page_title: Hungarian Turanism
section_title: The "Ugric-Turkic War"
hierarchical_section_title: Hungarian Turanism / Its roots, origins, and development / The "Ugric-Turkic War"
caption_attribution_description: English: archduke Joseph Francis Habsburg
context_page_description: Hungarian Turanism is a diverse phenomenon that revolves around an identification or association of Hungarian history and people with the histories and peoples of Central Asia, Inner Asia or the Ural region. It includes many different conceptions and served as a guiding principle for many political movements. It was most lively in the second half of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century. It is related to the concept of Turanism.
context_section_description: "The fight, which my fanatical opponents, regrettably, brought over also to the field of personal remarks, lasted quite a long time, but the old Latin proverb was proven once again: Philologi certant, tamen sub judice lis."
  "A küzdelem, melyet fanatikus ellenfeleim, sajnos, átvittek a személyeskedés terére is, eltartott jó sokáig, de ezúttal is bevált a régi diák közmondás: Philologi certant, tamen sub judice lis." in: Vámbéry Ármin: Küzdelmeim. Ch. IX. p. 130.
  Vámbéry's work was criticized by Finno-Ugrist József Budenz in "Jelentés Vámbéry Ármin magyar-török szóegyezéséről.", published in 1871. Budenz criticised Vámbéry and his work in an aggressive, derogatory style, and questioned Vámbéry's (scientific) honesty and credibility. (Budenz's work was investigated and analysed by a group of modern linguists, and they found it neither as scientific nor as conclusive in the question of the affiliation of Hungarian language, as the author stated.)
  The historian Henrik Marczali, linguist Károly Pozder, linguist József Thúry, anthropologist Aurél Török, and others supported Vámbéry.
  The Finn-Ugrist Pál Hunfalvy widened the front of the "Ugric-Turk War" with his book "Magyarország ethnographiája.", published in 1876. In this book he stresses the very strong connection between language and nation (p. 48.), tries to prove that the Huns were Finn-Ugric (p. 122.), questions the credibility and origin of the Gestas (p. 295.), concludes that the Huns, Bulgars and Avars were Ugric (p. 393.), mentions, that the Jews are more prolific than other peoples, so the quickly growing number of them presents a real menace for the nation (p. 420.), and stresses what an important and eminent role the Germans played in the development of Hungarian culture and economy (p. 424.).
  In his work titled "Vámbéry Ármin: A magyarok eredete. Ethnologiai tanulmány.", and published in 1882, Vámbéry went a step further, and presented a newer version of his theory, in which he claimed that Hungarian nation and language are basically Turkic in origin, and the Finn-Ugric element in them is a result of later contact and intermingling.
  "...I see a compound people in Hungarians, in which not the Finn-Ugric, but the Turkic-Tatar component gives the true core..."
  "...a magyarban vegyülék népet látok, a melyben nem finn-ugor, hanem török-tatár elem képezi a tulajdonképeni magvat..." in: Vámbéry Ármin: A magyarok eredete. Ethnologiai tanulmány. Preface. p. VI.
  Vámbéry's work was criticized heavily by his Finno-Ugrist opponents. This critique gave rise to the ever-circling myth of the "fish-smelling kinship" and its variants. No one of the authors has ever given the written source/base of this accusation against the Turanist scientists. In fact, Turanist scientists did not write such things about the Finn-Ugric peoples, and Vámbéry and his followers mentioned these kin of Hungarians with due respect. In reality it was coined by the Finno-Ugrist Ferdinánd Barna, in his work "Vámbéry Ármin A magyarok eredete czímű műve néhány főbb állításának bírálata." (“Critique of some main statements of Ármin Vámbéry’s work, titled ‘The origin of Hungarians’.”) published in 1884. In this work Barna called the Finno-Ugric peoples "a petty, fish fat eating people spending their woeful lives with fish- and easel-catching", and tried to give this colorful description of his into Vámbéry’s mouth.
  Vámbéry held to his scientific theory about the mixed origin of Hungarian language and people till his death. He considered Hungarian a contact language, more precisely a mixed language, having not just one but two (Finno-Ugric AND Turkic) genetic ancestors. His strongest evidences were the large corpus of ancient Turkish words in Hungarian word-stock (300-400 for a minimum, and even more with good alternative Turkic etymologies), and the strong typological similarity of Hungarian and Turkic languages. His Finno-Ugrist opponents strongly rejected not only the fact of such mixing and dual ancestry, but even the theoretical possibility of it. But, in the context of linguistics the use of a strictly bi
caption: Archduke Joseph Francis Habsburg, the first patron of the Hungarian Turan Society
exif: {}