily. (Orbán often plays the Kádár-chords so to speak, he is going for the same kind of voter base)
7, Modern Jobbik was russian funded, as was some of the far right. It is not ideolgy that pulled them to Dugin, but the fact that it was a russian financed party. (it is no longer) -edit: probably…..I cannot prove they were but it is likely, KGBéla scandal (you can find it like this) and other far right elements like nemzeti arcvonal (which actually murdered a policeman) were surely russian funded/GRU operations
8, Ukraine-Russia connection, well Ukraine is economically worthless, even before the war. Russia trades commodities. There you go. If you do not have any training you look at the eastern EU and see good GDP growth, and at the end of the day all of this is equal. Well it is not. For example Romania looks good on paper but does not free-float its currency (it is more like a dirty float) since it relies on EU money to make it work and has insane trade and budget deficits. (as far as I know the EU started over-budget deficit disciplinary steps against them). Hungary tends to run a material trade surplus that means more than EU funds to be honest. Now due to high energy prices that is not the case in 2022 Q1, but otherwise it consistently has been. And that is the point. We export like crazy but need to import commodities, energy in particular. High prices there fuck us. Big time. Russia is important to pro-business conservatives due to that. (not to mention that you cannot just switch from Ural oil to Brent, we would not be able to make gas for cars etc., it would be brutal)
9, Orbán has V4 ambitions to turn it into a christian ideological empire but hungary itself is not really that christian (only in name) and Czechia is even less so to be honest. The neo-ottoman line is pushed by lunatics but it is laughable, makes 0 sense and most of Hungary has no appetite for this.
TLDR: I would deduct the current, “we’re taking refugees and sending aid but not weapons (only in secret)” policy from the fact that Russian oil and gas matter a lot, Ukraine is weightless and Hungary historically has a tendecy to get fucked when there is a war so there is a pacifist nature in play here.
Also some rightwingers have little sympathy towards Ukraine due to the fact that to this day the Ukranian media tends to shit on Hungary in the EU to get “nice guy points” and argue for suspension of Hungarian voting rights. (even though they are outside of the EU and Hungary is not blocking them and were more corrupt and less lgbtq/minority friendly even before the war). Also when they passed the language laws you mentioned the harshest parts (making non-ukranian publications artifially more expesive and suffocating those by economic means etc.) were not valid for EU languages (Hungarian being one), and they pushed us back saying that it is mostly (but not only) targeting russians, which was true….now you see how bad that looks.
That being said, a lot of the Hungarian minority living in Ukraine sees Russians as aggressors, which they are and while they have political arguments with Kyiv, it is still 100 times better than Moscow so they fight and hungarian minority political organisations there ask for weapons from Hungary.
Also Hungary doesn’t just host ukranian refugees but also has and had in past a lot of foreign workers from there.
So it is a really complex relationship.
I like the effort but I don’t think any turanist explanation makes sense.
Well, I think there is a lot of different opinions on this, but in general Hungary has always had to position politically somewhere between the western world, and the eastern world. In today’s politics Hungary is a member of the European Union, the NATO, but still keeps somewhat friendly ties to Russia and China, there is also the Visegrád Group and Hungary is also an honorary member of the Turkic Council. So as you can see, it is a complicated situation, but it has always been this way.
About historic origins of Hungarians, scientific studies in human genetics are making significant (perhaps even groundbreaking) discoveries regarding this long debated topic. You can read up on the latest news in these studies:
Even as it is now a scientific fact that 9th century Hungarian conquerors had significant Asian components in their DNA, and actually a lot of modern European ancestry that today’s Hungarians carry is also from Asia / Asia Minor / Middle East, most Hungarians are not yet aware of these modern studies, and cling to outdated models of Hungarian ancestry that were based on 18th 19th century linguistic theories, namely that Hungarians have nothing to do with Asia. I think this will change over time, but it will require a few generations to properly process the new evidence. The picture may also still change with new studies, so I guess overall… we need more time to get a clear picture.
Linguistically most scholars still agree, that the Hungarian language belongs to an Uralic – Ugric language family, and genetic studies (as you can read above) link us to Scythian-Siberian groups (some scientist name this Scytho-Siberian, see Mezhovskaya archeological culture) which is actually the primary component of Ugric people, then there are very significant Sarmatian components and some Hunnic components (these may explain the large amount of Hungarian words connecting with Iranian and Turkic languages). Most geneticists now consider the surviving Avar Khanate’s population as a significant component of the Hungarian ethnogenesis in the Carpathian Basin as well. From the study I linked above: ‘The Avar elite carried carried Northeast Asian ancestry matching the profile of preceding Mongolian Steppe populations, particularly a genome available from the Rouran period.’ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouran_Khaganate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouran_Khaganate)
We know that Turkic people were likely part of the early conquering Hungarians tribes in some form, but as far as I know this connection is not yet fully revealed.
Turanism seems to count the Hungarians as a Turkic brother nation, which seems to be incorrect based on the genetic studies. As for linguistics, the significant amount of common words between Hungarian and Turkic languages is probably linked to the Huns who are genetically connected to both the Avar and the 9th century Hungarians conquerors. We know that Turkic people once lived in the Xiongnu Asian Hun Empire, so our linguistic and cultural connection may originate from the Xiongnu.
Personally I do not consider myself a Turanist, but I’m sympathetic to some elements of Turanist movements as long as they base on cultural friendship between various people who have steppe horse-warrior nomadic historical heritage. Hungarians are however not Turks.
I feel zero connection to Christianity, or this idea that Hungary should be the defending bastion for the west. I respect the decision of our ancestors, but I feel a much deeper cultural connection to the pre-Christian horse riding warrior Hungarian heritage. Christianity is a common element everywhere in Europe. It’s not what makes us Hungarian. The heavenly golden maned steed of the free steppes, the miraculous hind (a sort of magical deer) totem animal, the magnificent Turul bird of prey totem animal, the shape of the recurve bow, the beautiful cavalry sabers… again I guess if you ask each Hungarian they will tell a different story on this.
3 comments
Hello r/Hungary, i wrote this article about the two geopolitical “souls” of Hungary and i’m very curious to see what you think about it. I’m partly hungarian, but unfortunately i don’t know the language (yet!) so an automated translation is the best i can do.
Thanks in advance
oooh boy
I think it is mostly dead wrong, budapest bro here (who actually is into history and politics but works in finance)
1, Hungarians being asian: yes and no, “hungarian” tribes arriving here were not a coherent group (i.e. you do not need a blood pact with your own people), parts of it was finno-ugric, part turkic inculding probably some people as far into the east as modern xinjiang (chinese diplomacy used to be proud of it, now they don’t talk about it for obvious reasons) and after that multiple other groups moved in from kuns, jász, úz people etc., also the local slavs, romanians etc. were also part of it. After the mongol invasions, then turks invading, germans moving in and so forth barely any hungarians are decendents of the original arrivals. (as far as I read the number might as be as low as 10%), so aside a few things (name order, love of soups maybe) there is barely anything asian about us
2, Turanism is a made up ideology, usually backed by people who either challenge the finno-ugric language or due ti ideological reasons have a hard time accepting that you can have a melting-pot nation (i.e. lot of different origins, some influencing grammar more, some the vocabulary more etc.)
3, The aftermath if WW1 still divides political left and right. But most of the grievences come from the fact that a lot of ethnic hungarians were stuck on the other side of the borders due to greed (other countries wanted those settlements for mostly infrastructural/economic and sometimes imperial (although that was not that common, but look at the claims) reasons. Their ideology was, hungary did not respect our minority rights (somewhat true, although in historical context, great britain judging over the defeated was far worse vis-á-vis ireland and other dependiencies, but who gives a shit), and even in hungarian canon this is accepted as actually true. However once given control, they went hardcore on the hungarian minority now, somehow not giving a shit about the same principles. (what you mention later, but historically it has often been more brutal)
4, Further discussion of panturanism…I would drop it, it was a subculture in the horthy era, but not that influential, especially not after that….the horthy era was about 1, trying to get a revision of the borders, 2, trying to address the leftist grievences (1918-19 left wing movements had a point) and still be conservative, 3 stability (even is force must be used to keep it) trying to rebuild hungary economically after the war
5, The rákosi era was a soviet occupation basically, hence the uprising of 1956. Weirdly the main elements of the uprising were often left wing (Nagy Imre, Kádár János as minister of the interior, pay attention he will return, it started with the Rajk funeral, also hard leftist, you can look up how hostile the soviet/commie wing was to unions, there was a lot of tensions) although right wingers joined of course. I would not bring in turanism in this, makes no sense here.
6, Not mentioned in your arcticle but the happiest barrack/goulash communism under Kádár (he did return didn’t he) was extremely influential in modern Hungary, you can look up the post 1956 deal, you can have a quasi-free economy compared to the rest of us, travel to the west sometimes and vice versa as long as you stay in the warsaw pact and do not challenge it
It was a money for principles kind of deal and was quite popular to be honest, Kádár could have won a free election, easily. (Orbán often plays the Kádár-chords so to speak, he is going for the same kind of voter base)
7, Modern Jobbik was russian funded, as was some of the far right. It is not ideolgy that pulled them to Dugin, but the fact that it was a russian financed party. (it is no longer) -edit: probably…..I cannot prove they were but it is likely, KGBéla scandal (you can find it like this) and other far right elements like nemzeti arcvonal (which actually murdered a policeman) were surely russian funded/GRU operations
8, Ukraine-Russia connection, well Ukraine is economically worthless, even before the war. Russia trades commodities. There you go. If you do not have any training you look at the eastern EU and see good GDP growth, and at the end of the day all of this is equal. Well it is not. For example Romania looks good on paper but does not free-float its currency (it is more like a dirty float) since it relies on EU money to make it work and has insane trade and budget deficits. (as far as I know the EU started over-budget deficit disciplinary steps against them). Hungary tends to run a material trade surplus that means more than EU funds to be honest. Now due to high energy prices that is not the case in 2022 Q1, but otherwise it consistently has been. And that is the point. We export like crazy but need to import commodities, energy in particular. High prices there fuck us. Big time. Russia is important to pro-business conservatives due to that. (not to mention that you cannot just switch from Ural oil to Brent, we would not be able to make gas for cars etc., it would be brutal)
9, Orbán has V4 ambitions to turn it into a christian ideological empire but hungary itself is not really that christian (only in name) and Czechia is even less so to be honest. The neo-ottoman line is pushed by lunatics but it is laughable, makes 0 sense and most of Hungary has no appetite for this.
TLDR: I would deduct the current, “we’re taking refugees and sending aid but not weapons (only in secret)” policy from the fact that Russian oil and gas matter a lot, Ukraine is weightless and Hungary historically has a tendecy to get fucked when there is a war so there is a pacifist nature in play here.
Also some rightwingers have little sympathy towards Ukraine due to the fact that to this day the Ukranian media tends to shit on Hungary in the EU to get “nice guy points” and argue for suspension of Hungarian voting rights. (even though they are outside of the EU and Hungary is not blocking them and were more corrupt and less lgbtq/minority friendly even before the war). Also when they passed the language laws you mentioned the harshest parts (making non-ukranian publications artifially more expesive and suffocating those by economic means etc.) were not valid for EU languages (Hungarian being one), and they pushed us back saying that it is mostly (but not only) targeting russians, which was true….now you see how bad that looks.
That being said, a lot of the Hungarian minority living in Ukraine sees Russians as aggressors, which they are and while they have political arguments with Kyiv, it is still 100 times better than Moscow so they fight and hungarian minority political organisations there ask for weapons from Hungary.
Also Hungary doesn’t just host ukranian refugees but also has and had in past a lot of foreign workers from there.
So it is a really complex relationship.
I like the effort but I don’t think any turanist explanation makes sense.
Well, I think there is a lot of different opinions on this, but in general Hungary has always had to position politically somewhere between the western world, and the eastern world. In today’s politics Hungary is a member of the European Union, the NATO, but still keeps somewhat friendly ties to Russia and China, there is also the Visegrád Group and Hungary is also an honorary member of the Turkic Council. So as you can see, it is a complicated situation, but it has always been this way.
About historic origins of Hungarians, scientific studies in human genetics are making significant (perhaps even groundbreaking) discoveries regarding this long debated topic. You can read up on the latest news in these studies:
Genetic origin of Huns, Avars and conquering Hungarians: [https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.19.476915](https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.19.476915)
Headlines from this study:
– The European Huns had Xiongnu (Asian Hunnic) ancestry
– Huns and Avars had related ancestry
– The Conquerors (Hungarians) have Ugric, Sarmatian and Hun ancestry
Trans-Eurasian migration of 7th century Avar elites: [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.03.007](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.03.007)
Even as it is now a scientific fact that 9th century Hungarian conquerors had significant Asian components in their DNA, and actually a lot of modern European ancestry that today’s Hungarians carry is also from Asia / Asia Minor / Middle East, most Hungarians are not yet aware of these modern studies, and cling to outdated models of Hungarian ancestry that were based on 18th 19th century linguistic theories, namely that Hungarians have nothing to do with Asia. I think this will change over time, but it will require a few generations to properly process the new evidence. The picture may also still change with new studies, so I guess overall… we need more time to get a clear picture.
Linguistically most scholars still agree, that the Hungarian language belongs to an Uralic – Ugric language family, and genetic studies (as you can read above) link us to Scythian-Siberian groups (some scientist name this Scytho-Siberian, see Mezhovskaya archeological culture) which is actually the primary component of Ugric people, then there are very significant Sarmatian components and some Hunnic components (these may explain the large amount of Hungarian words connecting with Iranian and Turkic languages). Most geneticists now consider the surviving Avar Khanate’s population as a significant component of the Hungarian ethnogenesis in the Carpathian Basin as well. From the study I linked above: ‘The Avar elite carried carried Northeast Asian ancestry matching the profile of preceding Mongolian Steppe populations, particularly a genome available from the Rouran period.’ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouran_Khaganate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouran_Khaganate)
We know that Turkic people were likely part of the early conquering Hungarians tribes in some form, but as far as I know this connection is not yet fully revealed.
Turanism seems to count the Hungarians as a Turkic brother nation, which seems to be incorrect based on the genetic studies. As for linguistics, the significant amount of common words between Hungarian and Turkic languages is probably linked to the Huns who are genetically connected to both the Avar and the 9th century Hungarians conquerors. We know that Turkic people once lived in the Xiongnu Asian Hun Empire, so our linguistic and cultural connection may originate from the Xiongnu.
Personally I do not consider myself a Turanist, but I’m sympathetic to some elements of Turanist movements as long as they base on cultural friendship between various people who have steppe horse-warrior nomadic historical heritage. Hungarians are however not Turks.
I feel zero connection to Christianity, or this idea that Hungary should be the defending bastion for the west. I respect the decision of our ancestors, but I feel a much deeper cultural connection to the pre-Christian horse riding warrior Hungarian heritage. Christianity is a common element everywhere in Europe. It’s not what makes us Hungarian. The heavenly golden maned steed of the free steppes, the miraculous hind (a sort of magical deer) totem animal, the magnificent Turul bird of prey totem animal, the shape of the recurve bow, the beautiful cavalry sabers… again I guess if you ask each Hungarian they will tell a different story on this.