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Grzesik, Ryszard. Which kind of tradition was used by the Hungarians to form their historical identity?

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Section: Miscellanea / Miscellanea

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For citation: Grzesik, Ryszard. Which kind of tradition was used by the Hungarians to form their historical identity?, in Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana. 2019. № 1. Pp. 136-144. DOI https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu19.2019.110.

Title of the article  Which kind of tradition was used by the Hungarians to form their historical identity?
Authors Grzesik, Ryszard – Professor of humanities (Ph. D. in history), Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw–Poznań, Poland, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Orcid 0000-0001-7887-6895, Scopus ID 57201325708
In the section  Miscellanea / Miscellanea
Year 2019 Issue  1 Pages  136-144
Type of article RAR Index UDK; BBK  UDK 94(439); BBK 63.3(0)4 Index DOI  https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu19.2019.110
Abstract The territory of present-day Hungary played an important role for the Rus’ chroniclers as the original land of the Slavs. The so-called Story of the Book Translation (called so by Alexander Shakhmatov) described the fates of the Slavic inhabitants of the Danubian region, which were suppressed by the Valachians and Hungarians. There is a question if the Hungarian medieval chroniclers noted the Slavic-Hungarian contacts in the time of the Conquest of the Land? My article is devoted to this topic. After the presentation of the chronicles (Gesta Hungarorum by an anonymous notary of king Béla III, Gesta by Simon of Kéza and many late medieval chronicles known as the Chronicle composition of the 14th century) I describe the information about the relationship of the Hungarian conquerors with the local inhabitants. They are basing mainly on oppression. The Slavs, Czechs, Bulgarians and Valachians fought against the Hungarians and were cruelly defeated, but they asked also their protection from the fear. Guile and deception was one of the method of the conquest. There was also the peaceful way of connection of the land to the own Hungarian territory – it was the dynastical marriage. The names of the local heroes opposing to the Hungarians as Zuatapolug or Menumorout (Ménmarót = Great Moravian) show that they were connected to Great Moravia. I think that the Great Moravian oral tradition about the state and the Moravian-Hungarian relationship preserved in Hungarian Kingdom. It was transmitted by minstrels. Their stories were bricks which constructed the Hungarian identity stories noted in the chronicles. 
Keywords  medieval Hungary, Hungarian chronicles, Great Moravia, Moravian historical tradition, Slavs, Western Slavs, ethnic identity, political structures, tribe, Slavic ethnicity, Slavic identity
Full text version of the article. Article language  Russian
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Tags: cultural heritage, Great Moravia, Hungary, tribe, Slavs, Slavic identity, chronicles, MISCELLANEA / MISCELLANEA, ethnic identity, GRZESIK R., Western Slavs, Slavic ethnicity

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