Friar Julian (Julianus) was a Hungarian Dominican friar who lived in the 13th century. He is known for his travels in search of Hungarians stranded in the east and for informing Europe of the danger of the Mongol invasion.
According to the Hungarian belief of the period, some of the Hungarians remained in the old homeland of their ancestors. King IV Within the framework of this mission, supported by Bรฉla, Julian set out in 1235 with several Dominican friends. When he reached the capital of the Volga Bulgarians, he found that the community he was looking for lived nearby and he found them.
Although there was a separation of at least three or four hundred years between the Hungarians who settled in Pannonia and this eastern community, their languages โโwere still mutually intelligible. Julian named this region Magna Hungaria, that is, Greater Hungary.
Second voyage and Mongol warning
About two years after his first trip, he traveled east again, only to find the region devastated by the Mongols. Acquiring this news in the winter of 1237-1238, he returned to Hungary and delivered a Mongol ultimatum to the king, threatening destruction if he did not surrender.
Julian's reports contain the first reliable information about the Hungarians living in the east to reach Europe in centuries. It is also considered one of the earliest sources in Western Europe about Russian lands and steppe geography, and constitutes one of the first warnings of the approaching Mongol invasion.
