Which Way to Magna Hungaria? The Application of Social Stratigraphic Mapping and Analysis to an Ethnic Origin Theory

Abstract

This dissertation provides the results of a study that reflected on how the creation and dissemination of knowledge about the past was handled by researchers in the late 18th and 19th centuries – a period in history noted for extensive and profound political, social and economic changes all across Europe and the world. It pondered how living and working in an environment of major change may have impacted the researchers and their interpretations of archaeological data. The study examined this issue of ‘environmental’ impact on knowledge creation and dissemination through the prism of a case study on the impact of personal and professional influences on scholarly research within the field of ethnogenetic determination in Hungary. The study considered the processes by which one ethnogenetic theory - the ‛Finno-Ugric Uralian’ ethnogenesis theory (abbreviated to Uralic theory) - came to dominate scholarship in Hungary about the origins of its largest single ethnic group – the Magyars. Applying a new technique called ‛Social Stratigraphic Mapping and Analysis’ (an adaption of the Knowledge Management technique of ‘Social Network Analysis’), the associations of the scholars were profiled using historical biographical data coupled with psychological profiling, to determine those factors – personal, institutional and temporal – that may have affected their views and caused them to adopt a stance on the issue of Magyar ethnogenesis. The study found evidence of manipulation of data and biased views both in the reporting of the data, and in the treatment of the scholars themselves, and that the data manipulation and treatment of the scholars not only impacted on the reporting of the artefact assemblages in the period but has had a lasting impact on Hungarian research into ethnogenesis since that time.