Khagan

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For other uses, see Khan (disambiguation).

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See also: Khan (title)
Kha Khan
Old Turkic
Latin alphabet: kaɣan
Old Turkic: 𐰴𐰍𐰣
Turkish
Latin alphabet: kağan
Latin alphabet: hakan
Latin alphabet: kaan
Kazakh
Cyrillic script: қаған
Latin alphabet: qağan
Russian
Cyrillic script: каган
Latin alphabet: kagan
Mongolian
Cyrillic script: хаан
Transliteration: khaan
Mongolian Script: ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠨ
Transliteration: qagan, khagan
Hungarian
Latin alphabet: kagán
Chinese
Simplified Chinese: 可汗
Hanyu Pinyin : kèhán
Persian
Persian alphabet: خاقان
Korean
Hangul: 가한
Revised Romanization: gahan
McCune-Reischauer: kahan

Khagan or Qagan (Mongolian: хаан, Khaan;[1]) is a title in the Mongolian language equal to the status of emperor and used to refer to someone who rules a khaganate or empire. The title was adopted by Ögedei Khan from the Turkic title kaɣan.[2]

It may also be translated as Khan of Khans, equivalent to King of Kings. In modern Mongolian, the title became Khaan with the 'g' sound becoming almost silent or non-existent (i.e. a very light voiceless velar fricative); the ğ in modern Turkish Kağan is also silent. Since the division of the Mongol Empire, emperors of the Yuan dynasty held the title of Khagan and their successors in Mongolia continued to have the title. Kağan and Kaan are common Turkish names in Turkey.

The common western rendering as Great Khan (or Grand Khan), notably in the case of the Mongol Empire, is translation of Yekhe Khagan (Great Emperor or Их Хаан).

Origin

The title was first seen in a speech between 283 and 289, when the Xianbei chief Tuyuhun tried to escape from his younger stepbrother Murong Hui, and began his route from the Liaodong Peninsula to the areas of Ordos Desert. In the speech one of the Murong's general named Yinalou addressed him as kehan (Chinese: 可寒, later Chinese: 可汗), some sources suggests that Tuyuhun might also have used the title after settling at Qinghai Lake in the 3rd century.[3]

The Rouran Khaganate (330-555) was the first people to use the titles Khagan and Khan for their emperors, replacing the Chanyu of the Xiongnu, whom Grousset and others assume to be Turkic.[4] However, many scholars believe the Rouran were proto-Mongols.[5][6][7]

The Avar Khaganate (567–804), who may have included Rouran elements after the Göktürks crushed the Rouran ruling Mongolia, also used this title. The Avars invaded Europe, and for over a century ruled the Carpathian region. Westerners Latinized the title "Khagan" into "Gaganus" or Cagan et Iugurro principibus Hunorum.

Mongol Khagans

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Main article: List of Mongol rulers
8 of 15 Khagans of the Mongol Empire.

The Secret History of the Mongols, written for that very dynasty, clearly distinguishes Khagan and Khan: only Genghis Khan and his ruling descendants are called Khagan, while other rulers are referred to as Khan. Khagan or Khaan refers to Emperor or King in the Mongolian language, however, Yekhe Khagan means Great Khagan or Grand Emperor.

The Mongol Empire began to politically split with the Toluid Civil War in 1260-1264 and the death of Kublai Khan in 1294, but the term Ikh Khagan (Great Khan, or Emperor) was still used by the emperors of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), who assumed the role of Emperor of China, and after the fall of the Yuan in China (1368) it continued to be used during the Northern Yuan dynasty in Mongolia homeland.[8] Thus, the Yuan is sometimes referred to as the Empire of the Great Khan, coexisting with the independent Mongol khanates in the west, including the Chagatai Khanate and Golden Horde. Only the Ilkhanate truly recognized the Yuan's overlordship as allies (though it was effectively autonomous). Because Kublai founded the Yuan, the members of the other branches of the Borjigin could take part in the election of a new Khagan as the supporters of one or other of the contestants, but they could not enter the contest as candidates themselves.[9] Later Yuan emperors[10] made peace with the three western khanates of the Mongol Empire and were considered as their nominal suzerain.[11] The nominal supremacy, while based on nothing like the same foundations as that of the earlier Khagans (such as the continued border clashes among them), did last for a few decades, until the Yuan dynasty fell in China (1368).[12]

After the breakdown of Mongol Empire and the fall of the Yuan dynasty in the mid-14th century, the Mongols turned into a political turmoil. Dayan Khan (1464-1517/1543) once revived Emperor's authority and recovered its reputation in Mongolia, but with the distribution of his empire among his sons and relatives as fiefs it again caused decentralized rule. The last Khagan of the Chahars, Ligdan Khan, died in 1634 while fighting the Qing dynasty founded by the Manchu people. In contemporary Mongolian language the word "Khaan" and "Khan" have different meanings, while English language usually does not differentiate between them. The title is also used as a generic term for a king or emperor (as эзэн хаан, ezen khaan), as in "Испанийн хаан Хуан Карлос" (Ispaniin khaan Khuan Karlos, "king/khaan of Spain Juan Carlos").

The early Khagans of the Mongol Empire were:

Among Turkic peoples

The title became associated with the Ashina ruling clan of the Göktürks and their dynastic successors among such peoples as the Khazars (cf. the compound military title Khagan Bek). Minor rulers were rather relegated to the lower title of khan.

Both Khagan as such and the Turkish form Hakan, with the specification in Arabic al-Barrayn wa al-Bahrayn (meaning literally "of both lands and both seas"), or rather fully in Ottoman Turkish Hakan ül-Berreyn vel-Bahreyn, were among the titles in the official full style of the Great Sultan (and later Caliph) of the Ottoman Empire, reflecting the historical legitimation of the dynasty's rule as political successor to various conquered (often Islamised) states. (The title began: Sultan Hân N.N., Padishah, Hünkar, Sovereign of the House of Osman, Sultan of Sultans, Khan of Khans, Commander of the Faithful and Successor of the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe; next followed a series of specifically 'regional' titles, starting with Protector of the Holy Cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.)

Chinese Khagans

Emperor Taizong of Tang was crowned Tian Kehan, or "heavenly Khagan" after defeating the Tujue (Göktürks).[13][14][15] A later letter sent by the Tang court to the Yenisei Kirghiz Qaghan explained that "the peoples of the northwest" had requested Tang Taizong to become the "Heavenly Qaghan".[16] The Tang Dynasty Chinese Emperors were recognized as Khagans of the Turks from 665-705; however, we have two appeal letters from the Turkic hybrid rulers, Ashina Qutluγ Ton Tardu in 727, the Yabgu of Tokharistan, and Yina Tudun Qule in 741, the king of Tashkent, addressing Emperor Xuanzong of Tang as Tian Kehan during the Umayyad expansion.[17][18]

Among the Norsemen and Slavs

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Main article: Rus' Khaganate

In the early 10th century, the Rus' people employed the title of kagan (or qaghan), reported by the Persian geographer Ahmad ibn Rustah, who wrote between 903 and 913.

It is believed that the tradition endured in the eleventh century, as the metropolitan bishop of Kiev in the Ukraine, Hilarion of Kiev, calls both grand prince Vladimir I of Kiev (978–1015) and grand prince Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054) by the title of kagan, while a graffito on the walls of Saint Sophia's Cathedral gives the same title to the son of Iaroslav, grand prince Sviatoslav II of Kiev (1073–1076).

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Mongolian Script: ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠨ, Qaγan; Chinese: 可汗; pinyin: Kè hán or Chinese: 大汗; pinyin: Dà hán; Persian: خاقان‎‎, Khāqān, alternatively spelled Kağan, Kagan, Khaghan, Kha-khan, Xagahn, Qaghan, Chagan, Қан, or Kha'an
  2. ↑ Fairbank 1978, p. 367).
  3. ↑ Zhou 1985, p. 3-6
  4. ↑ Grousset (1970), pp. 61, 585, n. 92.
  5. ↑ Art, Iranian-Bulletin of the Asia Institute, volume 17, p. 122
  6. ↑ Nihon Gakushiin-Proceedings of the Japan Academy, volume 2, p. 241
  7. ↑ Teikoku Gakushiin (Japan)-Proceedings of the Imperial Academy, volume 2, p. 241
  8. ↑ H.Howorth - History of The Mongols - vol:1, Rene Grousset - The Empire of Steppes, D.Pokotilov-History of the Eastern Mongols during the Ming Dynasty from 1368 to 1631
  9. ↑ Ed. Herbert Franke, Denis Twitchett, John King Fairbank-The Cambridge History of China: Alien regimes and border states, 907-1368 p.493
  10. ↑ Beginning in the last years (1304) of Temür Khan, grandson of Kublai; most medieval historians such as Rashid al-Din and Alugh Beg Mirza described him as Grand khaan, see: Universal history and The Shajrat ul Atrak
  11. ↑ The Mongol Empire and Its Legacy, p14
  12. ↑ During this period the Mongol Emperors of the Yuan held the (nominal) title of Great Khan of all Mongol Khanates (of the Mongol Empire), of which the three western Mongol khanates still showed their respect in several cases. For example, the Ilkhans' coins carried the Khagan's name up until the early 14th century. It was also once said that Khagan is “the blessing of the creator” at the court of the Golden Horde during the reign of Ozbek Khan (1313-41).
  13. ↑ Liu, 81-83
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Skaff 2012, pp. 120-121.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Bai, 230
  18. ↑ Xue, 674-675

Sources and references

  • Fairbank, John King. The Cambridge History of China . Cambridge University Press, 1978. web page
  • Grousset, René. (1970). The Empire of the Steppes: a History of Central Asia. Translated by Naomi Walford. Rutgers University Press. New Brunswick, New Jersey, U.S.A.Third Paperback printing, 1991. ISBN 0-8135-0627-1 (casebound); ISBN 0-8135-1304-9 (pbk).
  • Whittow, Mark. The Making of Byzantium, 600–1025, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1996.
  • Zhou, Weizhou [1985] (2006). A History of Tuyuhun. Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press. ISBN 7-5633-6044-1.
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