Turkish consciousness

The strengthening of the Hungarian borders was typical in the peripheral regions of the Carpathian Basin, which was carried out not only by the Hungarians but also by the Turkish accompanying peoples of the conquerors. Thus, we find traces of the Székely not only in the east or south, but also in the northwest, such as the village of Székelyboldogasszony on the banks of the Morva River. The Székely consciousness lives in several villages of Zoboralja, such as Lédec, Gímes, Zséré and Kolon. However, in Alsóbodok, the Turkish consciousness was inherited and still lives today. Gyula Henkey's ethnic anthropological research also confirmed the high proportion of Turkish anthropological features in Zoboralja. The accompanying peoples are referred to, for example, by the border name Besenyő (a disappeared Pecheneg settlement?), the nearby settlement of Berény, which disappeared in the Middle Ages (inhabited by Turkic peoples?), the nearby village of Kalász that still exists today (in 1156 it was called Qualiz, i.e. a settlement of Kálizoks), the slave name Csász (in 1525 it was still Chazar, i.e. Khazar), etc. The most common Bodok personal name, Gyepes, is only connected to the meadow (by the way, they settled here from the nearby Kisherstyén). The already mentioned Pechenegs, but also the Cumans, are well documented in the area (e.g. 1075, 1216, 1292, etc.). The neighboring villages (e.g. Pográny) still refer to the people of Bodok with the name “Türk”. When the people of Pográny go to Bodok, they sometimes say that they are going “to Turkey”. In other villages, e.g. In Nitra we heard that the Bodokians are a little different from the other Zoboraljians, “from the brown ones” (this refers to their darker skin color). The Turkish adjective could also refer to the period of Turkish occupation, e.g. it could mean a more permanent Turkish subjugation, but we found no trace of this, since Bodok was under the jurisdiction of the Eszetergom sanjak or the Újvár éjálet at about the same time as the other surrounding villages. Conversions to the Muslim faith were rare in the Nitra region, but this was not without precedent (such was the conversion of the nobleman Wolfgang Nagy). Today, the Turkish adjective in Bodok is not pejorative, the residents are not ashamed, even the district press reported that football fans from Bodok were cheering for the local team with Turkish flags. We have no knowledge of a similar identity in the Carpathian Basin.