Istvan Zimonyi

... Berichte über die Völker Osteuropas und Zentralasiens im Mittelalter: die Gayhani-Tradition (Ibn Rusta, Gardizi, Hudud al-`Alam, al-Bakri ... SUBJECT(S): Jayhani, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibnNasr, 10th cent; Ethnology -- Europe, Eastern -- Early works to 1800 -- Translations into ...

The trade-network of Afro-Eurasia changed radically in the 9th–10th centuries, instead of the former east-west routes the south-north came to the fore. The Volga-Kama region became the most important port of trade between the Islamic world and Eastern Europe in the beginning of the 10th century which set in motion the formation of the Volga Bulghar state and the conversion to Islam. The Volga Bulghars are mentioned in the Muslim sources as the center of trade. Ibn Faḍlān, al-Masʿūdī give a detailed picture of this intensive trade. The Muslim dirhams came from Samanid mints to the Volga region and the Volga Bulghar merchants bought northern merchandise (furs, slaves, wax, honey etc.) in the 10th century. Al-Muqaddasī gives an exhaustive list of trade goods from the Volga Bulgar area at the end of the 10th century. After the disappearance of the silver dirhams in the first decades of the 11th century the state of the Volga Bulghars remained a significant trade center. The Muslim maps ...

The city name Man Kermen in The Secret History of the Mongols is identified with Kiev in the chapters concerning the great western Mongol campaign against Eastern Europe. It is based on the datum of Rashīd al-Dīn: ‘the great city of the Rus, which was called Man-Kermen.’ It is beyond doubt that the Cumans called Kiev as Man Kermen meaning Great Town in Turkic as the spiritual and ecclesiastic center of Kievan Rus. However, there is another possibility. The capital of the Volga Bulghars in the first decades of the 13th century has been excavated near to village Biljarsk. It is called by the contemporary sources as Velikij Gorod in the Russian annals, magna civitas in the work of the Hungarian friar, Julian both meaning Great Town.

The Türk Khaganate and the ethnonym Türk have been used in modern nation-building processes among the Turkic-speaking peoples of Eurasia since the end of the nineteenth century. The historical importance of the name is exemplified by the country of Turkey today, the plan for a Turkic Republic in Central Asia in the 1920s, and the latest Kazak (Tatar) historiography after the fall of the Soviet Union. The study focuses on the meanings of Türk in the period of the Türk Khaganate (6th–8th centuries). Its first denotation is for an ethnic community or nationality, that is, a nomadic tribal confederation defined by use of the model of gens, including a common origin, language, and traditions with centuries of a stable political framework and the majority of society sharing common law. The second aspect of the usage of the term Türk, being political, referred to all peoples subject to the power of the Türk Khagan. After the fall of the Türk Khaganate, both meanings faded away due to the l...

The term 'Silk Road' is interpreted in most cases as land routes that existed before AD 1500, connecting China and Central Eurasia with India, the Middle East and Europe. Not only luxury and common goods, but also technologies, religions, ideas, languages and arts spread in both directions, and peoples migrated to different regions of Afro-Eurasia. The newly introduced technologies became common features of the whole Afro-Eurasian world, and included the manufacturing of silk, papermaking and glassblowing. The decisive steps in Eurasia's military history were the introduction of heavy armoured cavalry and firearms, which were based on the innovative use of iron stirrups and gunpowder, respectively. The focus of this paper is on the iron stirrup, which spread under the rule of the Türk Khaganate (6 th-8 th cc.), together with two other innovations: the sabre and yurts. The Türk Khaganate was founded in the middle of the 6 th century and controlled the steppe-belt from Manchuria to the Crimea; it also maintained close relations with China, Sassanid Persia and Byzantium, which enabled the spread of these innovations (Stark 2008). The use of the iron stirrup had a decisive effect on the development of warfare. It was invented as a result of the nomadic Chinese peoples' cooperation in north China in the 4 th-5 th centuries. From there it spread to the east (Korea, Japan) and to the west, through the Avar and Türk Khaganates and the Silk Road to Sogdiana, Persia; and then to the Caliphate, Byzantium and Europe. To study this process, it is necessary to take into account the results of language history, the first documentations in written sources, early pictorial representations, and archaeological finds, in order to obtain a comprehensive overview. Three basic opinions have been formed regarding the origin of the stirrup: Pelliot noted that the nomads from Inner Asia invented the stirrup and taught their tricks of riding to the Chinese. The 'real' stirrup came from Inner Asia to China between AD 200 and 400 (Pelliot 1925-1926: 259-262). Albert von Le Coq (1860-1930) suggested that the stirrup may have originated either from Turkic-speaking nomads, or from the Chinese in order to successfully confront the nomadic cavalry (Le Coq 1925: 22). Recently, David A. Graff has pointed out that East Asian early medieval military technology was a product of cooperation between the Chinese and the steppe * ELTE-SZTE Silk Road Research Group, ELKH

The Türk Khaganate and the ethnonym Türk have been used in modern nation-building processes among the Turkic-speaking peoples of Eurasia since the end of the nineteenth century. The historical importance of the name is exemplified by the country of Turkey today, the plan for a Turkic Republic in Central Asia in the 1920s, and the latest Kazak (Tatar) historiography after the fall of the Soviet Union. The study focuses on the meanings of Türk in the period of the Türk Khaganate (6th–8th centuries). Its first denotation is for an ethnic community or nationality, that is, a nomadic tribal confederation defined by use of the model of gens, including a common origin, language, and traditions with centuries of a stable political framework and the majority of society sharing common law. The second aspect of the usage of the term Türk, being political, referred to all peoples subject to the power of the Türk Khagan. After the fall of the Türk Khaganate, both meanings faded away due to the lack of political stability in the history of the Eurasian steppe,
revealing an absence of ethnic continuity from the Middle Ages. However, fragments of Türk identity may have survived in the forms of language community, the Islamic legend of descent from an eponymos hero, and a nomadic way of life opposed to the territorial principles of settled civilisations.

Özet Karpat Havzası ve Aşağı Volga, Ortaçağ Avrupa tarihi üzerine güçlü bir etkisi olan göçebe kabile konfederasyonlarının ve imparatorluklarının bir zamanlar merkeziydi. Öncekilere gelince Hunlar, Avarlar ve Macarlardan bahsetmek gerekmektedir. Macarlar 1000 yılında Hristiyanlığı kabul ettiler ve böylece Latin Avrupa'ya dahil oldular. Hazarlar, Kiev Rusya'sının tarihinde önemli bir rol oynadı, buna karşılık Altın Orda Rusya'nın teşekkülünde temel bir etkiye sahipti. Bozkır halkları, ihmal edilmiş bir gerçek olarak, Avrupa'nın oluşum sürecinde önemli bir rol oynamıştır.

Fordította: Ferincz István. A fordításhoz a jegyzeteket írta Balogh László, Ferincz István, Font Márta, Kovács Szilvia, Polgár Szabolcs, Zimonyi István. A tanulmányokat írta Balogh László, Ferincz István, Font Márta és Kovács Szilvia. Szerkesztette Balogh László, Kovács Szilvia. Magyar Őstörténeti Könyvtár 30. Budapest 2015.

The Jayhani Traditon contains the most detailed description of the Magyars/Hungarians before the Conquest of the Carpathian Basin (895) Unfortunately, the book itself was lost and it can be recunstructed from late Arabic, Persian and Turkic copies. The reconstruction is primary based on the texts of al-Marwazi, Ibn Rusta and Gardizi. The original texthas a shorter and longer versions. The basic text was reformed at least twice and the later copyists adde further emmendation. Tis study focuses on the philological comments and historical interpretation of the Magyar chapter, integrating the results in the fields of medieval Islamic studies, the medieval history of Eurasian steppe, and the historiography of early hungarian history.

Eastern Europe and the international trade (cca. 750–cca. 1000) (on the basis of written sources)

The aim of the monography was to collect and analyse the written sources on the Eastern European trade (from the Baltic sea to the Black sea and the Caucasus and from the Carpathian mountains to the Volga and Kama rivers) in the eighth-tenth centuries. The book consists of two main parts. The first of them is an analysis of the written sources, and the second is an outline of the dynamics and political changes in connection with the intercontinental trade.
The chapters of the first part are: I) Export (furs, honey, wax, yellow amber, weapons, horses, sheep, fish glue, wood, salt, tusk of walrus or mammoth) and import (textile materials, silk, clothes, silver dirhams, gold, glass beads, precious stones, cowrie, teak wood, spices, wine, fruits) wares; II) Trade routes: 1) The route „from the Varangians to the Greeks”, i. e. the Dnieper route system (from the Baltic sea to Constantinople); 2) The Volga route which connected the Baltic zone with the Caspian sea; 3) The Don route (between the upper Volga and the Black sea); 4) The Silk road and the routes between Europe and Central Asia (Khwarizm, Transoxania, Khorasan); 5) Land routes between Eastern Europe (Khazaria, Rus and Volga Bulgharia) and Central (and Western) Europe; 6) The sea routes of the Black sea. III) The lands and peoples of Eastern Europe which took part in the international trade were: Khazaria, Volga Bulgharia, the Rus, the Hungarians, the Pechenegs, Eastern Slavic tribes (Severians, Radimichians, Viatichians etc.), the Burtas people, the inhabitants of the forest zone (the Chuds, Livs, Letgals, Zemgals, Merias, Muromas, Mordvins, Cheremis people, the tribes of Wisu (Ves), Yugra (Yura), Ar (land) and Bjarmaland (Biarmia, Perm). There were professional tradesmen who played important role in the intercontinental trade: Greeks (Byzantines), Jews, Muslims and Rus (Russians). As for the Muslims and Jews, some came from Western Europe, or the Caliphate, but others lived in Khazaria, Volga Bulgharia or the Rus. The Muslim Khwarazmians lived in Khazaria, Volga Bulgharia, the Rus, among the Hungarians and Pechenegs. IV) Forms of the exchange of goods and transport. There are sources on the so called silent trade and on the „gift trade”. The market places were established in the political centers of tribal territories or kingdoms. There are two (or three) documents of commercial treaties between the Byzantine Empire and the Rus. They provide important pieces of information on the trade of the Byzantine Empire with the northern „barbarian” neighbors. V) Theoretical models and terminology of the pre-modern economy and trade. In the center of the chapter is the achievement of Charles Polanyi who elaborated a theoretical model on the „archaic” or preindustrial commercial system between the developed and the undeveloped societies. According to Polanyi’s model, the „backwards” developed special foreign trade connections with the developed civilizations, which were under state control. The tradesmen coming from the developed countries were required to be in business on the special markets, the ports of trade. There were ports of trade in Eastern Europe in the eighth-tenth centuries: e. g. Tamatarcha on the Taman peninsula, town Etil on the Lower Volga, port Bulghar in Volga Bulgharia.

Hungarian translation of the Russian Primary Chronicle with comments and studies.
Fordította: Ferincz István. A fordításhoz a jegyzeteket írta Balogh László, Ferincz István, Font Márta, Kovács Szilvia, Polgár Szabolcs, Zimonyi István. A tanulmányokat írta Balogh László, Ferincz István, Font Márta és Kovács Szilvia. Szerkesztette Balogh László, Kovács Szilvia. Magyar Őstörténeti Könyvtár 30. Budapest 2015.