Realm of St Stephen

The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary 895-1526 by Pal Engel, translated by Tamas Palosfalvi, 371 pages

As the ninth century neared its end, a new wave of nomadic horsemen from the Eurasian steppes invaded and settled the Carpathian plain.  They called themselves the Magyars, and were of Finno-Ugraic stock, but their neighbors called them by the names of their Turkic predecessors, the Onogurs and the Huns.  Unlike those earlier arrivals, however, the Magyars managed to establish a stable state and, not unrelatedly, converted to Christianity.  The kingdom of Hungary survived for centuries until buried under the last and greatest Turkish power in the form of the Ottomans.  What remnants survived were absorbed by the Austrian Habsburgs, but the memory endured until the reestablishment of the kingdom in the nineteenth century.

There are a paucity of sources for early medieval Hungary, and what sources exist require careful sifting.  Engel carefully employs archaeological and linguistic evidence to give as accurate a picture as possible, and if this is sometimes not as full a picture as might be wished, the author deserves credit for recognizing the limitations of current knowledge.  The result is a landmark work that not only expands the readers knowledge of Hungarian history, but also provides for illuminating comparisons with analogous developments in other parts of medieval Latin Europe.