A History of Central Eastern Europe

some to be the origin of Ungaria and Hungary. The Magyars, were a 3 rd tribe on the Turanian
Plain; they split into two main groups: the western or White Magyar, and the northern or Black
Magyar. The western or White Magyars followed their Ural-Altaic predecessors and arrived in
the basin around 675 C.E. The Avars battled the Frankish armies led by CHARLEMAGNE for 7
years before being finally defeated in 803 bring the 1 st wave of Ural-Altaic influx to a
conclusion.
T
HE AD VENT OF THE MAGYAR
The 2 nd wave of Ural-Altaic
influx began in 896 C.E. when 7 tribes
arrived in the Carpathian Basin under
their elected leader ÁRPÁD (c 845 –
907). ÁRPÁD, the second GRAND
PRINCE OF THE MAGYARS (his
grandfather ÁLMOS had been the first)
was the elected leader of the Magyar,
Nyék, Kari, Kasi, Tarján-Tarxán, Kurt-
Gyarmat and Jenü tribes. Some
historians believe that ÁRPÁD’S Magyar
tribe was the northern or Black
Magyars while others maintain they
were a distinct 3 rd Magyar group that
had to be later conquered by the
Magyar federation led by ÁRPÁD.
They found scattered ethnic groups governed by various rulers. Between the Danube
and the Tisza, PRINCE ZALÁN reigned over southern Slavs and Bulgarians. In the East, PRINCE
MARÓT from Khazar ruled over the Moravians, while in Transylvania, PRINCE GYELO governed
scattered tribes. Pannonia, on the right bank of the Danube, was under Frankish influence, and on
the left bank SZVATOPLUK II exercised power over the western Slavs in a sparsely settled area. In
just 4 years, ÁRPÁD must have taken control of the entire area as in the year 900 tribal leaders
were summoned to Pusztaszer, now in southern Hungary, to complete the work of distributing
the conquered lands and to lay the foundations of a constitutional government which has stood
for ten centuries.
Magyar Királyság
The ÁRPÁD line continued to govern as elected princes until the end of the 1 st millennia.
ÁRPÁD’S great-great-grandson, the 7 th GRAND PRINCE, ISTVÁN (c 970 – 1038) was sent a crown
by POPE SYLVESTER II (c946 – 1003), with the consent of OTTO III (980 – 23 January 1002) ,
HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR, and ISTVÁN becomes STEPHEN I, KING OF HUNGARY. ISTVÁN was
canonized by POPE GREGORY VII (1028 – 1085) in 1083.
The start of the second millennia witnessed the birth of the MAGYAR KIRÁLYSÁG
(KINGDOM OF HUNGARY) that existed just 82 years short of the entire second millennia – lasting
until 1918. It was named the Latin Regnum Ungariae or Hungariae until the 1840s when the
arrival of the Germanic HABSBURGS heralded the start of 2-plus decades of the German
Königreich Ungarn before the last official, and only Hungarian, name of Magyar Királyság.
During the 12 th and 13 th centuries a rapid German colonization of the upper Hungarian
and Polish borderlands was done at the requests of local oligarchs who needed the industrial
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