Hungarian Conservative

The Hungarian and Turkic people (or rather, peoples) are connected in many cultural and even genetic ways. The Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus called the Hungarian conquerors ‘Turks’, and the sons of the House of Árpád (Turul gens in medieval Hungarian sources) were later called ‘Princes of Turkey’ by the Byzantines. In the origin myth of the Hungarian royal dynasty, the ‘Turul bird’ is also of Turkish origin, as the symbol of the Sky and of the supreme God of Turkish myths, where it appears as toġrïl or toğrul.

The Wondrous Stag that, according to the legend, led Hungarians to the Carpathian Basin is one of the most significant animals in the before-Christ Hungarian worldview. As in many other ancient myths of origin, the Magyars believed their ancestors had either been animals or turned into animals after their passing—a common trope among probably all world cultures, somehow deeply ingrained into our psyche. As recorded in the Gesta Hungarorum, the Turul was believed to be the Árpád dynasty’s totemic ancestor.