President Viktor Orban of Hungary finished off his recent trip to Kyrgyzstan by saying that “Hungarians are the descenants of Attila the Hun”:
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán capped off his Asian trip by meeting Kyrgyzstanʼs President Sooronbay Jeenbekov and Prime Minister Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek on Tuesday.
Orbán noted that he is the first Hungarian head of government to make an official visit to Kyrgyzstan, according to state news agency MTI. He added that the spiritual and economic foundations on which ties between the two countries rest are good, and noted that there are opportunities for Hungarian companies to do business with partners in Kyrgyzstan in healthcare, water management, agriculture and IT.
Earlier this week, the prime minister attended the 6th Summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States in Kyrgyzstan. According to official government website kormany.hu, Orbán said that Hungarians see themselves as the late descendants of Attila the Hun, adding that they stand on the basis of Hun-Turkic origins, and their language is related to Turkic languages.
Orbán also claimed during his trip that the old world order has come to an end, adding that the new world order will be fundamentally determined by the development of the rising states of the East.
On Tuesday, MTI reported that Hungary has opened a USD 65 million credit line to support partnerships between local and Kyrgyz businesses. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó was cited as saying in Bishkek that Hungary has also signed an agreement with Kyrgyzstan on tourism.
“We would like many more tourists from Central Asia to get to know the sites of Hungary, as this would raise the countryʼs profile as well as its revenue,” the minister said.
Hungary is increasing the number of scholarships it offers for youth from Kyrgyzstan to study here from 25 to 75 from next September, he added. (source)
It is true that Hungary is named after the Huns and specifically, the descendants of those who followed the migrants of Ural-Altaic peoples into Europe, the most famous being Attila, who violence and reign of terror has been retold throughout the ages and is still a source of historical pride for the Hungarian people just as Prince Vlad Dracul is for the Romanians.
But why Kyrgyzstan? With all respect to Kyrgyzstan, it is an irrelevant nation in most senses of its relationship to other nations. Its economy produces but a mere 6.55 billion dollars, making its economy thirteen and a half times smaller than that of Mississippi, which has the lowest GDP of all the states in the USA. What little it does produce is gold at 15% of its GDP, followed by other kinds of metal ore, rubber, legumes, and petroleum, and most of its exports go to either former Soviet states or her Chinese neighbor.
There is absolutely no financial or general strategic benefit for Hungary to be interested in Kyrgyzstan, especially given Hungary’s tiny size and history with relationship to the Austrians.
The reason that Orban is so interested in because of pan-Turanism.
Recall that Hungary is a nation whose history and people are the descendants of Ural-Altaic peoples of Central Asia. This is a broad category of people, but generally includes those of “Turkic” stock, and by “Turkic” it is not meant to emphasize the specific contemporary peoples of Turkey, but the ancient mix of Bactran, Parthan, Sogdian, Tuvan, and Tocharian cultures that circambulated throughout the regions of the Black, Caspian, and Aral Seas to the steppes of Siberia and in the valleys surrounding the Hindu Kush. It is out of this region, in the lands surrounding the Turan Depression, that these cultures emerged and historically have formed empires that have changed the entire world. It was the birthplace of the Seljuks and later the Ottomans, the Mongolian hordes, the Germanic and Hunnic peoples of Europe, many of the dynasties that ruled China, the Korean and Japanese peoples, and the peoples who settled into the lands of the Americas and make up what the Europeans later called the various Indian tribes.
Pan-Turanism grew in popularity with the nationalist movements of the 19th century, but became of particular importance in Hungary as a way of differentiating the Hungarians from the Germans. It origins in the research of German philologist Wilhelm Liebnitz and Finnish philologist Matthias Castren. However, its greatest proponent was a Jewish atheist from Germany by the name of Hermann Bamberger, who renamed himself Armin Vambery who worked as an agent for the Ottoman Empire and the English against the Russians, specifically to obstruct the growth of Russian influence in Central Asia. Bamberger traveled throughout Central Asia, and it was during this time he wrote about pan-Turanism and later began promoting it throughout the western world
Pan-Turanism is but one form of Turkish nationalism, albeit the “broadest” in that it includes all people of
“Turanian” descent and attempts to realize a racial-political consciousness based on these shared roots.
As noted in the articles, this is the real reason why Orban went to Kyrgyzstan- in order to promote nationalism.
But again, why Kyrgyzstan? Yes, it is a Turkic nations, but she is also small and irrelevant. Even within Central Asia, she is the least powerful of all her fellow neighbors. So why go to the weakest and not a stronger one, like Kazakhstan or Turkmenistan, both of which are being actively courted by the Turks?
It starts to make sense if one regards Hungary as a mutual ally of Germany and Turkey, and that she is serving their will but in a different way.
Germany and Turkey are both historical enemies of Russia. We know that Turkey was made into a military power by Germany and the USA as a part of Operation Gladio so that she would serve as a hedge against the Russians. Indeed, this is not to say that Turkey’s military was never lacking in power, but that her ability to rebuild herself was paid for by the taxpayers of America and Germany. We know that Germany, Turkey, and Japan are placing “Pressure” on Russia from a variety of angles, as they are all here enemies and want to destroy her.
We know that Germany has been working on stirring up nationalism in Europe and the Balkans, and that she has been openly working with NATO to re-militarize and establish a military presence close to the Russian border.
We know that Turkey has been actively courting the favor of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, all developing their economies and building up imperial infrastructure with the direct assistance of the Americans and the Germans.
We know that the USA has been, with the assitance of the Germans and Turks, promoting ethnic nationalism among the Turkic peoples in Russia as well as in Uzbekistan and parts of Turkmenistan. Likewise, the US maintains a strong presence in Afghanistan, which also borders Uzbekistan as well the Iran-allied Tajikstan which despite being a former Soviet bloc nation has a tenuous relation with Russia.
It is because Kyrgyzstan is the strongest ally of Russia in the region. Much of this stems from an event called the “Batkensky conflict” of 1999, in which an Islamic rebellion threatened to take over Kyrgyzstan and parts of Uzbekistan. While it is not stated directly, it is curious to note that since the inception of the CIA, the US Government and many major Israeli thinkers, including those who say they are against Islam, have been aggressively promoting the Islamization of Central Asia as an extension of the anti-Russian programs under Gladio. That said, the rebellion was crushed with Russian help and the nations were restored to their states of integrity, which greatly helped Russian favor in the area.
If the USA, Germany, or Turkey started to build relations with Kyrgyzstan=, it would immediately cause alarms with the Russians and may result in unforseen and unintended consequences that would jeopardize their current operations. It is well-known that none of these nations would go to an economically and politically irrelevant nation like Kyrgyzstan unless they had a reason for a greater plan. Their very presence outside of simple diplomatic relations would expose any plot no matter how large or how small it would be.
This is why Hungary is so important. She is a proven ally of Germany and Turkey, her GDP is about 125 billion USD, she has nationalist tendencies and sympathies to the darwinian national socialism of the 20th century, and she is also a small and considerably irrelevant nation but with a history that is associated with Turkic peoples and has been for over a century.
Hungary is not going to directly arouse the suspicions of the Russians. Surely, they know what is happening, but if Orban emphasizes the Turkic roots of Hungary and Kyrgyzstan, it makes it hard for others to say what he is doing in wrong.
This is a strategic move on behalf of the US and Germany. Likewise, it will be interesting to watch Kyrgyzstan in the coming years, not just about a rise of Islamization, but an interest in Turkic nationalism and how that will affect the movements of Istanbul and Moscow.