Köten II, Khan of the Kumans

Köten Sutoiovych Russian: Котян
Also Known As:	"Koten Sutoiovych", "Khan of the Kumans"
Birthdate:	circa 1214
Birthplace:	Ukraine
Death:	1244 (25-34) Pest, Pest, Hungary
Immediate Family:	Son of Suthoi, Khan of the Kumans and N.N. Terteroba Husband of N.N.; Тертероба; Agnez Kuthen and Erzsebet of Galicia Kuthyen, Russian Princess Father of .... of JONAS of the Kumans; Мангуш and Erzsébet of the Kumans, Queen consort of Hungary Brother of Сомогур Сутоевич Тертероба
Occupation:	Prince of Kumans, Kipchak tribal chief, Khan i Cumania, Hövding av Kyptschaken, head of Cuman clan; Turkish; pagan, половецкий хан, chief of Cuman tribe

Managed by:	Flemming Allan Funch
Last Updated:	today

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Immediate Family

N.N.

wife
.... of JONAS of the Kumans

daughter
Мангуш

son
Тертероба

wife
Agnez Kuthen

wife
Erzsebet of Galicia Kuthyen, Rus...

wife
Erzsébet of the Kumans, Queen c...

daughter
Suthoi, Khan of the Kumans

father
N.N. Terteroba

mother
Сомогур Сутоевич ...

brother
N.N. de Halich

stepmother

About Köten II, Khan of the Kumans

KOTEN / KOTIAN, KHAN OF THE CUMANS

Khan Koten (Jonas) Sutoiovych, SON OF KHAN KONCHEK. He is Mstislav Mstislavich's father in law. Koten was of the Terteroba (Tertrobichi in Russian) Clan. He participated in the power struggles between the princes of Kyivan Rus' in 1202, 1225, and 1228. After the defeat of the Mongols in 1222, he convinced the princes of Kyivan Rus' to forge an alliance against the Mongols. He fought in the war against the Mongols (allied with the Russians) in the Battle of Kalka River, where the Rus' - Cuman alliance was defeated. In 1238 he was again defeated by Batu Khan on the Astrakhan steppes. Afterwards, Koten led 40,000 "huts" (families -- around 70 - 80,000 people) to Hungary to escape the Mongols. In Hungary, he was later assassinated by the Hungarians and Germans in concert. The Cumans then left Hungary, pillaging along the way and emigrating to the Second Bulgarian Empire. Some of the Cumans were later asked to come back to Hungary and help rebuild it after Mongol devastation. He was possibly the most notable of Cumans, together with Baibars. Koten was from the Terteroba clan that ruled Cumania in the late 11th century, as well as in the mid 13th century.

Khan Koten's daughter, married Mstislav Mstislavich, Prince of Halych (r. 1219–1228).

Khan Koten's second daughter, married Narjot de Toucy. After her husband died, she became a nun.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ten

Köten (variously Kutan, Kuthen, Kuthens, Kotyan, Kotjan, Koteny, Kötöny, Kuethan, Zayhan, or Jonas) was a Cuman khan and member of the Terter(oba) clan. This Köten is the same Prince Kotjan Sutoevic of the Russian annals, who forged the Russian-Cuman alliance against the Tatars.

...

At the start of Köten's reign the religion of the Kuman-Kipchaks was Tengriism. In 1238 Köten led his tribes into Hungary in flight from the advancing Mongol hordes. In return for their alliance and conversion to Christianity, Bela IV of Hungary granted them asylum.

Köten was baptised in 1239 and his daughter Elizabeth married Bela's son, the future Stephen V of Hungary. The Hungarian nobles, however, distrusted the Kuman-Kipchaks and just prior to the disastrous Mongol invasion which led to the rout of Mohi, they had Köten assassinated in Pest. The enraged Kuman-Kipchak masses began to plunder the countryside, and moved southwards in the country. They crossed the Danube and reached Srem (called Marchia by Rogerius). After causing much destruction and havoc in Hungary they left the country for Bulgaria.

Köten left another daughter who married Narjot III de Toucy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuman

The Cumans (Greek: Κο(υ)μάνοι, Ko(u)manoi;[1] Hungarian: kun / plural kunok;[2] Turkic: kuman / plural kumanlar[3], Russian: Половцы - Polovtsi) were a nomadic people who inhabited a shifting area north of the Black Sea known as Cumania along the Volga River. They eventually settled to the west of the Black Sea, influencing the politics of Kievan Rus', Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Moldavia, and Wallachia. Cuman is a separate name to Kipchak; the two nations were not the same, but different - they joined politically to create a confederation known as the Cuman-Kipchak confederation [4]

The Cumans were nomadic warriors of the Eurasian steppe who exerted an enduring impact on the medieval Balkans. The basic instrument of Cuman political success was military force, which none of the warring Balkan factions could resist. As a consequence, groups of the Cumans settled and mingled with the local population in various regions of the Balkans. According to many historians Cumans were the founders of three successive Bulgarian dynasties (Asenids, Terterids, and Shishmanids), and the Wallachian dynasty (Basarabids)."[5] However, in the case of the Basarab dynasty, some Medieval documents refer to them as a Vlach (Romanian) dynasty[6], so some historians attribute a Romanian origin to this dynasty.[7] They also played an active role in Byzantium, Hungary, and Serbia, with Cuman immigrants being integrated into each country's elite.

The Cumans were called Folban and Vallani by Germans, Kun (Qoun) by the Hungarians and Polovtsy by the Russians. It is rather confusing to know who historians from the past referred to when the name Kipchak was used - they either referred to the Kumans only, the Kipchaks only or both; this is due to the two nations joining and living together (and possibly exchanging weaponry, culture and with possible fusion of languages). This confederation and them living together might have made it tricky at times for historians to write exclusively about either nation.

Etymology

A variety of sources from different countries (such as Germany, Hungary and Russia) explain that the different names for the Cumans all pin point to the meaning 'blond', 'sallow' and 'yellow' in reference to the color of the Kumans' hair. The Russian word 'Polovtsy'(Пóловцы) means "blond", since the old Russian word "polovo" means "straw". Another explanation was given by O. Suleymenov as "men of the field, steppe" from the Russian word "pole" - open ground, field, not to be confused with "polyane" (cf. Greek "polis" - city). A third explanation of the word was also made by O. Suleymenov which stated that the name "polovtsy" came from a word for "blue-eyed," since the Serbo-Croatian word "plav" literally means "blue". [citation needed] The German word for Cumans was 'Folban' which also means blond.

[edit] Ethnicity

Most scholars believe that the Cumans were Turkic, ethnically speaking. This hypothesis is treated almost as proven fact, but there is no definitive evidence to prove that theory. That their language was Turkic does not necessarily prove that the Cumans themselves were Turkic (another case which is similar is that the Bulgarians speak a Slavic language, but they themselves, according to genetic studies, are not fully Slavic; also in a similar context and vein is that Iran uses the Arabic alphabet, while they themselves are not Arabic) To the contrary, another idea is that the Cumans were an Iranic people, this hypothesis being taught in Bulgarian schools. The Turkic theory has a flaw - the problem being that the Cumans were mostly blond (fully documented evidence by a variety of countries proves this), but there aren't many blond Turkic people (blond hair color in Turkic ethnic groups is quite rare; it usually appears when mixture with another ethnic group has occurred, such as Caucasian). That suggests that the Cumans might not have been Turkic; but could rather have been Iranic (there is blond hair among Iranian people). Some researchers also suggests that the Bulgars (who also might have been Iranic, with some elements of Turkic culture) and Cumans were one and the same people, as there were some similarities between them to suggest that.

[edit] History

Originally inhabiting eastern China (east of the Hunag He river) [8], they later migrated to the prairies of southern Siberia and northern Kazakhstan. The Cumans entered the grassland of Eastern Europe in the 11th century, from where they continued to assault the Byzantine Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary, and Rus.

Ladislaus I of Hungary defeated the Cumans who attacked the Kingdom of Hungary in 1089.

In 1091 the Pechenegs, a semi-nomadic Turkic people of the prairies of southwestern Eurasia, were decisively defeated as an independent force at the Battle of Levounion by the combined forces of a Byzantine army under Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and a Cuman army under Togortok and Bunaq. Attacked again in 1094 by the Cumans, many Pechenegs were again slain. The remnants of the Pechenegs fled to Hungary, as the Cumans themselves would do a few decades later: fearing the Mongol invasion, in 1229, they asked asylum from Béla IV of Hungary.

In alliance with the Bulgarians and Vlachs[9][10] during the Vlach-Bulgar Rebellion by brothers Asen and Peter of Tarnovo, the Cumans are believed to have played a significant role in the rebellion's final victory over Byzantium and the restoration of Bulgaria's independence (1185). [11] The Cumans were allies with Bulgaria's emperor Kaloyan, who was also descended from the Cumans, in the Bulgarian-Latin Wars.

Although the Cumans initially had managed to defeat the Great Prince Vladimir Monomakh of Kievan Rus in the 12th century (at the Battle of the Stugna River) later they were defeated by the combined forces of Russian principalities leaded by Monomakh and forced out of the Rus borders to Caucasus. Many Cumans at that time resettled into Georgia were they achieved prominent positions and helped Georgians to stop the advance of Seljuks. After the death of warlike Monomakh in 1125 Cumans returned to the steppe along the Rus borders.

Like most other peoples of medieval Eastern Europe, they put up resistance against the relentlessly advancing Mongols, but they were finally crushed in 1238. Previously, in 1229, they had asked for asylum from king Béla IV of Hungary, who in 1238 finally offered refuge to the remainder of the Cuman people under their leader Kuthen (Hungarians spelled his name Kötöny). Kuthen in turn vowed to convert his 40,000 families to Christianity. King Béla hoped to use the new subjects as auxiliary troops against the Mongols, who were already threatening Hungary. The king assigned various parts of central Hungary to the Cuman tribes. A tense situation erupted when Mongol troops burst into Hungary. The Hungarians, frustrated by their own helplessness, took revenge on the Cumans, whom they accused of being Mongol spies. After a bloody fight the Hungarians killed Kuthen and his bodyguards, and the remaining Cumans fled to the Balkans. After the Mongol invasion Béla IV of Hungary recalled the Cumans to Hungary to populate settlements devastated by war. The nomads subsequently settled throughout the Great Hungarian Plain. Throughout the following centuries the Cumans in Hungary were granted various rights, the extent of which depended on the prevailing political situation. Some of these rights survived until the end of the 19th century, although the Cumans had long since assimilated with Hungarians.

The Cumans who remained scattered in the prairie of what is now southwest Russia joined the Golden Horde khanate and their descendants became assimilated with local Tatar populations.

The Cumans who remained east and south of the Carpathian Mountains established a country named Cumania, in an area consisting of Moldavia and Walachia. The Hungarian kings claimed supremacy on the territory of Cumania, among the nine titles of the Hungarian kings of the Árpád and Anjou dynasties were rex Cumaniae.

The Cuman influence in Wallachia and Moldavia was very strong, according to some historians who claim that the earliest Wallachian rulers bore Cuman names (Tihomir and Bassarab). This hypothesis is though disputed. In lack of convincing archaeological evidence of a Cuman civilisation, it appears the Cumans were just a minority within the local population, but they made up part of the ruling elite in Wallachia. As in the case of Bulgaria, they were assimilated by the majority, the present-day Romanians.

Basarab I, son of the Wallachian prince Tihomir of Wallachia obtained independence from Hungary at the beginning of the 14th century. The name Basarab is considered by some authors as being of Cuman origin, and meaning "Father King".

It is generally believed by Bulgarian historians that the Bulgarian mediaеval dynasties Asen, Shishman and Terter were Cumanian.

The Caucasian mummies found in China a while ago could have been Cumans, as it is stated that the Cumans originally came from eastern China before migrating to Europe [12].

[edit] Ethnicity

Most scholars believe that the Cumans were Turkic, ethnically speaking. This hypothesis is treated almost as proven fact, but there is no definitive evidence to prove that theory. That their language was Turkic does not necessarily prove that the Cumans themselves were Turkic (another case which is similar is that the Bulgarians speak a Slavic language, but they themselves, according to genetic studies, are not fully Slavic; also in a similar context and vein is that Iran uses the Arabic alphabet, while they themselves are not Arabic) To the contrary, another idea is that the Cumans were an Iranic people, this hypothesis being taught in Bulgarian schools. The Turkic theory has a flaw - the problem being that the Cumans were mostly blond (fully documented evidence by a variety of countries proves this), but there aren't many blond Turkic people (blond hair color in Turkic ethnic groups is quite rare; it usually appears when mixture with another ethnic group has occurred, such as Caucasian). That suggests that the Cumans might not have been Turkic; but could rather have been Iranic (there is blond hair among Iranian people). Some researchers also suggests that the Bulgars (who also might have been Iranic, with some elements of Turkic culture) and Cumans were one and the same people, as there were some similarities between them to suggest that.

[edit] Culture

Robert de Clari described Cumans as nomadic warriors, who did not use houses, or farm, but rather lived in tents, and ate milk, cheese and meat. The horses had a sack for feeding attached to the bridle, and in a day and a night they can ride seven days of walking (Mansio), they go on campaign without any baggage, and when they return they take everything they can carry, they wear sheepskin and were armed with composite bows and arrows. They pray to the first animal they see in the morning.[13][14] The Cumans, like the Bulgars, were also known to drink blood from their horse (they would cut a vein) when they ran out of water and were far from an available source. Another interesting feature of the Cumans was their elaborate masks which they used in battle (they were shaped like and worn over the face. Some of the masks had mustaches).

[edit] Religion

In the 13th century, the Western Cumans adopted Roman Catholicism (in Hungary they all(all of them?) later became Calvinist) and the Gagauzes Pravoslav/Orthodox, while the Eastern Cumans converted to Islam. The Catholic Diocese of Cumania founded in Milcov in 1227 and including what is now Romania and Moldova, retained its title until 1523. It was a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Esztergom in Hungary.

[edit] Legacy

While the Cumans were gradually absorbed into eastern European populations, their trace can still be found in place names as widespread as the city of Kumanovo in the Northeastern part of the Republic of Macedonia; a Slavic village named Kumanichevo in the Kostur (Kastoria) district of Greece, which was changed to Lithia after Greece obtained this territory in the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest, Comăneşti in Romania, Comana in Dobruja (also Romania) and the small village of Kumanite in Bulgaria.

As the Mongols pushed westwards and devastated their state, most of the Cumans fled to the Bulgarian Empire as they were major military allies. The Bulgarian Tsar Ivan-Asen II (who was descended from Cumans) settled them in the southern parts of the country, bordering the Latin Empire and the Thessallonikan Despotate. [citation needed] Those territories are present-day Turkish Europe and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. [citation needed] The Cumans also settled in Hungary and had their own self-government there in a territory that bore their name, Kunság, that survived until the 19th century. There, the name of the Cumans (Kun) is still preserved in county names such as Bács-Kiskun and Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok and town names such as Kiskunhalas and Kunszentmiklós.

The Cumans were organized into four tribes in Hungary: Kolbasz/Olas in the big Cumania around Karcag, and the other three in the lesser Cumania.

Unfortunately, the Cuman language disappeared from Hungary in the 17th century, possibly following the Turkish occupation. Their 19th century biographer, Gyárfás István, in 1870 was of the opinion that they originally spoke Hungarian, together with the Iazyges population. Despite this mistake, he has the best overview on the subject concerning details of material used.

In addition, toponyms of Cuman language origin can be found especially in the Romanian counties of Vaslui and Galaţi, including the names of both counties.

In the countries where the Cumans were assimilated, family surnames derived from the words for "Cuman" (such as coman or kun, "kuman") are not uncommon. Traces of the Cumans are the Bulgarian surnames Kunev or Kumanov (feminine Kuneva, Kumanova), its Macedonian variants Kunevski, Kumanovski (feminine Kumanovska), and the widespread Hungarian surname Kun. This name was also used as a magyarized version of the Jewish-German name Kohn/Cohen, like for the communist leader Béla Kun. The names "Coman" in Romania and its derivatives however do not appear to have any connection to the medieval Cumans, as it was unrecorded until very recent times and the places with the highest frequency of such names has not produced any archaeological evidence of Cuman settlement.[15]

The Cumans appear in Rus culture in the The Tale of Igor's Campaign and are the Rus' military enemies in Alexander Borodin's opera Prince Igor, which features a set of "Polovtsian Dances".

The name Cuman is still the name of several villages in different parts of Turkey, including the Black Sea region.

Köten (variously Kutan, Kuthen, Kuthens, Kotyan, Kotjan, Koteny, Kötöny, Kuethan, Zayhan, or Jonas) was a Kipchak khan and member of the Terter(oba) clan. Kipchaks were a Turkic people also called Cumans by the Byzantines, Kun by the Hungarians, and Polovtsy by the Russians. This Köten is the same Prince Kotjan Sutoevic of the Russian annals, who forged the Russian-Cuman alliance against the Tatars. Kipchaks under Köten and a Russian army of 80,000 men under his son-in-law Mstislav -the Bold- of Galich fought a battle against a Mongol assault led by Jebe and Sübötäi. The action took place near the Kalka or Kalmius, a small coastal river flowing into the Sea of Azov near Mariupol. The prince of Galich and the Kipchaks were routed and had to flee (May 31, 1222). Köten was deposed from power in that year, but he remained leader of the clan.

In the early spring of 1237, the Mongols attacked the Kuman-Kipchaks. Some of the Kuman-Kipchaks surrendered; it was this element that was later to form the ethnic and geographic basis of the Mongol khanate known to the former lords of the country as the "Kipchak khanate". Known also as the Golden Horde, the Kipchak khanate belonged to one of the branches of Jochi’s house -Genghis Khan’s eldest son. A Kipchak chief named Batchman lay in hiding for some time on the banks of the Volga, but was captured at last on an island in the lower part of the river (winter 1236-37). Möngke had him cut in half. According to the evidence of Rashid al-Din, Berke led a third campaign in 1238 which inflicted final defeat on the Kipchaks. It was then that the Kipchak chief Köten emigrated with forty thousand "huts" to Hungary.

At the start of Köten's reign the religion of the Kuman-Kipchaks was Tengriism. In 1238 Köten led his tribes into Hungary in flight from the advancing Mongol hordes. In return for their alliance and conversion to Christianity, Bela IV of Hungary granted them asylum. Köten was baptised in 1239 and his daughter Elizabeth married Bela's son, the future Stephen V of Hungary. Elizabeth's mother was a Russian princess of the family de Halicz, whose first name is not known.The Hungarian nobles, however, distrusted the Kuman-Kipchaks and just prior to the disastrous Mongol invasion which led to the route of Mohi, they had Köten assassinated in Pest. The enraged Kuman-Kipchak masses began to plunder the countryside, and moved southwards in the country. They crossed the Danube and reached Srem (called Marchia by Rogerius). After causing much destruction and havoc in Hungary they left the country for Bulgaria.

Köten left another daughter who married Narjot III de Toucy.

According to Rogenus' description the Kuman-Kipchaks' last halt in Hungary was Srem, a territory between the Danube and the Sava, so the first Bulgarian territories they entered must have been Branicevo and Vidin. This supposition is in perfect agreement with our knowledge of the later history of these regions. The Bulgarian boyar families, the Şişmans in Vidin and Dormans in Braniċevo, were of Kuman-Kipchak extraction, and must have settled in these regions after the large immigration of 1241. Köten's relatives and the leading figures of his royal clan settled in Bulgaria.

kán