The Hungarians, or, as they refer to themselves, the Magyars, have quite the colorful history. They were the last ethnic group to descend from the mountains and into Europe proper during the Great Migratory Age, after the fall of the Romans. They were vicious nomadic marauders, swooping in on villages and destroying them. They were forcibly Christianized in the hope that they, as a people, might settle down a bit, claim a homeland, and just be civilized. The powerful Germanic family of the day, the Hapsburgs, knew that an alliance with the Magyars was better than being an enemy; hence the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
It was that alliance with the Magyars that ultimately resulted in the German-speaking Austria being a separate country from the country of Germany today (the united German empire, a loose confederation of the Prussians, Westphalians, Bavarians, et al, didn't want any non-Germans in their empire, and the Hapsburgs wouldn't dissolve their ties with the Hungarians, leading to a battle won by the Prussians)(this is the meat of a different post).
The Magyar language is not part of the Indo-European family, which is kinda weird when you get down to it. Celtic, Romantic, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, and all the various languages of India are all included under the umbrella of Indo-European. The only languages in Europe not associated with Indo-European, which implicates the diverging of their humans much earlier, are Finnish, Magyar, Estonian, and Basque. Nobody knows where Basque comes from. It is a linguistic orphan, most likely hundreds of thousands of years older, and alone in the world, with no known surviving relatives. That alone is kinda cool.
Finnish, Estonian, and Magyar are loosely related to each other under the Finno-Urgic family. Neat, anyway...
A story about the wild Magyars I remember from some time spent in Budapest, the Magyar capital, reinforced the "Don't mess with the Magyars" idea. The story goes: the king was a brutal and generally despised man. His subjects tried to revolt, and he sent his war generals into the country side to squash the rebellion. The generals reluctantly obeyed, slaughtering their countrymen. The generals didn't like the king anymore than the common folk, and after making the proper preparations, they returned with news of the victory, and other news. They chained their king to a red-hot throne made of cast iron and set on a fire for a few days. After placing a red-hot crown on his head, they watched as he burned alive.
On a lighter note, another thing those wild and crazy Magyars gave the world was the wet t-shirt contest. The original, if you follow the thread, wasn't exactly what you might think, the annual "watering of the girls" festival that occurred around vernal equinox. The event dates back to the second century, which was before they were pacified.
It's all very fascinating.
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