JASZ
PEOPLE
Jasz
People :
Regions
with significant populations : Hungary (in the Jászság
region within the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County)
Languages : Hungarian (Uralic, Finno-Ugric) and formerly
Jasz (Indo-European, Iranian)
Religion : Roman Catholic
Related ethnic groups : Ossetians and other Iranian
people
The
Jász are an Iranic ethnic group who have lived in Hungary
since the 13th century. They live mostly in a region known as Jászság,
which comprises the north-western part of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok
county. They are sometimes known in English by the exonym Jassic
and are also known by the endonyms Iasi and Jassy. They originated
as an Ossetian people from Sarmatia.
Geography
:
The main church in the center of Jászberény
The cultural and political center of Jászság is the
town of Jászberény.
Jászság
is sometimes, erroneously, known as "Jazygia", after a
somewhat related Sarmatian people, the Iazyges, who lived in a similar
area in ancient times. However, there is no direct connection between
the Jász and Iazyges.
History
:
The Jasz people were a nomadic Sarmatian (or Scythian) tribe which
settled in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary during the 13th century
and are generally thought to be of Ossetian origin originally speaking
a dialect of the Ossetic language. The dialect is extinct and members
of the Jász nowadays usually speak Hungarian.
Their
name is almost certainly related to that of the Iazyges, one of
the Sarmatian tribes which, along with the Roxolani, reached the
borders of Dacia during the late 1st century BC (the city of Iasi
is named for them). Residual elements of these tribes, ancestors
of the Jasz people, remained behind in the central North Caucasus,
mingling with Caucasian peoples to form the present-day Ossetes.
The
Jasz people came to the Kingdom of Hungary, together with the Cumanians
(Hungarian: Kun people) when their lands to the east, in some in
the later Moldavia (see Iasi and Jaszvasar) were invaded by the
Mongol Empire in the mid-13th century. They were admitted by the
Hungarian king, Béla IV Árpád, who hoped that
the Jaszs would assist in resisting the Mongol-Tatar invasion. Shortly
after their entry, the relationship worsened dramatically between
the Hungarian nobility and the Cumanian-Jasz tribes, which then
abandoned the country. After the end of the Mongol-Tatar invasion
they returned and settled in the central part of the Pannonian Plain,
near the rivers Zagyva and Tarna.
Jazygia (in red-violet) in the eighteenth century within
the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary
Initially, their main occupation was animal husbandry. During the
next two centuries, they were fully assimilated into the Hungarian
population; their language disappeared, but they preserved their
Jasz identity. The Hungarian rulers granted the Jasz people special
privileges. Thus, the Jasz were able to be more or less self-governing
in an area known as Jászság in which Jászberény
developed into the regional, cultural and administrative center.
In
the 16th–17th centuries, areas populated by the Jasz people
were under Ottoman administration, but at the end of the 17th century
they were recaptured and returned to the Kingdom of Hungary, which
was then part of the Habsburg Monarchy. Habsburg Emperor Leopold
I sold the area to the Knights of the Teutonic Order. This saw the
end of the privileged position of Jászberény. However,
the Jasz people did not want to accept this situation and started
to collect money with which they could buy their freedom. By 1745,
they had collected half a million Rhenish gold florins, a considerable
sum for those days. However, in this time the famous 'Act of Redemption'
took place: the Empress Maria Theresa restored the Jasz land and
Jasz hereditary privileges. From this point onwards, Jaszberény
flourished. The Jasz regional autonomy was preserved until the year
1876, when area populated by the Jasz was administratively included
into the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County.
Map of Jászság (Jazygia)
Jászság
(Jazygia) within modern Hungary
After dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918, areas populated by
the Jasz people were included into an independent Hungary. Over
a dozen settlements in the Great Hungarian Plain (e.g. the names
Jászberény, Jászárokszállás,
Jászfényszaru, Jászalsószentgyörgy)
still include a link to the Jasz. In 1995, the 250th Anniversary
of the Act of Redemption was celebrated in Jászberény
with the President of Hungary as guest of honor as well as with
numerous foreign dignitaries.
Language
:
Jassic is the common name in English for the original language of
the Jász. It is dialect of Ossetian and, therefore, the broader
Iranian language family. Jassic became extinct and was replaced
by Hungarian. The only literary record of the Jász language
was found in the 1950s in the Hungarian National Széchényi
Library. The language was reconstructed with the help of various
Ossetian analogies.[citation needed]
Notable
people of Jassic descent :
• Sándor
Csányi
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Jasz_people