The historical study of the doctor of church history Stepan Grigorievich Runkevich covers the two-century period of the existence of the Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Monastery in St. Petersburg, founded by Peter I in 1710, in memory of the victory of Alexander Nevsky over the Swedes in the Battle of Nevsky 1240, which in 1797 was renamed the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In its significance, the monastery was placed above other monasteries in Russia. A printing house was opened in 1720, a Slavic-Greek-Latin seminary in 1726, and a theological academy in 1809. The architectural ensemble of the Lavra includes: the Annunciation Church (1717-22, architect D. Trezzini, T. Schwertfeger), the Fedorov Church (1742-50, architect P. Trezzini), the monumental Trinity Cathedral in the style of classicism (1778-90, architect I.E. Starov), etc. In the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, M.V. Lomonosov, A.V. Suvorov, D.I. Fonvizin, N.M. Karamzin, I.A. Krylov, M.I. Glinka, M.P. Mussorgsky, P.I. Tchaikovsky, F.M. Dostoevsky, V.V. Stasov and other figures of the XVIII-XX centuries. The book is based on materials from the laurel archive, is a bibliographic rarity and can serve as the primary source for those who study the history of the monastery and St. Petersburg.