Indians, Orbán, and the Turkic People

Photo: Front row (l to r) Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan, Victor Orbán, President of Hungary (with medal), and Recip Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Türkiye at the 11th summit of the Organization of Turkic States in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, November 2024, From Wikimedia Commons

The shared Siberian roots of Hungarians, Turks and Native Americans may be influenced by President Trump’s alliance with Hungary.

Hungarian President Viktor Orbán personally visited President-elect Trump in late 2024. This should not have surprised anyone.  Orbán has hosted pro-Trump pundit Tucker Carlson several times, who has streamed programs from Hungary.  

Orbán also served as a thorn in the side of the European Union, of which Hungary is a member, by taking a less supportive position in favor of Ukraine.

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The Hungarian people are outliers in Central Europe. They are not Slavic-speaking, like the Poles, Czechs or Slovaks. They do not speak a Romance language, like the Romanian neighbors; or German, like their other neighbors, the Austrians. 

Their closest language cousins are the rather distant Estonians and Finns, the even more distant Khanty and Mansi people in Siberia.

It’s their Siberian cousins who interest Orbán the most. To this end, Hungary has joined the Organization of Turkic States (OTS). The Hungarian language, Magyar, has many Turkic loanwords from their original homeland in Central Asia (Now called Turkestan in Turkish schools.) 

The very idea of Pan-Turkism was born in Hungary, according to some sources. Hungary gets its name from the Huns, Central Asian invaders who were likely Turkic, and helped speed up the collapse of the Roman Empire. How’s that for some bragging rights. (Hungary is mostly Roman Catholic nowadays.)

The Hungarian people’s survival in Central Europe has not been guaranteed.  Orbán himself said “It never enters the mind of an American…that they might be the last to turn out the light, but this always comes up for us.” (Kovach, see below)

Orbán has long likened the Hungarian condition to the uphill battle of Native Americans for their continued survival. 

In 2023, some American Indians attended a symposium about bridging the spiritual and historical heritage shared by the tribal people of Siberia, held in Kazakhstan, a member state of the Organization of Turkic States, and a former Soviet Republic.

Yes, Hungary is officially a Turkic State seeking stronger ties with American Indians. Orbán draws inspiration from the survival of Native Americans. Now that Orbán’s pal Donald Trump will return to the White House, what will that mean for Indigenous people in the United States? 

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Sources: 

Adam Kovach, “Why American Conservatives Get Viktor Orbán So Wrong,” Hedgehogreview.com, September 14, 2022,

“Cultural Bridge Symposium on Turkic Peoples and Native Americans,” Turksoy.org, November 27, 2023.    

Holly Case, “Hungary’s Real Indians,” 3 April 2018, Eurozine.com

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