Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Hortobagy (talk | contribs) at 19:57, 21 May 2013. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Hungarian Urheimat

The Hungarian Urheimat (Template:Lang-hu) is the theoretical original homeland of the Magyars. The term urheimat comes from linguistics and tends to be reserved for discussion about language origin. As applied to national origin, it refers to the area where ancestors of the Magyars formed an ethnic unity, speaking a language ancestral to Hungarian, and practising Nomadic pastoralism. There is a consensus that the Hungarian urheimat in this ethnogenetic sense must have been located somewhere in the steppe zone south of the Ural Mountains.

• One view states that the Magyar Urheimat is the same as the Ugric language group's urheimat on the western side of the Ural Mountains. The time when the proto-Magyars moved westwards from the regions east of the Ural Mountains and settled down in Bashkiria (around the region where the Kama River joins the Volga) is still under debate. Their movement may have been caused by new migrations of peoples in the 4th century AD, but it may have also connected to the appearance of a new archaeological culture (Kushnarenkovo culture) in the region in the 6th century AD.

• Another view claims that the urheimat is roughly the same area as Yugra to the east of the Ural Mountains, where the Khanty and Mansi peoples live today. Yugra also tends to be identified as the Ob-Ugric languages urheimat and not the earlier Ugric period; and thus the western side of the Urals in the vicinity of the Kama river is considered to be the Ugric language urheimat. It is believed that the Magyars emerged from this western Ural Urheimat, based upon early language influence from Permic peoples.

• Approaches based on "map-stratification" have compared burial sites, ornamental motifs (tulips, cranes), leather and felt garments, mythological images, sacrificial cauldrons, folk poetry, folk music, lullabies, together with written documents and genetic findings to narrow down the most likely Magyar urheimat to the grassy land surrounded by four freshwater lakes (Caspian, Aral, Balkhash, and Baikal). From this land the migration of proto-Magyars progressed west, probably by more than one route, mainly via the Yekaterinburg-gap of the South-Ural mountains (indicated by cemeteries), to Levedia and later to Etelköz where they became the allies of the Khazars. Genetic evidence has linked early Magyars eastward as well to the Ujghurs, living in East-Eurasia around the town of Ürümqi (today in China).

Nevertheless some authors emphasize that the urheimat concept is outdated since the development of a people is continuous.

references

1. Cite error: The named reference Kristó-Engel-Makk was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. Cite error: The named reference Csorba was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
3. ”The locality in which the Magyars (…) emerged was between the Volga and the Ural Mountains”; Róna-Tas, András op. cit. p. 319.
4. ^ Róna-Tas, András (1994). Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages - An Introduction to Early Hungarian History. Budapest / New York: CEU Press. ISBN 963-9116-48-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kristó (1993) was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
6. ”The Ugrian 'Urheimat' was located in the Ural region, primarily on the western side. However, Ugrian splinter groups are known to have resided to the east of the Urals, too, by the time which the Magyars must have dwelt in the Volga–Kama region”; Róna-Tas, András op. cit. p. 319.
7. Érdy, Miklós. A Magyarság Keleti Eredete és Hun Kapcsolatai (The Eastern Origins and Hun Connections of Hungarians). Kairosz Publisher, Budapest. 2010. ISBN 978-963-662-369-2.
8. ”'Urheimats', then, should denote those major stages in the formation of a people which brought about significant change to the life of the members of the group (…); such changes may include a splinter group peeling off from the main community, the beginning of interaction with another people, the change of community life style, or a major migration”; Róna-Tas, András op. cit. p. 315.