Hungarian language in the context of Alexander Korda

The Hungarian invasions of Europe (Hungarian: kalandozások, German: Ungarneinfälle) occurred in the 9th and 10th centuries, during the period of transition in the history of Europe of the Early Middle Ages, when the territory of the former Carolingian Empire was threatened by invasion by the Magyars (Hungarians) from the east, the Viking expansion from the north, and the Arabs from the south.

The Hungarians took possession of the Carpathian Basin (corresponding to the later Kingdom of Hungary) in a planned manner, with a long period of settlement between 862–895, and launched a number of campaigns both westward into former Francia and southward into the Byzantine Empire. The westward raids were stopped only with the Magyar defeat at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955, which led to the revival of the Holy Roman Empire in 962, producing a new political order in Western Europe. The raids into Byzantine territories continued throughout the 10th century, until the eventual Christianisation of the Magyars and the establishment of the Christian Kingdom of Hungary in 1000.

Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and Slovenia to the southwest, and Austria to the west. Hungary lies within the drainage basin of the Danube River and is dominated by great lowland plains. It has a population of 9.6 million, consisting mostly of ethnic Hungarians (Magyars) and a significant Romani minority. Hungarian is the official language, and among the few in Europe outside the Indo-European family. Budapest is the country's capital and largest city, and the dominant cultural and economic centre.

Prior to the foundation of the Hungarian state, various peoples settled in the territory of present-day Hungary, including the Celts, Romans, Huns, Germanic peoples, Avars and Slavs. Hungarian statehood is traced to the Principality of Hungary, which was established in the late ninth century by Álmos and his son Árpád through the conquest of the Carpathian Basin. King Stephen I ascended the throne in 1000 and converted his realm to a Christian kingdom. The medieval Kingdom of Hungary was a European power, reaching its height in the Late Middle Ages.

Bardejov (pronunciation; Hungarian: Bártfa, German: Bartfeld, Rusyn: Бардеёв, Ukrainian: Бардіїв, Polish: Bardejów) is a town in North-Eastern Slovakia. It is situated in the Šariš region on a floodplain terrace of the Topľa River, in the hills of the Beskyd Mountains. It exhibits numerous cultural monuments in its completely intact medieval town center. The town is one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites and currently maintains a population of about 32,000 inhabitants.

Hollókő (Hungarian: [ˈholloːkøː]) is a village in northern Hungary, located in Nógrád County. The village, which was constructed in the 13th century and developed in the 18th and 19th centuries, is a well-preserved ethnographic village of the Palóc people, with traditional wooden architecture and layout of buildings, farms, and orchards. Because of its exceptional preservation and testimony to rural life before the arrival of modern farming practices, the village was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. Its name means "Raven-stone" in Hungarian.

Nógrád (Hungarian: Nógrád vármegye, pronounced [ˈnoːɡraːd]; Slovak: Novohradská župa) is a county (Hungarian: vármegye) of Hungary. It sits on the northern edge of Hungary and borders Slovakia.

Partizánske (Slovak pronunciation: [ˈpartizaːnske] , meaning "partisan town", formerly: Šimonovany, from 1948: Baťovany, Hungarian: Simony) is a town in Trenčín Region, Slovakia.

The South Slavic languages are one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches (West and East) by a belt of Austrian German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers.

The Danube Bend (Hungarian: Dunakanyar) is a curve of the Danube in Hungary, close to the town of Visegrád.

Hungarians, also known as Magyars, are an ethnic group native to Hungary (Hungarian: Magyarország), who share a common culture, language, history and ancestry. They also have a notable presence in former parts of the Kingdom of Hungary. The Hungarian language belongs to the Ugric branch of the Uralic language family, alongside the Khanty and Mansi languages.

There are an estimated 14.5 million ethnic Hungarians and their descendants worldwide, of whom 9.6 million live in today's Hungary. About 2 million Hungarians live in areas that were part of the Kingdom of Hungary before the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 and are now parts of Hungary's seven neighbouring countries, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria. In addition, significant groups of people with Hungarian ancestry live in various other parts of the world, most of them in the United States, Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Chile, Brazil, Australia, and Argentina, and therefore constitute the Hungarian diaspora (Hungarian: magyar diaszpóra).

Cluj-Napoca (/ˈkluːʒnæˌpoʊkə/ KLOOZH-na-POH-kə; Romanian: [ˈkluʒ naˈpoka] ), or simply Cluj (Hungarian: Kolozsvár [ˈkoloʒvaːr] , German: Klausenburg), is a city in northwestern Romania. It is the second-most populous city in the country and the seat of Cluj County. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest (445 km; 277 mi), Budapest (461 km; 286 mi) and Belgrade (483 km; 300 mi). Located in the Someșul Mic river valley, the city is considered the unofficial capital of the historical province of Transylvania. For some decades prior to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, it was the official capital of the Grand Principality of Transylvania.

As of 2021, 286,598 inhabitants live in the city. The Cluj-Napoca metropolitan area had a population of 411,379 people, while the population of the peri-urban area is approximately 420,000. According to a 2007 estimate, the city hosted an average population of over 20,000 students and other non-residents each year from 2004 to 2007. The city spreads out from St. Michael's Church in Unirii Square, built in the 14th century and named after the Archangel Michael, Cluj's patron saint. The municipality covers an area of 179.52 square kilometres (69.31 sq mi).

Brașov (UK: /bræˈʃɒv/, US: /brɑːˈʃɔːv, -ɔːf/, Romanian: [braˈʃov] ; German: Kronstadt, also Brasau; Hungarian: Brassó [ˈbrɒʃːoː]; Latin: Corona; Transylvanian Saxon: Kruhnen) is a city in Transylvania, Romania and the county seat (i.e. administrative centre) of Brașov County.

According to the 2021 census, with 237,589 inhabitants, Brașov is the 6th most populous city in Romania. The metropolitan area was home to 371,802 residents.

Transylvania (Romanian: Transilvania [transilˈvani.a] or Ardeal; Hungarian: Erdély [ˈɛrdeːj]; German: Siebenbürgen [ˌziːbm̩ˈbʏrɡn̩] or Transsilvanien; Transylvanian Saxon: Siweberjen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border are the Carpathian Mountains and to the west the Apuseni Mountains. Broader definitions of Transylvania also include the western and northwestern Romanian regions of Crișana and Maramureș, and occasionally Banat. Historical Transylvania also includes small parts of neighbouring Western Moldavia and even a small part of south-western neighbouring Bukovina to its north east (represented by Suceava County).

Transylvania is known for the scenery of its Carpathian landscape and its rich history, coupled with its multi-cultural character. It also contains Romania's second-largest city, Cluj-Napoca, and other very well preserved medieval iconic cities and towns such as Brașov, Sibiu, Târgu Mureș, Bistrița, Alba Iulia, Mediaș, and Sighișoara. It is also the home of some of Romania's UNESCO World Heritage Sites such as the Villages with fortified churches, the Historic Centre of Sighișoara, the Dacian Fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains and the Roșia Montană Mining Cultural Landscape.

Banat (UK: /ˈbænɪt, ˈbɑːn-/ BAN-it, BAHN-, US: /bəˈnɑːt, bɑː-/ bə-NAHT, bah-; Romanian: Banat; Hungarian: Bánság; Serbian: Банат, romanized: Banat) is a geographical and historical region located in the Pannonian or Carpathian Basin that straddles Central and Eastern Europe. It is divided among three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania (the counties of Timiș, Caraș-Severin, Arad south of the Mureș river, and the western part of Mehedinți); the western part of Banat is in northeastern Serbia (mostly included in Vojvodina, except for a small part included in the Belgrade Region); and a small northern part lies within southeastern Hungary (Csongrád-Csanád County).

The region's historical ethnic diversity was severely affected by the events of World War II. Today, Banat is mostly populated by ethnic Romanians, Serbs and Hungarians, but small populations of other ethnic groups also live in the region. Nearly all are citizens of either Serbia, Romania or Hungary.

Northern Transylvania (Romanian: Ardealul de Nord; Hungarian: Észak-Erdély) was the region of the Kingdom of Romania that during World War II, as a consequence of the August 1940 territorial agreement known as the Second Vienna Award, became part of the Kingdom of Hungary. With an area of 43,104 km (16,643 sq mi), the population was largely composed of both ethnic Romanians and Hungarians.

In October 1944, Soviet and Romanian forces gained control of the territory, and by March 1945 Northern Transylvania returned to Romanian administration. After the war, this was confirmed by the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947.

The Uralic languages (/jʊəˈrælɪk/ yoor-AL-ik), sometimes called the Uralian languages (/jʊəˈreɪliən/ yoor-AY-lee-ən), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers above 100,000 are Erzya, Moksha, Mari, Udmurt and Komi spoken in the European parts of the Russian Federation. Still smaller minority languages are Sámi languages of the northern Fennoscandia; other members of the Finnic languages, ranging from Livonian in northern Latvia to Karelian in northwesternmost Russia; the Samoyedic languages and the other members of the Ugric languages, Mansi and Khanty spoken in Western Siberia.

The name Uralic derives from the family's purported "original homeland" (Urheimat) hypothesized to have been somewhere in the vicinity of the Ural Mountains, and was first proposed by Julius Klaproth in Asia Polyglotta (1823).

The Principality of Nitra (Slovak: Nitrianske kniežatstvo, Nitriansko, Nitrava, lit. 'Duchy of Nitra, Nitravia, Nitrava'; Hungarian: Nyitrai Fejedelemség), also known as the Duchy of Nitra, was a West Slavic polity encompassing a group of settlements that developed in the 9th century around Nitra, in present-day Slovakia. Its history remains uncertain because of a lack of contemporary sources. The territory's status is subject to scholarly debate: some modern historians describe it as an independent polity that was annexed either around 833 or 870 by the Principality of Moravia, while others say that it was under the influence of the neighbouring West Slavs from Moravia from its inception.

Béla III (Hungarian: III. Béla, Croatian: Bela III., Slovak: Belo III.; c. 1148 – 23 April 1196) was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1172 and 1196. He was the second son of King Géza II and Géza's wife, Euphrosyne of Kiev. Around 1161, Géza granted Béla a duchy, which included Croatia, central Dalmatia and possibly Sirmium. In accordance with a peace treaty between his elder brother, Stephen III, who succeeded their father in 1162, and the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, Béla moved to Constantinople in 1163. He was renamed to Alexios, and the emperor granted him the newly created senior court title of despotes. He was betrothed to the Emperor's daughter, Maria. Béla's patrimony caused armed conflicts between the Byzantine Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary between 1164 and 1167, because Stephen III attempted to hinder the Byzantines from taking control of Croatia, Dalmatia and Sirmium. Béla-Alexios, who was designated as Emperor Manuel's heir in 1165, took part in three Byzantine campaigns against Hungary. His betrothal to the emperor's daughter was dissolved after her brother, Alexios, was born in 1169. The emperor deprived Béla of his high title, granting him the inferior rank of kaisar.

Stephen III died on 4 March 1172, and Béla decided to return to Hungary. Before his departure, he pledged that he would never make war against the Byzantine Empire. Although the Hungarian prelates and lords unanimously proclaimed Béla king, Lucas, Archbishop of Esztergom opposed his coronation because of Béla's alleged simony. Finally, the Archbishop of Kalocsa crowned him king on 18 January 1173, with Pope Alexander III's approval. Béla fought with his younger brother, Géza, whom he held in captivity for more than a decade. Taking advantage of the internal conflicts in the Byzantine Empire after Emperor Manuel's death, Béla reoccupied Croatia, Dalmatia and Sirmium between 1180 and 1181. He occupied the Principality of Halych in 1188, but it was lost within two years.