Evidently, everyone understands the prehistory of Hungarians. Also for his Szeklerness. Historian Balázs Sudár knocked off the horns of this omniscience.
There are two major theories: one is that the Szeklers are a united people, with their own traditions and their own system. According to the other theory, the Szeklers are completely Hungarian, the Árpád kings organized the Szeklers as a border guard community, and then settled them here and there on the map. This theory is based on the fact that the Székely dialects are closely related to the various Hungarian dialects.
Let's look at the first theory. If we examine the medieval historical sources, it is quite clear that the Szeklers were treated as an autonomous community. No one ever says that the Szeklers did not exist, but that they were organized and became. All sources indicate that the Székelység was an independent community, with independent rights, an independent tax system, an independent public administration, it was not part of the county system, and had independent traditions. In this respect, they are the same as the Kuns. The Székely differs from the Kun in such a way that we know that the Kun were a Turkic people, with a Turkish mother tongue, and that they came from outside. On the other hand, we do not have such precise information about the Székelys, although the chronicle tradition says that the Székelys are a united people. Just like the kuno.
The other theory, however, says that it's all fiction. In other words, they made it up. The medieval chroniclers to be exact. By the way, that
the medieval chroniclers were maniacal liars, mostly told by non-historians.These non-historians used to come up with the following arguments. First of all, with the fact that the people of Székely are actually Hungarian. The Szeklers speak Hungarian and there is no sign that they spoke any other language. Right, they have the linguistic connections, the linguistic hinterland, so they are Hungarians. The other argument is that, apart from minor local differences, the material culture of the Szeklers is completely the same as that of other Hungarian communities in Hungary.
That's okay, but the arguers failed to take two things into account. One is that in the case of the cultural argument, the mentioned cultural products appeared very late, in the 15-16th century. century onwards. Which, isn't it, is a much later moment than the era in question. Regarding the language, the problem is why do we think that only the Árpáds could speak Hungarian? Well, we know not. We know that at one time at least two or three Hungarian-speaking communities existed in Eastern Europe. How do we know there weren't more? It is a complete fiction that the Hungarian language arrived in the Carpathian basin with Árpád. There is no scientific basis for this claim. The claim that the Szeklers speak Hungarian does not contradict the fact that they are a united people. Why can't there be a unified Hungarian-speaking nation?
There is something else here: the question of Székely branches and genders.The system of Székely branches and genders reminds us of how power is exercised among nomads. It is a classic tribal confederation system. And then, for the sake of the game, let's assume that a king from the Árpád family created the Székely community. But what did the Árpád kings do, especially at the beginning of the Árpád era? The tribal clan system was dismantled. And they created a hierarchical system based on counties. Then the question immediately arises: did the Árpád kings create a new community, namely in a system that they wanted to surpass? It doesn't make any sense. Even in the 16th century, the Szeklers lived in a very archaic system. And then this theory is completely incomprehensible historically.
Examining the matter from another perspective: the formation of a nomadic state has its own rules. There is a big difference between someone being conquered, someone wanting to join under some kind of compulsion, or someone voluntarily joining an alliance. All stories about the Szeklers say that they marched before Árpád and joined him of their own accord. It would fit very nicely with the fact that they could keep their own internal structures despite the fact that everyone else's had broken down. They had the right to live according to their own rules even when no one else had the same right.
Of course, there is a counter-argument that usually arises in such cases. Namely, there are many Christians among the names of the Székely branches and genders. Which, right, was not possible in the pagan age. Here again, the problem is that, okay, but the system of Székely branches and genders is not known from the 11th century, nor from the 12th century, but from the 15th-16th. century. Which means that the information on 15-16. reflect century conditions. Which system did not look like that 500-600 years ago.
And then finally came the question of the Székely folk name.Right, the people of Székely have their own name. There are a lot of etymologies for this... and the common characteristic is that they all stand on very weak legs. However, it can be seen that folk names used to move quite stably in the history of the steppe. In other words, they did not necessarily remain as folk names, but in a fluctuating manner, sometimes they went down to the level of the genus, tribe, family, and sometimes they rose back to the level of a folk name. This movement depended on what positions the particular community held, if you like, how high its luck had risen. If the Szeklers were a united people, it is clear that their name must have been known elsewhere. And already in the 19th century, they realized that there was a community with which the people of Székely could be connected: the Eskiles. The Eskil tribe has been known since the 6th century, they were pillar members of the Western Turkic tribal confederation. The 11-12. their traces remain until the 19th century, they never reached the level of the people, but from Central Asia to the Volga they were important components of various tribal associations.
In this regard, the tug-of-war was about whether the Székely folk name could be derived from the eskil. The linguist Lóránd Benkő wrote a large article, the conclusion of which is that it cannot be derived. However, he also made a mistake when he said that that particular people were called Eskils. Because this is not what is in the historical sources. There are Muslim sources, Chinese sources, a piece of Greek source and there is a Turkic runic source, in the form of the most different word forms possible. Well, deducing from these that that certain people were called Eskils is very risky. However, it cannot be dismissed, on linguistic grounds, because of the similarities. Because it would fit everything we know about the Székelys: a twisted tribal group whose history goes back to the 6th century. And there are a sea of stories like this on the steppe, so it wouldn't be surprising.
Instead of a conclusion: there is no need to look at our sources as stupid regarding the origin story of Székely. Our sources say that the Szeklers are a united people. Let's believe then that the people joined. If there's a household name you can relate to (and there are), believe me you can relate. If we believe that they have an independent legal system, they have an independent internal administration, then let us believe that this is not by chance. At the same time, let's also take into account that affiliation is not an ethnic issue. This only means that the Árpáds had a political community, an alliance of the seven Hungarian tribes. Those who were in, were in, those who weren't, weren't. Those who were not in it could only enter it as a joined people or by being conquered. So it could easily be that the Szeklers were a Hungarian-speaking community, but they were not part of the Árpád political community, but joined them, perhaps based on some kind of kinship.
Featured image: Nándor Veres
