Hungarian Turanism

Hungarian Turanism (Template:Lang-hu) is a Hungarian nationalist ideology which stresses the alleged origins of the Hungarian people in the steppes of Central Asia ("Turan") and the affinity of the Hungarians with Asian peoples such as the Turks. The idea of the necessity of "Turanian brotherhood/collaboration" was borrowed from the "Slavic brotherhood/collaboration" idea of Panslavism. It gained wide currency on the Hungarian political right in the years between the two world wars and became an element in Hungarian fascist ideology.

Origins

The idea of Turanic language family and Turanic people were invented by the German linguist Max Müller. Max Muller, in his “Science of Language” (1861), took the name Turan in opposition to Aryan races and considered it "as the nomadic Asian element as opposed to the agricultural communities". The Hungarian Turan Society was founded in 1910 and included many leading scholars of the day. Initially, it concentrated on geography rather than race but more radical Turanists soon identified "Turan" with the whole of Asia and even proclaimed kinship between the Hungarians and the Japanese and Koreans. The movement received impetus after Hungary's defeat in World War I. Outrage at the Treaty of Trianon, which saw Hungary lose two-thirds of its historical territory, led many to reject Europe and turn towards the East in search of new allies in a bid to revise the terms of the treaty and restore Hungarian power. The more radical Turanists stressed the superiority of Eastern culture to that of the West and emphasized the racial aspects of the ideology. In Transylvania, "Turanist ethnographers and folklorists privileged the peasants' cultural 'uniqueness', locating a cultural essence of Magyarness in everything from fishing hooks and methods of animal husbandry to ritual folk songs, archaic, 'individualistic' dances, spicy dishes and superstitions".

Turanism and Hungarian fascism

The leader of the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross Party, Ferenc Szálasi, believed in the existence of a "Turanian-Hungarian" race (which included Jesus Christ). The idea was a key part of his ideology of "Hungarism".

In Hungary some fascists (and non-fascists) tried to link the ancestors of the Hungarians to Timur, the Ottomans and Japan, which some Hungarians of the 1930s described as the 'other sword of Turan' (the first sword being Hungary).

While some Hungarian Turanists went as far as to argue they were racially healthier than and superior to other Europeans (including Germans, who were already corrupted by Judaism), others felt more modestly, that as Turanians living in Europe, they might provide an important bridge between East and West and thus play a role in world politics out of proportion of their numbers or the size of their country. This geopolitical argument was taken to absurd extremes by Ferenc Szálasi, head of the Arrow Cross-Hungarist movement, who believed that, owing to their unique historical and geographical position, Hungarians might play a role equal to, or even more important than, Germany in building the new European order, while Szálasi's own charisma might eventually help him supersede Hitler as leader of the international movement.

The right-wing Jobbik party and its president Gábor Vona are uncompromising supporters of Turanism and Pan-Turkism (The ideology of Jobbik considers Hungarians as a Turkic nation.)

See also

• Curse of Turan
• Pál Teleki
• Turanism (similar Turkic ideology)

Further reading

• Joseph Kessler Turanism and Pan-Turanism in Hungary: 1890-1945 (University of California, Berkeley, PhD thesis, 1967)