Konchak

Konchak [Končak]. Khan of the Cumans. In the latter half of the 12th century Konchak united the tribes of the eastern Cumans, and in the 1170s and 1180s carried out a number of attacks on settlements in the Pereiaslav principality, Kyiv principality, and Chernihiv principality. The raids were particularly destructive along the Sula River. In 1171 and 1180–1 he aided the princes of Novhorod-Siverskyi in their internecine struggle for power with other Rus’ princes. In 1184 he and the Cuman khan Kobiak were routed on the Khorol River during an assault on Kyivan Rus’, but in 1185, at the Kaiala River, he defeated the forces of Prince Ihor Sviatoslavych, who was taken prisoner. Konchak proceeded to ravage the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions, and to lay seige to Pereiaslav. The struggle of Ihor Sviatoslavych and the princes of Rus’ to repel Konchak is immortalized in the epic Slovo o polku Ihorevi.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1989).]