Re: Moses of Khoren's "Geography"

From: g
Message: 23307
Date: 2003-06-15

>Now it is these "White" Ugrians that Sylvester holds to
>have "chased out the Vlakhs" from the "Slavic"
>territory which later became known as Hungary. And the
>event, while undated, is supposed to have occurred
>sometime between the initial Bulgar raids against the
>Roman Empire (take your pick here: late 5th century
>onwards), and the Avar attack on Heraclius in 619. So
>the time of the Avar occupation of Pannonia appears
>just right. ******

Yes, I know in various sources the Hungarians of the
9th-10th c. were mixed up with the Avars. Sort of a
2nd Avar wave. (In Hung. historiography one talks of
a "second colonization", i.e. referring to the Hungarian
migration from Ukraine to Pannonia). "Ugrian" might
have very well reflected the fact that (perhaps) a
majority of tribes/clans under Almus and Arpad
were (proto-)Magyar speaking, and not Turkish or
Iranian-speaking. But even the ethnonyms might have
been confusing: Ugrian and Onogur. The latter's (nearly) for
sure the primordial word for Venger/Ungar/Hongrois/
Hungarian. In Turkish, "ten arrows." (In modern Hungarian,
Ugrian is... "Ugor". And this one, as such, sounds very
similar to the Turkish ethnonyms (today male 1st name too)
Ogur/Ugur. :-)

"White" ("ak") Ugrians could have meant "senior tribes"
(the Avar proper), and the "black" ("kara") could have
meant "junior, subordinate, lower echelon tribes". The
8th c. "Ukrainian" Hungarians were underlings of the
ruling "white" nation, the Khazars. (After all, Bulgars
and Hungarians settled down for good in much of a
so-called Kara KIpchak, from the point of view of those
succeeding Turkic kaganates.)

George