Kunság (; ), later also known as Jászkunság or Jászkun kerület (lit. "Jassic–Cuman District"), is a historical, ethnographic and geographical region in Hungary, corresponding to a former political entity created by and for the Cumans or Kuns. It is currently divided between the counties of Bács-Kiskun and Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok; these correspond roughly to two distinct traditional entities, Little Cumania and Greater Cumania, which are longitudinally separated by the Tisza. Kunság and its subdivisions were first organized by the Kingdom of Hungary to accommodate semi-nomadic Cumans escaping from the Mongol Empire. The Cuman enclaves were sometimes incorporated with Jazygia, which was similarly set up and named for Ossetian nomads.
Kunság was the result of a second and final Cuman colonization in Hungary; while not the only Cuman-inhabited area, it remained the only centre of Cuman self-rule after the end of Arpadian Hungary. Tradition dates its emergence to 1279, when Ladislaus IV, a half-Cuman King of Hungary, granted its first set of fiscal and judicial privileges. These were confirmed in the 15th century, when Cumans began organizing themselves into "seats" overseen by a Palatine of the Kingdom. However, the consolidation of feudalism created dissatisfaction across the region, leading to its participation in György Dózsa's uprising of 1514.
The area was devastated during the Ottoman–Hungarian wars, and further depopulated by the Ottoman occupation of Hungary. It was repopulated by Hungarians and Slovaks upon the establishment of Habsburg Hungary. The new regime granted Kunság to the Teutonic Order and repressed Cuman separatism, especially after the inhabitants' willing participation in Rákóczi's War of Independence. Centralizing tendencies were nevertheless toned down under Maria Theresa and, in 1745, Kunság and Jazygia were merged into a single autonomous district, whose inhabitants were allowed to buy their way out of serfdom. The prosperous region had a population boom, which allowed its now-mixed population to colonize other parts of the realm.
Intellectual debates about the characteristics and role of Cuman identity first took place under Josephinism, and were prolonged over the following centuries—even as the Cuman language had died out. Initially, Kunság intellectuals described their identity as Finno-Ugric and complementing Hungarian nationalism. With this shift in discourse, Kunság and Jazygia ceased to exist politically in 1876, when they were folded into larger and less autonomous counties. Popular interest in the Cuman legacy endures into the 21st century, with more emphasis placed on the region's Turkic roots, as well as on differences between Cuman and non-Cuman Hungarians.
History
Precedents While the Hungarian tribes moved into Hungary, the Cumans still inhabited the vast areas of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, where they had created a powerful nomadic confederacy (see Cumania). The 13th-century Gesta Hungarorum claims that Cumans were present in the Principality of Hungary ca. 900, describing the Aba tribesmen as Cumans. This account is nevertheless anachronistic, meaning that Gestas "Cuman" is perhaps a stand-in for "Turkic", "Khazar",Çoban, p. 58 or "Bulgar".Oța, pp. 21–22 The first verifiable attestations of Cumans in Arpadian Hungary were as raiders, during the 11th century; they later returned as mercenaries backing the Hungarian Kings. Stephen II's retinue included a Cuman contingent led by a Captain Tatar, which became a nuisance to the locals after pillaging the local resources.Spinei, pp. 144–145 Possibly Cuman "Saracen" troops assisted Géza II in his 1150s war against the Lombard League.Spinei, p. 145
In the early 13th century, Hungarian–Cuman relations were again tense, prompting Andrew II to create a system of border defences, which included granting the border region of Burzenland to the Teutonic Order. This group streamlined the first effort to Christianize Cuman communities living outside the Pannonian Basin.Spinei, pp. 145–147 The Cumans were themselves attacked and defeated by the Mongol Empire; most Cumans fled to Hungary, the Bulgarian Empire, and the Byzantine Empire. By the 1220s, many were concentrated to the east of Hungary, in areas later known as Moldavia and Bessarabia. Their conversion to Christianity began here, under Hungarian auspices, leading to the establishment of a Cumanian Catholic Bishopric; some members of the tribes had converted to rival Eastern Orthodoxy,Hévizi, pp. 18, 21 or to Bogomilism,Spinei, pp. 163–164 and had to be brought back to Catholicism. At that stage, an untold number of Cumans in Hungary were converts to Islam.Çoban, pp. 64–65
In 1238, King Béla IV specifically invited Cumans under Köten (Kuthen, Kotyan) to colonize a central part of his realm (ad mediculum terre sue), presumably located near the Tisza.Hardi, p. 87 These Cumans arrived in 1239, but there was violence between the nomadic Cumans and the settled Hungarians. Cuman assassins murdered Köten on the behalf of some Hungarian nobles, and the Cumans returned to the Balkans in 1241, pillaging Syrmia as an act of revenge.Hardi, passim. See also Hévizi, p. 18; Kincses-Nagy, pp. 173–174; Spinei, p. 145
Origins Following the Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1246, Béla re-invited Cumans and smaller group of Jazyges (an Ossetian tribe) back to Hungary, to settle in devastated areas of the Great Hungarian Plain. The migration reportedly involved some 40,000–70,000 Cumans, divided into 7 tribes: Olás, Csertán, Kór, Borcsol, Kondám, Honcsuk, and Jupogó.Hévizi, p. 19; Kincses-Nagy, pp. 174–175. See also Hardi, pp. 86–87; Lyublyanovics, pp. 156–157; Oța, pp. 33–35; Spinei, p. 175 The culturally distinct Jazyges were closely allied with the various Cuman groups, their fate having become "intertwined in the wake of the Mongolian expansion."Hatházi & Szende, p. 389
The 14th-century Chronicon Pictum shows Cumans as the king's yellow-clad army, in close proximity to the kings, between the Pecheneg guard and Székely frontiersmen. Cumans are also mentioned as present at the Battle of Kressenbrunn, possibly in larger numbers than their Hungarian allies. Nathalie Kálnoky, "Des princes scythes aux capitaines des Iasses. Présence iranienne dans le royaume de Hongrie au travers des chroniques médiévales et des privilèges des peuples auxiliaires militaires", in Droit et Cultures, Vol. 52, 2006 Their importance to Hungary was underscored when Béla betrothed his son Stephen to Köten's daughter, Elizabeth the Cuman. Her son, King Ladislaus IV, was noted for his unusually strong links with Kunság settlers.Çoban, p. 65; Kincses-Nagy, p. 174; Lyublyanovics, pp. 157, 162
In 1279, Ladislaus probably formalized Cuman territorial autonomy in the main region of settlement.Hévizi, p. 19; Lyublyanovics, p. 162 In exchange for feudal duties to the Hungarian king in his war against the Mongols, the Cumans were allowed to keep their own ethnic customs.Hévizi, pp. 11, 19 Despite being regionally centred in the Great Plain, "tiny groups of Cumans and Jazyges" could still be found throughout the Kingdom in the 13th century. The Kór and Borcsol stayed in the southeastern counties of Csanád and Temes; a Zeihan Dux Cumanorum ("Duke of the Cumans") is mentioned here in 1255.Oța, pp. 33–35 The Jazyges colonized central areas in lands adjacent to the main Cuman settlements; however, some settled near the Borcsol, near the Maxond Dunes.Oța, p. 36 Documentary and archeological evidence suggests that at least some Olás Cumans were sent to Bihar County (presently Bihor, Romania). In 1323, tribal leader Demetrius owned Körösszeg fortress.Crișan, passim A "Cuman Street" was also attested in medieval Szeged.Hatházi & Szende, p. 395
Nomadic groups still had sporadic clashes with the locals: in 1280, a Borcsol rebel army was defeated by Ladislaus near Hódmezővásárhely, then expelled to what became Wallachia.Kincses-Nagy, p. 174; Oța, p. 34 Groups from this diaspora probably returned to Temes, with Cumans Vchugan and Iuanchuch still owning and selling land in Bobda in 1288.Oța, p. 34 Such attacks, and messages of protest from the Catholic Church, eventually increased pressures for assimilation and full conversion: already in 1279, the Diet of Hungary legislated on the mass baptism of still-pagan Cumans and promised to disperse them across the realm. Both conclusions were largely ignored by the king,Crișan, p. 14 although conversion from polytheism is traceable to the 13th century, which sees the first mentions of Cumans with Christian names.Hévizi, p. 19 There is no suggestion that Cuman settlers were required to sedentarize: the first records of Cuman towns appear in Angevin Hungary, some two centuries after the colonization, and toponymy shows that they were all founded by chieftains, and named after them.Hatházi & Szende, pp. 391–392; Hévizi, pp. 19–20. See also Lyublyanovics, p. 154
Consolidation
The migration of Moldavian Cumans or their assimilation by Vlachs was probably complete by 1332; that year, the Cuman Bishopric was given an ethnically neutral name, taken from the Milcov River.Spinei, p. 176 By then, the core areas of their settlement were emerging as the twin entities of Kunság and Jazygia. This separation had occurred in 1323, when 18 "family heads" of the Jazyges declared their secession from Kunság. In the late 14th century, at the end of a slow process, the Cumans' land was split into distinct subregions, both of them enclaves in Hungarian land. An area between Szolnok and Debrecen became Greater Cumania () while an area between Kalocsa and Szeged became Little Cumania ().Hévizi, pp. 18–19
The origin of the two names is puzzling, especially given that Little Cumania, though less populous, is more than twice the size of Greater Cumania.J. Thomas, T. Baldwin (eds.), Lippincott's Pronouncing Gazetteer or Geographical Dictionary of the World, p. 528. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co, 1855 The separation may originate or relate with the military distinction between "Cumans of the King" and "Cumans of the Queen", though it is not precisely known which regiment was associated with which enclave. The names of "Greater" and "Little" may designate geographical positioning, with the former region situated "across the Tisza".
The tribes underwent a change of lifestyle after finding an economic niche as pastoralists, but also adopted habitation patterns from the depopulated Hungarian villages where they had been originally settled.Lyublyanovics, pp. 153–154, 160–161, 166–167 Though enjoying some fiscal privileges, the Cumans and Jazyges were ordered by King Sigismund to pay an annual census tax—a measure which may indicate that they were no longer relevant as soldiers. In the 15th century, both groups were urbanized enough to be organized into "seats", "universities", and "captaincies", all of which were under a Palatine of the Kingdom. The first seat was Szentelt-szék, mentioned in 1424 and located outside Kunság, among the Kór. Another one was organized in 1440 for the Olás tribe of Greater Cumania, at Kolbaz.