Köten

Köten (; ; ; 1205–1241) was a Cuman–Kipchak chieftain (khan) and military commander active in the mid-13th century. He forged an important alliance with the Kievan Rus' against the Mongols but was ultimately defeated by them at the Kalka River in 1223. After the Mongol victory, Köten led 40,000 "huts" to Hungary, where he became an ally of the Hungarian king and accepted Catholicism, but was nonetheless assassinated by the Hungarian nobility.

Name and sources Köten, known as Kötöny in Hungarian and Kotjan (or Kotyan) in Russian, had his name spelt variously as Kutan (in Arabic), Kuthen, Kuthens, Koteny and Kuethan. In the Russian annals, his name is rendered (Kotyan Sutoevich, Kotjan Sutoevič). In a charter of Béla IV, a Cuman chieftain Zeyhan or Seyhan is mentioned, assumed to have been Köten. Akhmetova et al. linked his personal name Köten to the Western Kipchak tribal name Kotan.

Köten appears in various contemporary works and chronicles, including the Russian annals, Roger of Torre Maggiore's Carmen miserabile, continuation of the Annals of Heiligenkreuz (Continuatio Sancrucensis), Alberic of Trois-Fontaines' chronicle and various Muslim sources.

An Arabic source – Al-Nuwayri – calls his people Kipchaks; Kutan is mentioned as belonging to the Durut tribe of the Kipchaks. According to Omeljan Pritsak, "Durut" was the Terter tribe of the Cumans. István Vásáry identified him as Cuman.

Life

Galicia

According to some arguments, his father was Könchek, who changed the old Cuman system of government whereby rulership went to the most senior tribal leader; he instead passed it on to his son Köten. Köten and his brother Somogur are first mentioned by Russian annals in 1202 (but in fact, it occurred in 1205), when supported Rurik Rostislavich in the war against Roman Mstislavich. During that time, they also had a confrontation with the Hungarian troops. Later, Köten appeared as an ally of Mstislav the Bold, who was a claimant to the throne of Galicia since 1219. Köten forged an alliance with the princes of Kievan Rus against the Mongols (also called Tatars) after a defeat in 1222. He gave "numerous presents: horses, camels, buffaloes and mistresses. And he presented these gifts to them, and said the following, 'Today the Mongols took away our land and tomorrow they will come and take away yours'." The Cumans were ignored for almost a year, however, as the Rus' had suffered from their raids for decades. The Cuman–Kipchak confederation under Köten and a Rus army of 80,000 men under his son-in-law Mstislav the Bold fought a battle at the Kalka River (Kalchyk, near Mariupol) against a Mongol contingent commanded by Jebe and Subutai. The Rus-Cuman army was routed and had to retreat on 31 May 1223. Köten narrowly escaped from the battlefield, while other Cuman chieftains were killed. Several Cumans swore loyalty to the Mongols, while others decided to flee towards the Balkan Peninsula. Köten refused to submit to Mongol rule too. Afterwards, Köten led 40,000 "huts" (families, around 70-80,000 people) to Hungary, fleeing the Mongols. With the disintegration of the hierarchy of power, Köten became the supreme khan of the Cumans in 1239, according to historian György Györffy.

After returning from Magna Hungaria in 1236, Friar Julian informed King Béla IV of Hungary of the Mongols, who had by that time reached the Volga River and were planning to invade Europe. In the subsequent years, the Mongols invaded Desht-i Qipchaq—the westernmost regions of the Eurasian Steppes—and routed the Cumans. Fleeing the Mongols, at least 40,000 Cumans under the leadership of Köten approached the eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary and demanded admission in 1239. Köten was willing to acknowledge the king's supremacy and submitted himself to him, although he was previously "equal to him", as Master Roger emphasizes. Béla sent his emissaries, some friars of the Dominican Order. First Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1241–1242. The Tatars are dressed in Cuman clothes with sabers. (Chronicon Pictum, 1358) In accordance with his oath, Köten converted to Roman Catholicism, being baptized by the Hungarian monarch himself in 1239.

After a long siege and fierce fighting within the city, Kiev fell on 6 December 1240 and was largely destroyed. The advancing Mongols reached the Hungarian border soon thereafter. The Mongols gathered in the lands bordering Hungary and Poland under the command of Batu Khan in December 1240. They demanded Béla's submission to their Great Khan Ögödei, but Béla refused to yield. King Béla then installed front line defenses at the Carpathian Mountains, after which he returned to Buda and called a council of war and ordered unity against the Mongols. The opposite happened, however, as many of the barons were hostile towards the Cumans. The Hungarian barons noted that there were Cumans in the Mongol armies, but they did not realize that this was because they were conscripted into it and had no say in the matter. In particular the barons did not trust Köten, commemorating his former alliance with the "Russians" and his struggles against the Hungarians. They blamed the Cumans acted as "advance guard" of the Mongols, to get to know the conditions of the country, to learn their language, and when they are informed of their arrival, to start the fight against the Hungarians, so that they will be able to take possession of the Verecke Pass (or "Russian Gate", present-day Veretskyi Pass, Ukraine) more easily, according to Master Roger, despite the fact that the Mongols had attacked Köten's people for nearly 20 years. This chaos pushed Béla IV into a corner; feeling he needed to show his strength and keep the rebellious barons on his side, he ordered Köten and his family, along with other chief men, to be placed under house arrest.

The Mongols broke through the barricades erected in the Verecke Pass on 12 March 1241. Duke Frederick II of Austria, who arrived to assist Béla against the invaders, defeated a small Mongol troop near Pest. He seized prisoners, including Cumans from the Eurasian Steppes who had been forced to join the Mongols. When the citizens of Pest realized the presence of Cumans in the invading army, mass hysteria emerged. The townsfolk accused Köten and their Cumans of cooperating with the enemy. A riot broke out and the mob with the leadership of some barons massacred Köten and his retinue on 17 March 1241. The Continuatio Sancrucensis claims that Köten, for fear of lynching, murdered his family and committed suicide before their capture. The arriving Hungarians then cut off their heads and threw them onto the streets outside the house in an act of brutality that had dire consequences. On hearing about Köten's fate, his Cumans decided to leave Hungary and destroyed many villages on their way to the Balkans. A Hungarian army, led by Bishop Bulcsú Lád and Nicholas Szák, who intended to join the royal army in the campaign against the Mongols, came across the marauders in central Hungary, and was wiped out. Thereafter the Cumans left Hungary for the Second Bulgarian Empire. With the Cumans' departure Béla lost his most valuable allies. The Hungarian army was virtually annihilated in the Battle of Mohi on the Sajó River on 11 April 1241.

Legacy The enraged Cuman-Kipchak masses began to plunder the countryside, and moved southwards in the country. They crossed the Danube and reached Syrmia (called Marchia by Roger). After causing much destruction and havoc in Hungary, they left the country for Bulgaria. There is a hypothesis that the Terter dynasty, which eventually ruled Bulgaria, descended from Köten's clan.

In popular culture The video game Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition contains a five-chapter campaign titled "Kotyan Khan", starting with his rallying the remains of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation and concluding with the arrival of the Cumans in Bulgaria as well as their later return to Hungary.