Contribution short abstract:

The proposed presentation describes Hungarian research tradition in Central Asia, based on the legend that Hungarians arrived in Europe from Inner Asia and shows how this position can be used by Hungarian researchers and accepted by "big empires" and local peoples (also recently).

Contribution long abstract:

The proposed presentation describes Hungarian research tradition in Central Asia, based on the legend that Hungarians arrived in Europe from Inner Asia, and their ancient homeland and kindred peoples are still there. There is a tendency for Hungarian anthropologists, linguists, and folklore researchers to conduct fieldwork in various parts of Inner Asia. In these research projects, Hungarian researchers serve not exclusively pure colonial (political or economic) interests but also a so-called "mental imperialist" one when looking to establish lost relationships with kindred peoples in the East. In this way, Hungarians have a particular mid position and perspective between big empires (such as Russian and British) and local Central Asian (among others, Ozbeg, Kyrgyz, and Kazak) peoples. The proposed paper aims to show how this position can be used by Hungarian researchers and accepted by "big empires" and local peoples (also recently).