Köten

Who was Köten?

Köten was a Cuman khan and member of the Terter clan. This Köten is the same Prince Kotjan Sutoevic of the Russian annals, who forged the Russian-Cuman alliance against the Tatars. Cumans and 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 Kumans-Kipchaks were routed and had to flee. Later the prince was killed by being tied down on the ground and having a wooden platform put on top of him, where the Mongols had their breakfast. 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, or Cuman 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. Möngke had him cut in half. According to the evidence of Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, Berke led a third campaign in 1238 which inflicted final defeat on the Kumans-Kipchaks. It was then that the Kuman chief Köten emigrated with forty thousand "huts" to Hungary.