Name of Hungary

Iuhra, "the place of origin of Hungarians" (inde ungaroru origo) on Sigismund von Herberstein's 1549 map of Moscovia, located east of the Ob River.

The English name Hungary is from Middle Latin Hungaria, via French Hongrie. The name is thought to be a latinization of Hungari, Ungari, Ungri, Ugri (medieval Greek Οὔγγροι) which was the name given by Byzantine writers to the Hungarians (who call themselves Magyars), and by early Russian writers to an Uralic people dwelling east of the Ural Mountains, along the natural borders of Europe and Asia, corresponding to the prehistoric homeland of the Hungarians before their migration to Europe.^[1]

The Old Russian term Yugra (Югра) does not contain a nasal. The nasal in the Greek and Latin forms may be influenced by Onogur, the collective name of the horde of which the early Magyars formed part prior to the 9th century.

Name of the Hungarians

Further information: Hungarians#Name

The Hungarian endonym is magyar, from Old Hungarian mogyër. This is from an old tribal name Mëgyër, cognate with the name of the Mansi.

The first element is likely from a Proto-Uralic *mańć- "man, person", also found in the name of the Mansi (mäńćī, mańśi, måńś). The element -ër (meaning "man, men") is related with Hungarian úr "lord, husband", and outside of Ugric cognate with Finnish yrkö "man".^[2] According to others the term of Magyar derived from the name of (prince) Muageris.^[3]

The exonym Ungri, Ugri was applied to the people later known as Voguls, dwelling east of the Ob River on the edge of the sphere of influence of 16th-century Muscovy. The name Yugra (or Iuhra) was applied to that territory from about the 12th century.

The Latin name Ungarii, applied to the Magyars even in the 10th century by Widukind of Corvey in his Res gestae saxonicae, is again separate from (but perhaps influenced by) Ugri.^{[dubious – discuss]} The (h)ungar- continues a Bulgar-Turkic On-Ogur (meaning "ten [tribes of the] Ogurs"), which was the name of the Utigur Bulgar tribal confederacy that ruled eastern parts of Hungary after the Avars, and prior to the arrival of the Magyars. The Hungarians must have belonged to the Onogur tribal alliance and it is quite possible they became its ethnic majority.^[4]

The alternation of Ungaria and Hungaria in Middle Latin is trivial, addition of unetymological initial h- is a common phenomenon in Latin words beginning in a vowel.

Natio Hungarica

The Latin term Natio Hungarica ("Hungarian nation") in the medieval period referred to the members of the Hungarian Diet, viz. the Hungarian nobility, the Catholic clergy, and a limited number of enfranchised burghers. The same term cane to refer to the elite with corporate political rights of parliamentary representation, i.e. the prelates, the magnates and the nobles, in the early modern period. This conception was accepted in Szatmar Treaty of 1711 and in the Pragmatic Sanction of 1722; it remained valid until 1848, when the Hungarian nobility was abolished, and began to acquire a sense of ethnic nationalism.^[5][6][7]

Pannonia

In medieval Latin, the territory of the kingdom Hungary was still known as Pannonia, after the Roman province. The king of Hungary was also given the title of rex Pannoniae "king of Pannonia", or rex Pannonicorum "king of the Pannonians".

The name of Pannonia is named for the Pannonii (Παννόνιοι), a group of tribes inhabiting the Drava basin in the 2nd century BC. They were presumably Illyrian tribes who had been Celticized during the 3rd century BC. Julius Pokorny suggested an Illyrian etymology for this name, derived from a PIE root *pen- "swamp, marsh" (cognate with English fen).

Modern era

The Latin Regnum Hungariae/Vngarie (Regnum meaning kingdom); Regnum Marianum (Kingdom of St. Mary); or simply Hungaria was the form used in official Latin documents from the beginning of the kingdom to the 1840s (documents in Hungarian used the Magyarorszag term -used most by Protestant Transylvanian Princes in their correspondence and official documents during the period they controlled not only the Parts of Hungary but the Upper Hungary sometimes up to Pozsony, German ones the term Ungarn, Königreich Ungarn - many diplomas produced in German or mixed German - Latin for the towns/civitas' mostly established and resided by German speaking "Hungarians": Transylvanian Saxons, Zipsers, Hiänzs, etc. from the 14th century).

The German name (Königreich Ungarn) was used from 1849 to the 1860s, and the Hungarian name (Magyar Királyság) was used in the 1840s, and again from the 1860s to 1918. The names in other languages of the kingdom were: Polish: Królestwo Węgier, Romanian: Regatul Ungariei, Croatian: Kraljevina Ugarska, Slovene: Kraljevina Ogrska, Czech: Uherské království, Slovak: Uhorské kráľovstvo, Italian (for the city of Fiume), Regno d'Ungheria.

In Austria-Hungary (1867–1918), the unofficial name Transleithania was sometimes used to denote the regions covered by the Kingdom of Hungary. Officially, the term Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen was included for the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, although this term was also in use prior to that time.

Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen

Further information: Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen

Within Austria-Hungary, the term "Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen" (Hungarian: Szent István Koronájának Országai , German: Länder der heiligen ungarischen Stephanskrone) was used to denote Hungary proper together with its associated territories, including the Grand Principality of Transylvania, the Military Krajina (Militärgrenze) and Rijeka. Another term used synonymously was Archiregnum Hungaricum ("High Kingdom of Hungary").

Regnum Marianum

Regnum Marianum is an old Catholic name of Hungary. It means Kingdom (Country) of Mary. The name comes from the tradition that the first Hungarian king, Saint Stephen, dying without an heir, has offered the Holy Crown (the Hungarian crown) and the country to the Virgin Mary.

The name Regnum Marianum was often used for emphasizing a strong connection between Hungary and Catholicism. Some communities also use this name for themselves to express their intention to make their life worthy to Mary. The best known of these is the Regnum Marianum Community.

References

1. ^ OED (s.v. "Ugrian"): "Ugri, the name given by early Russian writers to an Asiatic race dwelling east of the Ural Mountains"
2. ^ Sergei Starostin, Uralic etymology
3. ^ Kosztolnyik, Z. J., Hungary under the early Árpáds, 890s to 1063, page 29, Distributed by Columbia University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-88033-503-3, Library of congress control number 2002112276
4. ^ Peter F. Sugar, ed (1990-11-22). A History of Hungary. Indiana University Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0253208675. http://books.google.com/books?id=SKwmGQCT0MAC&pg=PA9&dq=hungary+onogur+turkish&hl=en&ei=cH4UTo_cCNDPsgbezriBDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
5. ^ John M. Merriman, J. M. Winter, Europe 1789 to 1914: encyclopedia of the age of industry and empire, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006, p. 140, ISBN 978-0-684-31359-7
6. ^ Tadayuki Hayashi, Hiroshi Fukuda, Regions in Central and Eastern Europe: past and present, Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, 2007, p. 158, ISBN 978-4-938637-43-9
7. ^ Katerina Zacharia, Hellenisms: culture, identity, and ethnicity from antiquity to modernity, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2008, p. 237 ISBN 978-0-754-66525-0

See also

• Transleithania
• Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen
• Yugra