Huns, Ogurs, Avars and Hungarians The name Hun in the Byzantine literature

Absztrakt

My paper aims to analyse the using of the name Hun in the Byzantine historical sources concerning the Steppe tribes in the 5–10th centuries. This analyse is essential to get to know why the Medieval writers classified the Hungarians among the Huns. As from the sources it is turns out, the name Hun used to originally Attila’s people, and to those, who were under his authority. The name, together with the so-called Legend of Miraculous Doe, has been connected to the Ogur tribes, who moved to the former place of the Huns at the Maeotis, by the Byzantines. Later the Avars became the heir of the Ogurs in this area, and they won their Hun name in the Byzantine literature. The Avars, moved into Pannonia with some Ogur groups, became the parts of the Hungarians in the course of the 10th century. So, their name-variant, the Hun connected to the Hungarians first in Byzantium, and later in the Latin West.