Jász

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Jászság region

The Jász (Hungarian, plural Jászok) or Jassi , Jassen , Jazonen or falsely historicizing Jazygen were a formerly Iranian- speaking association that immigrated to what is now Hungary in the 13th century . Their language, which was replaced by Hungarian in the 16th century , was closely related to the Ossetian language . With an interruption during the Turkish era , when the Jász area was in the Ottoman part of Hungary, they belonged to the kingdom's groups with special feudal privileges until the middle of the 19th century. Since the late Middle Ages, the Jász in Hungary have often been mentioned in the same breath as the Turkic-speaking Cumans , who lived in a neighboring region and sometimes developed joint administrative structures with the Jász. In the late Middle Ages to the early modern period, there were also some Jassen in other regions, such as the Principality of Moldova .

Settlement area

Location of the historical Jászság landscape within today's Hungary in the northwest of the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county

The descendants of the Jász live in the Jászság region (formerly called Jazygien in German , until 1876 a county of 1,100 km², but relatively sparsely populated), the northwestern part of today's Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county , the center of which is the town of Jászberény . There is no longer any collective memory of Jassen in other regions.

Origin and name

The Jász go back to Alans who probably immigrated to Hungary from the steppe foreland of the North Caucasus in the 13th century . Pálóczi-Horváth ponders whether they were descendants of a group of Alans from the Kiev area known from sources from the 10th century , but which cannot be proven archaeologically and of which it is questionable whether it still existed in the 13th century, the origin from the North Caucasus is therefore more likely.

The name of the Jász / Jassen probably goes back to the self-designation of a (perhaps western) group of the Alans, who must have been called something like Ās . B. the Georgian-medieval name of the Alans os / ows ( os-eti originally means Georgian "Land of the Os") and the Russian-medieval name Ясы (Jassy) should come. Several place names that indicate the presence of "Osz" have survived from the early 13th century, such as Oszlár and Uzlari as the roots of the later name Tiszaeszlár . The relationship between this Osz and the Jasz mentioned in Hungarian sources from 1318 onwards remain unclear and controversial. If they are not directly from the same group, an indirect relationship is likely. In the absence of Alanian sources, however, the names can only be hypothetically reconstructed from external names. The designation Ās is also handed down to a regional group of the North Caucasian Alans until the 13th century. Medieval Hungarian sources called the Jász Latin Iazones / Iasones , or from biblical beliefs wrongly Philistei . The "Jazygen", which was first used in 1323, but mainly in the modern era, suggests an origin from the ancient Jazygen, goes back to an ancient legend (similar to the alleged continuity of the Hungarians from the Huns ). Historically, it has long been proven that the Jász immigrated to Hungary in the Middle Ages, when the Jazygen ceased to exist for a long time.

Earlier language

The only literary record of the Jassian language was found in the Hungarian National Széchényi Library in 1958 : a short vocabulary list from 1422 with 40 mostly agricultural words with a Latin, rarely Hungarian translation. The language was reconstructed with the help of the Ossetian analogy. Even before this list of words was discovered, the evaluation of personal names, e.g. For example, on a document from 1323 and on an Ottoman tax register from Jászság from 1550, it is relatively clear that the Jász originally used a north-eastern Iranian dialect, unlike the Cumans who immigrated to Hungary at the same time and the Pechenegs , who were both Turkish-speaking , originally using the Alani-Ossetian. Since the end of 16./17. In the 19th century there are no more references to this language, which has apparently been superseded by Hungarian, and the names of the Jász that have been used since then are also Hungarian.

History in Hungary

Minorities (as logos) and regional autonomies (colored) in Hungary after 1300: the territories of Jassen and Cumans (yellow), the Szekler (green), the Saxons (blue), in personal union affiliated kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia (light blue) and the Banats near the border (gray).
The horn of Lehel ( Lehel kürtje ), today in the Jász Múzeum in Jászberény, was
once played by Jassian captains on military and social occasions. The legend ascribes it to the Hungarian hero Lehel , in fact, due to the motifs and materials ( ivory ), it is probably a Byzantine work from the 12th century.

The presence of Jász and Kumanen (Hungarian Kun , Pl. Kunok ) in the Kingdom of Hungary was the result of waves of flight from the 1220s before the Mongol storm from the steppes east of Hungary. At first they settled in different parts of the country. King Béla IV promoted settlement in the sparsely populated lowlands east of Buda in the 1240s in order to better protect the capital from Mongol attacks after the Mongol devastation in Hungary . About 100 years later, the Jász even received an autonomous privileged self-government in the Hungarian feudal system. These autonomous privileges included the common land ownership in Jászság, the exemption from certain special taxes and duties, the exemption from duties, labor and serfdom for the Hungarian nobility and the privilege to conduct internal legal affairs according to their traditions ( iudex Philisteorum seu Iazonorum = “Law of Philistines or Jassen ") to regulate themselves. Only a joint tax had to be paid to the Hungarian king. In return they had to provide the king with armed troops under the command of their elected “captains” (Hungarian kapitány ), who had to be confirmed by the Hungarian Palatine . The oldest surviving written codification of the regional privileges of the Jász comes from 1323, followed by extensions in 1366 and 1465, but it is assumed that there were more privileges. Internal and legal affairs were regulated by 18 Jassian clan heads and three elected captains (there were five in the 19th century, six among the Cumans in the Middle Ages, eleven in the 19th century) in their district capitals ("chairs", Latin sedes , Hungarian szék , plural székek ). As early as the late Middle Ages, Hungarian aristocrats and not just Yassian clan chiefs were increasingly elected captains. In the 13th century, the more numerous Cumans and in border areas the Hungarian border settlers of the Szekler , the Transylvanian Saxons and the Spiš Saxons were given very similar collective autonomous privileges .

During the Turkish Wars from 1526, especially the Hungarian Civil War (after the Battle of Mohács and the first Turkish siege of Vienna ), Jászság fell under direct Ottoman rule of southern and central Hungary from the Eyalet of Buda, and later of Eger . At that time, a large part of the Jász was driven out or left their home and yard voluntarily. The following, almost permanent, border wars between the three parts of Hungary, Ottoman Hungary, Royal Hungary and the Principality of Transylvania , also fought by irregular troops, led to further depopulation. The privileges of the Jassen and Kumans were abolished in Ottoman times.

Maria Theresa's Redemptio diploma dated May 6, 1745 to restore the Jász and Kun to their historical autonomous privileges.
Boundaries of the re-established autonomous regions of Jazygia (Jászság), Greater Cumania (Nagykunság) and Small Cumania (Kiskunság) in the 18th century.
Some great and small Cuman captains and Yassian-Cuman chief captains of the 19th century, among them Hungarian nobles.

After the conquest of Ottoman Hungary in the Great Turkish War 1683-99 , some of the descendants of the Jász and Kun came back and stood up for the restoration of their old regional privileges. There are no indications that the old language of the Jász, which had already been used in decline, still existed after the Ottoman period, the last known speaker of the Turkic language of the Hungarian Cumans died in 1770. The descendant families survived not only linguistically, but also ethnologically and culturally Contacts and marriages of the Hungarian environment aligned. However, they had to buy their land back because Leopold I had meanwhile sold it to the Teutonic Order as a royal fief. After collecting and handing over 500,000 forints (guilders), Maria Theresa reinstated the descendants of the Jassen and Kumanen families in their old regional privileges combined with military duties, for which the "Redemptio Diploma" was issued on May 6, 1745 lat. redemptio = "redemption" or "free purchase"). The Jassen and Kumans often provided joint regiments until the 19th century, which were under the command of regional captains and Yassian-Cuman chief captains (Hungarian Jászkun főkapitány ).

At the beginning of the reign of Kálmán Tisza , the special rights of the Jazygens and Cumans were abolished in 1876, with the aim of merging or " Magyarizing " all non-Slavic and non-Roman minorities with the Hungarian " state people ". Jazygia and Greater Cumania were combined with Szolnok County to form Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County . The Jassen and Kumans, who had been Hungarian-speaking for a long time, and were previously counted as separate nationalities in Austrian and Hungarian official statistics due to their privileges, were now considered part of the Hungarian nationality.

Jassen in the Principality of Moldova and other Balkan countries

From the middle of the 14th century, the presence of Jassen in the newly formed Principality of Moldova is also documented, where they were settled in the first capital Baia , later in the trading town and last capital Iași . Iași (in medieval German sources "Iasmarkt", in Schiltberger "Iasbasar", in Russian sources Яскый торг / Jasskyj torg , Latin Forum Filistinorum , Hungarian to this day Jászvásár , everything means "Jassenmarkt") got its name from these Jassian settlers. The Romanian Voievode Dragoș the Founder (1351-63), who came from the Hungarian-ruled Maramuresch , probably brought them from Hungary, along with numerous other Romanian, Hungarian and Saxon followers and settlers, and founded here with Romanian, Armenian, Slavic-Russian a. a. Settlers and pre-residents the principality also with the help of Hungary, which was interested in a buffer state in the eastern steppes. These Jassen have not been observed in sources since the 16th century and were probably assimilated into the Romanian majority population . It is considered certain that the implementation of the Orthodox State Church in Moldova since Alexander the Good (1400–1432) and especially Stefan the Great (1457–1504) and his successors, the Romanization of the initially multicultural population in predominantly Romanian-speaking Orthodox parishes - with the exception of living in remote regions of catholic-Hungarian Csango , who at the own church retentive Armenians (see Armenians in Moldavia and Wallachia ) and some Jews - promoted. Because the Moldovan Jassen, unlike the Hungarian, had no feudal privileges, they did not remain distinguishable for so long.

According to place names, there were smaller Yassian groups in other regions of Hungary and the Balkan countries in the late Middle Ages, of which nothing else can be remembered today. In the 13th and 14th centuries, sources mention Jassen in the Principality of Wallachia and in the Kingdom of Widin , whose participation in the battle of Welbaschd, for example, is recorded.

Heritage in the present

Today the Jász are mainly a historical memory, even if the name can refer to all residents of the Jászság region. Places like Jászberény , Jászladány, Jászapáti, Jászárokszállás, Jászdózsa, Jászágó, Jászjákóhalma, Jászfelsőszentgyörgy, Jászalsószentgyörgy, Jászfényszaru and Jászkisérassen are reminiscent of the Jászfényszaru. Yassian culture is still cultivated, the modernization and irrigation of the Puszta (Hungarian part of the Eurasian steppes ) has pushed back some pastoral traditions, but the Jász were never the only nomadic cattle breeders even in the Middle Ages. A Jász Múzeum has existed in Jászberény since 1874 . Since the end of the socialist era, some traditional Jász associations have also been formed. There are cultural and regional festivals, such as B. since 1993 the annual "World Meeting of Jász" (Hungarian: Jász Világtalálkozó ).

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. Pálóczi-Horváth, p. 65.
  2. Gyula Kristo: Not Hungarian peoples in medieval Hungary. Gabriele Schäfer Publishing House. Herne 2008, p. 258. In these early mentions, note the obviously Turkish-speaking plural formation with "-lar"
  3. Gyula Kristo: Not Hungarian peoples in medieval Hungary. Gabriele Schäfer Publishing House. Herne 2008, pp. 258-259 - Kristo opted for an identity for both versus the Alans, whose language is called varsány in contemporary sources . According to Kristo at the same place, other authors assume that the early place names go back to other Alans than the Jász who immigrated later.
  4. Agustí Alemany: Sources on the Alans. Critical Compilation (in Handbuch der Orientalistik . Section 8: Handbook of Uralic Studies. Volume 5). Leiden et al. 2000, at the beginning deals in great detail with the names used in sources, on the name Ās cf. Pp. 5-10.
  5. See Alemany in the last footnote. The Caucasus historian Arthur Tsutsiev has shown the regional names that can be hypothetically reconstructed in foreign names on this map (in Russian). The names in the hatched area are (from west to east) Alon , As-Digor , Digor , Ir and in the southeast Tual . The names Ir (on) , Digor and Tual (laeg) are still common today for Ossetian subgroups, but the names As and Alon (Alan) have not been traceable since the 13th century. Tsutsiev's historical atlas was also translated into English by Yale University Press in 2014 .
  6. Pálóczi-Horváth, pp. 64–65.
  7. Kálnoky, para. 19, Pálóczi-Horváth, p. 64.
  8. First published in German: János Nemeth: A word list of the Jassen, the Hungarian Alans. Berlin 1959, since then numerous publications. The vocabulary z. B. can be viewed in Ludwig Alexejewitsch Tschibirow . "The Alans' Way to the West" in: SP Tabalowa: "The Alans. History and culture. "Moscow 1995. (Russian, printed in Chapter 5, bold: the first word Yassian, then the translations, mostly in Latin, a few, like" vaj "and" fött "in Hungarian; then the meaning in Russian).
  9. Pálóczi-Horváth, pp. 66–67.
  10. Description on the Jász Múzeum page (Hungarian).
  11. Kálnoky, paragraph 37.
  12. Pálóczi-Horváth, pp. 62–67
  13. Kálnoky, paras. 33-38.
  14. A certain István Varró from Karcag , with whom the dying language was still researched: Sévérien Salaville: Un peuple de race turque christianisé au XIIIe siècle: les Comans. in: Échos d'Orient 1914, vol. 17, no. 106, pp. 193-208 (penultimate paragraph and last footnote).
  15. ^ Text about the Yassian-Cuman Redemptio on the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County website (Hungarian).
  16. ^ Entry "Jassy" (on the medieval history of the city of Iași) in LexMA , Vol. V, Col. 308–309.
  17. See e.g. B. Emanuel Turczynski: History of the Bukowina in modern times. On the social and economic history of a Central European landscape. Wiesbaden 1993, pp. 18-25 (here mainly on the history of the Moldavian Saxons).
  18. Pálóczi-Horváth, p. 65.