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.