In 2022, the landmark historical event, reflected in the annalistic narration of the duel between Mstislav Vladimirovich and the Kasogian leader Rededya, will be one thousand years old. The subject of the article’s study is the process of establishing the

In 2022, the landmark historical event, reflected in the annalistic narration of the duel between Mstislav Vladimirovich and the Kasogian leader Rededya, will be one thousand years old. The subject of the article’s study is the process of establishing the vassalage of the country of Kasogs from the Tmutorokan Russian possession. Founded on the site of the Tumen-Tarkhan governorship, as a result of the total defeat of the Khazar Khaganate in 965, this outpost since 1022 was in close military-political and cultural contacts with the Adyghes.
The stage of the ancient Russian colonization of the Caucasus was limited in time (being interrupted by the Kipchak invasion to the Black Sea steppes in the second half of the 11th century) and in space, affecting mainly the multi-ethnic population of the Taman Peninsula and the Adyghe population of the Lower Kuban. Existing sources allow us to trace, albeit extremely fragmentarily, an important feature of the policy of Mstislav and his successors, aimed at co-opting the Adyghes into the administrative and military stratum not only of the Tmutorokan possession, but also of the central regions of Kievan Russsia.