The article is devoted to the problems of continuity in history and in the russian cultural-historical process. There are discussed the concepts and views, in which preference goes to politics and history in general is politicized. It is stated that russia is characterized by lack of unity in historical and civilizational development, rational element in culture, and cultural isolation, which results in special, often dominant, importance given to radical reformations, revolutionary rifts, breaks of the historical process, lack of continuity in traditions. along with this, a large importance is given to the reforms of Peter the great and to the october revolution of 1917. However, with proper attention to the problems of national culture (which has always been evolving in its own way, but in constant dialogue with other cultures, primarily Euro pean), national psychology, peculiarities of interaction between culture and religion, the cultural-historical process appears in a more holistic form, correcting the common unilateral judgments of our past. The article highlights the subjects, in the national cultural-historical process and the political history of the country, related to the principal moments of formation and development of the cultural policy, relations between the church and the state, arts in the imperial (or synodal) period of russian history.