Egy steppe-állam Európa közepén: Magyar Nagyfejedelemség
A steppe-state in Central Europe: the Hungarian Great Principality

Summary/Abstract: What does it mean state? Why came the state in to existence? Philosophers, scholars gave us many answers from the classical antiquity up to the present. Plato’s asserts that the origin of the state is to be found in that fact that the people cannot suffice for their own needs and each of them lacks many things. Aristotle says: „The state is the highest form of community and aims at the highest good.” By Cicero’s opinion that the state means the common weal. In the recent science the state usually means a population of a defined territory led by independent and institutional supreme power. The further important components of the statehood are the following. Centralization of legitimate enforceable authority (justice and army); specialization of governmental roles; concept of a public power; independence is recognized by other similarly constituted states (soveregnity). Walter Pohl analized the early medieval examples and pointed at that not every early medieval state had a Roman origin. Some of the steppe empires based in the Carpathian Basin provided an alternative to the post-Roman model of government. Pohl counts three Central European steppe empires: the kingdom of the Huns, the Avar Khaganate, and the Hungarian state in the tenth century. My paper was framing the statehood of the Hungarian Great Principality. At first a process can be seen from an oligarchic pre-state to a monarcic state. This happened c. 850 when „seven leading persons” elected Álmos to great prince. This was initiated by no foreign power, only „by the free will and common consent” of the seven leaders to find a new land. A durable possession of a territory is one of the fundamental requirements of statehood. From this aspect the Hungarian Great Principality was an unusual historical phenomenon: at the end of the 9th century it gave up a territory for another. The original place called Etelköz (Etel-küzü ’between the rivers’) or Dentümogyer (Dentumoger) can be located with its rivers Dnieper (?), Bug, Dniester, Pruth and Seret. Etel itself could be a name of a specific river (Volga, Dun or Dnieper). This land was owned by the Hungarians for approximately two generations, then they moved into the Carpathian Basin at the turn of the 9th–10th centuries. This conquest was a well-planned process. Leo VI The Wise Emperor of Byzantium (886–912) described the Hungarians this way. „The Scythian nations are one, so to speak, in their manner of life and their organization; they have a multitude of rulers, and they have done nothing of value, living for the most parts as nomads. Only the nation of the Bulgarians, and also that of the Turks [Hungarians], give thought to a similar military organization, which makes them stronger than the other Scythian nations as they engage in close combat under one commander.” His son Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus Emperor of Byzantium (913–959) gave us the most detailed description of the state-structure. „These eight clans (γενεαί) of the Turks do not obey their own particular princes (αρχοντας), but have a joint agreement to fight together with all earnestness and zeal upon te rivers, wheresoever war breaks out. They have for their first chief (αρχοντα) the prince who comes by sucession of Arpad’s family (γενεας), and two others, the gylas and the carchas, who have the rank of the judge; and each clan has a prince (γενεα αρχοντα). Gylas and karchas are not proper names, but dignities.” Then the Emperor mentioned Termatzous, Árpád’s great-grandson, „who came here recently as a ’friend’ with Boultzous [Bulcsú], third prince and karchas of Turkey (τρίτου αρχοντος και καρχα Τουρχίας). The karchas Boultzous is the son of the karchas Kalis, and Kalis is a proper name, but karchas is a dignity, like gylas, which is superior to karchas.” So three levels of the ranks are mentioned. 1. the great prince of Turkey (μέγας Τουρχίας αρχων)”; 2. two other princes (gylas and karchas); 3. on a lower level eight princes of eight disintegrated clans. Thus the ancient organisation of the leading clans had been shadowed by the rising central power c. 850 when Great Prince Álmos was elected. The frame of the leading clan-system became anachronistic: the Hungarians obeyed the great prince, the gylas and the karchas. This philological result can be strenghtened by further aspects of the diplomacy, military history and the archaeology. The foreign policy of the Hungarian Great Principality was significantly active during the 10th century. It was manifested offensive wars on the one hand and alliances on the other hand. In many cases these two components completed and strenghtened each other. Although the Hungarian archers terrified the Christian Europe, their raids were not simply marauding campaigns but strategically well-organized expeditions, serving Hungarian interests and helping the allies for example King Berengar I of Italy (904–924), Duke Arnulf of Bawaria (913–921). The Hungarian raids showed an important difference from the warfare of the Norsemen and Arabs. As Norsemen were fighting Norsemen or Arabs were fighting Arabs as mercenaries of inimical powers, the Hungarians never turned against each other. This unified concept of the state-warfare proves clearly that there were no independent tribal policy in Hungary. A regularity can be found in the directions of the military expeditions, too. Most of them were led towards West, some of them to South-East, but not towards the northern and eastern neighbourhood of the Carpathians although there were imporant commercial routes. All of these circumstances prove the centralized political will of a strong state. The Hungarian steppe-state ended in 1000 when the last Great Princeps became the first King. He was István I the Saint who ruled Hungary between 997–1038. This radical turn was caused by internal and external circumstances. István belonged to the youngest line of the dynasty which turned to Christianity. Thus he and his father Géza confronted the heathen members of the ruler clan, therefore they need an external alliance. Dynastical connections were made with the German-Roman Empire as István married Gizella. To have German wife from the imperial dynasty was equal with the postulate of the official Christian religion and policy. Koppány – the heathen member of the Hungarian dynasty – wanted to follow the ancient way, but in 997 he was defeated by István and his German warriors. In 1000 István got a royal crown from the Pope Sylvester II (999–1003) with agreement of the German Emperor Otto III (983–1002) so his new kingdom was strenghtened by wide external legitimation. The centralization of the early Hungarian state has been organized twice: 1. integration by Great Prince Álmos c. 850 founding a steppe empire; 2. re-organization the state according the post-Roman system as a Christian Kingdom by King István I The Saint in 1000. Thus the early period of the Hungarian statehood has two phases. Both of the state-foundations were led by one dynasty, because King István the Saint was the fifth descendant of Álmos. From c. 850 up to 1301 (the extinction of the first Hungarian royal family) we have to define this era as the age of Hungarian dynastic state. Although the Hungarian steppe empire ended as István chosed the post-Roman traditions of the statehood and change completely the governmental system and institutions, some ancient steppe-features survived in the Christian Kingdom: high authority of the Hungarian king; instead of feudal disintegration a strongly centralized state-governance.

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