Turán Explorer

The Scythians walk among us! They are not dormant in their kurgans and tucked into piles of bones and gold! They are here, they are you and me! Thousands of self-proclaimed Scythians ride on in Hungary today, proudly celebrating their szkíta identity, even claiming that they speak Scythian at home. These Scythians have consolidated a clear political identity too, inspiring votes for national sover...

"The Hungarian hunters of old pursued the miraculous stag, not because they expected to kill it, but because it led them on in the joy of the chase to new trails and fresh adventures, and so to capture happiness!" So too will we chase the miraculous deer, the csodaszarvas, to find adventure in Turán. First, it will lead us to the 1933 World Scout Jamboree, where they say the whole nation of Horthy...

Nimrod: the mighty hunter before the Lord — the God-hating builder of the Tower of Babel — the idiot. This one might be my favorite episode yet, wherein we examine one of the most infamous biblical characters with the most extra-biblical lore, whose name maddeningly transformed to mean "dummy" in American pop culture during the 20th century. It is because of this that few people appreciate the ext...

Sometimes the true GOATs are underrated because even though they were the best to do it, they weren't the first to do it. This was Simon Kezai's problem, writing a more enchanting and masterful chronicle just a few decades after Anonymus did the same, with more interesting myths and more feisty opinions. In this episode, let's explore the prologues of two of my favorite books together. We'll leap...

First, we'll take a perilous drive to Kecskemét, underneath the boom of jets and beside of the most remarkable frescos in Hungarian art. We see that — like Kecskemét City Hall's turn-of-the-century architect Ödön Lechner — our old friend Anonymus was trying to imagine a vision of the future as much as he was trying to authentically chronicle the past. Then we'll look at some research into whether...

Let's kick back at the house party of High Prince Álmos along with our closest friends and take an oath that our kids will be good buddies just like we are. Then we'll visit the oldest existing history of the Hungarian people: the Gesta Hungarorum of Anonymus. Fraught with mythmaking, propaganda, and guesswork, this 13th Century text was foundational to the development of Hungarian art, mythology,...

In this introductory episode, we step off the train to visit the Buddha Park just outside the Hungarian town of Tar. Then, we'll take a look at why the language spoken in Hungary is so different from that its neighbors. What's the biggest language family in the world, what language family does Hungarian belong to, how did the Magyars get to where they are today, and why is this linguistic...