Hazar–Macar ilişkileri

This chapter examines the contradictions behind two views in Hungarian historiography on Khazar–Hungarian relations: that the Hungarians belonged to the Khazar Khaganate from the 7th century and became independent in two stages (around 830 and in the 870s), and that the two peoples were hostile in the 830s, the Khazars subjected the Hungarian tribal federation between 840 and 860, and it regained independence in the 870s. The chapter notes that the 20th-century perception of the Khazar court's conversion to Judaism indirectly shaped scholarly views. Following Ligeti, it holds that Khazar belonged to the Bulgar-Turkic/Chuvash type, so the source of Old Turkic loanwords in Hungarian need not be sought outside the Khaganate. Comparing parallel passages of the Jayhānī tradition in Ibn Rusta, Gardīzī and al-Marwazī, it shows that Ibn Rusta's text bears the imprint of four hands and that the sentence on the Khazars entrenching themselves against the Hungarians is the latest interpolation; it therefore gives no evidence that Sarkel (839) was built against the Hungarians or that they were then independent. Chapter 38 of De Administrando Imperio presents the Hungarian tribal federation under Levedi as part of the Khaganate and derives the legitimacy of the House of Árpád from the khagan's appointment, while chapters 39–40 tell how the Qabars of Khazar origin joined it. After outlining Khazar history and Jenő Szűcs's model of ethnic consciousness, the chapter concludes that the Khazar Khaganate provided the stable political framework in which the Hungarian tribal federation formed and consolidated.