Hungary was a country that made Chinese feel very close, and many people believe that Hungarians are descendants of the Xiongnu in ancient northern China.
The names "Hun" and "Hungarian" sound very close, and one can't help but wonder if it is a deviation in the translation process.
The Xiongnu, who were active in the Two Han Dynasties, moved westward after being defeated, and finally reached Europe and settled down, this statement does not seem to be empty, there is cultural evidence, the most obvious example is that the surname of the Hungarians is in front of the name, the same as the East Asian peoples such as China, but the opposite of the European peoples.
▲ Hungary specially issued stamps for China in the Year of the Tiger
What surprised Chinese even more was that the Hungarians actually had a zodiac year, of which 11 animals were the same as us, only the "tiger" was changed to "leopard", and today is the "Year of the Leopard" in Hungary.
So, are the Hungarians really descendants of the Huns?
Hungary's location in Europe
I. The Mystery of the Huns
In the eastern foothills of the Alps and the Carpathian Basin north of the Balkan Peninsula, the Danube, Tissa and Delava rivers combine to create a fertile plain rarely seen in Eastern Europe, which is home to the Hungarians.
Surrounded on all sides by the Alps, the Carpathian Mountains and the Dinara Mountains, Hungary is like an isolated paradise.
Hungary is not only geographically isolated, but also a "cultural island" in the heart of Europe.
Hungary is a large basin surrounded by mountains
The main ethnic group in Hungary is the Magyars, accounting for 90% of the country's total population of 10 million, and their language, customs and habits are not much like "Europeans", but are inextricably linked to Asia.
▲ Ural language, Hungarian (green at the bottom left) for "isolated island"
Hungarian (Magyar) belongs to the Ural language family, very different from the Indo-European language family to which Germanic, Latin, and Slavic belong. By tracing the origins of the Hungarian language, it can be roughly determined that the ancestors of the Hungarians should have originated in the Kama River Valley on the western side of the Ural Mountains.
▲ Hungarian ancestral migration trajectory
The closest ethnic groups to the Hungarians were the Vogur and Oska peoples on the Ob River in present-day Russia. At least thousands of years ago, the area around the Kama and Ob rivers has been inhabited by many Ural-speaking peoples, fishing and hunting for a living, in the matriarchal clan society period.
▲ The location of the Ural Mountains
The English name for Hungary was "Hungary", and the early English name for the Huns was "Huns" (now the foreign name of the Huns is "Xiongnu").
On the surface, "Hungary" seems to be derived from "Hun", and there should be some truth to the claim that Hungary originated from the Huns. However, the international historical community does not agree with this.
The Xiongnu at their peak did not rule the Ural Mountains
According to Chinese historical records, the Xiongnu appeared roughly in the 4th century BC, during the Qin and Han Dynasties, from the Mao Dundan to unify the Xiongnu tribes, became a powerful nomadic people dominating the Mongolian plateau, and at its peak its territory stretched from the Altai Mountains in the west to Lake Baikal in the north, but did not cover the Ural Mountains.
▲ Xiongnu and Han Dynasty
It must be pointed out that the Huns were not a single ethnic group or tribe, but a general term for many ethnic groups or tribes on the steppe. Compared with the Han Dynasty, which had a perfect feudal system, the Xiongnu were still in a mixed stage of clan and slavery.
Among them, there were white and yellow people, who used to speak all kinds of languages, but because they were conquered by the Huns, they changed their name to Xiongnu, changed to speaking Xiongnu languages, changed to huns to live and fight in the Way of Huns, and slowly they really became Huns.
After more than two hundred years of continuous attacks by the Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu completely split into two parts, the north and south around 46 AD, and the southern Xiongnu were annexed to the Han Dynasty, merged with the Han people or other steppe peoples, and became part of the Chinese nation.
▲ Europeans believe that the Great Migration of The Peoples of Asia and Europe in the 3rd century
The Northern Xiongnu were forced to migrate westward under the attack of the Han Dynasty and the Southern Xiongnu, and in 160 AD, the Northern Xiongnu, who had fled to the western region, were once again defeated by the Han Dynasty and moved west to the Syr Darya Valley of present-day Central Asia. This is the last record of the Northern Xiongnu in Chinese history books, and since then no one knows where they went, which has become a historical mystery.
2. The Whip of God
Coincidentally, shortly after the disappearance of the Northern Huns, there was a great migration of peoples across Eurasia. A number of nomadic peoples from Asia migrated westward, driving more peoples along the way to the heart of Europe, where the Germanic peoples destroyed the Western Roman Empire.
One of these Asian nomads was the Huns, who, according to the ancient Romans, first lived on the northern shore of the Caspian Sea in western Asia, at the junction of today's Russia, Turkey, and central Asian countries. Although the English also refer to the Huns as "Huns", there is no direct evidence that the Huns were Huns.
▲ According to the European description of the Aratis should be yellow
Europeans at the time discovered that the Hunnic nobility was predominantly yellow, and most of the warriors and slaves were Caucasians, as if it were a strange mixture of a small number of Asian nomadic tribes that drove the conquest of white tribes along the way.
Europe was in a period of weakness at the time of the rise of the Huns, the Germans had just destroyed the Western Roman Empire, the Frankish kingdom had not yet been established, it was not mature and strong enough, and the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) was busy dealing with various rebellions and barbarians who stormed the borders. Other small countries were not opponents of the Huns.
The Hunnic Empire once controlled most of Europe
The Huns reached their peak in the Age of Arati in 448, wiping out almost the entire eastern half of Europe, and gaining a distinct advantage over Western European countries and the Byzantine Empire, often forcing them to pay tribute in exchange for peace.
The bravery and barbaric gore of the Hunnic army impressed Europeans so much that they called Arathi the "whip of God" to punish Christians. But in 453, as soon as Aratti died, the Hun empire collapsed in an instant, disappearing more quickly than rising.
The Huns and Magyars used typical Asian nomadic tactics
Historians believe that a small number of Huns retreated to the steppe of southern Russia, while others settled in the Balkans and were somewhat related to the Bulgarian ancestors, the Bulgars.
Therefore, there are many Hungarians today who consider themselves to be of Hun descent, but mainstream historians do not support this statement.
Third, the nightmare returns
Historians believe that around the 5th century, when the Huns were roaming across Europe, the ancestors of the Hungarians had just come from the Ural Mountains to the steppes of southern Russia north of the Black Sea. They were originally fishing and hunting peoples, and learned to graze cattle with the local Turks. The basis is that hungarian words such as "cow, sheep, cheese" and other words related to grazing are of Turkic origin.
The nomadic peoples distributed in Central and Western Asia and Eastern Europe during this period were mainly Rouran and Turkic, and the Turks originally belonged to Rouran, and began to rise from Rouran in the 6th century, covering more power than the Xiongnu of that year. The Turks were also a mixture of many peoples and tribes, and soon split into east and west.
▲ The area controlled directly or indirectly by the Turks was very large
The Tang Dynasty's counterattack against the Turks was more efficient and fierce than the Han Dynasty's counterattack against the Xiongnu, first destroying the Eastern Turks and then driving the Western Turks out of the western region, and the Turks had to migrate west to West Asia and Eastern Europe. This is how the ancestors of the Hungarians were ruled by the Turks, and were once also known as the Turks.
Because of the hungarian ancestors' contacts with the Byzantine Empire, many documents were recorded by by the Byzantines. In the centuries of the 5th-9th centuries, Hungarian ancestors multiplied in the steppes of southern Russia to hundreds of thousands of people, with seven nomadic tribes, the Magyars being the most powerful, and patrilineal society had replaced matrilineal clans, Caucasian Caucasians.
▲ Nomadic ancestor group sculpture in Heroes' Square, Budapest, the capital of Hungary
In the late 9th century, the seven tribes of the Hungarian ancestors shed blood as an alliance, led by the Magyars, formed a strong tribal alliance, and began to call themselves the Magyars. This was the beginning of the written record of the Hungarians, who invented the ancient Hungarian alphabet from the Luan alphabet of the Germanic language family.
The united Magyars soon broke away from Turkic rule and launched an offensive against Europe, dressing and fighting in a manner similar to that of the Huns five centuries ago, which led to the return of the Huns, which they mistakenly believed by the Europeans as the "Whip of God" And the return of the Huns, which led to an ambiguous and unclear relationship between the Hungarians and the Huns.
However, the Magyars attacked far less smoothly than the Huns, who faced the declining Romans and the newly emerging Germans, while the Magyars had many rivals of equal or even greater strength.
▲ The Magyars moved into the Karba qianya Basin
In Central and Western Europe, there were Frankish kingdoms established by the Germans and whose feudal systems had matured, and on the Balkan Peninsula there were Slavs and Bulgars who had recently accepted European civilization and still retained the barbarian bravery, and they were supported by the Holy See and the Byzantine Church respectively, making it difficult for the Magyars to gain the upper hand.
In 896, the Magyars, who had been severely damaged by the Frankish kingdom and the Slavs, moved into the Caraba qianya basin surrounded by mountains, led by their chief Albert. According to Hungarian historical records, the Magyars who came here had a population of 200,000-250,000.
4. Conversion to the European Continent
The Kharbachia Basin was once occupied by many ethnic groups such as the Germans and the Slavs, but none of them settled down. The Magyars discovered that there were only a few Slavs here, and they quickly conquered and assimilated them.
From these Slavs, the Magyars learned more things, "oats, rye, kitchens, kilns, carpenters, tailors" and other Hungarian languages are derived from Slavic languages, which shows that Magyar learned to farm with the Slavs and began a semi-sedentary life of farming and pastoralism.
▲ European-style castles throughout the Hungarian countryside
With the popularization of agricultural life, the original clan leaders gradually shifted from grazing and plundering to collecting land rent, learning from frankish nobles to build castles, and eventually becoming feudal lords. In the late 10th century, the Magyars basically completed the transition to feudalism.
Nevertheless, the Magyar habit of grazing and looting was not immediately changed, and while making enemies on all sides and constant wars, it also helped to grow rapidly by learning from opponents, and Christianity spread among Hungarians on a large scale.
▲ The Hungarian crown crowned by the Holy See
The Carpathian Basin is like a "crossroads", at the intersection of the Holy See and the Byzantine Church, the north, west and east are respectively the Holy See-controlled Bohemia (Czech Republic), Austria and Poland, and only the Southern Balkans are controlled by the Byzantine Holy See, and both sides are fighting for the Magyars.
That is to say, the Magyars were surrounded on three sides by the power of the Holy See, and the Slavs of the Southern Balkans had poor relations with them. More importantly, the feudal system of the Holy See, dominated by the Germans, was more mature, and the military, political, and cultural aspects were more developed.
St. Stephen's Cathedral in Hungary
As a result, the Magyars preferred the Holy See in exchange for its support. In 1000, Archduke Magyar István was crowned King of Hungary by the Holy See, and István pleaded with the Holy See to establish an Archdiocese of Hungary.
This is both a symbol of the founding of Hungary and a symbol of Hungary's conversion to the Holy See. In 1054 the Church of Christ was officially divided into Catholic and Orthodox Christians, and Hungary became part of the Catholic world, and to this day about two-thirds of Hungarians are still Catholic.
▲ Hungarian national costume is characterized by oriental style embroidery and lace
Subsequently, Hungary introduced a large number of Germans, Slavs and other immigrants, accelerated the transformation of the country into feudalism, and became more and more culturally close to the Catholic world, introducing many Latin words into the Hungarian language.
The Hungarians even recreated the Hungarian alphabet with the Latin alphabet, replacing the ancient Hungarian alphabet based on the Luan alphabet. But the Hungarian language itself has not changed substantially, and the influence of the Ural homeland and the Turks has been preserved, forming the basis for the traceability of the language today.
Fifth, adhere to autonomy
At this point, the evolution process of the Hungarian state and nation has been basically fixed, and the Magyar ethnic group occupies an absolute dominant position, and now it still reaches more than 90%, speaking the Hungarian language of the Ural language, and the religious beliefs are mainly Catholic.
As "orphans" from Asia, Hungarians have always been at odds with mainstream European culture. Although once known as the "Shield of Catholicism", it has blocked the attack of the Mongol Iron Horse and the Ottoman Empire on the European Catholic world for hundreds of years, but it has almost collapsed due to excessive losses.
The Battle of Mohacs in 1526 effectively ended the Kingdom of Hungary
In 1526, the Hungarian king was killed in battle, a large area of central and southern land was occupied by the Ottoman Empire, Austria took the opportunity to occupy the north, and the surviving Hungarian royal court was finally annexed by the Austrian Empire in 1699.
To their credit, the fallen Hungarians were not discouraged, and their persistent resistance forced Austria to recognize its special status, and in 1867 the Austrian Empire was changed to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the conquered rose to almost equal status with the conquerors, which was impressive.
At the end of the 17th century, Hungary was completely divided
After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, Hungary finally gained national independence on October 30, 1918. Dynastic restorations and republics have been experienced, and the current "Hungarian" republic was founded in October 1989.
The prevailing view in historians is that the Hungarians originated 4,000 years ago as a North Asian Ural-speaking people, the Caucasian race, fused with some Turkic ancestry, and later joined by some Slavs and Germans, which were not directly related to the Huns.
▲ Hungarian Parliament Building on the Danube River
The Huns were active in the 2nd-5th centuries, the Magyars were in the steppes of Southern Russia in the 5th-8th centuries, and only entered Eastern Europe in the 9th century, until now there is no evidence of blood relations between the two, only in European folklore there is a saying that the Magyars are descendants of the Huns.
The theory that Hungarians are descendants of the Huns was born at the end of the 18th century, the French scholar Dequini first proposed that the Huns were the Huns from East Asia, and then "recognized" by the European historians of that era, the British simply used "Huns" to collectively call the Huns and huns, and later changed to "Xiongnu".
Hungarians of the Caucasian race have nothing to do with China
In fact, there are indeed some Hungarians who consider themselves to be of Hun descent, but the proportion is not high, after all, there is no historical evidence. But no one can falsify it, because the Huns have completely disappeared, and it is the common nature of many nationalities to like to find a powerful ancestor.
If any Hungarians really said this, it might be similar to Chinese saying to strangers with the same surname, "We were one family five hundred years ago.".