18-19th centuries became the historical period when the Russian landlord estate and rural community reached the point of their most accomplished development. Though the reform of Peter the Great were aimed at bringing modernization to Russia, one of their social results was strengthening of the landlord’s estate and serfdom systems. Obviously, it contradicted with the fundamental principles of the Western modernization. The period of rule of Catherine the Second was marked by the intention to win the sympathies of Russian aristocracy by granting certain new right visa-vie the state institution, however Russian peasantry continued suffering from serfdom imposed by the state and nobility. The purpose of this thesis is to study the basic principles of organization of the landlord’s estate and its integral part-the peasant community. As the rural community and the landlord estate were the most important economic, social and political foundations of the entire social system of the Russian Empire, the results of this research can be helpful in terms of deeper understanding the similarities and differences between Western and Russian types of traditional societies and the peculiar pattern of modernization of semi-traditional Russian.