Mándoky 2021

NEWCOMERS FROM THE EAST István Mándoky Kongur (1944–1992) is still the most renowned and popular Hungarian Turkologist among the Turkic peoples. His research centred on the Turkic–Hungarian historical, linguistic and cultural links and Hungary’s Cumans in particular with the majority of his work written in Hungarian and published in books and journals in Hungary. Newcomers from the East contains his scholarly oeuvre translated into English from the original Hungarian. The volume also includes Mándoky’s collection of Dobruja Tatar folk poetry (riddles, songs and folk tales) and Old Turkic–Proto-Hungarian linguistic and cultural links as well as the author’s most beloved research area: the history, culture, language and folk poetry of the Cumans who spoke the Cuman–Kipchak language and migrated to Hungary in the thirteenth century, perhaps the most important part of which for international scholarship generally and for Turkology in particular is the Cuman Lord’s Prayer and a counting rhyme. The entire volume provides the reader with an insight into the ethnic, historical and linguistic processes that shaped the present-day face of the region through the example of a Turkic people who settled in Central Europe in the Middle Ages. The volume starts with a preface by Henryk Jankowksi and an introduction by Peter B. Golden to the history of the Cuman–Kipchaks. The life and geographical environment of Hungary’s Cumans are illus- trated in colour and black-and-white prints, while maps provide a quick reference to their areas of settlement. Uppsala University BIBLIOTHECA TURCICA Edited by László Károly Volume 1 Newcomers from the East Hungarians and Kipchak-Turks in Europe István Mándoky Kongur Foreword Henryk Jankowski Historical introduction Peter B. Golden Edited by Ádám Molnár MOLNAR & KELEMEN Oriental Publishers MOLNAR & KELEMEN ORIENTAL PUBLISHERS 9 Marczibányi tér, Budapest H-1022 Hungary Uppsala Budapest English translations © Molnar & Kelemen Oriental Publishers Foreword © Henryk Jankowski Historical introduction © Peter B Golden First published 2015 Reprinted 2017 Second, enlarged, improved edition 2021 The publication of this volume has been supported by grants from International Turkic Academy Research Centre for the Humanities, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan Budapest, Hungary Foundation for Eastern and Central European Research and Education, Budapest, Hungary National Cultural Found of Hungary The Hungarian Jász Society Front cover image: Members of the Pusztai Róka (Steppe Fox) Hungarian Cuman re-enectment group near Karcag. Photograph by Dávid Somfai Kara, 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Molnar & Kelemen Oriental Publishers, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Publishers at the address above. Typeset in Andron Printed at Pauker Holding LLC 11-15, Baross Street H-1047 Budapest Hungary ISBN 978-963-88238-8-5 har dback ISSN 2416-3260 Editor’s preface The scholarly work of Hungarian Turkologist István Mándoky Kongur (1944–1992) focused on the linguistic links between the Hungarians and certain Eastern European Turkic peoples, on the history of the Cuman tribes who migrated to the Kingdom of Hungary in the twelfth century to escape the Mongol conquest, and on the integration of those tribes into Hungar- ian society. It is these historical, ethnic and linguistic phenomena to which the title of this collection refers: Newcomers from the East: Hungarians and Kipchak-Turks in Europe. The editor of this volume faced a daunting task. Mándoky published in a number of languages, although mostly in his mother tongue. His Hungarian- language publications generally also came out in foreign languages – French, German and, in some cases, English. Those writings were translated by others, whose names are unknown. Some of his work was also published in Turkish. However, those are conference presentations without any additional information – apart from some sporadic data – so I did not include them in the volume. The author’s articles originally appeared in linguistics journals in Hungary and in edited volumes in a range of formats and styles. Following the Hungar- ian practice of the day, the abbreviations in certain articles were not spelt out, nor were they used consistently by the author. All this would have made it extraordinarily difficult for the reader to understand what the author wished to say, so I have provided a uniform list of abbreviations for the volume. I have generally preserved the transcriptions of the Turkic and other foreign words, except for the letter ï, which I replaced with the letter ı for typographi- cal reasons. The page layout has also changed compared to that of the original Hungarian texts. I attempted to break up the continuous lists of data which spilt over from one page to the next, as was common in Hungarian publications then, and were therefore often difficult to digest. I also endeavoured to highlight the quotes and rhymes typographically. The author describes the life, physical objects and customs of the regions inhabited by the Cumans in Hungary – especially Greater Cumania – in ex- traordinary detail. These details will be relatively unfamiliar to non-Hungar- vi Newcomers from the East ian readers, so I have made an effort to clarify them with editorial comments in footnotes. The illustrations I have embedded in Mándoky’s texts – not included in the original publications – serve a similar purpose, and further information is also occasionally supplied in the captions. I felt it was particu- larly important to provide photographs of the original Hungarian Cuman texts noted by Mándoky, which I assume will certainly be of interest to readers involved in Turkology. The majority of the photographs depicting the traditional life of Greater Cumania – some are unpublished originals – were taken by ethnographer István Györffy (1884–1939) and have been preserved in the archives of the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest. They were taken in the first half of the twentieth century, precisely the time period that Mán- doky’s informants recalled from their childhood. Countless geographical names occur in the texts, both historical and current ones, including numerous names of small localities and regions. The maps at the end of the volume aid in orientating the reader geographically. Map 1 shows the author’s collection points in Dobruja, while Maps 2–4 include the majority of the place names in the Carpathian Basin that occur in the articles. The volume also contains a list of selected publications by Mándoky, the most complete such list to my knowledge, but even this does not incorporate the author’s writings in the Turkic languages of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. On these latter publications, the reader will find further information in the Mándoky commemorative volume published in Kazakh (Ulı dalanıŋ birtuwar ulanı. Almatı, 2008, pp. 347–54). Numerous institutions and colleagues have come to my aid in editing this book, which would not have been possible without their kind cooperation. Thanks to Pál Fodor, the Director General of the Research Centre of the Humanities, I was able to visit Astana (present-day Nur-Sultan), the capital of Kazakhstan, for a week in 2015 with Turkologist Dávid Somfai Kara to explore the Mándoky library there. While we were in Astana, we enjoyed the kind hospitality of Darkhan Kydyrali, the President of the International Turkic Academy, and his colleagues. István Vásáry answered my numerous questions in a number of areas – phi- lology, Turkology and history – with a steady patience and a readiness to help. Attila Paládi-Kovács, Attila Selmeczi Kovács and Vilmos Voigt helped to ori- entate me on questions of Hungarian ethnography. Gábor Hatházi supplied valuable advice on editing the article on the Cumans of Eastern Transdanubia. Júlia Bartha, an ethnographer in the town of Karcag, provided regular help for years with a great deal of data and explanations on Greater Cumania. Her wealth of local knowledge and experience with ethnographic collections guided me not only through the museums of Greater Cumania, but also across the planes to capture images of the komondor sheepdogs and the plants mentioned by Mándoky. Dávid Somfai Kara, mentioned above, came to my Editor's preface vii aid in checking the Turkic data. He read through books written in the Turkic languages of Central Asia in search of data, he prepared English translations of Turkic texts that had been left untranslated by Mándoky, and he worked with me to pore over Mándoky’s library in Astana. A significant proportion of the rich photographic material comes from collections in Budapest and in Greater and Lesser Cumania. I am grateful to the following institutions and individuals for granting permission to publish these images: István Györffy Museum of Greater Cumania, Karcag; Ongaj- sa Mándoky, Budapest; Ferenc Fodor, Ferenc Móra Museum, Szeged; János Zsolt Kapás, Finta Museum, Túrkeve; Aurél Szakál, János Thorma Museum, Kiskunhalas; Márta Mészáros, Kiskun Museum, Kiskunfélegyháza; András Pálóczi Horváth, Budapest; Péter Granasztói and Hanga Gebauer, Museum of Ethnography, Budapest; Júlia Bartha, Karcag; National Széchényi Library, Bu- dapest; Gábor Tóth, Department of Manuscript and Rare Books, Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest; Nándor Erik Kovács, Oriental Collection of the the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest; Hungarian National Museum, Budapest. I am also thankful to Ábel Molnár and Gábor Turcsányi for the pictures of plants. A drawing by Karcag- based sculptor Sándor Györfi can be found on the full-title page. I wish to express special thanks to Béla Kempf and László Balogh, librar- ians at the Oriental Collection of the Klebelsberg Library, University of Sze- ged, for their patience and valuable assistance in editing this volume.

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