A steppe tengeréről a Kárpátok szigetére. Lehetett-e szerepe a steppei török törzsszövetségeknek a magyar népalakulásban?

The dissertation aims at the modern analysis of the process of Turkish–Hungarian coexistence, the importance of which is shown by the fact that the reconstruction of the Hungarian history in the 5–9th centuries is based on it. Following the concept of Gyula Németh, prehistoric research places Turkish–Hungarian coexistence, which is considered to be a decisive phase of the Hungarian ethnogenesis, in the centuries before the conquest. More and more facts that show Németh’s concept is fundamentally uncertain, the facts of Hungarian language history and our knowledge of the Hungarian ethnogenesis contradict his idea of the constant participation of Turkish steppe tribes and their alliances, which could have led to extensive bilingualism, the melting of the Hungarians in the Turkish sea of the steppe. Multilingualism may have been an everyday phenomenon among the nomads of Eurasia, and the loss of the language of significant communities and peoples also occurred on many occasions. The question may rightly be asked, in what way could the language and ethnicity of our ancestors, which had developed much earlier, have been preserved among the complex prestige relations of the foreign-language nomads of the steppe? The traditional concept of Hungarian people's formation must be reconsidered. The hypothesis searching the Hungarians under other folk names (Turkish, Hun, Onogur) before the 9th century, is not substantiated by the analysis of the meaning of Hun and Turkish names, which makes their use to identify Hungarians only from the 9th and 10th centuries, respectively. The transfer of the name Onogur~Ungri to Hungarians from the Turkish-speaking groups found in the Carpathian Basin can be supported by historical, linguistic and archaeological arguments. A century of archaeological excavations has not been able to locate the traces of the Hungarians in the archaeological heritage of the 6–10th centuries from the Pontus area. In contrast, by the 2010s, their rapid migration through the steppes from the Southern Urals to the Southern Bug and Dnieper rivers during the 9th century became certain. All this confirms the testimony of written sources about the relatively short stay of the Hungarians in the steppes for only a century, and excludes their more centuries-old presence in the Eastern European regions that can be considered from the point of view of linguistic history and cultural geography. There is no decisive argument in favour of the idea that the stable framework of the Hungarian ethnogenesis would have been provided by the Khazar Empire for 2–300 years. Our only written source (DAI) claims that they have lived together for only three years, and overriding it on the basis of linguistic history and cultural geography brings together gradual, multiple Turkish-Hungarian contacts into a single region and period. The development of the Turkish-type nomadic tribal organization of the Hungarians does not presuppose their participation century-long in the formation of the steppe tribal associations. In the research, in a less direct way, the one-time Khazar organization has been mentioned several times, which can explain the Turkish name of the vast majority of Hungarian tribes without serious linguistic consequences. The Kavars may have played a significant role in mediating Khazar institutions to Hungarians. Their subordination cannot be justified; their significant cultural, political and military prestige among the Hungarians is very likely. The three tribes of Kavars, that joined to the Hungarians following the military defeat of the Hungarians by the Pechenegs, were able to offer the princely power over the Hungarian tribes a mobilizable political-military base independent of the social ties of the Hungarians. We have no reason to reject the concept based on written sources, developed by Gyula Pauler, which makes the appearance of Hungarians in the Eastern European steppe by the years 820–830, making their rapid migration probable. The date of their appearance in Eastern European steppe can be changed to the middle of the 9th century based on newest analyses of written sources. All the factors (Chuvash Turkish language, the way of life and natural environment reflected in Chuvash loanwords of Hungarian language) that were present in the Don-Caucasus region were also available in the contemporary Carpathian Basin, where both written and archaeological data confirm the presence of the Hungarians. The Avars and the various Chuvash-speaking Ogur groups of the Carpathian Basin, whose culture were very similar to the Turks in Eastern Europe, may have an important role in the change of life and final formation of the Hungarians. The presence of this Turkish-speaking population at the time of the Hungarian Conquest is confirmed by more and more observations, and their way of life and life-geographical conditions fully match with the Chuvash-Turkish loanwords of the Hungarian language