Hérakleios ugri szövetségesei

Abstract

The Povesty vremennih let (The Russian Primary Chronicle, henceforth: PVL) written at the beginning of the 12th century is of utmost importance among the Slav sources relating to the history of the Hungarians. One of its undated entry says: „Now while the Slavs dwelt along the Danube, as we have said, there came from among the Scythians, that is, from the Khazars, a people called Bulgars who settled on the Danube and oppressed the Slavs. Afterward came the White Ugrians, who inherited the Slavic country. These Ugrians appeared under the Emperor Heraclius, warring on Chosroes, King of Persia. The Avars, who attacked Heraclius the Emperor, nearly capturing him, also lived at this time." It has been a point of debate in the literature for a long time that who should be understood under the Ugri fighting against Chosroes (Husro II). Does the source refer to Hungarians when using the term Ugri or some other ethnic group? The text under debate is an adoption from the Slavic translation of a Byzantine source, the work of Georgius Monachus. The byzantine source in turn took this information from the Breviary of Patriarch Nikephorus. Nikephorus had referred to the Central-Asian Turks who had provided emperor Heraclius with military aid to fight the Persians. This reference relating to the Turks was taken over by Georgius Monachus. When the Greek text was translated into Slavic, the translator gave the meaning of this ethnic name as Ugri, since in the 10-11th centuries this was the equivalent of Turk. As the Central-Asian Turks had already disappeared from the scene of history by his time, the translator cannot have known that the Turks (Hungarians) appearing in the contemporary Byzantine sources are not identical with the ethnic group, which had been the ally of Heraclius. The scriptor of PVL adopted the part relating to the 'Hungarians' (Ugri) from this Slavic translation. Consequently this short passage of PVL cannot be regarded as a source of the history of Hungarians, but it is a late relic of the Central-Asian Turks based on a Greek archetype.