A History of Hungary's Nationalities [antikvár]

A HISTORY OF HUNGARY'S NATIONALITIES I. The Middle Ages ACCORDING to the present conclusions of Hungárián - linguistics and historiography, the conquering Magyars settled in a region occupied by a Slav population - Moravo-Slav, Slovene, and Bulgaro-Slav - at the juncture of mountainous regions and the piáin, forests and grassy meadowland, in the border-area of the highlands in the north, the Transdanubian downs in the west, the spurs and the broader valleys of the Krassó-Szörény mountains in the south, and the fringes of the Transylvanian basin in the east. Meanwhile the Alföld, the Great Plain, the eastern section of Transdanubia and the centre of Transylvania were virtually uninhabited. By the thirteenth eentury, however, this Slav element had been completely assimilated by the Magyars. Consequently, their number could hardly have exceeded that of the latter, for in that case the process of assimilation would have worked in the opposite way, as it did in the case of the Bulgáro-Turks - a kindred race to the Magyars - who eventually were absorbed by the Slavs. The only Slav people that were not assimilated by the Magyars were the Moravo-Slavs living along the north-eastern frontier, in the valleys of the rivers Morva, Vág and Garam. These were the ancestorsof the present West Slovaks, and their area of settlement was not occupied by the Magyars to any extent until the eleventh eentury, when the defence of the country's marches was entrusted to Magyar and Székely as well as kindred Petcheneg and later Cumanian borderers.