Migrations and settlements of Cumans to Hungary

The steppe belt from the Altai Mountains to the Great Hungarian Plain displays integrity in similar climatic and geographical features as a geographical plain except for the Carpathian Mountains. Starting from the Scythians, Turkic, and other steppe peoples such as Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Hungarians, Ogurs, Sabirs, Khazars, Pechenegs, and Kipchaks used these steppes as a migration route or homeland. The Great Hungarian Plain, as the last stop of this steppe belt, received migrations from Eurasia until the 13th century. The last of these migrations were Cumans. In the Southern Russian steppes, the Cumans had complex relations with the Russian Principalities for more than two centuries. As a result of great military struggles, besides keeping the principalities above the steppe belt, they took an important place in the social life of the Russians with their political relations and commercial activities. Cumans played an important role in forming the ethnic structures of the Hungarian, Bulgarian, Romanian and Russian peoples and even in the shaping of today's demographic structure in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. After the Mongol army defeated them on the Kalka River in 1223, they could not recover. Despite the retreat of the Mongols, they lost their sovereignty in the steppe zone, which remained administratively empty, with the Mongol attacks in 1237 and 1241. In 1239, a large Cuman community migrated to Hungary under the leadership of Köten Khan. They acted as central actors in Hungarian domestic and foreign politics. Maintaining their own way of life for a long time created big social problems in Hungary. After the Cuman Laws were enacted during the László IV period, the Cuman society became feudalized and assimilated into the Hungarian society.