Research on the Prehistory of the Hungarians. A Review

The Széchenyi Programme, launched in 2000 by the Hungarian government, provided an unprecedented financial support for scientific research and development (National Cultural and Development Programme), within the framework of which the Institute of Archaeology and the Institute of Genetics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) applied for funding for a joyful project. The aim was to lay the foundations in Hungary of a new, now world-wide discipline, archaeogenctics, which could play a new role in the centuries-old research on Hungarian ethnogenesis. As a consequence of our successful application – among other results – the Archaeogenetic Laboratory of the Institute of Archaeology was created and a series of archaeogenetic examinations were carried out on human skeletal material from the Conquest Period in the Institute of Genetics.
Now, with the introduction of a new discipline to the research on the prehistory of the Hungarians, it seemed necessary to prepare a review of the current State of research: Where are those disciplines, which so far have carried out this research? How do their scholars think about them? One scholar each of history, archaeology, Finno–Ugrian Studies, Oriental Studies and physical anthropology were asked to prepare such an analysis and position paper on their own fields. Partly to facilitate their work, partly to achieve a relative uniformity, I compiled a list of problems and questions, which could provide guidance for the authors of these analytic reviews. I was well aware that lengthy studies could be written about cach of these questions, not to mention answering them all. In the novel situation of humanities world-wide and due to the paradigm shifts witnessed during the past decades, however, such an assessment, facing the facts, has become urgent and unavoidable in Hungarian research. In historiography, for example, positivist source criticism has been surpassed long ago, and the interpretation of the concept of ‘people’ has changed significantly. Linguistics has for some time used other models than the family-tree as well, and has a more sober approach to the interpretation of ethnonyms, toponyms and personal names. In archaeology, significant new opinions have been put forward in connection with the ethnic and historical interpretation of archaeological cultures, while physical anthropology has been proven to be useless in the study of historical questions. An assessment of the current state of research is also justified by the fact that in 1989 a historical-political period of Hungarian science (as well) came to an end. We lag behind most of the other East European countries, where the impact of the four post World War II decades has already been analyzed – similar studies in Hungary are rare or rather sketchy.
These studies reviewing the results and situation of the various fields involved in the research on the prehistory of the Hungarians were sent to two specialists in each discipline for comment, and a series of meetings with the participation of the authors – both of the original studies and the commentarics – was organized between December 2003 and April 2004 at the Institute of Archaeology of the HAS. During these months, the meetings were visited by an increasing number of specialists of other disciplines as well. This volume contains the reviews and their comments in an edited form, with the change that originally András Róna-Tas was asked to comment on the talk on the archaeology of thc prehistory of the Hungarians (István Fodor’s paper unfortunately was not submitted for the volume). The submitted papers, through the genre chosen by the authors and the nature of the answers given – or not given! – to my questions, provide some information on the state of the art of the disciplines – beyond the fulfilment of their everyday tasks – in terms of methodology, criticism, analysis and synthcsis. This lecture series convinced many that such a review could – indeed should be continued. This book will hopefully be an inspiration for those, who wish to take up such an endeavour, since the unavoidable rejuvenation will not be possible without them.

Csanád Bálint