Kuchum

Kuchum 

Died not earlier than 1598. The last actual khan of the Siberian Khanate, a protégé of the Shaybanids.

In 1563, Kuchum overthrew the Siberian princes Ediger and Bekbulat, who had been tributaries of Ivan IV, and then broke the tributary relations with the tsar. He fought against Ermak’s cossack druzhina. He was defeated in 1582 on the Chuvash Cape (now Cape Podchuvash) on the Irtysh River and abandoned his capital, Kashlyk. In 1585, Kuchum destroyed a cossack detachment led by Ermak and continued the fight against the Russian detachments until 1598, when, defeated by the voevoda (military commander) A. Voeikov, he fled to the Nogai Horde, where he was killed.

REFERENCES

Bakhrushin, S. V. “Ocherki po istorii kolonizatsii Sibiri v XVI i XVII vv.” In his book Nauchnye trudy, vol. 3, part 1. Moscow, 1955.
Istoriia Sibiri s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei, vols. 1–2. Leningrad, 1968.