Hungarian Native Faith
The Hungarian Native Faith (Hungarian: Ősmagyar vallás), also termed Hungarian Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan new religious movement aimed at representing an ethnic religion of the Hungarians, inspired by taltosism (Hungarian shamanism), ancient mythology and later folklore. The Hungarian Native Faith movement has roots in 18th- and 19th-century Enlightenment and Romantic elaborations, and early-20th-century ethnology.[1] The construction of a national Hungarian religion was endorsed in interwar Turanist circles (1930s–1940s), and, eventually, Hungarian Native Faith movements blossomed in Hungary after the fall of the Soviet Union.[2]
This article is about the Hungarian Native Faith movement. For other modern Pagan religions in Hungary, see Neopaganism in Hungary.
The boundaries between Hungarian Native Faith groups are often traced along their differing ideas about the ethnogenetic origins of the Hungarians, which have historically been a matter of debate.[3] The standing consensus is that Hungarians originated among the Uralic peoples. Some Hungarian Native Faith groups, however, cultivate further links with Scythian, Sumerian,[4] Turkic[5] and other cultures.
Besides the elaborations developed within intellectual circles, the grassroots development of the Hungarian Native Faith largely relies upon the work of individual shamans or neoshamans, the táltos, whom have become popular in Hungary since the 1980s.[2] Some Hungarian Native Faith organisations are supported by political parties of the right-wing, including Fidesz and Jobbik.[6]