1. Ancient Rus' (9th-14th centuries): Rjurikids, Christianisation of Kievan Rus', Rus' and Byzantium, Velikij Novgorod, Early Russian Books, Europe or Asia?
2. Moscow Rus' (15th-17th centuries): Tsardom of Moscow (unification of the Russian lands and birth of autocracy), The Kremlin (new centre of the Russian state), The Russian Icon ( the flourishing of iconography), Rascol: medieval consciousness and New Time consciousness, Multiethnic Russia (the case of the Tatars), Beginnings of secular culture (poetry, theatre, journalism).
3. Petersburg period (1697-1825): Abandonment of traditions and opening up to Europe, Petersburg (competitor of the old capital), Court life (life as spectacle. From Versailles to Tsarskoe selo), The nobility of the 18th century (the new intellectual elite), Russian painting (the 18th century portrait), War of 1812 (the birth of national mythology, awareness of a unitary nation), French influence (the Enlightenment and Freethought), Pushkin and the phenomenon of national genius.
4. From Nicholas I to Nicholas II (1825-1894): The search for the Russian idea and the concept of narodnost', Occidentalism and Slavophilism (Is Russia similar to the West? Is it good or bad if it is not? ), The birth of the Russian intelligentsia (when and why the educated people opposed the state), Folklore and the culture of the vulgar (Kireevsky, Dal' and Nekrasov), The Russian writer in the West (how Gogol' fell in love with Europe, Gercen was disappointed and Europe fell in love with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky), Music as the portrait of the Russian people (Tchaikovsky and Group of Five), Peredvižniki. Peasants in Nineteenth-Century Russian Painting (Volga Burlaks, Wedding Magicians and Contemplators in the Woods), Novels, Magazines and Newspapers (Writers and Literary Critics Become Russia's Most Influential People).
5. Silver Age (1894-1917): From Decadentism to Futurism (the Silver Century and European influence), Solov'ёv, Berdjaev and others (Russian religious philosophy), Symbolism in poetry, music and painting. Belyy, Blok, Vrubel' and Skrjabin (in search of mystical truth), The vulgar in search of God (Tolstoyism, clysty and other sects), Collectors and Maecenats (creators of Silver Century art. The Ščukins and the Morozovs, The Ballet (Djagilev and Saisons Russes. Léon Bakst, Nižinsky, Stravinsky, Pavlova, Fokin, Balančin), The theatre (Stanislavsky, Nemirovič-Dančenko, Mejerchold), The First World War. The patriots and pacifists.
6. Between the Revolution and World War II (1917-1941): Communism is a new religion (the impossibility of compromise between the old and the new world), The avant-garde is the art of revolution (Malevič, Ejzenštejn, Mejerchold and the Constructivists), The creation of Homo Sovieticus (the transformation of man into a machine), Socialist realism (artistic style and instrument of power), Stalin's Moscow (the ideal of a socialist city), Cult of Stalin, The Great Terror and literature (Bulgakov, Platonov, Gajdar and Tvardovsky in search of language to describe repression), The first wave of emigration (Russian culture abroad. Bunin, Čvetaeva, Nabokov)
7. From the Second World War to the Fall of the USSR (1941-1991): Thaw, Stagnation, Perestroika.
8. Russian Federation from 1991 to the present