The results of many years of scientific research and the latest achievements of domestic and foreign historiography in the field of studying Russian statehood from its inception to the beginning of the XXI century are presented. The authors focus on the system of public administration and institutions of state power, the influence of the state on economic development, power and society, the ideology of power, the regulation of interethnic and confessional relations in the imperial and Soviet periods, as well as in modern Russia. For specialists and everyone interested in Russian history.