While there are constant attacks from the West, especially now that we do not want to subject ourselves to the stupid demands of external powers, as is our good old habit, there are people in the eastern half of the world where we are respected.
The kurultaj is the largest joint tradition-preserving holiday and national gathering of the Hungarian nation and, at the same time, of the nations with a Hun-Turkish consciousness. In addition to the representatives of all Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin, representatives of twenty-seven ethnic groups with a Hun-Turkish identity from more than ten countries joined the event at the kurultaj, held for the seventh time this year.
Looking at the colorful equestrian parades and battle shows, we can also think about the fact that while we from the West, especially now that - according to our good old habit - we do not want to submit to the stupid demands of external powers, they are constantly attacking, there are peoples in the eastern half of the world where we are respected.
Anyone who has been to any country, from Turkey to Japan, could feel that they consider us as a kindred people and treat us with sympathy. It doesn't matter whether we are descendants of the Huns, as the Chinese believe, or not, Hungarians are seen as distant western relatives.
The primarily Central Asian peoples gathered at the Kurultaj may differ from each other in many ways, but they are united in their horse-nomadic sense of origin and they may also be genetically related to us, at least to the conquering Hungarians, since they once lived in the same area or near each other, and have the same or very similar customs , they had a culture.
Linguists, historians, geneticists, and anthropologists may argue about the origin and kinship of these peoples, but this does not change the fact that the minds of the people who gathered at the kurultaj are fixed in the consciousness that we are all descendants of a steppe horse-nomadic people, which the kurultaj's programs, exhibitions, especially Attila's tent is impressive.
The kurultaj, i.e. tribal assembly, was created on the initiative of András Bíró, an anthropologist and human biologist, who led an anthropological and genetic expedition to Kazakhstan in 2006.
The accommodation area of a tribe there, which calls itself Magyar, was mapped, during which it was revealed that the name of the tribe is not coincidentally similar to the self-name of the Hungarians, but a paternal connection between the two peoples can be demonstrated. In 2007, the Hungarian tribe held a kurultaj, where the Hungarians were also invited, and Zsolt András Bíró was elected an honorary member of the tribal council.
It was then decided that there is a need for a common holiday where peoples with a similar consciousness celebrate together, proudly remember their great ancestors and extend a hand of friendship and brotherhood to each other. This was first realized in Hungary in 2008 in Bösztörpusztán, then with the strong support of the politicians of the related peoples in 2010 in Bugac, where it was decided that the joint holiday of the horse-nomadic peoples would be held every two years, and the main patronage would be Sándor Lezsák, the Parliament his vice president undertook.
Since then, the kurultaj, which has been held regularly every two years, is very popular, with participants from many countries and politicians representing their countries, and the attendance of the three-day event reaches two hundred thousand. This year, for example, representatives of many nations from more than ten countries were present, including Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Bulgaria, and even several from the territory of the Russian Federation.
However, kurultaj has not only tradition-preserving, cultural, but also geopolitical significance. The territory of the countries visiting us is none other than what the English geographer Halford John Mackinder, the founder of geopolitical science, called the "Heartland" in a lecture entitled "The Geographical Pivot of History" held in 1904.
According to Mackinder, the interconnected continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa form an "island world" with North America and South America as outer islands, and other offshore islands such as the British Isles and Japan.
The heartland lies in the middle of the world island from the Volga to the Yangtze and from the Himalayas to the Arctic. Any power that dominates the world island, says Mackinder, has well over fifty percent of the world's resources.
Because of its size and central location, the heartland is the key to controlling the world island. Later, in 1919, Mackinder summarized his theory as follows: whoever rules Eastern Europe commands the heartland; he who rules the heartland commands the world island; whoever rules the world island rules the whole world.
Mackinder's theory was then burned into the minds of later geopolitical analysts, from the point of view of today's events, especially the Russian-Ukrainian war, two geopolitical analysts, the Polish-American Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Russian Alexander Dugin, are worth highlighting. In his 1997 book The Big Chessboard (confirmed in the Epilogue added as a supplement in 2016), Brzezinski essentially proposes that the American geopolitical goal be to gain influence in the heartland both from the West, from Europe, and from the East, by establishing proper relations with China.
This acquisition of influence already started when Brzezinski was writing his book. In the military field, this was the NATO peace partnership, in the economic field, the start of investments in the region, and in the cultural field, the development of various cooperation programs. Ukraine plays a particularly large role in Brzezinski's geopolitical thinking, which he believes should definitely be included in the sphere of Western interests, thereby demoting Russia to a power with local interests.
Of course, Alexander Dugin has the exact opposite opinion on this, since the heartland is nothing but the territory of the former Soviet Union, and in his view, the Russians, who are not a nation-state, but an empire, have the historical destiny of taking over the Eurasian region (their own under their leadership) integrate and in this way ensure a connection between the West and the East. The war in Ukraine is precisely about the collision of these two geopolitical concepts.
The connection with the heartland, which is extremely rich in natural resources (for example, agricultural land, crude oil, natural gas, uranium, various metals), is therefore very important, and it is no coincidence that China is also trying to restore the Silk Road that once crossed this area. Brzezinski only proposed it, since then a southern natural gas pipeline has already been built, which transports gas from the Caspian Sea region to Europe, and the EU just last month signed a contract with Azerbaijan until 2027.
The region's rapidly growing exports based on its rich raw material resources also mean that the countries here will import more and more, so they provide good market opportunities for countries able to meet the needs of the region.
Currently, only two percent of Hungarian exports go to this region, and the ratio has been unchanged for a long time. Perhaps the cultural and political relations provided by Kurultaj could help us significantly increase our economic activity towards the countries of Central Asia, which - at the moment it seems - will replace Russia, at least in the field of energy supply and metals important for industry.
In the future, the heartland will be valued in both geopolitical and economic terms.
Considering the self-inflicted gloomy prospects of the European Union, it would not hurt if we had a solid relationship with the dynamically developing regions of Eurasia, where, not least, there are states and people who do not educate us, but appreciate us.
The author is an economist
Cover image: Parade of riders at the Kurultaj tradition preservation event in Bugac on August 13, 2022 (Photo: MTI/Sándor Ujvári)
