Župan

Župan is a noble and administrative title used in several states in Central and Southeastern Europe between the 7th century and the 21st century. It was (and in Croatia still is) the leader of the administrative unit župa (or zhupa, županija). The term in turn was adopted by the Hungarians as ispán and spread further.

The exact origin of the title is not definitively known, and there have been several hypotheses: Slavic (F. Miklošič), Turkic-Avarian (A. Bruckner), Iranian (F. Altheim), Proto Indo-European (V. Machek), Indo-European (D. Dragojević), Illyrian-Thracian (K. Oštir), Old-Balkan (M. Budimir), among others. The title was preserved primarily among the Slavic peoples and their neighbours who were under their influence. Its presence among Pannonian Avars and Avar language is completely undetermined. On the contrary of a specific theory, it should be noted that the title origin is not necessarily related to the origin of the titleholder.

In 2009, A. Alemany considered that the title *ču(b)-pān, often in a northeastern Iranian milleu, had an Eastern and Central Asian derivation, čupan, and a Western and European derivation, župan. The Eastern čupan first occurs, but allegedly as is usually connected with čupan, in a Bactrian contract dated to 588 AD, where are mentioned two "headman" (σωπανο, "sopano"); among the Western Turks (582-657), the leader of the fifth Shunishi Dulu tribe was a chuban chuo (čupan čor), while the leader of the fifth Geshu Nushibi tribe was chuban sijin (čupan irkin), with chuo and sijin being the standard title of the each tribe's leader, inferior to qayan (khagan), but superior to bäg. However, there is no mention of čupan in Old Turkic runic incsriptions; a Chinese document (c. 8th century) near Kucha mentions severals persons (allegedly ) with patronymic Bai and title chuban; in the same century, in the Chinese documents of province Khotan are mentioned word chiban and alleged title of low rank chaupam; the first (Old) Turkic document recording the title čupan is a Uyghur decree from Turpan dated c. 9th-11th century. According to the work Dīwānu l-Luġat al-Turk by the 11th century scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari, a čupan is an assistant to a village headman.

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