IF NOT, THEN WHY? 2: PRINCE ÁRPÁD AS LEADING SADLY HIS NATION INTO THE CARPATHIAN BASIN? (OR: THE MAGYAR CONQUEST FROM PETCHENEG VIEWPOINT?)

B. Lukács

President of the Matter Evolution Subcommittee

of the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences

CRIP RMKI H-1525 Bp. 114. Pf. 49, Budapest, Hungary

lukacs@rmki.kfki.hu

ABSTRACT

            History is not Science but Scholarship, so historical reconstruction of events is not so unambiguous than in “hard sciences”, and the methods are different as well. Poetic vision is generally not recognised as historical approach. The Illyés scenario of the Magyar Landtaking (896 AD) is then an anomaly: the poet visioned a scenario closer to mitochondrial & Y chromosome investigations (possible only since the end of the 1990’s) than the professional historians. By a pure accident?

0. ON THE EVOLUTION IN SCIENCES

            While I believe in Scientific Truth, I do not believe in the truth of any particular theory used just now. We know that any particular theory used just now has substituted a previous theory proven wrong not too far back in the past. The general (and convenient) belief/expression is that the present theory is more true than the previous one; and I think this is generally true in quantitative sense: the new one answers more questions than the old one, or gives more accurate predictions, or simpler to apply &c. However in qualitative sense the continuous improvement is often not true.

            In Physics Democritus used an atomistic description which we now like to call correct, and with this scheme he was practically unable to give explanations or predictions correct either in quantitative or in qualitative sense. After a century came Aristotle, telling that atomism is probably incorrect and surely unimportant; he used a strongly inhomogeneous world picture with a preferred center and rest at proper place as preferred state of motion; physicists generally like now to call this incorrect but still Aristotle was able to give lots of good predictions in qualitative sense even if few enough correct quantitatively. His system survived 1900 years and then Galileo disproved it. Based on Galileo's rather semiquantitative observations and arguments Newton then demolished the Aristotelian physics (except in Thermodynamics, to be sure), and the new one showed a Democritean structure, with mass points moving with never diminishing momenta (in sums), with forces depending on relative distances of agents, and not on distances from preferred points of space, and Newton's World was infinite, the same everywhere, and unevolving. Philosophers then were eloquent in jubilating on old Aristotle overthrown.

            At the latest time as 1926 Relativity & Quantum Physics demolished Newton's World. There are no mass points: Y waves live & interact in at least 6N dimensional phase spaces, results of Measurements are ultimately stochastic, Space-Time is inhomogeneous and may be finite in all of its dimensions.

            As for Gravity, it seems that Democritus did not know what is it (I am deliberately ungrammatical, but it would be even worse to use Past Tense for an Ultimate Truth, even if we do not know It for sure, and my tenses are correct in Uralic languages anyway). Maybe some interactions of the small atoms? Aristotle told that Gravity is the relation of the piece of matter to geometry of Space. Newton told that Gravity is the result of mutual pulls of mass points: Earth is composed of many masses so if a new one is carried to the neighbourhood, the result will be a net pull towards Earth's center. But in the neighbourhood of giant Jupiter the pull points to Jupiter's center and so on; the ultimate cause is force between mass pairs. Then came Einstein telling that Gravity is the property of Space-Time. Space-Time has a nontrivial geometry, and from this geometry come some properties of unforced motions. Aristotle would have cherished this idea; but Einstein went, of course, further, telling that the geometry is not prescribed but the product of matter being there. For sure, Sun does not pull Earth. No force acts on Earth, but the geometry is such that Earth Gravitates toward Sun. For somebody in General Relativity Newton was moderately correct about forces, but he was simply misguided for Gravity and his opinion in this topics bordered Superstition. Aristotle, in contrast, was surprisingly correct for somebody 2200 years in the past although somewhat simplicistic.

            In some areas of Physics now theories live 5 years in average. When I was choosing topics for my BA dissertation (that was in 1969) the most interesting Particle Physics title was "ρ-π-π Vertices in the Third Times Modified Veneziano Model". I thought maybe that was my last time to choose freely, so I would like something more True than a third times modified model, so I opted for Gravitational Collapse. When I am writing this, General Relativity survived 91 years in unmodified form, but my young colleagues do not know what is the Veneziano model modified any times. However signals are clear that even General Relativity will change, hopefully in my life.

            As for Astronomy, Pythagoras believed that Earth revolved around either Sun or the Central Fire. Aristotle believed that Sun revolved around Earth. Aristarchus supported Pythagoras, but in vain. Copernicus believed that Earth revolved around Sun, Galileo supported him and Church believed that She condemned Galileo for making the support indecently stubborn. Then after Newton Copernicus' scheme was accepted, but in 1915 Einstein showed that the question "who revolves around whom" has no meaning at all, not being a covariant statement. Then in 1992 Church observed anomalies in the process of Galileo's trial and annulled the verdict in a backward acting way. What is Truth in this question?

            And Physics & Astronomy are our best Sciences. As for the Age of Earth pre-Classic Greeks guessed some thousands of years, Aristotle Infinity, Alexander of Aphrodisias more than a million years, Early Middle Age 5000 years, XVIIII^th century mainly on physical arguments ~10,000 years, XIX^th century on physical, chemical & geological arguments 40 million years, which then jumped to a billion, and then gradually to 4.55 million years.

            For Economy I rather would not list best theories telling opposite Truths. In Scholarship look for National Histories.

            So at a given temporal point we cannot answer questions about Ultimate Truth, although in average Science goes forward. But Ultimate Questions cannot be answered in average; they should be answered Yes or No.

            Orman Willard van Quine tells us [1] that changes in Science follow a certain Parsimony. We have lots of assumptions when building up a Theory. Then, if an observation contradicts a prediction, we change some assumption, but those which are the "cheapest". So the Ptolemaic World Scheme was improved and improved by introducing more and more epicycles and excentric cycles for 1500 years; and only then took Copernicus over.

            But even this is not so simple. Historians of Science tell that the Aristotlean World Picture collapsed when Galileo's telescope resolved Milky Way into individual stars. They are obviously neglecting the original works of Aristotle. De Caelo gives an explanation for Milky Way, and from this explanation the prediction would have been (nobody applied Aristotle's theory to telescopes) that after some magnification the picture will be light spots surrounded by darkness [2], as it was. Because neither Galileo nor his opponents were fluent in Aristotle, they agreed that there was something against Him. Now we know that there was, but they should not have yet known.

            So it seems that a kind of "scientific fashion" is involved in each Yes/No choice. Maybe if we could observe the many-world histories of Everett [3], we could enjoy many formally very  different theories for the same topic, which were, however, quite similar for many quantitative predictions. Alas, we cannot do this.

            But we can remember it. And this view gives a Prediction. There may be cases when somebody quite good a scientist/scholar invents a theory whose fundaments seem quite impossible for us; and still he is not a madman, and his theory can explain a lot of facts. Maybe not so much as the Best Theory, but still, it is surprisingly good compared to Common Opinion that it is Fundamentally Wrong. And in a century futureward...?

            The Magyar Landtaking in 896 AD is a much-discussed event in Hungary, since the age of handwritten chronicles, and the material consequence is the Kingdom of Hungary, then the successor states including the recent Republic of Hungary. Recent population can be analised, bones and paraphernalia in Xth century graves as well, and there are lots of written texts even if unambiguous texts a6re nopt contemporary while contemporary ones are not unambiguous.

            Opinia varied during the past millennium, but mainly on “political” ground (“was the event advantageous or not?”), until Gy. Illyés, national poet of Magyars from Petcheneg ancestors elaborated a new scenario in a poem, where Magyars first had suffered a devastating defeat from the Petchenegs, then fled through the Eastern Carpathians, and there sat on the autochtones, but without women & children (and cattle). The scenario met complete refusal of historians, who showed old female burials of Eastern style, analysed old female names &c.

            And then came Modern Genetics, analysis of distributions of nuclear genes, mitochondria & Y chromosome microsatellites; and it seems as if Illyés’ Scenario were closer to the genetical data than the scenarios of professional historians are. We should understand why and how…

1. GYULA ILLYÉS, THE PETCHENEG, GREAT NATIONAL POET OF THE MAGYARS

Gy. Illyés, one of the national poets of the Hungarians/Magyars, bard of past and present of the Hungarian Nation/Magyar Folk, classified himself as a Petcheneg. This is not strange at all. Magyars, and even more, Hungarians, have come from everywhere even in past centuries when Europe did not yet know the idea of Multiculturalism. From the 7 original tribes who entered the Carpathian Basin in April 896 (the datum is a Parliament decision from 1895, but seems indeed correct) the names of 2 were Ugric, 1 was z-Turk or Common Turkic, and 4 were r-Turk or Bulgarian/Onogurian. Still outside the Basin 3 more tribes joined, the Kabarians (“rebels”, i.e. who revolted against the Khazarian Empire); they may have been almost anything and historians try with various hypotheses as Iranians of Greek Orthodox religion (cca. near relatives of recent Ossets from the Georgian/Russian border), Khwarezm/Horezmian Iranians from the southeastern shores of the Kaspian Sea, either Moslims or ancient Fire Worshippers or both, Common Turkic Karaites/Israelites/Nestorians from the very east shore of the Dnieper, Sarracens and whatnot. (A village just North of Budapest on the right bank of the Danube is Buda-kalász, where Kwarezm>Káliz>Kalász, Újpest, District 4 of the present Budapest, was founded by Sarracens, and Samuel, third King of Hungary (1041-1044) either was not a Christian  at all (but a related religion), or at least a very Eastern Christian of rites from the Causasus (the first temple of his clan had a plan unknown West of the Caucasus). And so on. So Poet Illyés came from a family of Petcheneg origin, they remembered it but they became Magyars.

            In the 60's Illyés wrote a very important poem [4] about the central moment of the Magyar Landtaking: the conquerors are just crossing the Carpathians at Verecke Pass (Northeast), and the leader, Prince Árpád is sitting on his horse at the highest point of the Pass supervising his tribes. We are in April 896 (of course migrations start with spring, Late March/Early April, when the new grass emerges); History begins.

            I am serious. In Hungary, just oppositely as in most countries of the world, the dominant population has the strong tradition that they are newcomers. Of course, the Basin had its history before 896 AD: the heroes are Sámuel, the Vértesszöllős Man (Homo antecessor) from 350,000 BC, the clever Neanderthal Szeletians from 40,000 BC, the brave Szatmár hunters who learnt the Balkan way of agriculture about 6,000 BC to be able to push the Balkan intruders back to South, and then starting the ALP, the Alföld Linear Pottery, the cultured and good Romans who stopped the tyrant Burebista and his Dacians at the Danube and thus saved the innocent Nation of Boii from extermination, the versatile Eraviscus Celts at the Mons Gellért, who were incorporated into the Roman Empire as almost equals, Hadrian, who before being an Emperor wisely governed Provincia Pannonia from Aquincum (now District 3 of Budapest, at Northwest) and the valiant Pannonian Emperors in the 3rd century AD, defensors of the Northeastern limes, and especially Emperor Probus, planting Italian grapes in Pannonia. We honour them, we learn their histories, they cared for the land for us; but that history has no contact with The History Of The Hungarian Nation.

            Then comes the Migration Period. Lots of peoples enter the Basin; some go away, some remain, some die out. Some peoples are the relatives of Magyars, or at least they might have been; so the Magyars dominating the Hungarian Nation, are more interested in them than in mere Eastern Goths stopping for decades and then going to Italy, or in Gepids, rebels and traitors of the Empire of the Huns just after Attila's death. But still the Landtaking is in the future, the Alliance of the Seven Magyars is somewhere on the Eastern steppes, so even this is only the prologue of the Great Story.

            But you cannot stop History's Wheel (citation from J. V. Stalin and his coworkers). The Seven Magyars are coming, and about 850 they are just East of the Carpathians, in present Moldavia (which is not only the Republic of Moldavia, but a significant part of Roumania as well). The leader is Prince Álmos (the name, if it is not the r-Turkic Almys=sacred, then literally means “one of dream”; an early chronicle tells that his mother had a dream about the son), and his firstborn is Árpád (in Iranian: Defensor of the Throne; in Magyar: [abundant] in barley). The Seven Magyars sometimes enter the Basin, as allies of the Moravians against Eastern Franks, or vice versa. South of the Carpathians, in present Wallachia, the Bulgarian State has an influence, albeit Bulgaria Proper is rather the Southern Bank of the Danube.

            And then two important things happen in 894. In Moravia old Prince Svätopluk dies. His 3 sons turn against each other. And somewhere on the Eastern steppe some other Turks defeat the Petchenegs. The only chance for the Petchenegs is to attack the Seven Magyars; if they win, they have slaves, and new cattle. As for the Magyars, they can move West, because there is just disorder and power vacuum in the Basin.

            Contemporary Western and Byzantian records are rather short and uninterpretable, while Magyar and Bulgarian ones are not extant. Magyar oral tradition, recorded some 150 years later, obscurely mentions a Bulgarian-Petcheneg alliance leading to the catastrophe of a Magyar wing under the command of Levente, grandson of Prince Álmos, while the vanguard under Árpád won. Also, the oral tradition tells that Prince Álmos died somewhere at the Carpathians; but the comment seems to repeat the Old Testament about Moses, that he could not enter the New Land. Further details are unknown; he was cca. 75 old. However when the turmoil ends, Magyars are inside the Basin and Petchenegs roam the Moldavian plains.

            Later Magyar/Hungarian scholarship was almost unequivocal about the Landtaking (in April 896): it was a big victory. This was not only the Magyar opinion: in the 19th century Slovakians identified themselves with Prince Svätopluk, but accepted that Magyars were strong & victorious, if they could defeat even the successors of old Svätopluk. And Petchenegs never formed a real European state with university scholars, Academy of Sciences or such, so we cannot know the tradition of the other side.

            Or we could not know it until Illyés's poem [4].

2. THE POEM

            We do not exactly know why the great Magyar poet of Petcheneg origin wrote the poem, but first let us see how an extinct nation could give a poet to another nation. Petchenegs, indeed, vanished at the end of the Migration Period, about 1000 AD. They remained on the Westernmost Steppe, just outside the Carpathians, and became absorbed by various Balkan and Ukrainian groups.

            59 years after the Magyar-Petcheneg War the Alliance of the Seven Magyar (or at least some Western tribes under tribal leaders Lehel & Vérbulcsú) tried their fortune in Southwestern Germany. At first they indeed did collect fortunes in slaves and noble metals, the latter mainly as Christian clenodies from churches. However, after some time near to the important city Augsburg, at Lechfeld, they met a substantial host led by Western Emperor Otto and Prince Conrad. And Lehel and Vérbulcsú did not return to the Carpathian Basin.

            Again, the details are obscure. German chronicles write about a great victory over Eastern barbarians. Hungarian chronicles, starting a century later, repeat this. Only 7 raiders returned, but the Germans first had cut their ears & noses as moral teaching. Hungarian tradition adds that, at least, Leader Lehel killed Prince Conrad with his horn while being questioned in custody; while the story in itself would be self-consistent, the horn is an exhibition piece in Jászberény, Hungary, instead of Augsburg, Germany. But surely, Magyars were not victorious at Lechfeld.

            However the utter annihilation described by the chronicles of both sides is impossible. Heavily armed German infantry might have been able to win, but not to catch the light cavalry of Magyars. Magyar tradition knows about a heavy rain making the bowstrings loose; this may explain the defeat, but not a capture. Very probably the Imperial army won, Lehel, Vérbulcsú & Súr were captured, the bigger part of the Magyars got home (the Magyar army was purely light cavalry!), but then it was the common interest of both the Imperials and the successor of Prince Árpád to magnify the German success without limit. Namely, Lehel, Vérbulcsú & Súr did not belong to the princely clan. See, if you let local leaders, concurrents of the House of Árpád, to lead you, the Supreme God in the Seventh Heaven will not help you...

            As I told, the details are obscure. But in the year of the defeat a new Prince assumes the sceptre: Taksony from the House of Árpád. He starts to centralize the Basin. But the whole German Empire is against him!

            Indeed, he is cautious. He keeps his court on the Island of Csepel (just South of Budapest), where the two branches of the Danube offer serious defence. (You can find the village Taksony even on modern maps.) And he takes a foreign princess as highest wife: an alliance against Emperor Otto. The Princess is Petcheneg. The Princess' retinue get lands; on the Western bank of the Danube, but near to the court. And the poet, more than 9 centuries later, comes from such a village. This is the way how an extinct nation produces a Magyar poet after centuries.

            The poem is not overly long, but substantial: 20 stanzas, 4 lines each. Here I cite only 3 stanzas, the 3rd, the 4th and the 13rd:

...

3-4

S rohanni kell! Előre, bármi áron!

Tegnap megint nyomukba lovagolt már

egy had besenyő s bosszuálló bolgár.

Tovább! Föl, arra! Túlra! Bármi várjon!

Alig volt nő. Alig egy csacsogó száj.

A bosszúállás nem kegyelmezett.

Vének se voltak. Minden elveszett,

mi összetartott: bíró, jós, pap, oltár.

...

13

Lehet új otthon, lesz új feleség-

ő az uráé, de kit szűl, a gyermek,

idegen arc lesz és idegen termet;

keverék lesz s majd nem is keverék!

...

            Since your majority cannot understand these stanzas, I give a mirror translation in prose; I am definitely not a poet:

We must run! Forward, at any cost!

Already yesterday again tracked us

a Petcheneg host and the avenging Bulgars.

Farther! Up, there! Beyond! Anything be there!

There were only a few women. Hardly babies.

The revenge had no mercy.

There were no elders. Everything has been lost,

what would have bound: judge, seer, priest, altar.

...

New home may be got, and new wife will be-

she will be of her husband, but her child

will have foreign face and foreign stature;

the children will be mixtures first and later not even that!

            If you do not grasp the full meaning of the catastrophic foreboding of Prince Árpád in Stanza 13 (and also in 14, 15 & 17), remember that the landtaking Magyars came originally from Western Siberia, almond-shaped eyes, Mongolian spots, short bowlegs and such traits are not unheard of even 1100 years later. So Prince Árpád, who is of course short, bowlegged, almond-eyed, and in general similar to Genghis Khan, looks at his people telling: this is the last true Asian generation. Since we have lost our women, the next generation will be half-European, and the future is full assimilation to Europe. The Nation may survive, and Prince Árpád will do his best for this; but the Nation will be composed of ugly, unnaturally tall, round-eyed Europeans!

            In general, Illyés's scenario (referred henceforth as Scenario I) of the Glorious Landtaking is a devastating defeat from the Petchenegs & Bulgarians, a panicky run to West (where, the Magyars knew, there was a power vacuum just then), loss of almost all babies, women and oldsters and finally a relatively organised crossing at Verecke Pass. While nothing in the scarce records explicitly contradicts Scenario I, it is the least glorious scenario of the Landtaking seriously suggested up to now. If there were Petcheneg historians, their books would write something similar:

Early spring 896 AD after an agreement of mutual defence with Khan Boris of Bulgaria the Petcheneg Supreme Council of the 8 Chieftains decided that the provocations of the turbulent Magyar tribes of the West were dangerous for international peace, and the Petcheneg Western Division was commanded to resolve the problem. The Blitzkrieg was quite successful. The Magyar main forces were utterly defeated; their Prince Álmos died when fleeing West; maybe in a coup d'état. One wing of the Magyars, under the command of Levente, grandson of Prince Álmos, was driven to Bulgarian territory, where they were annihilated. Almost all the cattle became our booty, with herds of slaves. The danger of Magyar provocations ceased to be a problem.

            The Western Magyar troops under Árpád, son of Prince Álmos, at the beginning of the battle recognised the futility of resistance and fled to West across the Carpathian Mountains and settled on the top of autochtones, not disturbing the peace and development of the Petcheneg Nation anymore.

            Or something such; but there are no Petcheneg historians anymore. But there was a great Petcheneg poet, even if he used Magyar as language [5].

3. THE RESUME OF SCENARIO I AND SOME ALTERNATIVE SCENARIOS

            As far as I know there is no English translation of the above mentioned poem, and I definitely will not translate 20 stanzas. However the English-reading community has the right to get the core of Scenario I, which now I summarize as:

            Stanzas 1-2: The weather is very bad [6] and the mountainous environment is unfamiliar for the Magyars. 3-4: Magyars are fleeing Petchenegs & Bulgars; everything is lost. 5: No women. 6-7: No hope. 8: Although they are from the people of Attila, the Hun [7]. 9-11: Árpád, the leader, would like to find a good future for the nation, but he has his doubts. 12-17: If they go West, they can conquer land and wives, but the next generation will be European-like, which is horrible (and unaesthetic). 18-19: Then the leader finds a positive argument: be as must, at least they shall be free. 20: And so Prince Árpád directs his people into Europe.

            So, without fancy poesis, Scenario I is as follows. The Magyar Landtaking happened just after a devastating defeat (from the Petchenegs, but in the following this will not be important). The population lost almost all females, many adolescent males, and much of material wealth. However the military strength more or less remained. So they crossed the Carpathians, settled on top the autochtones, and took the local women. The male population may have been quite significant for the Basin.

            There were, and are, alternative scenarios suggested as well. After maximal simplification they may be summarized (or caricaturised) as:

Scenario TM (the traditional Magyar view from Middle Ages): Magyars valiantly and gloriously occupied the Basin. Of course there were clashes with the Petchenegs, as it can be expected. However Magyars did want to occupy the Basin, since they knew from tradition what good a country it was. [8]. So of course the population was not depleted in women & children, and substantial new population arrived at the Basin. (This is the view of practically all Hungarian Chronicles, written by people of various background, always in Latin.)

Scenario NM (the Nationalistic Magyar view of 19th century): As TM, but maybe the new population was a non-negligible minority. This numerical minority, because its valiant, energetic and vigorous nature gradually assimilated the population at the central part of the Basin [9].

Scenario NNM (the Nationalistic Non-Magyar view of 19th century): Practically as NM, but the adjectives valiant, energetic and vigorous are replaced by cruel, savage and lusty [10].

Scenario CS (Cultural Superiority, from the first half of 20th century): Landtaking Magyars were culturally superior & materially richer than the autochtones [11], who were rapidly assimilated. Because for early times only the rich graves are Magyar, originally Magyars might have been a small (but not negligible) minority, say, 10%.

Scenario ST (the Hungarian Stalinist historians of the 50's): While Landtaking Magyars were not a small minority, maybe even a majority, they were backward. On material level, of course they were strong in animal husbandry, but hopelessly weak in agriculture, while local Slavs were strong in the latter. As for ideology, their society did not yet fully reached a true class structure, while the local Slavic society was in the (early) feudal stage. So just after 1000 AD local Slavs dominated the Hungarian state and taught agriculture & statecraft to them. Class conflicts were of course stronger than linguistic ones [12].

Scenario PST (from the post-Stalinist times): Landtaking Magyars came in as a complete society, so CS is wrong when it regards only the rich graves as Magyar. Poor graves simply belong to the poor majority of the immigrating society, which might have been even a 2:1 majority in the Basin [13].

Scenario DL (the Double Landtaking): There were multiple massive immigrations, and the 896 one was only the last of them. The eponym scenario was elaborated by Gy. László, who was an archaeologist, not a historian. Indeed, during the Migration Period at least 4 mounted peoples took the Basin: Huns in 433, the first Avar wave from Turkestan in 567, the Late Avars from the general direction of the Caucasus in cca. 680, and Prince Árpád in 896. Now, what if more than one of them contributed into the Magyar ethnic? Especially László's idea was that the 680 immigration was really big and that population carried the Magyar language into the Basin, while the 896 immigrants were militarily strong but a small minority; and they spoke z-Turkic [14].

Scenario FE (meaning Forever): Scenarios have been being elaborated in which Magyars are autochtones in the Basin. Historians & archaeologists generally refute these ideas [15].

            And so on; I stop here. As we shall see, different scenarios lead to different evolutions. We cannot observe the process of the Landtaking in April of 896 (or 677?), of course, so cannot reach the extent of scientific certainty. However, each Scenario of the Landtaking is an initial condition for the evolution of the Hungarian Nation; and maybe improper initial conditions would lead to false present states (where "present" of course stands for 1910, the last census for the Carpathian Basin; afterwards censuses were heavily falsified for actual politics). Indeed, honourable historians take this backward way; other ones simply choose standpoints and then declare.

4. RECONSTRUCTION OF LANDTAKING BEFORE DNA SAMPLE STUDIES

            Prior to the 90's 3 major methods were available for historians reconstructing the Landtaking; the obvious fourth being unavailable (practically no contemporary records!). These were: old but not contemporary historical records, recent & subrecent anthropological data and linguistics, respectively. Let us see them, briefly, to the point.

A. Synchronous historical records. There are no explicit records about the Landtaking! As for Magyar sources, the degree of literacy in 896 is not known. There exists even now a "rhunic" alphabet, adapted quite well to the Magyar language, which must be old, originating from (a collateral of?) the alphabet of the Orkhon inscriptions of the "Old Turkic" khaganate in present Mongolia [16]. The alphabet survived in some parts of Transylvania [17], but with a single exception [18] all its inscriptions have been found in Transylvania, so we cannot know how wide its use was in 896. (Note that the ethnic/nation preserving the alphabet, the Szeklers, has the tradition not to have participated in the Landtaking in 896!) Still, the use of some writing in 896 seems probable, so some records must have been made (as e.g. lists of rulers; see the "Bulgarian King List" as close analogy [19]). However rhunic inscriptions generally were made in wood, so chances of survival for a millenium are slight.  So much about contemporary records of the Magyars.

            As for the non-Magyar population of the Carpathian Basin, chances of records are best among the Christians, as e.g. Franco-Bavarians in the extreme West (ancestors of recent Hienz in Burgenland), proto-Slovakians at least in the Nitra region (with well-organised clerical hierarchy since 825) and Slovenes in the Southwest. But there are no extant records!

            There are a few contemporary records from the neighbourhood of the Basin. A Bavarian monastic archive records something which may have been the Landtaking at the year 889, albeit almost certainly the edition is later. Byzantine chronicles record troubles made by a migrating group since 862, but the group is not clearly identified, sometimes they are "Turks", sometimes they are "Onogurs", never "Magyars". (The question of the name of the nation is far from being trivial; I will return to this problem later in this Chapter.)  From the beginning of the Xth century there are ample (and for the details, exaggerated) texts about raider groups infecting the West (Germany, France, in a single case Moorish Spain), Southwest (Italy) and Southeast (Byzance). Some records seem contemporary and clearly the home of the raiders is the Basin. So something surely happened in the Basin just before 900; but the Westerners do not know the details and Byzantians are even not interested in them.

            The first detailed foreign records start from cca. 950. I mention 3 such ones: Emperor Constance Porphyrogenetus, Friar Widukind, and the earliest Christian missions of the Passau Bishopric (as e.g. Bruno of Querfurt and ideologists at home as e.g. Thietmar of Merseburg).

            Byzantine Emperor Constance wrote/edited a monograph about the government of the Empire [20] in cca. 950. One chapter in it is about the Magyars, although he generally uses the term "Turks". Geographically the population in question is in the Basin; the personal names coincide with (or are near to) leaders mentioned in later Hungarian chronicles, and these names can amply be found in place names in the center of the Basin. Also, Emperor Constance mentions the tribal alliance of the Magyars, about which later Hungarian chronicles are silent. However the number of the tribes (7) coincides with the number of leaders in Hungarian chronicles, and tribe names of Emperor Constance can be found amply again in place names. So Emperor Constance seems reliable; albeit he may have been misled in details. Namely Hungarian historians believe that he got some information from a Magyar embassy to Byzance; and ambassadors sometimes lie about home situations. Emperor Constance does know about the Landtaking, and names two earlier areas of the Magyars as Etelkuzu & Lebedia. While they are obviously East of the Basin, the exact locations are not too clear. Etelkuzu may be either Moldavia or the area between 2 rivers, Dnieper & Don, or Don & Volga (which is indeed Etil in Turkic); Lebedia is "somewhere one more step Eastward".

            Friar Widukind wrote his history [21] at the end of Xth century. He was in close connections with the Western Emperors (the Saxonian Dynasty), and so he surely got good information (for a foreigner). He knows a lot about the raiding activity, but he does not know about the Landtaking. His general attitude is that: Charlemagne defeated the Avars; then the Westerners quarantined the Pagans, but at the very end of the IXth century Christian infighting dissolved the quarantine and the raiders reappeared. He is not quite consequent in names of nations; sometimes he writes "Avars", sometimes a name which is very near to the present German name of Hungarians (Ungarii), sometimes both; never Magyars. Note that Uungarii, Wangarii & such were applied to the population of the Basin before 896, as e.g. in the land cession document of Emperor Louis the German to the Abbey of Mattsee in 860 (Marcha Uuangariorum, [22]), and the name almost certainly comes from the Onogurians, an r-Turkic group very near to Bulgarians, which did live in the Basin from the end of the VIIth century.

The early missions started under Geyza (972-997), Grand Duke of the Magyars. Raiding excursions are over, the Duke is the son of Taksony, who was coming back to real power against the raider lords/tribal chiefs. The missions record some inside information coming from the Magyar ducal court. For example that the Duchess' name is Belekenigi. (Thietmar of Merseburg understands the name as Beautiful Lady, but Bela is rather White; of course, in Daleminc: OK, such a broken Daleminc is good enough for a German.) While this is surely not a Magyar name, in Daleminc (or Obodrite, anyway, extreme Western Slavic) it means White Lady. Now we have the tradition that the wife of Géza was Sarolt. This is again not a Magyar name, but r-Turkic: Sara Oldu is White Ermine/Lady, whose mirror translation is indeed Belekenigi. A Hungarian chronicle (later) tells that Duchess Sarolt (from Transylvania) had a sister, Karolt; and everyone knows that Kara Oldu is Black Ermine/Lady. Also the early missions know that Duchess Sarolt is Christian, but not of the good type (surely, baptized by Constantinople priests; in the next century it would have been told that Schizmatic), that she drinks a lot of wine, that she rides in male saddle (what else? No horse nomad lady uses sidesaddle) and that once she killed with her own hands a man (!; but surely a serf). The present Hungarian State (of almost purely Magyar ethnic since the Versailles Peace System) regards Duke Geyza as predecessor of Heads of State, even if the list of Hungarian Kings starts only with his son Vajk, as Stephen I; so this seems indeed to be our story. However the early missions do not record too much about the Landtaking; they rather like to write commonplaces about the beastly mores of the Pagans whom they attempt to convert heroically, with the gracious help of the Grand Duke (who, however, still offers to Pagan demons too) and of his not so gracious wife of Constantinople connections.

And here I think, to avoid misunderstanding a serious problem must be discussed briefly. The identification of groups mentioned in records with populations identified by archaeology or with the present dominant population in the middle part of the Basin is equivocal. Now the middle part of the Basin is populated mainly by a nation, which calls itself Magyar. All other languages, except Turkish, Slovakian, and in part Croatian & Roumanian call this group by a name which seems to originate from *Onogur: Węgry (Polish), Vengri (Russian), Hungarian (English), Hongrois (French) &c., and this is not a translation. It is easy to demonstrate the problem with the Slovakian language, where Mad’arsko is the present Hungary (the middle of the Basin), Slovensko is the present Slovakia (roughly the northern highlands of the Basin), while Uhorsko is the whole Basin (=Hungary before 1920). There is no guarantee that an “Ungarus” in an old document would mean the predecessors of present Magyars; it may mean them or may not, and e.g. in Scenario DL it does not! Let us see the names in the oldest documents which may mention groups belonging to the Landtakers.

In Europe the Landtakers were first detected by Byzantine auctors. In near-contemporary writings they use mainly 4 names for the newcomers, which can be given back as Huns, Turks, Scythae and “Ungroi”.

            Early Western terminology is rather diverse; the names used by more than one sources are (ignoring orthographic peculiarities): H(U)ngarii, Hunni, Turci, Avares, Agareni, Pannones & Parthi; the last 2 are rather rare.

            Contemporary Slavic sources generally write Ugri, and its variants according to regular phonologic shifts amongst Slavic languages.

            No near-contemporary European documents write “Magyar”, but some Arabic ones seem to do it; of course the pure consonantal writing causes some ambiguities. But European sources rather prefer a name which very possibly comes from the name of the Onogurs, an r-Turkish group certainly within the Basin in VIIIth and IXth century and maybe there already at the end of VIIth. On the other hand, “Magyar” is almost certainly an Ugric self-name. The first half, *Magy, seems to have come from an older *Mańć, the regular counterpart of the self-name of our closest linguistic kin, the Manyshi, in Westernmost Siberia. So our self-name is Ugric, and Slovakians & Turkish use that, but Europeans apply another name, which we very probably inherited (in their traditions) from an r-Turkish group. But then, which one was the self-name of the Landtaker community? And similarly really early texts are silent about the Landtakers’ language. Surely somebody sometimes established the ancestor of present Magyar language in the Carpathian Basin; but the first chronicler with any linguistic interest (meaning the explanations of a few Magyar words) is the Anonymous Hungarian from the XIIIth century.

            To close Point A, the first historical records are unequivocal as far as that something important, enhancing the military power of the Basin, happened sometimes in the decade bw. 889 & 899. Also, it is almost sure that this something was (or was accompanied by) an immigration from the East. But we are not informed (at least unequivocally) by the early records whether:

            the immigrants were majority or minority;

            the leadership continued in the older group or the immigrants took over;

            was there linguistic change in the middle of the Basin in 896 or not;

            and so on.

B. Anthropology. The middle of the Basin is rather low, and on East of River Danube it is an extension of the Eurasian steppe. So Eastern mounted people has the tendency to occupy the lowlands; and their anthropology is quite different from the Westerners. (Shorter stature, shorter limbs, high cheekbone, sporadically even almond eyes.) They belong to a continuum going through Turkic people in Middle Asia to Mongolians on the East. So maybe looking for skeletons in the old graves, old drawings and historical pictures, and performing analyses on recent populations we can get a story of the history of the Basin, free of age-old and modern historical falsifications.

            The idea is sound, but unfortunately the results are equivocal. Indeed, high mountain population, except the Szeklers, so Slovaks, Germans, Roumanians and Rusyns, almost exclusively show unmixed European anthropology, while Szeklers and Cumans belong to mixed Europo-Mongolian races, subspecies, variants or as you like the terminology. I do not know the data for Jazones; and for Magyars pure European anthropology is as possible as almost any degrees of Europo-Mongolian mixes. (As for Petchenegs, traditionally Petcheneg villages in Hungary tend to show up quite Eastern Europo-Mongoloid individuals.)

            So far so good; but the Magyar recent ethnic is anthropologically indefinite. Going back well before 896, Early Avar graves show an Europo-Mongoloid population generally more Eastern than the present one, in Late Avar graves (cca. after 680) the Eastern feature is weaker, and surely a new component appears at the end of the IXth century. The new component is primarily identified via their material founds (weapons, jewellery &c.), but the anthropology confirms the general Eastern origin.

            But no more. The new graves show a well-recognizable general pattern; so they are the Landtaker graves. Now, not counting minor findings around Kiev, which surely were left behind by the Landtaker army already on the way into the Basin, there are 2 and only 2 parallels of these Landtaker graves outside the Basin, none exactly the proper Landtaker style and both slightly late. One is 2 graves in the princely cemetery of old Galicia (on the East) at Krylos [23] very probably slightly after 896; maybe some bodyguards of the local Duke. The second is the cemetery of Bolshie Tigany along River Volga, found by Halikova [24] either just before 896 or simultaneous; they may belong to a splinter group of Magyars remaining on the East and both tradition and records do mention such a splinter group, albeit only in general terms. None of these graves show exactly the Landtaker burials, they are only similar to them; and they do not show the route of migration, being late for it.

            The anthropological classification is rather diverse, inconsequent, and not in political favour recently in USA. Still, Hungarian consensus is that the relatively biggest group of Magyars is the Eastern Baltic group, defined as defined. Now, this group is strong amongst Finns & Estonians; but also amongst Slovakians. You may draw almost any conclusions from such data; they are compatible with all the scenarios listed above. Surely there was strong assimilation is the closed Basin; but the details might be anything.

C. Linguistics. Magyar language is an Uralic language, from the Ugric subgroup of the Finno-Ugric subfamily, but with very strong r-Turkic admixture in the fundamental vocabulary; the later Slavic component surely was picked up mainly within the Basin; linguists can more or less distinguish Old Eastern Slavic, proto-Slovakian, proto-Slovene and Old Church Slavic a millenium ago. Since our two closest linguistic relatives are Khanty & Manyshi along River Ob in Western Siberia, this indeed suggests a migration from Asia. No problem with later r-Turkic influence; that was possible almost anywhere at the Eurasian steppe.

            The problem is that from amongst the 7 tribal names recorded by Emperor Constantine 4 are r-Turkic, 1 is z-Turkic and only 2 are Ugric. So for a period (about 750 in the usual historic picture) there was an overwhelming Turkic majority among Magyars. Still, now we speak an Ugric language.

            The problem is nontrivial, and this, finally, gives a possibility to check the scenarios listed in Chap. 3. (Until this point each scenario was possible.)

Scenario I is language-independent, except that the language of the Magyars cannot be Petcheneg, which is z-Turkic. (Indeed, z-Turkic words are few in Magyar, and only 1 tribe seems to have been z-Turkic, and there were lots of z-Turkic tribes on the steppe, only 8 of them Petcheneg.)

Scenario TM is equally language-independent.

Scenario NM was based on numerical minority of Magyars at Landtaking, but with fast linguistic assimilation afterwards. This fast assimilation is unexplained, but is not impossible according to subrecent experience. E.g. some 2/3 of Budapest spoke German & Slovakian in 1867, and now the capitol is linguistically homogeneous Magyar. Magyar is a moderately polysynthetic language of structure quite foreign to Indo-Europeans and still Basin people learn it correctly if they want.

Scenario NNM is linguistically not different from NM. It emphasizes the mass assimilation, tells that it happened under the ruthlessness of Magyars and this Scenario was used in the attempt to assimilate some Magyars after the 1945 Benes decrees in Slovakia, not too successfully. Otherwise the problems/difficulties are the same as in NM.

Scenario CS is again linguistically similar to the above mentioned ones.

Scenario ST is improbable from linguistic viewpoint. Landtaking, socially and technically backward minority under heavy and dominant Slavic influence would have been assimilated by the Basin Slavs in the same way as r-Turkic Bulgarians were at the Balkan; but the assimilation did not take place in the Basin.

Scenario PST solves this previous problem. If the Landtakers were in majority, they did assimilate the rest. In this case, of course, the Landtakers must have spoken Ugric, so an earlier linguistic assimilation of the Turkic majority (on the Turkic-dominated steppe) must be assumed, without easy explanation.

Scenario DL definitely has a clear-cut linguistic scenario; true or false. The Early Avars (well recorded in contemporary historiography) immigrating in 567 were r-Turks (or: a mix of Turks and proto-Mongols), the Late Avars (not mentioned in contemporary records, but well identified in burials) were Ugric (or a mix of Ugors and r-Turks), while the Landtakers in 896 (the "People of Árpád") were z-Turks. The proto-Magyar language, with Ugric & r-Turkic main vocabulary and later Slovakian & Slovene words of special culture (as Christian termini technici) was formed within the Basin between 680 & 896; the Landtakers took leadership in 896 but were rapidly assimilated linguistically as r-Turkic Bulgarians were earlier in Bulgaria. The Grand Picture is linguistically OK, even if there is problem in any of the details. (E.g.: there is no Ugric word recorded in the Basin before 896. True, there is nowhere else as well.)

Scenario FE is rather difficult linguistically. One should assume an Ugric continuum in Old Times from the Basin to Westernmost Siberia. There might be no problem with a Finno-Ugric continuum in pre-IE times; but nobody ever made plausible an Ugric population West of the River Kama; and no records mention any non-Magyar Ugric population more Western than astride the Mountains Ural.

            So all Scenarios are compatible with Points A&B; but we may eliminate Scenarios ST & FE as linguistically improbable; the others are all compatible with linguistics too, albeit each has its own difficulty. In the next Chapter I mention special studies Hungarian historians/archaeologists performed to disprove Scenario I. No surprise: Scenario I is provoking for any Magyar who is not also a Petcheneg; and is the lest glorious picture of the Landtaking including even Scenario NNM (where the Landtaking came from the Devil but still it was a Grand Act).

            The inventor of Scenario I was not a professional historian (albeit a Vates of the Nation), so professionals believed that their task would be easy. The argumentations were manifold, and we shall see some of them in the next Chapter. However I will moderate myself about References. Reasons are simple enough.

            Magyar historians do write a lot about the Magyar Landtaking, but do this predominantly in Magyar. English readers generally would not understand a iota of it; they would be as lost as with a Basque text.

I could read all the texts and transmit to you; but I somewhat restrict myself, for 2 reasons. First, maybe you are not so interested in the details. Second, then I should read lots of articles of historians. Now, I am a physicist. Relevant physics articles are either in the library of our Institute, or on the Internet. But to read historians' articles I should look at strange Institutes; and generally articles of Hungarian historians before the '90's are not digitalised. So let us assume that you are not fanatic that I be fanatic.... I am almost sure, you are not.

            Anyways, Refs. [25] and [26] are good reviews (of course you may not be able to read them).

5. CONSEQUENCES OF SCENARIO I: IF THE PETCHENEGS STOLE THE WOMEN & CHILDREN...

            Before the DNA studies 3 observable consequences of Scenario I were known. If on the eve of Landtaking the Magyars had been depleted by women & children, then the new households after Landtaking would have had new wives, mainly Slavic (see the very, very sad Stanza 13), and so

            a) female burials in the Basin could not be of Eastern rituals;

            b) female names would be mainly Slavic (women must have had great influence in the names of their daughters, even in mixed families); and

            c) if the Landtaker society, in the lack of elders, women and children, had been a pure army, then after taking the Basin all the Magyars would become privileged.

            There would be even more consequences, e.g. that in the lack of Magyar mothers the next generation would have learnt Magyar rather poorly, so a Pidginization would have happened; but in the previous Chapter I mentioned the extraordinary quality of linguistic assimilation of Budapest 150 years ago, so let us forget this "consequence".

            Now, Hungarian historians/archaeologists have checked Points a-c) and became happy and proud. Namely:

            a') Lots of female graves can be found in the Landtaker generation in the Basin with Eastern jewellery. Slavic women would have got at least partly Slavic burials.

            b') Female names are available from XIIth century. Of course, this is already Christian age, so some names are internationally Christian. However the great majority of the non-Christian names (76%, [25]) still does mean something in Magyar and not in Slavic. Here I must be definite. Such female names are e.g. Piros or Gyöngy. Now, Piros (recently Piroska, as a female name: e.g. the sister of St. Ladislaus, King of Hungary, before becoming Irene, as wife of the Byzantine Emperor John II) means Red, and in Slavic it would be cca. Červenka. "Piros" is not an Ugric word (maybe coming from Tokharian; in Greek Pyrrha) but it is a Magyar word. Similarly, Gyöngy (=Pearl) is not Ugric, but Turkic (cca. "Cincü", in present Hungary Gyöngyvér=Blood of Pearl); but in Slovakian it would be "Perla". So such names are indeed Magyar, not Slavic.

            c') As for Magyar servants, let us look for the very first foundation document of the new era of the Basin, the foundation document of the convent of the Greek nuns of Veszprém. The last is not yet Hungarian; it is Magyar. Namely, it was issued just before the foundation of Regnum Hungariae (in 1000); the donator is either Grand Duke Geyza or Grand Duke Vajk (who will be Stephen I on the Christmas of 1000, but we are still in 997). The text names the Grand Duke as "kralés", an exotic Hellenised Slavic title which might mean King (kral' is King in Slovakian) even if literally that title should be "basileus" in Greek (where, however, in Middle Ages “basileus” stands for the Eastern Emperor).

            Anyways, the document contains a few words which are not Greek. 6 of them seem personal names; one of them is surely Slavic. Four of them Turkic (!), one is Magyar. The last is a name of a worker in the vineyard; his name is Melegdi, meaning clearly "the man of warmth". Meleg is even now "warm" in Magyar. We are a mere 101 years after the Landtaking, and one Magyar (and a few Turks) are not lords, but workers for some Greek nuns. So indeed a full society, men and women, rich and poor, reached the Basin.

            So Gyula Illyés, National Poet & Vates, has been disproven. OK, he was a Flame Leading the Nation, but not an archaeologist; and he, being a Petcheneg, had a tendency to overestimate some minor Petcheneg success in a skirmish. But now we know better...

            And then came the DNA analyses and Count Cavalli-Sforza...

6. HISTORY AND SCIENCES: ON THE GENETICS OF NATIONS

            All scientists agree that any science is "more objective" than History, which is a scholarship, not a science. The reason behind is that sciences mainly deal with and have been developed for handling Nature, which is independent of our desires, while everybody can (although some would not want) mention cases when a historical theory was based on national desires (often as outright lies). I am also a scientist, not a scholar, so I agree. Inclusion of sciences can only help; but inadequate inclusion would not help too much.

            We are interested in origins. So it is natural to start with biology, in its successful, Darwinist form. By other words, we can look for a tree of descent, as Darwinism produced the Tree of Living Organisms. OK, biology and linguistics do not have to give the same result: the most obvious example is the "Black Americans" speaking an Indo-European, more specifically West Germanic, language, learned by them in the last 3 centuries, while they have completely forgot their original West Sudanese » Niger-Congo, not even Nostratic. Of course, their genetics is not so disjoint from other Germanics as popular myths tell (being heavily cross-bred); but they are genetically farther from the English than Dutch are, still they are much nearer for language.

            However we may ignore such examples as exceptions, and continue. Before the knowledge of detailed amino acid sequences and DNA structure there were only two biological disciplines helping History: anthropologic measurements and blood types. The second was more exact.

            Anthropologic measurements yielded lots of data, more or less hereditary, albeit sometimes in complicated ways. As an example, in Eurasia body length in average decreases from Northwest to Southeast: a Norwegian is generally taller than a Vietnamese. For far enough populations this is not only the difference of averages, but the populations differ in any reasonable statistical sense, while of course there are Vietnamese individuals (e.g. “Big Minh” himself, the last President of South Vietnam) who are taller than many Norwegians. So tall groups probably originate from tall ancestors, not from Pygmies; but food, childhood life & such influence the height also.

            In the first half of XXth century researchers measured lots of anthropologic data on lots of individuals on lots of populations. One can use these data, with some restraints. As I told, height can depend on premature food. Cranial conformation does depend on something not quite understood yet: after some generations well-being populations seem to become of "shorter head", maybe because of food and birth circumstances. And so on. Still, researchers tried to compare Magyar-speaking Hungarians with lots of other nations, some neighbours, some from the regions of the hypothesized origin. The researchers generally stated that they had found "something". But generally this "something" was simply that Magyar-speaking Hungarians are between West and East. And such a qualitative statement cannot be used to answer the question of the "Hungarian origin". (Here the quotation mark is meant for "Hungarian". Hungary, as we know from history, is a multioriginal nation, and we know the histories of the components quite well, except for the Landtaking Magyars. The various scenarios mentioned in Chap. 4 are pointed out for the Magyars, not for the others, even if some details may be incorrect for the "local" components as well. I mention only one analogy from the neighbourhood: are Croats/Hrvats Slavs from the River Elbe or Sarmathians from Southern Iranian Arachosia/Haurvatat/Saraswati?)

            Namely, for a population "between West and East" the expectation even without any migration would be "between more Western and more Eastern populations", exactly as we see.

            Then came the data for blood groups. They are more hereditary and more exact than length, colour of skin and forms of jaw. E.g. for the "big groups" A, B, AB & O the genetics is simple and Mendelian. There are two genes, let us call them A and B (really there are variants but they can be ignored in first approach), of course in two copies in human individuals. Now, the phenotype of the blood is A if the genes are AA or A, B, if they are BB or B, AB for genotype AB and O for neither A nor B. Nonmendelian changes (e.g. mutation) are very rare between generations, so most unexpected phenotypes come simply from secret adulteration. Blood group phenotype is easy to measure (albeit not so easy as body height), so now we have an ideal signal.

            Let us first formulate the prediction of the scenarios. In any scenario the Hungarian Nation or the Magyar Speech Community (not the same, of course) had been composed from two components, a "local" one from the Carpathian Basin well before the Landtaking, and a "landtaker" one having originated on the far East; and still one expects some signal of the far Eastern component, even after 1100 years.

            Then one gets the result:

                        p(A) = 0.301

                        p(B) = 0.154

for the present territory of Hungary (which is definitely not the whole Basin), with an unknown error of sampling. And then what?

            Gene B is more frequent in Hungary than "in the West"; but it is even more frequent "in the East": p(B) is >0.2 in Westernmost Siberia while <0.1 in Britain. As for p(A), the Hungarian average is slightly higher than the Western and Central European values, but similarly high values exist in Switzerland, Scandinavia and Turkey. You can derive arguments for any origin theory from such data; but they will never really nicely fit. The distributions of blood group genes is quite well known now for Europe & Western Asia [27]; the sampling error is quite another a matter (e.g. aborigines of Siberia may or may not be seen amongst Russians).

            I stop here with the discussion of blood groups. No doubt, using special markers you may get new results and some people suggested various markers, without convincing other people. I mention only one: Matsumoto mapped some immunoglobulins and found characteristic European, Southern Asian, Eastern Asian and African components [28]. Japan is a mix, which is not at all surprising. Now, the Carpathian Basin and its immediate Northeastern neighbourhood look as an island: non-negligible Southeastern Asian components appear although the distribution is mainly European. Only: no historical tradition or linguistics suggests a Southeastern Asian component.

            And then came Count Cavalli-Sforza, with some two decades of accumulating data. I give here a classical (and very expensive) book as [29]; you surely can find all of his works before 1994 cited in [29]. If you do not want to pay $175, then, e.g., you can read [30] as an extract. He states that generally there is a strong positive correlation between language and genetics, but not always. He explicitly mentions 4 exceptions: Lapps, Tibetans, Ethiopians and "Black Americans". Lapps are linguistically Uralians but genetically similar to Indo-European neighbours. Tibetans are linguistically similar to Southern Chinese but genetically to Northern Chinese; Ethiopians are linguistically Semitic but genetically African, and I already mentioned the "Black American" case. He is rather speculative about the Lapps, not too definite about "Ethiopians", mentions extensive migrations and the unification of the Chinese Empire for the Tibetans, and of course everybody knows that black slaves learnt English in Northern America in the last 400 years. I would add that the Amhara tradition tells that they went to Ethiopia not quite 2000 years ago from Yemen by boats, there they sat on the top of the African autochtones, and a substantial part of Ethiopia is still Galla-speaking, so linguistically African.

            He gives especially genetic maps for Greater Europe. He takes 95 (!) polymorphisms. Of course, you cannot draw a map

            p(x) = f(θ,φ)                                                                                                    (1)

where x is a 95-vector; but the distribution turns out to be smooth enough to describe 73% of the overall variation by the first 5 principal components. These component maps may be interpreted as migrations from centers. He believes that the first PC was created by the migration of the First Agriculturalists from the Fertile Crescent, the second was created by a migration from Northern Scandinavia, maybe Uralics (as a Uralic myself, I do not believe this, the North was always thinly populated, but let us continue), the third belonged to the Yamnaya IE people, centered in Ukrainia, the fourth was the Greek colonization, and the fifth PC is centered at the Pyrenees, so it is the Basques (I think, not a migration, but its negative: other people continuously took over everywhere, except the Pyrenees).

            So far, so good. And where is the Magyar Landtaking? It cannot be seen. But surely it must have happened: in the Carpathian Basin there is a linguistic island whose nearest relatives are in Western Siberia. Had Siberians arrived at the Basin in 896, taught the language to the autochtones and then died out [31]?

            I would not believe this scenario. Magyar is not simply a Uralic language. It is much stranger for IE neighbours than Finnish. It has cca. 30 cases of nouns (nobody ever gave the exact number), it is slightly polysynthetic, has cca. half a dozen voices, not only Active and Passive &c. At contact everybody would expect Pidginisation; but Magyar definitely has not pidginised. Massive language teaching is possible (e.g. for "Black Americans" in "White American" environment); but with a small teaching minority just dying out? On the other hand: where is the genetic trace of the Siberian immigrants? True, any Hungarian can see one or another special Magyar characteristics; but that is not a scientific method but a mere subjective guesswork. Are Magyars simply ghosts?

            Then came the mitochondrial genome. Mitochondria are inherited solely maternally. In the world population some 2-3 dozen mitochondrial patterns appear; 7 in Europe (or, maybe, 9?). Hence Sykes [32] reconstructs 7 matriarchs of Europe. Of course, there were much more women in Paleolithic Europe: but on purely maternal descent only the descendants of these successful women survived (plus some Lapps [32]). Maybe they deserve definite mention. So they were as follows. Helena, in the Pyrenees, then descendants migrating everywhere at the previous Global Warming. Jasmine, in Syria, descendants trekking into Europe via the Balkan with the advent of Neolithic. Katrine, in Venice, cca. 8,000 BC, descendants now mainly in the Alps. Tara (foremother of Sykes himself) in Tuscany, 15,000 BC; later descendants went to North. Ursula, whose descendants populated all Europe. Valda, from Spain, 15,000 BC; later her descendants trekked to Scandinavia (!). And Xenia, in the Caucasus Mountain, 23,000 BC; descendants later thinly populated both Europe and America, but not Siberia between (was one of Xenia's descendant the wife of an early Columbus or was Xenia the matriarch of the line of Nephi & Lehi of the Mormons?).

            When [32] is published we are in 1999; 1103 years after the Landtaking. Modern Genetics finally can give us an answer: who was the matriarch on the line of the Western Siberian Magyars? The answer is: that maternal line has died out. Namely observe that no descendants (on pure maternal line) of the Seven European Daughters of Eve can be found in Siberia, while only these maternal lineages are seen in the Basin. So the Siberian maternal lineages have died out in the Carpathian Basin. This is quite conform with Cavalli-Sforza’s 1992 opinion [31] deduced from nuclear genes. (Look: in itself the lack of non-European mitochodria would not mean a complete extinction. Some male descendants of the unidentified Siberian matriarch produced sons and they may have offspring even now. Only: they are not seen either in the 95-dimensional distributions of Cavalli-Sforza, so where are they?)

            We stop for a moment here in 1999. Which of the Scenarios of Chap. 3 are compatible with the lack of Landtaker Magyar genes and mitochondria?

            Hard to tell; but the inverse problem is easier. Only 2 Scenarios of Chap. 3 remain standing: ST could lead to subsequent extinction of the both materially and ideologically backward conquerors (but then how did the language remain?) and in FE Magyars are Central European autochtones, so of course they did not form islands in the distributions and the matriarchs were the European Daughters of Eve (but again: the language is foreign...).

            So in 1999 still 3 Scenarios are in competition: I, ST and FE, just the 3 which were never taken seriously by any historian. And in 2000 there come the Italians...

7. THE LAST STEP? FIRST CONCLUSION

            In 2000, just when Hungary is going to celebrate the millenium of the foundation of the Kingdom of Hungary (Christmas 1000 AD), an article of 17 authors (no Hungarian, but at least 2 Croatians and 3 Poles) finally founds the trace of Landtakers in the present population of the Basin [33]. (Note that Cavalli-Sforza is an author in it.) The 17 authors are looking about occurrence probabilities of variants of Chromosome Y throughout Europe. Chromosome Y is almost empty in heredity: it carries only cca. 7 working genes, of which one makes the offspring male. Since Y generates males, this chromosome is inherited on the pure male line, so it identifies patriarchs, just in the mirror opposite way as mitochondria betray matriarchs.

            21 European variants of Chromosome Y have been identified. (Very probably the differences do not influence the hereditary characteristics, so Cavalli-Sforza's 95-dimensional vector on the map at all.) E.g. for Spanyards Eu18 is far the most frequent, with 65.5% occurrence. Eu18 is dominant everywhee on West & Southwest.

            But the picture is different in Eastern Central Europe, the Catholic East, where the feudal system was organised cca. in 1000 AD by light mounted archers and which was then Poland + Hungary + Croatia [34], as well as in some adjacent regions + in the Eastern hinterland. In Hungary the dominant variant of Y is Eu19 with 60.0%; Eu18 is a mere 13.3%. In Poland Eu19 occurs in 56.4% and in Ukraine, the common hinterland of Poland & Hungary the occurrence is 54.0% The paper gives an averaged occurrence for Bohemia & Slovakia with 26.7%, but observe that this is 1/3 from Slovakia (inside of the Carpathian Basin) and 2/3 from Bohemia (outside, to the West). Eu19 is "only" 29.3% in Croatia, but compare this number to the 4.0% of neighbour Italy. The occurrence is still >10% in Greeks and Macedonians and in the Uralic Udmurts and Maris. It is 3 times more frequent in Macedonians than in Greeks, so Greece seems to be the fringe. (Danube Bulgaria, not included into the study of [33], was founded by Bulgarian Turks in 681 AD in a Landtaking process very similar to that of the Magyars; but Danube Bulgarians lost their r-Turkish language in 3 centuries.)

            So we do see the heritage of the Eastern conquerors, in Hungary, Poland, and in lesser extent in Croatia and the Balkan; but only in the males. Strange; but maybe sociologists can invent mechanisms...

            But for the Magyar Landtaking this is just the prediction of Scenario I! Illyés, the Petcheneg National Poet of Magyars saw with his eyes of mind the events, saw much better than the historians. As he described (remember Chap. 2), the Petchenegs captured the Magyar cattle & women. No women, no children. In the next generation in the Carpathian Basin the fathers were be mainly the Siberians (and Semino & al. see the 60% Eastern Y chromosomes even now [21]), but all the mothers autochtones (and, indeed, Sykes sees only European mitochondria [22]). The mitochondrial lineage of the Siberian matriarch could not continue in the Basin, but the Eastern male Y chromosomes were inherited and still are here.

            Then the only remaining question is: whence did the poet know the true scenario. OK, maybe his ancestors were keeping the tradition for a millennium; or he, as Vates, Pillar of Flame, &c. got an Intuition, which later has turned to be true.

            Strange. Should not we understand better what happened here in the historical research?

8. A NOTE ON SCENARIOS

            In the last 150 years of Hungary (and not only there) these scenarios were extensively used as political slogans, therefore they excite the minds. In the second half of XIXth century the majority of Magyar-speaking Hungarians accepted Scenarios TM & NM, while many of the Indo-European-speaking Hungarians embraced Scenario NNM and formulated lots of anti-Magyar ideas. Then, at the turn of the centuries some leaders of Indo-European Hungarians established strong connections with Indo-European Austria, while more radical ones seeked French connections; both groups demanded Justice for the Indo-Europeans. They were not completely successful with First World War, but for any case some 2/3 of Hungary was given to neighbouring Indo-European states. Then the neighbouring IE states adopted Scenario NNM and state-sponsored historians wrote many books about the atrocities which the Landtaker Magyars performed a millenium ago. (Since no written report about the Landtaking is extant, the atrocities were guesswork. Of course, lots of atrocities might have happened, but it were very surprising if just the invented ones.) Hungarian government, in turn, invented Scenario CS, for telling something nice to the overwhelmingly Magyar-speaking subjects electing the Parliament of remaining Hungary.

            After World War II Hungary became occupied by IE forces (Russians; but for a short while Bohemian & Serbian occupation forces also seemed possible, all Slavic IE), so the Hungarian State switched to Scenario ST, later to Scenario PST, and ordered the border guard to confiscate books written according to  other scenarios. Since 1990 there is a free competition of Scenarios, but the demarcation lines amongst supporters of different political parties are almost as clear-cut as in India between Congress & BJP about IE origins. Neighbouring countries are still more or less for Scenario NNM. (Of course, Scenario I is not favoured by anybody. The Poet is dead, and there is no Petcheneg State.)

            With the spread of Internet in a few years everybody will have the possibility to go into Virtual History choosing the ideas subjectively most attractive. However for a physicist the question “What did really happened in 896?” still will have its meaning.

            So let us continue. In 2001 it might have seemed that Scenario I was winning. And in 2007?

9. THE PICTURE IN 2007; SECOND CONCLUSION

            In 2001 it seemed that Gyula Illyés had been not only the Poet of the Nation but also the Keeper of the History, and that Petchenegs won in 896. (No essential problem even with this picture; one

cannot win always. Magyar national tradition tells that we lost against Batu, leader of Mongolians, in 1241 at Muhi, NE Hungary, because the tents in the Hungarian camp were erected in a confuse way, so we violated a Horse Nomad taboo. Maybe also Prince Álmos was careless in 896 too; and look, he might not enter the Carpathian Basin.) And in the last few years slight changes have started in the picture...

First we are now beyond the Sykes picture [32]: Eve had not 7 but 9 daughters in Europe. (I am still looking for details: I could imagine that Matriarch I was Irene, but I read Ina; why just that? And what was the name of Matriarch W? Winifred?)

Second, Magyar-speaking Hungarians took at last the challenge. The first attempt was perhaps [35] where a Hungarian associated with two Italians, yielding the internal information that Hungary has regions with completely separate genetic origins. Then the regions were examined separately for (30 of) the nuclear genes of the Cavalli-Sforza studies [29], [30]. The results were interesting, but also difficult to interpret. The Budapest population was nearest to Slavs and Germans. This is easy to understand from history: in 1867 the population of the present Budapest spoke first German (mainly Hungarian German called Schwabian), second Slavic (mainly Slovakian) and only on the third place Magyar. However all the selected regions outside Budapest were found to be nearest to a mixed "Iranian" sample. If this is correct then either i) the Landtakers were Magyar-speaking Iranians with Turkish tribal names, or ii) the Landtakers have again no genetic traces in the gene pool but previous Roxolans & Yazygs have. Interesting...

            But in 2007 a dominantly Hungarian study has been published [36]. For your information, of the 11 authors 10 are Hungarians working in Hungary (and, which you generally cannot detect, 6 are female). They investigated mitochondria; but regionally and also from graves. And look: we have now caught a glimpse about the Landtaker women!

            For the details: you either read [36] or will not know them. However I give a very compressed extract of their Table 5: haplogroup (Eve's Daughters) frequencies in percents; I round for convenience.

Haplogroups	Living		Graves
	“Hungarians”	Szeklers	Leaders	Commoners
The Classic 9	100	97	54	93
N + R	0	0	27	7
B + C + M	0	3	27	0

"Hungarians" here mean "citizens of present Hungary". Szeklers are citizens of present Roumania, but from the Szekler districts dissolved unlawfully in 1872 by the Hungarian Parliament. Graves are graves from the Landtaking Period, Leaders are rich burials with horse bones, substantial weapons or such, and Commoners are the common people (either very poor Landtakers, but then the lack of horse bones is rather strange, or original locals). Haplogroups B, C and M are not European; B is rather Southern Asian.

            Here you can see the many “non-European” haplogroups (daughters of Eve) in millennium-old graves and even a few amongst recent Szeklers.  But be careful. Scenario I is not yet dead:  Sz eklers generally do not believe themselves to have participated in the 896 Landtaking. Scenario I

            And third: [37] is published. I do not comment the paper, but even its mere title shows that Scenario NNM also starts to lose its automatic supporters...

MORALE

            History is not a Science; it is a Scholarship and heavily influenced by human desires. We always have been known this. And still we hoped to find Objective Truth…

            Obviously it is difficult to be objective about our own history (anything exactly be meant by the term “our own”). Everybody may have a tendency do accept heroic tales or ill-founded commonplaces about “our own” history while it is not difficult to be sceptic about histories of somebodies else. I do not mention examples here; everybody could tell stories. And still: researchers from far lands may be more objective in general but may also overlook something. An example is Ref. [32] with the 7 and only 7 European daughters of Eve. First 7 went up to 9, and then Ref. [36] showed more European daughters. They were found in Transylvania, which is not only geographically Europe but a territory of the European Union as well.

            Also: we are always looking for “coherent pictures”. When the picture is coherent, we become satisfied telling that we have arrived at Objective Truth, even if later it will turn out that something would be incorrect. Now, obviously the picture remains at least blurred if the “facts” include some errors and this is not even necessarily true backwards.

            But still the question remains: how could Gyula Illyés, the prophetic Petcheneg poet of the Magyars (or vice versa) formulate such a strong scenario of history by pure poetic vision?

REFERENCES

[1]       Van der Quine O. W.: Methods of Logic. Holt, Rinehart & Wilson, New York, 1963

 [2]       Lukács B., Martinás K. & Bérczi Sz.: Symmetry and Katachi in the Works of Aristotle. Forma 15, 173 (2000)

 [3]       Everett H. III: Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics. Rev. Mod. Phys. 29, 454 (1957)

 [4]       Illyés Gy.: Árpád. In: Összegyűjtött versei, Vol. 2, p. 237, Szépirodalmi Kiadó, Budapest, 1977

 [5]       This is really a serious understatement. Illyés was an Magyar/Hungarian from every possible viewpoint. But, according to his statement, he was a Magyar who was a Petcheneg. There are Magyars who are Kuns/Cumans/Kumyks as well, or Iazones, and the present head of the World Organisation of Magyars is an Armenian from Transylvania. Hungary is special. But, of course, a Magyar who is Petcheneg may judge differently an old Magyar-Petcheneg affair than a Magyar who is Cuman.

 [6]       Illyés puts the event to October. Surely this is simply poetic freedom. It is contrary to the decision of the Hungarian parliament, and steppe peoples do not start important moves in October. (Ample grass is needed.)

 [7]       This is a honour. Sceptic historians tell that there is no proof for having belonged to the Hunnish Empire, and that more nationalistic writers simply boast.

 [8]       Generally this information about the Carpathian Basin was imagined to have had come from the retreating Huns. Hungarian tradition assumed close relation between Huns and Magyars.

 [9]       The idea may have come from 2 sources. First, it seems that the Landtakers indeed had brought higher life standard with them (e.g. lots of animals). Second, in the second half of the 19th century everywhere in Europe centralisation of states was going on; of course this multiplied the influence of the centrally positioned Magyars in Hungary.

[10]      See again [9]. Non-Magyars mainly live at the periphery of the Basin, so in the 19th century they were gradually losing the influence to decisions of national politics. In addition, all the non-Magyar population of the Basin is Indo-European in modern ages, and the 19th century was the Golden Age of the idea of Indo-European solidarity & supremacy. So the scheme was simply: savage non-IE (in contemporary language: non-Aryan) Magyars occupied the Basin, original home of IE Slavs, Germans and Roumanians a mere 1000 years ago; now there is the time for Justice for Indo-Europeans.

[11]      We had no real evidences for cultural superiority in 896; however, the 1910 census clearly showed higher literacy for the central part of the Basin and this may have given the idea.

[12]      Indeed, Magyar has lots of agricultural words of Slavic origin (and also a lot of Bulgar- or r-Turkic origin). But the scenario was not primarily a historical idea, rather a way for unscrupulous historians to be on good terms with occupying Russia.

[13]      Might; but uninscribed graves do not show language.

[14]      Historians generally do not like this scenario. The problem is that while the massive immigration into the Basin is archaeological fact, it had no impact in historiography. Medieval Hungarian chronicles do not mention Eastern immigrations between the Huns and Magyars; and contemporary Western sources (see e.g. the Continuators of Fredegarius) do not detect the Late Avar landtaking. On the other hand, the Vienna Illustrated Chronicle (written cca. 1370 at the Hungarian Royal Chancellery) dates the Landtaking of Prince Árpád to 677!

[15]      E.g. the closest kins of Magyar language are in Western Siberia, and Soviet archaeology located the Bronze Age home of the Ugric linguistic community (common ancestor of Magyar, Manyshi & Khanty) at the Northern Andronovan lands. Interestingly enough, no definite material traces of the Magyar migration have been found anywhere in Eastern Europe.

[16]      Thomsen W.: Inscriptions de l’Orkhon déchiffrées. Helsingfors, 1896

[17]      Telegdi J.: Rudimenta priscae Hunnorum linguae, brevibus questionibus ac responsibus comprehensa opera et studio. Leyden, 1598. (This is a somewhat formal reference, because no copy of this Leyden edition is extant. However the manuscript is preserved and has been a few times reprinted in XXth century.)

[18]      Püspöki Nagy P.: A rovásírás eredetéről. MNy 78, 303 (1977)

[19]      Pritschak O.: Die Bulgarische Fürstenliste und die Sprache der Protobulgaren. Harrasowitz, Wiesbaden, 1955

[20]      Moravcsik Gy. & Jenkins R. J. H. (eds.): Constantine Porphyrogenetus: De administrando imperio.  London, 1962

[21]      Widukind of Corvey: Res gestae Saxonicae, Basel 1532 (for modern editions, e.g. K. A. Kehr, Hanover & Leipzig, 1904)

[22]      Kehr P.: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Vol. I, Berolini, 1934, p. 145

[23]      Pasternak J.: A krylosi (Galicia) magyar sírleletek. In: Fettich N. (ed.): A honfoglaló magyarság fémművessége, p. 137, ArchHung Vol. 21, 1937

[24]      Halikova E. A.: Magna Hungaria kérdéséhez. ArchÉrt CIII, 53 (1976)

[25]      Dienes I.: A magyar honfoglalás kora. In: Szombathy V. (ed.): A magyar régészet regénye. Panoráma, Budapest, 1976, p. 142

[26]      László Gy.: A honfoglalásról. Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest, 1974

[27]      A. Mourant, A. Kopec & K. Domaniewska-Sobczak: The Distribution of Human Blood Groups and other polymorphisms. Oxford Medical, Oxford, 1976

[28]      Matsumoto H.: Characteristics of Mongoloid and Neighboring  Populations Based on the Genetic Markers of Human Immunoglobulins. Hum. Genet. 80, 207 (1988); and citations therein

[29]      L. L. Cavalli-Sforza, P. Menozzi & A. Piazza: The History and Geography of Human Genes. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1994

[30]      L. L. Cavalli-Sforza: Genes, Peoples and Languages. PNAS 94, 7719 (1995); also: University of California, Berkeley, 2000 (the author seems to see more Magyar genes in the second than in the first)

[31]      The original source is an interview of M. de Pracontal with L. L. Cavalli-Sforza: La science et les races, Le Nouvel Observateur, 23 Jan. 1992, № 1420 (some later references write “juin” instead of “janvier”). The interview is referred in the Indologic literature, in the sense that the Landtakers “left only a minimal trace” and the locals “now look just like their neighbors”); see e.g. M. Witzel: Autochtonous Aryans? EJVS 7, 1 (2001): K. Elst: Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate. Aditya Prakasham, Delhi, 1999.

[32]      B. Sykes: The Human Inheritance: Genes, Language and Evolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999

[33]      Ornella Semino, G. Passarino, P. J. Oefner, Alice A. Lin, Svetlana Arbuzova, L. E. Beckman, Giovanna De Benedictis, P. Francalacci, Anastasia Kouvatsi, Svetlana Limborska, M. Marcikić, Anna Mika, Barbara Mika, D. Primorac, A. Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti, L. L. Cavalli-Sforza & P. A. Underhill: The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans: A Y Chromosome Perspective. Science 290, 1155 (2000)

[34]      M. Banai & B. Lukács: Attempts at Closing Up By Long Range Regulators. Technological Lag and Intellectual Background: Problems of Transition in East Central Europe, ed. J. Kovács, Dartmouth, Aldershot, 1995, p. 311

[35]      C. R. Guglielmo, A. De Silvestri & J. Beres: Probable Ancestors of Hungarian Ethnic Groups: an Admixture Analysis. Ann. Hum. Genet. 64, 145 (2000)

[36]      Gyöngyvér Tömöry, Bernadett Csányi, Erika Bogácsi-Szabó, Tibor Kalmár, Ágnes Czibula, Aranka Csősz, Katalin Priskin, Balázs Mende, Péter Langó, C. Stephen Downes & István Raskó: Comparison of Maternal Lineage and Biogeographic Analyses of Ancient and Modern Hungarian Populations. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 134, 354 (2007)

[37]      Michaela Stefan, Gheorge Stefanescu, Lucian Gavrila, Luciano Terrenato, Mark A. Jobling, Patrizia Malaspina & Andrea Novelletto: Y-Chromosome Analysis Reveals a Sharp Genetic Boundary in the Carpathian Region. Eur. J. Human Genet. 9, 27 (2001)