Levedi két szálláshelye

Levedi (Lebedias) was a leader of the Proto-Hungarians and his story was preserved in the De administrando imperio (DAI). According to the 38th chapter of the DAI, Levedi and his people dwelled in the vicinity of Khazaria. This territory was called Levedia (after the name of Levedi). The river of Levedia was the Khidmas which was also called Khingilus (in reality these are two different rivers). The Hungarians were allies of the Khazars and the Khazar kaghan married a Khazar princess to Levedi. A few years later the Pechenegs expelled the Hungarians and conquered their territory. A part of the Hungarians under the leadership of Levedi moved to Etelköz (Atelkuzu), the Dnieper – Seret (Lower Danube) region. The localization of Levedia, the earlier homeland of the Proto-Hungarians is questionable and debated since the 18th century. There are many suggestions: the Volga–Ural region, the Don–Donets region, the Kuma–Kuban region, the Don– Dnieper region, the Southern Bug region. The problem of the localisation is the contradiction found in the DAI. On the basis of the two rivers, the Kodyma and the Inhul, the place was the region of the Southern Bug river, but considering the Pecheneg–Hungarian conflict Levedia might have been in the Volga region (east of the Volga), as the Pechenegs did not conquer territories west of the Volga until 894–895. It is also an important result of the research that Levedia was not the whole country of the Proto-Hungarians, but only the dwelling area of Levedi and his people. We can resolve the contradiction of the DAI by supposing that the two dwelling areas of Levedi were used in different times: an earlier in the Volga region and a latter in the Southern Bug region (within Atelkuzu). It means that DAI made a mistake, as the text confused the information on Atelkuzu and the earlier homeland. It seems probable because the reconstruction of the events of the 9th century also confirms this hypothesis. This means that the Proto-Hungarians moved from the Volga region to the Dnieper region at the beginning or in the first part of the 9 th century. Both of regions were on the periphery of the Khazar Kaghanate and the Hungarians remained the vassals of the Kaghanate.