Khagan
Khagan or Qaghan is a title of imperial rank in the Turkic, Mongolic and some other languages, equal to the status of emperor and someone who rules a khaganate. The female equivalent is Khatun.
It may also be translated as "Khan of Khans", equivalent to King of Kings. In Bulgarian, the title became known as "Kan", while in modern Turkic, the title became Khaan with the 'g' sound becoming almost silent or non-existent ; 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, notably in the case of the Mongol Empire, is a translation of Yekhe Khagan.
Etymology
The term is of unknown origin and possibly a loanword from the Ruanruan language.. Pulleyblank first suggested that a Xiongnu title, transcribed as 護于 might have been behind Proto-Turkic *qaɣan ~ *xaɣan. According to Vovin the term comes from qaγan and was later used in several languages, especially in Turkic and Mongolic.Turkic and Para-Mongolic origin has been suggested by a number of scholars including Ramstedt, Shiratori, Sinor and Doerfer, and was reportedly first used by the Xianbei. While Sinor believes qaγan or qapγan is an intensification of qan just as qap-qara is an intensification of qara "black", in Turkic, Shiratori rejects a Turkic etymology, instead supporting a Mongolic origin for both qan and the female form qatun.
According to Vovin, the word *qa-qan "great-qan" is of non-Altaic origin, but instead linked to Yeniseian *qεʔ ~ qaʔ "big, great". The origin of qan itself is harder according to Vovin. He says that the origin for the word qan is not found in any reconstructed proto-language and was used widely by Turkic, Mongolic, Chinese and Korean people with variations from kan, qan, han and hwan. A relation exists possibly to the Yeniseian words *qʌ:j or *χʌ:j meaning "ruler".
It may be impossible to prove the ultimate origin of the title, but Vovin says: "Thus, it seems to be quite likely that the ultimate source of both qaγan and qan can be traced back to Xiong-nu and Yeniseian".
History
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 Murong's generals, Yinalou, addressed him as kehan ; some sources suggests that Tuyuhun might also have used the title after settling at Qinghai Lake in the 3rd century.The Rouran Khaganate 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. The Rouran are assumed to be proto-Mongols or a "non-Altaic" group.
The Avar Khaganate, 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", "Cagan", or "Cacano".
Mongol Khagans
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 split politically with the Toluid Civil War during 1260–1264 and the death of Kublai Khan in 1294, but the term Ikh Khagan was still used by the emperors of the Yuan dynasty, who assumed the role of Emperor of China, and after the fall of the Yuan in China it continued to be used during the Northern Yuan dynasty in Mongolia homeland. 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. 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. Later Yuan emperors made peace with the three western khanates of the Mongol Empire and were considered as their nominal suzerain. The nominal supremacy, while based on nothing like the same foundations as that of the earlier Khagans, did last for a few decades, until the Yuan dynasty fell in China.
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 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 words "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 in "Испанийн хаан Хуан Карлос".
The early Khagans of the Mongol Empire were:
- Genghis Khan
- Ögedei Khan
- Güyük Khan
- Möngke Khan
Among Turkic peoples
Both Khagan as such and the Turkish form Hakan, with the specification in Arabic al-Barrayn wa al-Bahrayn, or rather fully in Ottoman Turkish Hakan ül-Berreyn vel-Bahreyn, were among the titles in the official full style of the Great Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reflecting the historical legitimation of the dynasty's rule as political successor to various conquered states.
"Khagan" is the second title of Safavid and Qajar shahs of Iran. For example, Agha Muhammad Khan Qajar, Fath Ali Shah and other Qajar shahs used this title. The nickname of Shah Ismail and other Safavid shahs is Kagan-i Suleyman shan.
Ottoman Empire
Ottoman rulers, after the 14th century, used only two titles "shah" and "khan" until end of the empire. Sultans like Mehmed the Conqueror and Suleiman the Magnificent used the title "Khagan of the two seas". Yazıcıoğlu Ali, in early 15th century, traced Osman's geneaology to Oghuz Khagan, the mythical ancestors of Western Turks, through his senior grandson of his senior son, so giving the Ottoman sultans primacy among Turkish monarchs. Though it was not entirely an imitation of Genghis Khanid doctrine, the Oghuz claim to sovereignty followed the same pattern. Bayezid I advanced this claim against Timur, who denigrated the Ottoman lineage.Chinese Khagans
was crowned Tian Kehan, or "heavenly Khagan" after defeating the Tujue. 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". The Tang dynasty Chinese Emperors were recognized as Khagans of the Turks at least from 665 to 705; moreover, 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.Among the Slavs
In the early 10th century, the Rus' people employed the title of kagan, 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 Kievan Rus', Hilarion of Kiev, calls both grand prince Vladimir I of Kiev and grand prince Yaroslav the Wise 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.