Kunság

Kunság (German: Kumanien; Latin: Cumania) 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 recolonized by Cumans, 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.