Magyar–szláv együttélés a kora Árpád-korban. Helynevek, írott források, régészet

Juhász, Péter (2018) Magyar–szláv együttélés a kora Árpád-korban. Helynevek, írott források, régészet. HELYNÉVTÖRTÉNETI TANULMÁNYOK, 14. pp. 7-50. ISSN 1789-0128

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Abstract

On Hungarian–Slavic Cohabitation in the Early Arpad Era In Hungarian scholarly publications the Hungarian Conquest has traditionally been perceived as a process concluding major changes in the population of the Carpathian Basin. Most recent research has made use of various archaeological, historical and anthropological data that prove that the descendants of the Avar population in the Carpathian Basin continued to live here during the 10th to 13th centuries as well. The lack of written sources from 10th-century Hungary and their relatively low number from the 11th and 12th centuries illustrate the difficulty Hungarian historians had to face when using place names as sources. In the field of history, Gyula Kristó reacted to this and formulated important statements on the relationship between the newly-arriving Hungarians and the earlier population. He attempted to estimate the ratio of the Hungarians and the indigenous population, who used—in his opinion—Slavic and Turkish languages. Kristó, contrary to the opinions held earlier, concluded that the Slavic and Hungarian population represented almost the same proportion, with a Slavic majority in the 11th-century Carpathian Basin. In this paper I investigated the possible interpretation of place names from the point of view of their ethnic relevance, underlined by archaeological data. The investigation of the archaeological sites of the Carpathian Basin from the 6th–12th centuries provides an opportunity for the establishment of the chronology of the formation of the Avar-Turkish, Slavic and Hungarian settlements. This method provides a tool for discussing Kristó’s statements. The famous Hungarian historian with outstanding achievements in research on Hungarian place names used different methods to define the ethnic relevance of place names. The names of the largest group of the early (11–12th century) Hungarian settlements originate from personal names without formants. The majority of these personal names (ignoring Latin names) have Slavic and Turkish origins, and the rest are Hungarian, German, etc. Although the earlier literature took into consideration naming with nomadic origins only in Turkish and Hungarian practice, according to Kristó we must consider name giving of the indigenous people, in this layer, in the next two centuries as well after the Hungarian Conquest. Kristó interpreted all early (11–12th century) settlement names using this method. A major argument against this method involves the unknown beginnings of using personal names of Slavic and Turkish origin by Hungarians that may had begun one and a half century before the first recorded place names. Besides this, we are aware of only a few enclosed areas from the 11th and 12th centuries where we know about the settlement name system. All other settlement names are located scattered in the Carpathian Basin. It is conspicuous that the Slavic settlement names we are aware of from the 11th to the 13th centuries are located mainly in those regions where Slavic archaeological sites from 6–9th centuries have also been found. In the central area of the Carpathian Basin, the lowlands, where almost exclusively Hungarian, maybe Turkish-origin settlement names are found, there are the archaeological sites of non-Slavic populations of the Avar Age. Besides these, a large Slavic colonization may be documented in the 11th–13th century charters, which is reflected in the settlement names, too. In this period some settlement name systems are also well recognizable, which originate from Czech and Polish personal names in the inner parts of Medieval Hungary. The close relationship between Czech, Polish and Hungarian dynasties is well documented from this age, which resulted in significant Slavic colonization in the areas donated to Slavic princes and noblemen. I concluded that in the central plains of the Carpathian Basin the earlier Avar-Age Turkish population assimilated into the newly-arriving Hungarian population. At the time of the Hungarian Conquest, the Slavic population remained mainly in its earlier areas, on the outer hill region of the Carpathian Basin. The smaller part of the Slavic population, in the inner parts, assimilated with the Hungarians. All the other known Slavic groups arrived in the inner parts of Medieval Hungary in the 12–13th centuries. The population of the Carpathian Basin at the time of the Hungarian Conquest did not have a Slavic majority. The population mainly used some Turkish idioms and besides these there were some small Slavic groups and we can also consider Turkish–Slavic bilingual groups.

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